Recently in secret pal Category

Our hostess Jenn had the idea for a competition and since my questionaire is up since nearly a month, it�s only some questions to do for me.

Here we go:

1. What is the one knitting accessory you could not live without?

one? I have three: my chibi sewing needle case, my row counters and most important the fabric shopping bag (cotton, not closable) where I have my take-with-me knitting in.

2. If you're heading on vacation, do you take knitting with you? If
so, how much and what type of project?

of course!
In my last vacation which was at the end of June till the 10th of July, I took 7 skeins for winding with me and a bag full of small projects. This were 2 headbands (one blue linen from a USA yarn swap for my mum, a darkred merino lace one), 2 different socks (both are handdyed sock yarns - one is called "Cuban nights" and is a stripey one with each row another colour and the other one is from the first series of "colours for men" and is in different blue shades for my boyfriend and the difficulty is that he wants me to knit a elastic into the first rows like in bought socks) and a crocheted darkred berret, which still isn�t big enough.

3. Where have you travelled to that you'd consider your favorite spot?

Despite my age I�ve been a lot around the world already, but I think I have three favourite spots:
the city Bourgas and its beach in Bulgaria, which is my birthcountry
the island of Rugia in the Baltic Sea which is so small and so big and so extremely beautifull
Ueno park and the Meji shrine in Tokyo - Tokyo was so enjoyable at all but this spots are special

hey, now that I see this, all have something in common: water around or in it and plenty of green

4. What is your favorite knitting book at the moment? Do you own it?

there are two of them: one skein wonders, which I own and have used to knit several things and some more to come from and the "knitted embellishments" book from Nicky Epstein which I unfortunately don�t own but totally adore.

5. Do you listen to podcasts? Which is your favorite(s)?

Funnily enough, I started a german one for our magazine yesterday, with installation, homepage customization, recording, editing and everything by myself. Have a look here if you want to hear my voice: http://www.podcast.funime.de/index.php

For knitting I love the KnitCast from Toronto

Wow, I�m through it. And I am quite excited, my first knit related competition ever.

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! ^_^

Today, one of my birthday presents was something I�d like to thank Hannah from Blackpool, GB sooooo much! I am very besotted with the "simply knitting" magazine and she sent the November issue to me. But it wasn�t only the again so well succeeded magazine, it was a whole bundle. The bundle also included a simply knitting calendar for the next year with lots of great patterns and a booklet with nice knitting projects from Rowan (the yarn producer). Waaaaiii, perfect! *happy* Thank you so, so, so much dear Hannah!

Oh, and before I forget, I got an eCard from my secret pal. Thank you secret pal, this was a really funny animation.

Nicol, my hostess posted some kind of contest. We are to write something bizarre, funny - a random fact about ourselves.
Well for me it is something that even my family members listened to with their mouths open.

Last year in September when I did the first -aid day course which is necessary for the application for a drivers licence (which I passed this January), everybody had to let her/his eyes get tested because if that fails one cannot give the application for the drives licence (and licence exam) to the drivers�licences department. Well we were 16 people and I went with my boyfriend who had paid the fees for me (and I still have to give them back to him). I was the 6th to get my sight tested. I usually have to wear glasses even though I don�t wear them at the moment because if I do so I get a headache. I sat down with my glasses (I am short sighted) on my nose and had to look inside an apparatus. There were black circles, filled white on a white background, with a gap somewhere. I had to tell if the gap was left, right, down, up or somewhere between. My problem - which my eye doctor named to me- is that rotund forms and numerals (like 0, 8, 9, 6 and 3) float and I cant see them focused if they are too small, move or are too far away. I very often catched the wrong train, because the trains here have numbers like 60, 63, 61, 68 . I often found myself going into the wrong direction once inside the wrong train because I had been running to catch it and hadn�t seen the numerals correctly.
I was told that the dimensions inside the apparatus simulate a certain distance. I told the people behind the apparatus the gaps - I really had to concentrate on them because of this damn floating. I had them wrong. All of them. I was so schocked and asked if I could repeat the test at the end of all and they said "ok, but this is an exception". I went outside the room to talk to my boyfriend who was so angry because I had started with drivers lessons and he had already paid them and without this test I couldn�t go on. I was thinking through this whole situation again and again and finally found out that I hadn�t had the feeling of distance inside the apparatus. Remember, I usually don�t need my glasses for a good sight in less than 20 -50 metres, not to tell about 20 cm. I decided to repeat the test without my glasses. As I did so the testers were astonished. Unlike all others I had 100% ! I did not make any mistake, I was the only one with no mistake at all! I got my certificate of sight and everything is fine! I can drive without glasses but I prefer to drive with them - especially on the highways.

Usually glasses help people to see better but in my case I went better without them. This is really the truth and I am quite happy about it, because at the moment with this headaches I have to drive without my beloved frameless glasses and the police can�t give me any fines if they�d stop me to see my drivers licence.

... was 2 days ago.
But on the 1st of September I had my SP9 questionaire and the wishlist online (I took the one from the previous year). On the 15th of September I updated it to be complete and told Shelby that I did so. I was so full of joyfull anticipation. I don�t know why but it seems to be invisible. It is a plain text link (there is no button in the SP9 blog so I have none yet) below the secret pal 9 button on the right side of this page. When clicking the link, the questionaire does not include this link or the wishlist link (which is below AND linked inside the questionaire), but I�ll fix that.

Well TODAY apart from a mail that my secret pal is alive and well. I got mail from the USA! It was an envelope with a beautifull stamp on it showing the yosemite national park in CA. which I like for my collection. Inside was a greeting card (this is the red picture) and inside was a congratulation for my birthday (the other picture). But my birthday is the night before Halloween, the 30th of October - 14 days to go. However. At least today is one of those very rare days that my mailbox wasn�t empty and the sun is shining and no cloud is in the sky.