Selina’s craft world

.. with beautiful blue Alpaca yarn, some Kool Aid for dying/drinking and a knitting needle measure thingy. Thanks so much, dear Lisa. You sure made my day after four rejections in my job search.

First the unpleasant news (at least for me), Wednesday 10AM is the presentation for my final thesis. I am about to be done writing it up the presentation in Power Point and will be able to try it out later today and tomorrow. After that, I am free until the 25th July when I get my diploma on a party.  Can’t wait.

Now to better news - at least for me - I got RAK(Random Act of Kindness)ed today. I joined a group on Ravelry for RAKs, posted my wishlist and Maylin from France treated me with this wonderful package. I got some lovely, pinkish lace weight yarn, some Kool Aid for dying, different kinds of roving as well as some fire star (middle, front of the pic) which adds sparkly to the roving and turns into a lovely sparkly yarn, and a lovely postcard showing some Blue Faced Leicester sheep, which I have not seen before. Thank you so much, Maylin, you sure made my day with this beautiful package

The day is always so fast over, I hardly get to do anything real fun. Not talking about Mr. Stomps - aka Snoopy. He stomps the night away, literally.

First of all, I got my laptop back yesterday. It’s nice to have it back, though all my files are lost. I spent a lot of the day re-installing stuff. Not all the way done, but have the most important things on. I always did not get a chance to copy my files on here.

As for other news, I have been stitching a little. On a white puppy playing with a teddy bear.

Hubby also received some of his comics from the US .. and I got some things too

And some lovely sock yarn, too: Schoeller& Stahl with both Germany’s and US’s flagg colours. Tofutsies which is partly made out of Shrimp and Craps shells (well, like 2% or so … it feels nice). Possom Paints which is hand painted by Grinny Possum’s Fiber Arts. Thanks for all those lovely goodies

I wanted to say thanks to everyone who commented on my blog the last few days. I am sorry I did not really get to comment on yours, but soon will be back on track and commenting lots

Hope you all missed me. I am so busy writing on my thesis, I barely get to do anything else It’s very stressful and exhausting to stare at the screen all day and do work. I am also battling a virus, cold or whatever .. since January, but no such luck to get rid off it.

 Anyway, here are some photos I wanted to share with you all. First, the new sweater I started two or three weeks ago, it now only needs sleeves:

2nd, I received my Exchange Item at the Just Because Exchange from the Cross Stitching forum. It’s a beautiful coaster

And last but not least, this here:

which is from Cross Stitch Crazy, a Mystery Prize for having my letter for the “Your Say” section printed :) I especially like the hanger and the ornaments

We just got home from our Easter time at my parents. It started snowing in Neustadt and with forecast for snow and rain in the afternooon, so we left as soon as we finished eating. Driving was ok, though very tireding.

Anyway, once home there was an envelope in our mail box from my dearest friend Heidi. Some lovely chocolate and stitch markers for knitting in a lovely bag - it’s like she read my mind! I was wondering how I could make/get some markers just yesterday!! Thank you, I love them

.. more again. Hopefully he’ll be done before the end of the weekend.

Andy’s parents sent us a few things in this month and they arrived. They’re nice, thanks. I think the Christmas tree scissors and the Christmas spatula is hilarious I might try some Kool Aid to dye, and the rest to drink.  

On very bad news, my laptop is down again. Regular readers and friends know that this ends up to be the fourth time in about 3 years!! And it is yet again the fan. As it was in repair three times already and now the warranty ran out, we will see if we can repair it ourselves. A fan and having it built in is probably more expensive than buying a new laptop, so if it goes down, I will sink it to the buttom of a lake

Today, I gave that dreaded RR one more try, but it just did not work out. I shall see what everyone says when I say I cannot do it. I just do not have the concentration and nevers at the moment to be bothered with confettic and 3/4 stitches.

However, the Dog RR with hardly any confettis and weird stitches is purely a pleassure. There’s only the frame, the eyes, the knitting things and the backstitching, then he is done. Shouldn’t take too much longer. I will go straight to the next one after that so I can do the quilt as soon as possible. However, I did not stitch too much on it as I also want to get the models ready to be launched next weekend before I am too busy with learning.

Today was mostly dog afghan stitching, and it was fun .. and he does sitch up so fast now that the ball of yarn is done. I only need to stitch his tail and his eyes. Am I the only one thinking the dog is scary with the white eyes??

We also did Spätzle today, which was the first time and they did taste great. The recipe is now added to *Selina’s Recipes*.  We turned them into Käsespätzle. They were yummy, though the cheese could have been better.

made it all the way from Australia. And look how pretty they are Thanks Lana, Dorothy and Ariel for the ornaments and card

Here’s my first progress photo for the dog afghan RR I organised on my fav cross stitch BB. It’s very fun to stitch, but due to not having all colours needed and to some problems with the colour key I did not get any further than that.

Eventually, I plan on making all those dogs into one afghan. Sadly, there are only nine patterns and I want an afghan bigger than a square. I will either have to re-stitch some dogs, but in different colours or add some printed fabrics as squares. Not sure yet.

Oh, I almost forgot!! I made brownies today, and maybe those who read regulary know that I had a hard time finding ones I actually like. Anway, I can happily say that I finally found my brownie! They’re wonderful and almost exactly like I want them to be. 

To celebrate this great found - and because it was planned one way or another anyway - I have added a section dedicated to my favourite recipes as add-on to my blog  Most of them were changed by me to either reduce or add ingredients, change heat or cooking time or whatever. I will add new recipes whenever I find them or have time to get the old ones up and running. Hope you will enjoy this new little feature.

I recieved my tuffet exchange yesterday, but came home late and was too tired/lazy to make a post. It was made by Chris in the UK I love it and it was so lovely wrapped, too! Thank you for this lovely tuffet and also your pretty Christmas Card

.. maybe the happiest I have ever had - especially the door drove me crazy. I will send it off tomorrow together with exchange items and the first batch of Christmas cards.

Though I was staying home, today was rather stressful. I did most of the dishes, cleaned up and washed three batches of clothes (well, you know .. the washing machine did most of it :)). I also did some brownies for us, cooked lunch and worked. The only thing I did not do was doing my presentation, but I will be working on it tomorrow .. I want to show it to the proff before having to present it on Thursday next week.

Here’s the little progress I made on the RR (does not show so well in the photo because I stitched mostly while). I think I should be able to finish it on time to send it. I also came up with what to do with the biscornu exchange I joined, but can’t say so yet.

Off now to email my friend. She was on holiday for 2 weeks and I still did not get around to email her

… for today. I hope to get it done tomorrow, so I can send it off soon. Need some other stitching and knitting to do as well.

I feel pretty lousy. Must have a stomach bug with headache or something. That’s no fun. I do hope to get over with it soon.