Happy New Year!

We are going to have a quiet night at home with potatoe salad, doughnuts and molyb-domancy. No fireworks or fire-crackers for us. We had enough of that already going on in our street. Lale and the cats can't wait for it to stop (and I bet so can't millions of animals inside and outside neither).

Now I need to get busy and start baking. I made some Jelly Donut Cupcakes from Veganomicon yesterday to check if they could be a quick substitute for real doughnuts. It's a great recipe and the cupcakes came out delicious, but I think I still need the original kind... oh, and they are already gone anyway!Leaving you with a kitschy pic of one of the Jelly Donut Cupcakes and wishing you a HAPPY NEW YEAR! It's going to be a great one. I just know!

It's been nice!

Christmas has been very nice. We spent some time with my parents and my grandmother on the 24th, sitting by their fire place, eating and chatting.We drove to C's parents in Stralsund the next day and spent the 26th at home. My parents came over for dinner.(The butterfly hibernation house from Johanna found a place on the window sill until my dad will set it up in the yard. I think it makes a very cute Christmas decoration.)For dessert we had Chocolate Stout Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. They were really yummy, but we were already stuffed with Isas's Pizza (the best pizza on earth!), so we had some leftofers. (Did I ever mention here before that you should go and buy all of Isa's and Terry's books? Well, you should!)

Oh, guess what I got for Christmas! A new camera and it's soooo great! I love it.

Merry Christmas!

Change of plans!

I couldn't bake the cookies I had planned, because I forgot to buy some more margarine. So instead I decided to make some Rumnog Pecan Cookies from VEGANOMICON (except I used walnuts and I also made some changes to the frosting). They are incredibly yummy and also very photogenic! Here one of them is modeling my last minute sewing: coasters for my grandmother.
Of course C's grandmother has to get some coasters too. Red with rose hips tags.I think I'm all set now. I just need to wrap some gifts and maybe I'll make some sugar cookies tomorrow...

Halfway there!

I didn't count them, but I think there are more than 200 of these Gingerbread cookies. (I followed Johanna's Swedish recipe.)In the front: Coconut Chococlate-Chip Cookies. These are accidently vegan. I love when I find recipes like that. In this case though I'm not overly happy with the result. My mum finds them yummy, but I don't know. I had way better cookies before, so I proclaim this recipe as not blog worthy.
Now these I find great: Lemon Cookies and the recipe is also accidently vegan - if you use vegan margarine that is!
Here you go:

THE COOKIE
2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon lemon zest
3/4 cup confectioner's sugar
1/4 cup sugar
12 tablespoons margarine, cold, cut into 12 pieces
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

THE GLAZE
10 tablespoons confectioner's sugar
3 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Mix the dry ingredients. Scatter the butter over the mixture and process until the dough just comes together. While the machine is running, add vanilla and lemon juice.
Shape the dough into a pretty log about 18 inches long, roll it up in waxed paper. Refrigerate for about 4-5 hours.
Preheat oven to 325° F (160° C). Cut the log into 3/8-inch-thick slices. Place the slices on a lined baking sheet (or two) and bake for about 25 to 30 minutes.
Let them cool completely before glazing.

Makes about 40 cookies.All wrapped up and ready to go. Yeah okay, not all of them are wrapped up. There are plenty left for me, er I mean us...

Plan for tomorrow: snowballs, chocolate snowballs and Hanseaten (my dad requested those). We'll see!

And so it begins!

Cookies have been on my mind for a long time now. Today is the day.The first batch is in the oven. I'm planning on 3 different types of cookies today.
Pictures and recipes as soon as they'll be done. If all goes well that is...

Eeek!

I started these gloves during our vacation in Denmark more than a month ago. The first one was finished within a day, then I started the second one and when I was almost done with it, I realized that I had knitted two left ones. Yes, I'm smart like that. So I frogged it and started all over... for a couple of minutes I kept knitting happily away - then I put it to the side and that was that. No more knitting at all until now.I finally finished them today and my mom will actually get hers on Christmas, but my poor friend will have to wait just a little longer! (Tut mir leid, Jana!)

Now instead of staring at my chubby little fingers you need to focus on the impressive cables!

I'm ready for X-Mas!

Finally! Finally all my exams for this year are over and there is just a single one left, which will be on January 14th, but I don't even want to think about that now.
No more studying this year! I'm serious.Just baking and sewing and knitting and crafting and wrapping gifts and listening to music and being lazy. Oh, I don't ever have been so much into the Holidays like this year!

Awww!

Doesn't this make you wanna kiss him? Well, he won't let you or be at least very grossed out if you do so anyway!

Thank you, Charlie!

What is this pretty yarn and where did you get it from you wonder? (Well, actually you can see that on the cute tag, if you look at it closely, but still...)

