More fabric …..

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In Hungary outside Budapest, about a 45 minute train ride on a Russian built train through the country side is a town called Szentendre. Here I found this shop that sells blue-dyed products called Kovács Kékfestő. The fabric and products that are sold here are made according to traditional methods. It was started by the Kovács family in 1878 in Hungary. Through the years each member of the family has been awarded the title of “Folk Art Master”, the workshop is situated at Kőrösi Street 9 in Tiszakécske and the equipment they use is from the turn of the century. Blue-print material is considered very ordinary in Hungary.

The original blue-dying was a cold indigo dye done in a large in-ground, dyeing tub. Since 1932 the family wrote down the instructions and it now is an indanthrene warm dye. Mária Kovás now runs the shop and she uses blue-dying patterns originating from the beginning of the last century and she added a few of her own designs.

All though it’s not a fabric shop it does sell the fabrics that the items are made of, in the shop. If you plan to visit the shop, just ask the shop assistant to show you the fabrics suitable to use to make a quilt. They also have the fabric you can use to make tablecloths and other house hold items. All the fabrics are 100% cotton and therefore very suitable for quilt making.

I was first introduced to Hungarian blue-dyed quilts at The Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, England in 2008. Guess what, they had a Dear Jane quilt made from the blue-dyed fabric, I don’t seem to find any photos, I have a feeling that we were not allowed to take any photographs.

Much More fabric was added to my stash! What can I say! Maybe another Dear Jane in blue-dyed fabrics? No ways!!!

Happy crafting.

Love
NikkiM

I’m back!

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Melk, 12/29/2014
Regensburg, 01/01/2015
Passau, 12/31/2014
Passau, 12/31/2014

Well I’m back from an amazing holiday. I will give you a quick overview of my European holiday or my “white Christmas”.

Our holiday started a few days before Christmas when we drove up to Johannesburg, this is a 5hr drive to our international airport were we met up with friends that were joining us, here we got on to a big plane to fly to Budapest. We spent a few days there including Christmas, I got my “white Christmas” a day after Christmas. I found some blue and white Hungarian fabric here, I will tell you about this on another post.

Here we got on a boat to sail the river Danube up to Nuremburg, Germany via Austria. We stopped in Vienna, Passau, Melk, the, I found a little yarn shop here and guess what, I got my friend to start knitting. The ship then did a funny loop onto one of the side canals and stopped in a town called Regensburg, this reminded me a lot of the movie “The Grand Budapest Hotel“.

Our last stop on our 8 day Viking cruise was Nuremburg. Here I found 2 wonderful yarn shops in a 1 mile (1.6 km) radius of each other. As you all know walking for yarn shops is not a problem for me, remember this post.

We spent 2 days in Nuremburg, hopped onto a train to Stuttgart, for those whom have car loving husbands you will understand it, it has the Porsche and Mercedes Benz Museums. We then rented a car to drive to Munich, well the boys loved this one, the autobahn has no speed limit. Sounds fun if you’re a boy! What did my friend and I do? We sat in the back, knitting, now and again my eye would glance over what speed we were doing, 125 miles/hr (202 km/hr) and other cars were passing us.

Munich has another car museum. Can you guess which one? BMW of course! We did do other things off course. Here we hopped onto an overnight train to Amsterdam. I love Amsterdam and had to go back to the quilt shop, that I visited last year on this post.

How was the weather? Cold, wet, no sun but amazing! I’m back home and getting used to this hot weather 89˚F or 32˚C.

Back home, I’m nursing an injured shoulder and having treatment at the moment feeling very sorry for myself been knitting and crocheting a little bit.

Glad to be back in blog land for those who follow me and for those that I follow you will see a few likes and comments.

Happy crafting.

