Trip to Germany, Part 2, about Fly Fishing and Scandinavian Christmas

Between two rainy days, Saturday was warm and sunny. We headed to the 7th International Experience the World of Fly Fishing. On our previous visit we had a wonderful lunch at the Restaurant Fürstenfelder at Kloster Fürstenfeldbruck old monastery, and there we saw posters of the coming event. We could not extend our visit to the fly fishing event at that time, but before booking the flights for this year's visit we made sure to be there at the right time. In the old monastery buildings the exhibition was spread on two floors. - I promised you some more traditional clothing, here the gentleman is wearing a felt hat. Pictures of my SC are at the end of this post, feel free to jump over the travel report part.

 

Examples of finer fly fishing gear: silk lines. 

The most interesting part of the event was outdoors at the casting pools.

The Austrian casting guru Roman Moser demonstrated different one-handed rod casting styles; here he is showing an Englishman's style:

At the end of his demonstration he showed that a rod is not always necessary if you master the double haul cast. He shortened his rod with every cast, ending up with just the line in his hands and the fly still reached the wanted spot every time. Looks so easy when you know what you are doing. For those of you who are not Candace or otherwise familiar with fly fishing, the fly with the hook weighs "nothing" and it flies because of the weight of the line and the energy transmitted to the line from the rod movement.

After the demonstration Mr. Moser had a casting clinic at the other pool. Mr. K. got some useful tips and a velcro band for holding his wrist in line with the rod.

A girl's eye wandered after fashion: a Scottish fly fisherman met with a local one.

Among the audience a traditional Bavarian men's jacket. Antti Guttorm from Finland is demonstrating casting with a two-handed/switch rod and Skagit casting.

In the Monastery's park there are modern sculptures. This one was on the lawn where visitors could test rods and practise their casting.

The name of the sculpture is "Istsituation", could be translated as Status Quo.

Wild Primula on the lawn.

Fritillaria - one flower checkered, the other white, with a dandylion under it.

Before going home we had grown quite an appetite, so we decided to try the other restaurant at the Monastery, Klosterstübchen.

The Wiener Schnitzel was big enough to feed a small family, but somehow I managed to eat most of it.

On Monday, when changing trains on the way to the airport, I had a chance to take a photo of the peculiar "nests" we had seen on many trees.

No nests at all, but mistletoe, Viscum Album. They don't grow in Finland.

Finally, at last, my finished Block 3 of Scandinavian Christmas by Lynette Anderson. I'm stitching this together with Annik, Elin, Grethe, Hanne, Lynn and Melanie. You can see their results through the links on my right sidebar under Scandinavian Christmas. Here's my stitchery:

And here the new block with numbers 1 and 2. I'm starting number 4 now.

While bonding the applique parts for block 3 I made some hearts for the border as well - there will be a lot of blanket stitching with these in the evenings when the time comes!

Munich in Spring

Today I will take you on a walk in Munich. Mr. K and I visited his sister in this area last week, and while she was busy with her studies, we enjoyed a day in the city. On the S-Bahn we met a big party of people dressed in Tracht, their traditional costume. I tried to take a picture, but they were in a hurry to get to the Cathedral on time for a First Communion. I love the long skirts of the ladies, worn with pretty aprons and short jackets. In my next post you will see some of the men's clothes a little closer.

This is where they were going, to the Frauenkirche behind the houses:



 

From the train we walked to Viktualienmarkt. It is a large farmers' market with all kinds of specialities. If you are interested, there is a lot of information in the link.

It is asparagus season, many stalls had this delicious treat beautifully displayed. Guess what I made for lunch today? Asparagus with Hollandaise sauce and prosciutto.

Fruit and vegetables.

Ornaments made of dried flowers and fruit.

Meat and sausages - the regulations must be different here where the meat is on the table and not cooled. The shops around this market had meat hanging in their window too.

There are six memorial fountains for folk singers and comedians around the market place, all donated by citizens of Munich. This one is for Liesl Karlstadt.

One of the many beer restaurants.

Turning back to the city

where we needed to sit down for tea/coffee and Apfelstrudel mit Eis und Sahne:

Rested and nourished we walked on to visit the Hunting and Fishing Museum.

The bronze boar

 and wels catfish, both about their natural size, guarded the entrance.

Inside the museum we concentrated on the fishing gear from stone age to early 20th century. We have been here before, so we skipped the hunting department. We had perfect timing: it rained while we were in, but it had stopped by the time we came out.

On the way back to the sister's home we noticed this lawn covered in tiny flowers.

I had to have a closer look. Veronica!

Next time I'll take you to something different, and show my latest finish which is just one block of the Scandinavian Christmas.

