It's been a while since I've posted all of the blocks I've been making for the Common Threads virtual quilting bee that I'm a part of. Here's what I've made this year:
January: Oiyi
February: Jenny
March: Lynn
April: Jacquie
May: Wendy
June: Lisa
Round 2
August: Amber
September: Amy
October: Rossie
I've got November and I mailed out my fabrics on Monday. I can't wait to see what these ladies come up with for my block theme!
Thank goodness for Daylight Savings Time and remnants of jet lag. I was up at 7:30 on Sunday, and if you know me, I'm lucky if I get up before 11AM voluntarily (a morning person I am not)! I spent most of the day sewing blocks and quilt tops and it was so nice to work on projects that were moved to the back burner before our trip.
I finished the quilt top for Amanda's Nine Patch a Day Along. These blocks have been sitting in my craft closet since early in the summer and I was so relieved to finish up the top. I'm hoping to get to IKEA sometime this week to stock up on some twin flat sheets for quilt backings so that I can work on finishing the quilt this weekend.
Last night I cut out lots of triangles for a new quilt project. I think I'm going to make a large version of my trusty nested diamond baby quilt (here and here).
Because I have so many unfinished projects sitting in my crafting stash, I decided to join in on Jacquie's aptly timed "Joy in the New Year Challenge" to help spur me on to finishing up some things around here. I've got 14 projects to finish up this year and I think I can manage it all before the end of the year. Wish me luck!
Here are the two ornaments we bought in Bamberg.
They are so darling it hurts! I wish that we had enough money to bring all of the adorable ornaments in the store home with us.
I hope Jon and I look like this when we're 80! He can keep me warm with toasty fires and I can keep him warm with knitted goods. :)
Brussels was our final destination on the trip. We had been in and out of Brussels all week staying with our friend, Jodi, between city visits. It was so nice to have a home base to return to during the trip and to get to meet lots of Jodi's friends throughout the week. Jodi was a wonderful host and pointed us in the direction of many great spots to visit.
The view from her apartment's terrace.
On Sunday afternoon, we headed out to Place Flagey for pommes frites. These thick cut fries are double fried and served with your choice of condiments...Jon went with the traditional mayo and I ordered cocktail sauce which turned out to be tartar sauce. A really delicious treat served with fun mini forks.
Then, Jodi and her friend, Israel, got oysters and champagne from a street vendor. After Israel showed us how to properly eat an oyster, we all tried one.
I'm pretty sure that will be the last oyster that I eat.
Jon's reaction: "It tastes just like the ocean"
After the oysters and champagne, we walked around Brussels and saw some of the many art deco homes in the city.
Then we tried our first taste of Belgian beer at a café. Jon and I both really like the beer, probably because it was a deliciously sweet lambic brew. Jon's was made with cherries and mine was made with raspberries. It tasted more like sparkling juice than beer, which is probably why we enjoyed it so much.
Well, Jon enjoyed it a little bit too much...he was feeling the effects pretty quickly and provided quite the entertainment as we asked him questions and he had a 4-5 second delay in answering. (We can blame the lack of sleep on the train ride for that, too!)
On Sunday night, we visited the Atomium, the installation originally intended for the 1958 Brussels World's Fair. One day, the Atomium will give the Eiffel Tower a run for it's money (or not).
Then we headed back to the Grand Place for more waffles...
One of many waffles consumed last
week! We went with the traditional gaufres de liege, soft inside,
crunchy outside with a thin sugary glaze. Yummy!
(And in case you're thinking, "what exactly did they eat on Sunday?"...I'll tell you: We each ate one marzipan croissant for breakfast in the Cologne train station, one large pommes frites, one glass of champagne, one oyster, one glass of lambic beer, and one waffle. Our stomachs were in uproar that day!)
