Elbe River Boat Trip

My husband's bosses love to sail. And this year marks the 10th anniversary of the company. So they decided to take everyone on a little boat trip on the Elbe river. It was a really long and stressful day for the parents of a very lively 3 year old, but I suppose everyone else got to relax... Still, it was an adventure for Littles and the weather was perfect. Here are the pictures:

They even had us solve some navigational quiz with a compass and everything. Way out of our league...

a huge freighter passing us with ease

sailing past the homes of the rich and famous of Hamburg

passing the Airbus plant

if you look closely, you can see the plane (or part of a plane...) inside

This was our second boat trip with the company and even if it was stressful for us as parents, sailing is really special and it has the power to take you away from everything else. I wish we had the funds to do something like this more often... I know, it wouldn't be as special anymore...

Free Pattern: Granny Sleeves

I made this beautiful wrap for my Mother's birthday

and the yarn was just soooooo yielding I figured I could make something for myself! And because I just love the look of the cluster stitches on the wrap I went for something with granny squares. I was going to come up with my own pattern but then I realized that I was combining two patterns: Nina Leon's Ribbed Sleevo Scarf and Suzetta Williams' Granny Scarf.

But I'll still give you a pattern for what I did, I call them my Granny Sleeves!

And you can also wear them as a scarf if it's too hot for long sleeves! So, here's the pattern:


Yarn: dk weight (I used just under 400 yards, but I'm tiny...)
Hook: 4mm (G)


Gauge is not important, you'll be working with the actual measurements


Colors: A = beige, B=pink, C=green (Just letting you know what I used, pick whatever you like!)


(1) 
In color A chain multiples of 4 for the length of you scarf. Keep in mind to subtract quite a bit since you'll keep adding to the length with each round. My foundation chain hung a little lower than my elbows and produced a full length sleeve. Guesswork, no formula, sorry...
Add 2ch and then 3ch for turning chain


(2)
dc into 4th chain from hook
dc in next 3ch
[ch1, skip 1ch, dc in next 3dc] repeat along scarf
dc into last 4ch
fasten off color A


(3)
attach color B in space between last two dc
ch3, 2dc,ch1
[3dc, ch1] 3 times into same space you attached B
[3dc in ch-space, ch1] repeat along scarf
[3dc, ch1] 4 times into space between last two dc
[3dc in ch-space, ch1] repeat along other side of scarf
join with sl into top of ch3
fasten off color B


(4)
attach color C in next ch-space
ch3, 2dc, ch1, 3dc, ch1 into same space
3dc, ch1 into next ch-space
[3dc, ch1, 3dc, ch1] into corner space
[3dc in ch-space, ch1] along the side of your scarf
work corners as described
join with sl into top of ch3
fasten off color C


(5)
Continue to add rounds as in (4) until the scarf is wide enough to wrap around the very top of your arm. If your yarn stretches take that into account, you'll want the sleeves to be pretty tight fitting at the top of your arms so you won't loose them!
Leave a long tail to sew first arm.


(6)
Fold scarf lengthwise and sew arms closed from the ends to the middle. Mine are 17" long, but again, I'm tiny...


(7)
Weave in all ends. Wear it!


Btw, I'd love to hear your opinion on how you like your patterns written. This is only the first one I'm actually writing down. Do you prefer brackets over asterisks? Do you like more line breaks and paragraphs? How easily can you follow the instruction?... Things like that...

Thank you so much for reading and your feedback!

Father's Day 2012!

It's Father's Day! In the United States at least...


However, I'm German and me husband, my beautiful daughter and I live in Germany. Here, Father's Day has been attached to ascension day and was a couple of weeks after Mother's Day. (Yes, that's actually on the same day here!)
Also, Father's Day is celebrated... differently here: men usually take bike trips in large groups, none of them fathers, of course, with a couple of crates of beer in tow and get wasted. I know, it sounds really stupid and doesn't honor fatherhood in the least. But that's what I was used to.


I didn't realize that in the States Father's Day is the true equivalent to Mother's Day until last year. It was our second year as parents (no, I don't remember how the first time went...) and I got all cranky, because I didn't get anything for Mother's Day. My husband asked: "Oh, and do you have any plans for Father's Day?" I was confused. In my experience that was just an excuse to get drunk. 


So, after I got an awesome card, breakfast and cute little gift for Mother's Day this time around, I had to make it up to my husband! And I made sure we had a great Father's Day together! The first of many to come!


I'm not the cook in this family, so no cool breakfast for him, hah! Oh well, he got his card and cute, very personal gift after our regular breakfast:

The printable for the card can be found all over the internet, I found it on the Holiday Snob blog and had Zoë color on it. Yeah, I guess she wasn't really in the mood. :-)
I glued it to a piece of scrapbook paper to improvise a card and Zoë and discussed what we were going to write to Daddy. Finally I had her trace her name and she did an awesome job!


And this was our gift:

Very cute, but also not my original idea. I stole it from Shannon... and since I only have one child I had to get myself in the picture...
Zoë and I had so much fun doing that! And she was great. The perfect model. Lay still on the bed for almost half an hour!


And then we went out for some fun on the playground:

I know, it's still pretty cold for June. Yikes, I'm sooooo ready for summer to finally make it to Hamburg!


Finally, I also made these awesome Cookies and Cream Cupcakes for dessert! Super yummy! Too sweet for most German taste buds, I might add...

My frosting wasn't quite as fluffy as I wanted it, but the cream cheese kind never turns out the way I want it. Anyway, they're still veeeeery tasty.

So, this was our first successful Father's Day and we all enjoyed it a great deal. There will repeat performances over the years to come!