Wintery crafts and migrating birds, or waiting for the Spring

The Spring is taking its time to arrive in our nick of the world. On Saturday we had some new snow again, you may see the white lines of wet snowflakes in this picture. As you can see, there is not very much snow left from the winter between the trees.

This kind of weather suits well for wintery crafts, so I knitted a pair of mittens after a traditional pattern from Northern Finland. I wanted to try this pattern, but in natural wool colours and not in the suggested bright colours you can see on the magazine's picture of their modernised mittens. The yarn is thick so the mittens were knitted in no time on 5 mm needles.

I have also been working on Scandinavian Christmas block 3. The cross stitch frame is finished, and most of the embroidery. The blanket stitching around the appliqué is on my list now. Mr. K said the other night that there is quite a lot of work in that piece of fabric, and I couldn't agree more!

We have had some sunny days too, and the yellow daffodils I bought for Easter can stay out in the night too, as the night temperatures are keeping around freezing point, not too much under. 

 

New birds keep arriving these days. This dove came to taste our sunflower seeds. There seems to be a lot to eat on the ground under the bird feeder, when the bigger birds like jays mess around and look for peanuts on the tray and drop what they don't like!

 

A flock of finches has been there too. They are mainly insect eaters and really need the energy they can get from the seeds, as it is far too cold for almost any insects yet.

 

Every day there is a little less snow, maybe a new green point of a future daffodil to be seen. The snowdrops I showed in my previous post, and at the moment in my header, are still in bloom. Meanwhile the also looked like this

when they came out again after we had some 15 cm or 6 inches of snow at Easter. I could do without the snow by now. Really. Then I could start sewing other than woolly and christmassy projects too.

Another PIP, and signs of Spring

It has been over a week since my last post. I have been having a cold and an ear infection and not too much energy. That reminded me of a very relaxing project and a great stash buster: Chenille or slash cut doormats and pot holders. I have two boxes with selected recycled fabrics and knits marked Chenille Blue and Chenille Green/Red. I took the blue box, with two base fabrics already pieced from Mr.K's old chino legs. On top of one of them, on the wrong side, I layered and cut to size my old skirt front of black T-shirt tricot, sleeves and one front half of Mr. K's shirt with stripes, most of one of his father's thin dark blue woollen sweaters ruined in too hot washing, all parts of one dark blue shirt, and the rest of the first stripey shirt, with the biggest pieces for the top layer. It was over 4 metres worth fabrics! I basted the layers together, marked some guide lines at 45 degrees angle and stitched on my machine like this (picture of the reverse):

I used a jeans needle and my walking foot, and relaxed and stitched. After two sessions the stitching was done and the cutting began. This time I only cut the beginnings of each row at both ends and trimmed the edges and added the binding. But after that: cutting and cutting, between the stitched lines. Just remember: never ever cut the backing! I'm happy to own a pair of Fiskars Soft Touch spring action scissors which made the cutting easy. My Clover chenille cutter wasn't sharp enough, it only could do a couple of layers at a time, maybe because of the knits I had used.

With the cutting finished and binding in place, I tossed the doormat in the washing machine. Voilà!

The perfect wavy surface!

I only had to trim some corners pointing up from the uneven layers. I love this way of making use of even the ugliest fabrics and washing catastrophes. It makes a practical doormat, machine washable and soft. Some friends in the sewing class have also made bathroom mats in lovely soft light colours, or mats using almost only old jeans. They fray beautifully. This project is my fourth finished PIP this year. I'm glad Stephanie reminded everyone of those old unfinished projects in process many of us seem to have in our cupboards, bins and boxes. Finishing them frees energy and storage space.

Yesterday morning I noticed the first brave snowdrops had pushed their heads through the snow in my flowerbed! Some day the snow will be gone. I'm waiting.

Scandinavian Christmas - Block 2

Right after I made my last post, I had a sudden burst of energy and finished the block 2 stitching, trimmed it to size and added the Churn Dash blocks to the top.

Here they are, the two first blocks together.I'm ready to start the third one. I have a wonderful light box for tracing patterns, but for the second try with the snowman block I used something I first saw on Hanne's stitchery: Sticky-Fabri-Solvy, a product you can print your pattern on (using an bubble jet printer), and then just finger-press the top layer on your fabric. It is very thin, not sticky on the needle, and it just washes away in water after you finished the stitchery. I recommend making a test stitchery first, just in case.

Guess what we had today? New snow! Mr. Pheasant made a lovely stitching pattern while I was in town.

Tomorrow is Spring Equinox, and we all have about 12 hours sunlight and 12 hours without it. After that, we will be racing towards longer days faster than the ones of you who live further from the North Pole. In a month our day is already 14 hours long, in two months about 17 and a half hours and at Midsummer our daylight time is 19 hours, and it is dark only little over an hour in the night.