This is some amazing Purl City Yarn and I got it from the Secret Knitting Swap - Europe which I joined a couple of weeks ago. My upstream partner is Charlie Chuckles from Purl City in England and therefore the maker of Purl City Yarns herself! Guess what! I didn't get "just" one skein... no, I got 8 and lots and lots of other things too! Can you believe it?
It was so much it didn't fit all inside the box, so Charlie had to come up with some wild packaging construction. Look at all my treasures!
Maybe you need to hop over to flickr to see a larger version with some notes, so you can a have a better look.
Here's a close up of the other colorway of Purl City Yarn I got. This one is called Cool Water. (The one at the top is Stormy Sea.) Both are cotton blends and both are absolutely gorgeous.
I got six chocolate bars! All Green & Black's which I'd tried before when I visited Sofia in London and which tastes super yummy! All different varieties. Which one should I try first?
Look at these lovely beads! I love red these days...

Thank you so much for everything, Charlie! You went above and beyond everything I was expecting. Really, you shouldn't have send so much!

I love the "domiknitrix" book. The Jughead Hat is probably the first thing I'm going to knit once I'm done with my fingerless gloves. On the other hand I also saw some very cute patterns in the magazines and the calendar as well... it's going to be hard to decide what will come first. I've been admiring the knit.1 for quite a while now and I'm very happy I finally have one of my own (in my opinion so much better than Rebecca!).
The stitch markers and the row counter will be put to good use, just like the cat fabric (which I forgot to take a picture of btw).

Now I need to get back to my books and I think your roibos and some Love Hearts will accompany me...Edited to add this picture with a little message to Charlie!

Keeping it short!*

Sewing hearts until you run out of cedar wood chips...Waiting impatiently for the mailman so you can continue stuffing hearts, while you know exactly that you should be doing something else anyway!

* "God Jul" fits so much better onto these hearts like for example "Fröhliche Weihnachten"!

Let it snow!

(Well, maybe not today, but after the 17th when I will be done with my exams for this year.)
I sent out two swap packages on Monday, one to the US and one to Italy. I hope the one to Italy will reach my pal within this week and I hope my US package will make the deadline which is 12/31. The woman at the post office couldn't tell me how long it will take. I will check on the internet, but just to make sure something will reach my pal in the US on time I'm also sending out a letter with these two coasters and a little knitting related surprise.
I bought the mistletoe trim just a week ago when I saw it in a store and just had to have it, even though it was kind of very expensive. I bought only one metre of it, not knowing what I wanted to do with it until I came across some coasters in one of my Japanese magazines. Could it be put to any better use? I don't think so. Using the trim this way means I only need a tiny piece of it for each coaster. Now I think there's enough of it left for quite a few more...
Btw: See my little piggy? So I put up some decoration here too now.

Show-off!

We were in Denmark on my birthday. After breakfast in bed, we drove downtown and I treated myself to a skein of beautiful Swedish yarn: Karen Noe - Linea When we returned from our vacation and after I had my third (horrible) exam I got this from two of my friends and it cheered me right back up: (Can you guess what it is?)
It's a Swedish butterfly hibernation house! Even much cuter in reality. (Excuse the crappy picture! I'll take a better one once this little house has found its final destination in our yard.)

I was also spoilt with a huge amount of fabric from another friend. (She also got me the cutest Advent calendar, but I'm not able to take a good looking picture of it... not even close.)
And then I got a gift certificate to my very favorite fabric store in the world from yet another wonderful friend. I can't wait to go there and I most definately will before Christmas...

I'm really lucky that I have so many friends who know exactly my taste. Thank you so much you all - you couldn't have made me any happier!

In the mood!

I didn't really find any time to decorate our house for Christmas yet. Our house is in fact a mess. All I managed to do so far was sew some little cedar chips filled hearts and only because I had to. I still owe someone one of these and my guilt finally got so strong that I couldn't ignore it any longer. I figured if I had to get my sewing machine out anyway I could make a couple more...
I took some of them to Johanna when I visited her and got in the mood for Christmas right away. Her place looks wonderful and I used the chance to take a pic of the hearts with her decoration.

Johanna also had baked some yummy cookies which we enjoyed while crafting a bit. These are so delicious!

Always look on the bright side!

We returned from our trip on Monday, because I had another exam on Wednesday. That one did not go so well. I was really angry at first (with myself and with one of the profs), but now I try to look at it like this:
On to the next one!

I got some seriously awesome stuff for my birthday which I'll have to show off tomorrow...

What else?

I also enjoyed...
the view from our living room,...

visiting curious tiny ponies and thinking about putting two of them into our trunk to take them home with us,...

returning to our house after a walk on the beach,...

watching Lale behaving like a puppy,...

being served breakfast in bed while looking at my birthday flowers!

We are back!

We enjoyed our vacation a lot!
I particularly liked...

rose-hips, blue skies and fluffy clouds,...

looking at Lale and C when they'd return from their daily run,...

walks on the beach,...

strolling through the city of Ebeltoft, looking at cute stores like this or...

pretty name-plates like this,...

To be continued!

We are off!

Pretty soon we will be off to Denmark for a couple of days.