Love
NikkiM

Buzy Day 2014

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Merry Christmas
Birthday eat treats
Knitting
Machine quilted a friends quilt.
I have started hand quilting ‘Dear Jane’.
I knitted a pair of socks for my youngers sons girlfriend.
I started knitting a scarf.
I’m in the garden with Maxi.
Kitchen.
Luscious Little Layerings (A4 size)
My “Dear Jane” journey.
Owl hangings made from felt.
A close up view of a finished block of the quilt I quilted for a friend.
Knitted a spring cardigan with African Expression – Harmony.
Striped stole.
Flannel quilt.
Blocking a knitted cardigan knitted from a pattern from Knitty – Helena
Chocolate cupcake filled with caramel
Hoody jacket knitted with Sidar Denim Sport Aran using a pattern from “The Ultimate book of Baby Knits” by Debbie Bliss.
The pattern is out of “Heirloom Baby Knits” by Deborah Newton, the one I knitted is Pumpkin Pie – Lacy Cardigan Jumper on pg 66
Superhero capes
Knitted with Sidar yarn.
Chocolate cake
Centre hand appliquéd block.
Sri Lankan appliqué
Civil War Quilt
Miniature friendship braid quilt with hand embroidery
Friendship braid quilt, label.
Dr Who knitted scarf
Rosettes inspired by Laura Wasilowski book Fanciful Stitches Colorful Quilts
“quilts, bibs, blankies … oh my!” by Kim Schaefer quilt “cars, buses, trucks and trains quilt”
Promenade in a Dutch Garden by Petra Prins & An Moonen

I lost my little buddy!

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Max waiting for me to finish!
Max ready for bed.
Max knitting on the couch.
Max on the couch.
Knitting

Not much crafting going on, other than a little bit of knitting. I will share this with you on a later date.

I lost the youngest of my three little Jack Russels. I noticed when I we came back from the States, Max (9 years old), was looking a bit thin, I kept an eye on him and this last week I noticed his tummy looked a bit bloated, but he still walked around and sat with me, he still ate his cooked supper and all the snacks that were on offer.

On Friday I decided to take him to the Vet first thing in the morning. She gave him three injections an antibiotic, pain killer and something for colic and told me to change his diet and just keep and eye on him. I took him home and noticed he was not happy, he was just lying outside vomiting, I kept bringing him inside but he kept going out and just lay on the lawn. By 3pm I could see he was not doing well and took him back.

The Vet kept him at the surgery on a drip, at 5:30pm she phoned to say he is really not looking well, she was worried and we decided to operate to have a look. She phoned back 10min later to say that he had cancer on his liver and it had spread all over and had ruptured and that she could not do anything for him and that it would be better to have him “put down”!

He will be greatly missed! He was my little buddy he followed me all around the house. He was no great quilter or crochet and his knitting sucked, but he loved keeping me company.

I was not ready to give him up!

Happy crafting!
Love
NikkiM

What was I thinking?!

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I started knitting a scarf.
I bought the most expensive yarn ever! It wasn’t the most expensive in the shop but it certainly was the most expensive I have ever bought! It happened on my recent trip to New York. Let me explain.

 
I just made my husband walk 20 blocks (if you ask him he will tell you it was 40), and those who know New York, know that 20 blocks = 1 mile (1.6km), to a yarn shop called String on East 33rd Street. I have been to this shop before and knew that it’s a small little shop on the first floor. As we arrived outside the shop I spotted this little coffee shop and I told my husband he should have a coffee while I go upstairs to the yarn shop. I could see on his face he was not happy with this plan.

 
Once I was upstairs and in the shop I asked the shop assistant to show me the cashmere yarns. I asked how much for a ball, her reply was not good, $50 for a 50g ball! As I wanted to knit a scarf and needed 6 balls, I quickly explained that this was far too expensive for me!

 
Now here comes the expensive purchase, I have just made my husband walk 20 blocks to a yarn shop and told him that he could not come up to the yarn shop (I didn’t really say that but that what he heard when I told him to have a coffee!) So now you understand I can’t walk out of this shop with no purchase! So I asked for a cheaper option, this ended up being a yarn called “Duchess” by Trendsetter Yarns, 6 balls of 50g at $25 a ball! Well, my thinking was, “My husband is already upset with me, if I come out with no purchase he is going to be more upset”. So this is easy, just buy some yarn!

 
I just finished knitting the scarf, after knitting a few test patterns, I decided on a fisherman’s rib pattern, casting on 50 stitches on size 10 (6mm) circular needles, the scarf ended up being 11” (28cm) x 63” (1.6m). No left overs!

 
Happy crafting till next week!
Love
NikkiM

What have I done?

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