Today I got an award from my dear friend Trixi from Austria and I am quite happy about it, because it is my first one. I gave the file a makeover and removed the artifacts and saved it in a lossless format, here it is for picking up:

To read about the idea of the award and what it is all about, please click here

Well, now it�s my turn to tag people, who haven�t been tagged yet and therefore I tag the following persons: Anja, Yaga, Theresia, Tina, Aileen, Isobel and Sara . Much pleasure, girls!

And then there was some crafting work yesterday, I was very hard-working. The first thing was that I bought some coloured cardboard sheets some months ago in Strausberg, where I worked. The size is DIN A2 and the width is 52 cm. I didn�t use it for a long time. I saw the maze books on Theresias page and watched the instructions on craftsweekly. I decided to give it a go and made one for Tina, which is made of purple cardboard, corrugated cardboard, a red ribbon and a paper with purple dots on it which I got from Anja.

Last weekend my parents visited us and stayed in our house for a night and since I didn�t had the courage to cut my 52,0cm � 70,7cm cardboard on the desks or the kitchen floor (which is covered with flagstones) my daddy had to do it for me. We used a folded wallpapering table covered with old newspapers and due to a lack of a big enough ruler my dad used a tool that is supposed to hold it over the end of a fresh wallpapered wall and cut the wallpaper below in a perfect line. Afterwards I had to fold the cut cardboards (which were then 52cm x 52cm or 50cm x 50cm) cut some of the folds and the pages of the books were ready.
Sunday noon I drove my parents home (about 1 hour drive and I did it all without a mistake *proud*) and after a short lunch my daddy used a very good and expensive passepartout cardboard to cut several pieces (4 pieces for one book) with his huge graphics designer equippment papercut gadget, which was extremely fast and accurate matter.
Back home I took two identical cardboard pieces at a time and glued them together to make the cover or back cover of the books. After finishing and some time for letting the glue dry, I glued some of Anjas papers from her first "I want to make you curious about scrapbooking" parcel on the front of the covers, always following the instructions from the video tutorial. I then added the ribbon(s) but used instant adhersive instead of paste and except for the green ribbon which is from Anja of course, I had already bought all other ribbons myself. For the checked cover I used my leather pricker to make holes and then put those rectangular copper brads from making memories through them at the places where the ribbons were to fix the ribbons additionaly. I then glued the "pages" with a crafters paste I bought from netto and used my selfbought bone folder to make it neat. And like this I finished 4 wonderfull small books which have the sizes 13cm x 13cm, 12,8cm x 12,8cm and two of the 12,5cm x 12,5cm. Let�s see if I will keep them for myself or give some away or both. ^_^ Well and there are some news about my second sock. I have finished the rim, the leg, the heel and 49 of 69 rounds of the foot. Only 20 rounds left until I can finally start the toes. Can�t wait to do that, have been slowly enough and have soooooooooo much on the needles.

This night I got a cute Hallmark eCard from Jenn to let me know that she will be my Secret Pal hostess and that she is going to inform the participants of her list about their matches. I am sooo anxious to know who it will be for me. I am going to keep you updated!

After a round of being ready to get in as an angel, I am again part of Secret Pal. It�s been a year since I first joined and in the meantime I have participated in a lot of Swaps and got some good and bad experiences with those.

I am really looking forward to the new round and hoping to have a better Secret Pal experience this time.

I have contributed some buttons and of course hope to win a prize in the button contest.

Dear pal and dear hostess, I have posted my Secret Pal questionaire online, you can get there by clicking the link below the Secret Pal 11 image in the right navigation bar quite at the bottom.
Same goes for the wishlist, refered to in the questionaire. I gave it a makeover.

Of course you can mail me with any questions you might have anytime.

I am sooo excited! And now back to button creating! ^_^

The day before yesterday Ron and me went into a leisure park, the "Ruegenpark" to be exact. It is situated in Gingst upon Rugia, where I am spending my holidays right now (we are in a place called Ketelshagen near the town of Putbus). In this amusement park one could see a lot of miniature buildings, there were some great fun rides and we were really lucky with the weather, wich the first time here wasn�t rainy all day but even some sun peeked out.

There was also a petting zoo, a very small one. A blackface sheep and a cozy black - and- white Jacob sheep shared the space together with a mama goat with her kid.

Every day these four get a lot of strokes, food and sleep in a nice warm and dry barn. What a nice life, no milking, no shearing...

The jacob sheep was extremely fluffy and cuddly and absolutely lanoline - free. I ask myself if they probably wash it? *g* The coat was long, slightly curly and very soft, like downy feathers. I have never seen and felt anything like this.

This afternoon we went to Bergen (the biggest town here on this island) for buying a card reader to make it possible for me to blog with photos from my current holidays.
Afterwards we went for a walk with our dog Yuki and used the Famila parking space and the surrounding area for this. Again it was raining all the time and he was sniffing here and there and took a lot of time for this. It was yesterday, that I recognized two sheep with black faces and legs and grey coat here, today there were even five of them. At the meadow between the parking space and the rails they enjoyed the good green gras. But then the quandary occured to me: the sheep were leashed on with a collar and a long thin leash. I was deadly sad and apalled. For me this is not what I would call a humane and adequate animal housing. Home in Brandenburg I�d immerdiately would have called the so called office vet and told him about this. What kind of humans must that be, that have the heart to do such a cruelty?

Like my spoiler from x- Mas Swap Anja and Tsea I took part in the Knitters Treat Exchange too. This Swap was hosted by my Secret Pal9 spoilee Isobel and sweensie and the aim was to spoil another knitter. One should send yarn for a small project, a magazine, something pampering and a delicious treat and some small assecoires. Since the 5th of May I have been waiting for my parcel and now today my postwoman finally arrived with it.