Going on vacation with us is Lale's most favorite thing.
Eventhough I will have to study a lot I will also enjoy watching her go crazy on the beach.

See ya when we return!

Seriously!

You need to try these cinnamon rolls - they are the best ever! The recipe can be found here. It's one of Meg's Vegan Recipes. Totally awesome... every single time.

This is actually a picture I took last year when I made them for the first time. I was looking for another picture when I came across it and now I can't stop thinking about cinnamon rolls. I need to go and make some...

I made a sweater!

But only a tiny one. A Baby Yoda Sweater.
My Stitch 'n Bitch book was put to good use. Mattress stitch, fake grafting, i-cord,... I got to try it all.
I made some modifacations to the pattern since I wanted the sweater to match the striped hat I had made for the little baby girl a while ago. I think it came out pretty well and I'm eager to try some more challenging things.

Right now I'm working on my pair of fingerless gloves though and they are not exactly what you would call challenging, but they seem to fit nicely and look alright too. I used pretty much the same pattern as last time, but casted on only 33 stitches. No cables, instead some stripes. (Can you tell that I bought way too much Debbie Bliss? When will it come to an end?!)

Hip, hip, hoo'ray!

Yesterday I had my second oral exam and it went nice, even better than the first one. Minutes before it started I thought that I hardly knew anything I learned, but then the exam started off with my favorite subject and both of my profs were so nice that it all went smoothly from there. I'm so happy, I can't stop smiling! I really wish all my exams would go like this one...
Another thing I'm really happy about is the fact that my first pair of fingerless gloves is all done. This pair will be a gift for my boyfriend's sister. I started on a second pair for myself, but had to frog it (didn't like the pattern). My mom and a friend would also like a pair so I better get busy - it's getting cold around here! WIP pictures coming as soon as I found nice patterns!

And then there is yet another totally awesome thing I found out about on Moonstitches! She put up a tutorial for the cutest Zakka Style Owl Pennant ever which is part of this very cool thing:
Go check out this great idea from Karen aka Cotton Spice!

Winter Wonderland Coffee Swap: Weekly Posting

Registration for the Winter Wonterland Swap has closed. Matches are going out (I already know who'll be my downstream partner!) and the whole thing is going to be lots of fun.
Part of this swap are weekly postings to a given topic. Since I think my answers might be at least interesting for my secret upstream pal, I'm going to give it a try...
(And to keep all the answers together I'm going to edit this post each week and add a link to the sidebar so it's easy to find.)

Well, here we go...
1. When did you first start drinking coffee? What age were you? Was it about the caffeine, or do you love the taste and smell? Tell us how your passion began!

Coffe and me: there is no passion! I like coffee... sometimes. For example when we are at a coffee-house where they can make something fancy and flavored AND only if they have soy milk. I would never drink black coffee.
At home I hardly ever drink coffee and if I do then it will probably just be because I figure caffeine could help me at that moment. And actually I'm not sure if it really does. Right now though, with my next oral exam getting closer and closer, I want to believe so and I drink a mug or two during the day... if I don't forget to.

2. As the cold of winter approaches, do you change the projects you work on? Do you work on gifts for others or do you continue working on projects for yourself?

Except for when I'm making tiny baby stuff, my knitting is very much related to the colder season anyway. So the kinds of projects I make stay pretty much the same all the time. I usually knit for myself and everybody else who I think might appreciate the things I make. I am a fairly slow knitter so I don't get that much done during one season and I get bored quite easily, therefore small projects are my first choice.

3. So let's all just share a post with what it is we're thankful for.

Of course I'm very thankful for the wonderful people that surround me (C, my family and friends). I don't know what I would do without them. I'm also thankful for being able to share my life with the two most wonderful cats in the world and the most sensitive and gentle dog there is.
...Wow, this is harder than i thought, so I can say I'm very thankful that I will never receive an Oskar or anything of that sort, because that way I don't have to make this a public speech...
There are so many things in the world I'm thankful for. I could start with sunshine and end with moonlight and will be thankful for everything in between as long as it has nothing to do with cruelty against any living creature.
Oh and I must not forget: I certainly am thankful for Isa's recipes! (Buy her books!!!)

4. What is the ideal setting for enjoying the perfect cup of coffee? Who would be there - or would you be alone? Inside or out? Morning or night? With food or just the steaming cup of joe?

First of all my perfect cup of coffee would probably be cold chocolate soy milk. I can imagine a perfect setting with no other person around as well as with a friend.
In the first case it would be me, my chocolate, Juri, Mücke and Lale sitting in front of a fireplace - which we don't have by the way -, I'd be knitting or maybe stitching, while everyone else would be sleeping. (The cats would for once not ask me every other second to go outside just to come right back in letting me play the window-woman (get it?)).
In the second scenario it would be some stitch 'n bitch without the stitch, because I don't have friends that knit. I think there'd be some toffee popcorn involved or even better: some homemade cakes or cookies.