And then, we saw Brussels' beloved Manneken Pis for the first time. After hearing all the hype about this statue, I though he would be a lot bigger than he was. Some of the molded candy and chocolate in the store windows were even bigger than the statue. I'm guessing he was less than two feet tall. Lots of different groups like to dress him up in costumes and there's even a museum filled with past outfits he's worn.
Actual size
Jon and I spent Monday, the last day of the trip, leisurely exploring the city on our own and stocking up on Belgian chocolate. We had seen most of the sites during our evening explorations of the city with Jodi, but we wanted to check out everything during the day.
Getting lost on the way to meeting Jodi for lunch resulted in discovering this lovely mural.
Royal Palace of Brussels
European Union
Artist Gu Wenda's lantern installation on the Mont des Artes
Église Notre Dame du Sablon
The Grand Place
Check out the rest of the Brussels photos on flickr, here.
Thanks for following along on all of these trip recap posts!
On Friday afternoon, we left Berlin on a train bound for Bamberg, Germany. The train ride through the German countryside was beautiful. Everything was lush and green and fall leaves were starting to change colors. Bamberg is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is one of a few places in Germany that wasn't bombed during the war. Our friend, Catherine, just moved to Germany this summer, so she was our faithful tour guide and navigator of German menus.
The city is absolutely darling and we pretty much spent our entire time walking five steps, exclaiming "oh, that is so cute," taking pictures, turning to our right and left and taking pictures and then walking a few more steps to do the same thing. I don't think I've ever seen a cuter town and one that cried out "Germany" so much!
We didn't take any tours or go to any museums and it was so nice to be able to just wander around the city and stop for pastry breaks or meal breaks whenever we felt like it. We had a great time walking through the Saturday market, window shopping and catching up with Catherine.
We found a really neat travel store and stocked up on cleverly designed German bags. Jon got a man-bag made completely out of recycled PET bottle material, I got a Reisenthel city shopper tote bag for more knitting projects, and Catherine bought this awesome Reisenthel carry cruiser for Saturday market days (see above). We stumbled upon a German department store selling lots of yarn, including Regia sock, but I was able to hold myself back (I'm not a sock knitter, after all).
We also visited a darling German Christmas store, Käthe Wohlfarht, and bought two cute little wooden Christmas ornaments (I'll have to take a picture and post them soon). The store was adorable and we were totally lured in by the cuckoo clock collection but managed to refrain ourselves.
Bamberg has lots of very crooked buildings that have settled over time.
One day, Jon and I will adopt a pug (or two!)
• • •
We left Bamberg on Saturday night on an overnight train bound for Cologne, Germany. Well, we thought it was an overnight train....
We ended up taking 3 separate trains to Cologne. First a one hour train to Wittenburg, then a one hour train to Frankfurt. We realized on our train to Wittenburg that we would be having a three hour layover at the Frankfurt station. Then we remembered that it was Daylight Savings Time in Europe (one week earlier than DST in the U.S.). So, we ended up spending that extra hour of Daylight Savings Time in a cold, outdoor Frankfurt train station huddled up next to each other on a bench watching Dexter on Jon's ipod. Our other entertainment of the evening was watching a drunk man sitting across from us blow his nose without the assistance of a tissue and spit repeatedly on the ground. I was sure that I was going to catch swine flu from him with all of the bodily fluids he was leaking.
Sitting in the cold, train station was pretty depressing as we watched all of the clocks stuck at 3AM for one hour. But we made it through and are able to laugh about it now. What are the odds of being stuck with a long layover in a train station in the middle of the night on Daylight Savings time, after all? After our four hours in the Frankfurt station, we had a three hour ride to Cologne with a private compartment and then another 2 hour train ride back to Brussels. Luckily, we were both able to sleep on both of those trains.
Even better was that we got to celebrate my favorite day of the year again in the States yesterday with an extra hour of sleep in the warmth and comfort of our own bed. It definitely made me much more appreciative of yesterday's time change!
The rest of the Bamberg photos are on flickr, here.
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