Will You Be My Valentine?

Today is Valentine's Day! I am not really a fan of this holiday but my husband and daughter are! And their enthusiasm is contagious...

 

Heute ist Valentins Tag! Ich bin ja nicht wirklich ein Fan von diesem Tag aber dafuer mein Mann und Tochter umso mehr! Und deren Begeisterung ist ziemlich ansteckend...

 

It started of with breakfast in bed served by Martin and Pasha! I received the most beautiful card from Pasha and a Pandora charm:

 

Fruehstueck im Bed serviert von Martin und Pasha! Ich bekam die suesseste Karte von Pasha und einen Pandora Charm:

At work I got another surprise from Martin. He showed up...

 

In der Arbeit ueberraschte Martin mich. Er kam vorbei...

 

 

... with flowers, a love letter and a croissant in hand, asking me to be his Valentine!

 

Excerpt of Love Letter: "Our love is just a part, but a part that it had to have. Otherwise it would never have been. We the Brewer Family are as necessary to the universe as any great star, planet or galaxy. We are a part of the big bang that made life possible. I know when we look at the universe we can feel so insignificant. But we are a part. And without us, it would be less. It wouldn't shine as brightly as it does now, and it would be alone, colder, and just a little less full of life. And that is how I feel when I think of you my sweet. I would be less, colder, and a little less full of life!"

 

I melted!!!

 

.... mit Blumen, einen Liebesbrief und einem Croissant um mich zu fragen ob ich sein Valentin bin! Ich bin so geschmolzen!!!

 

Tonight we are going to celebrate together at our favorite Italian restaurant.

 

Heute Abend feiern wir drei in unserem Lieblings Restaurant.

 

I feel so loved!

 

How is your Valentine's Day? Do you celebrate?

 

Wie ist euer Valentinstag? Feiert ihr?

 

Take Care,

Me

 

Quick Valentine's Present

My last post has been eons ago. Sorry about that! A lot has happened since then: there was of course Christmas and New Years, my family came to visit twice; I tore some ligaments in my foot (my sewing pedal foot!!!), lots of stuff do to at work and not enough time for anything else! sigh....

But tomorrow is Valentine's Day and I was determined to give a bit of handmade love! I can't tell you who is going to be the recipient because she does read my blog sometimes :-)

But here it is:

Since I couldn't sew for a bit, I started some crocheting. I found this magazine in the iBooks store:

I love, love, love it! I have made already a flower (to accessorise a bag - I'll show you later!) out of it, those hearts and I am working on a blanket (which I'll also show you later!).

What do you think? Would you be happy to receive something like that as a small gift? 

I do have to admit that I am a bit unsure so I am also giving a gift card to Aeropostale as well. Better to be on the safe side because teenagers are so fickled in their taste! LOL

Take Care,

Me

Christmas Wrapping Paper Gone Missing!

My sister is going to drop off our Christmas packages to our family up north. She is leaving in an hour! No sweat... I have all the gift cards, money and candy ready. 

All I have to do is wrap it up...

So I walk to the bin that stores all our gift wrapping paper and notice that I am all out of Christmas wrapping! 

Oh no... I am just a tad panicking now... the clock is ticking!

But fabric stash to the rescue! I remembered that I had some Santa Claus fabric somewhere... that should work... nope, not enough for three gift bags... but I do find some mottled red fabric as well! So I cut out some Santas and appliquéd them on one of the side pieces of each bag... sewed up the side and made the string tunnel... found some green ribbon to made the draw string... and voila: 

Three easy gift wrapping bags!

All in all 30 minutes. Not too bad and they look nice. But I didn't finish the seams on the inside. It doesn't really matter anyway since my nephew and two nieces don't really care about the wrapping but what's inside :-)

Take care,

Me

P.S. I have to put a reminder on my to-do list to purchase some wrapping paper!

Sewing Machine Problems... Again!

Last night I was winding some thread on bobbins when I heard a click noise. I checked and found this:

Looks all innocent, right? Well, it's not! I checked and noticed that the bobbin thread guide came off the sewing machine. See, it belongs right in to that hole...

How did that happen? No idea...

We called a Pfaff sewing machine "Asbhy Sewing Machine Company" store in the States and the repair guide told us what to do. How awesome is that! Unfortunately we didn't have such tiny screw drivers. So we decided that I would take it to the local Pfaff dealer "Jocher Pfaff Naehzentrum" here in Garmisch. 

I called... they were so rude on the phone. They said I should take it back to where I bought it from! I told him that it really was a simple thing to fix and if he at least could take a look at it. The answer was no! He had 30 machines to fix between now and Christmas...! 

So Martin talked to a friend who had the right tools and fixed it himself. 

It took 5 minutes! Yep... 5 minutes! He took three screws out, put the guide back in, closed it back up and I am back in business!

I am such a lucky girl who has a husband who puts up with me and on top of it fixes my baby!

Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

I love you,

Karin

Yumm!

This is what I had for breakfast:

1 Blueberry Tea & 2 Christmas cookies 

Absolutely delicious!

Pasha made them... yup, she did!

We had some problems with the initial recipe (from a book that I had high hopes for... I will tell you later about it!) but Google came to the rescue... and voila!

Hope you have a tasty morning too!

Take care,

Me

Another Christmas Present on its way!

I just finished another Christmas present. This one is for my aunt and uncle. We have just visited them during the long Thanksgiving weekend. We had such a blast that time flew by faster than any of us wanted it to.

Here is my dad (on the left) with my uncle (on the right). 

They are both so similar! They have the same hobbies (photography and computers) and have the same sense of humour... :-)

My aunt admired some of my quilts. So I decided that a quilt would be the perfect present to them. I chose the Diamonds at Large pattern from Pam Lintott's Layer Cake, Jelly Roll & Charm Quilts book. 

The top went together in one afternoon. It took another to sandwich and quilt it, and of course another one in front of the TV to put on the binding. I had a couple of blocks left over because I made a cutting mistake. So I made a quick pillow out of it. 

It is an 18" square. Very fast, very easy and it used all of my fabric... love that!!!

So now it is in the mail. I hope they'll love it as much as I enjoyed making it! :-)

Take care,

Me

Decorating the Christmas Tree

As a kid my family would decorate the tree on Christmas eve. However now that I have a family of my own we decorate the tree already around the first of December. We really  enjoy looking at the sparkling tree each night :-)

 

One of the most treasured traditions we have are the "12 Days of Christmas" ornaments.

 

We sing the song as we put them up. Martin even jumps when it comes to the "lords are leaping" part! You would think that we know the song by heart by now. But around the 8th day of Christmas we have to look for the ornaments to help us out!

 

 

Another tradition is that Pasha gets to put the Angel on the tree.

 

We have lots of handmade ornaments on our tree! It makes us so happy to recount each and every memory! They remind us of people that we had the pleasure of knowing, people and pets who have passed on and are very much missed or places we've been...

 

Decorating the Christmas tree makes us go crazy! :-)

 

And yes, Pasha insists on the yearly photo with Jake in front of the tree. I swear I didn't force her to do it!!! LOL

 

Is your Christmas tree up yet?

 

Take care,

Me