"You have mail from Pennsylvania!" , she said and I immediately understood what it must be. It also became obvious, why it had taken so long.

From upstairs, looking out of the window, I first thought it must be something from Amazon and I found it very weird, why I should recieve a package from amazon since I hadn�t ordered anything.

I was able to controll myself and keep the parcel closed for quite a long time, because I used it as an extra motivation to finish my daily (and not so daily) tasks, one of which it was to iron Rons longsleeved business shirts with an outside temperature of 31 degrees celsius. jeez.
To make sure I have a photo in case I loose controll early, I first took a photo and then went on with work.



Finally the best about it could take part: the unwrapping.
My spoiler was the nice Karla from the beautiful Pennsylvania, who really put lots of thoughts and efford into the parcel. Ok, my questionaire was very clear and my wishlist too, but she also put a lot of other ideas into it. I recieved my beloved Simply Knitting (which is published in Great Brittain, in other words had to cross the Atlantic ocean twice which surely made it even more expensive ) which had a little pattern booklet with home assecoires as a free gift. One of the patterns is from a person I quite admire and have personal contact with, Claire from missbell.uk.
I also got a pattern for a lace shawl named "lily of the Valley", which absolutely isn�t my taste, but hey - I have a mother and two grannies, right? ;-)
The parcel also contained a noteblock that sticks and has a cool pattern, locking stitch markers and a chibi needle case from Clover from Japan. I�ve had them on my wishlist since the start of Secret Pal 9 last year and put them on because I�had seen them in an issue of Simply Knitting.
The pampering treat that Karla sent, was a bottle of "skin Sin" the gorgeous bodylotion from Lush (expensive). As delicious treats she sent delicious handmade cookies and some Chai tea from Twinnings of London because she was unsure if I�d like the cookies and because she likes Chai tea just as I do. I have now 3 different Chai tea sorts in my tea cuppboard. :-)

But the best in the parcel were a lace needle from addi turbos which measures 1,50metres and is 3,5mm strong. And above all this incredible yarn. The yarn is a Laceweight Merino - Tussah silk blend and just "my" shade of darkred. It is the thinnest yarn I�ve ever had and is wound up in a unusual form, which I�ve seen at several irish knitter�s blogs and at Theresias but it�s my first one in this shape.

Karla had the idea of me knitting the lace shawl from the pattern with the needle and the yarn (in her accompaning letter she gave me several advices for lace knitting) but this pattern really isn�t just my taste. But I think the idea itself was nice and so at least I am going to knit some lacy toe socks from this beautiful yarn with the pattern from a November Simply Knitting issue, which I have also sent to Tsea. I think the yarn is nice for the toes and not too thick and apart from that it is very smooth and comfy and with that silk content it is ideal for summer.

I have asked my friend Yaga from Switzerland a favour, she is going to buy some less than 2mm dpns for me. I very much appreciate that, because I bet that those needles will suit that Laceweight yarn better.

Thank you dear Karla for this great goodies, everything absolutely suits my taste, and the cookies too, don�t worry.

Thanks also to Isobel for her caring guidance and the immense efford she put into this swap.
I am going to take part in the second round around October too.

Until I get the extra page done, something to read.

1. What's your favourite type of yarn?

silk and cashmere. But since I can�t afford that to often, I love 100% merino or 100% pure new wool

2. What's your least favourite type of yarn?

everything that has artificial fibres in it. (Acrylic, Modal, Polyester...)

3. What's the first thing you do when you visit a new yarn shop?

walk through the whole shop to get the size and place of the favourite yarns section and get a view for all lil�gimmicks

4. What other crafts do you do / would like to do?

beading, scrapbooking, papercrafts, sewing, patchwork, painting, embroidery, drawing, dyening...

5. What magazines do you currently subscribe to?

no one.
But english magazines are great, as well as french are, no german required.

6. Put this type of magazine in order of preference:
Knitting / Crochet / Other Craft / Food / Home / Fashion / Celebrity Gossip / Garden

Knitting /Other Craft /Garden / Home / Crochet / Fashion / Food /Celebrity Gossip /

7. What items do you like to knit / crochet?

socks, scarfs, hats, headbands, baby clothes

8. Are you allergic to anything?

artificial fibres if the content is more than 2% *yuk* My skin drives me mad in this cases.

9. What do you like to* smell of?

rose, lily of the valley, freesia

10. What's your favourite way to relax?

besides from a day at a spa, enjoying tasty food, taking a bath (if my bathingtube wasn�t so small) in really hot water with a good bodylotion to rub in afterwards (very sensitive and somehow dry skin), then sitting down at the living room drinking some Tiger Spice Chai from David Rio, reading some nice crafty magazine and then doing something crafty e.g. beading, sewing and as a finish of the relaxation watching a good film or listening to a nice audiobook while knitting with some great fibre like silk or merino. mhhhh, what a nice thought.

11. You're stood in front of a Victorian style sweetshop, an Italian cafe, an old fashioned bakery and a dainty tea room. Where do you go first?

victorian style sweetshop - now you know why I look like a hobbit ^_^;;

12. What do you come out with?

lots of great sweets that don�t stick to the teeth (toffee, gummy bears), some good but not bitter chocolade, some cookies and english fudge and some extra sweets which the shopkeeper gave me for tasting. ^_^

13. Where do you go next?

I leave aside the caf� and the bakery and have a long stay at the tea room with my knitting and some good chai latte or similiar.

14. Any other words of wisdom for your pal?

dear pal, don�t hesitate to mail me. I have some other webpages and answer quickly and no problem with other languages. I am very open towards all new and other cultures. You can ask me absolutely everything.