For a Friend Across the Ocean

No other words needed - this is for a Friend living in Taos, Faith Welsh.
She is a caring human being, a most creative artist of many talents, a cat person, a designer, spinner, knitter, painter, appreciates nature and glorious landscapes, mountains, rocks and trees and plants, the skies and seas, far-away places, foreign cultures - with her posts and her work she has helped me to overcome my homesickness for our former home in the country. This friendship circle is for her. I made it in October 2014.

Hopefully, I will one day be able to meet my friend in person:

Hope is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all.

~ Emily Dickinson

Sketchy Scribble

Scribble - a fascinating art - with yet another almost unknown meaning! 

This is not about your regular scribble, be it for children to train their hand-eye coordination or adults, absent-mindedly doodling an abstract drawing during a boring telephone call. But there is yet another, lesser known meaning of the noun and verb in the field of textile crafts:

Writing a secret scribble lace code

Cordonnet from Cartier & Bressons, Paris (France), Sari Silk Fiber FusionTaos (USA)

Finest Yarn in Pristine Condition

Scribble is also a technique in knitting, expertly described in the beautiful book "Unexpected Knitting" by Debbie New. She has been a trailblazer in NEW knitting techniques, and the book really lives up to its name, every project is an eye-opener and every pattern and description of the items will amaze even an experienced knitter. A sea-worthy coracle made of lace? Knitted teacups? A pixel-knitted picture of Debbie's grandmother? There seems to be no end to her imagination. Just reading about her many professions will make you dizzy with admiration, as she excelled in every one of them.

Fiber Fusion for Wild Fantasies - The Color Range of Dreams

So when I received the generous gift from textile artists, multi-talented Faith Welsh and Monte McBride (FB ) - a package containing recycled Silk in luminous colors, I could not think of any better way to fully enjoy the beauty of these yarns than displaying their essence in a visually unlimited 360° round-about-view. This is true and wild scribble, as the bulky yarn will determine its very own position and loops in the lacework.

Scribble Lace is a perfect technique for the purpose of keeping yarn visible for admiration, while adding a truly lacy and light-weight background to offset the color and texture of the main yarn. Unless you want to wear the yarn "as is" as suggested by my friend Sarah Peery. See more pictures of the handspun Sari Silk in this post or here on Ravelry.

Form follows Function - Liberated Yarns

It is worth visiting their site Fiber Fusion Taos (Spin Artiste) - yarns to make you dream, gorgeous wraps and shawls, interesting interviews with fascinating textile artists and, yes, Giveaways!

By the way: the term Scribble, or scrawly in the sense of almost undecipherable handwriting is translated into German with a lovely onomatopoetic word: Krikel-Krakel! Also: Gekritzel.

Scribble Lace Designed by Nature - Berlin (Germany) November 2014

Symbolic Frontier of Lights - Berlin

On November 9th, Berlin celebrated the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. 7000 ballons were lit along a 15 km long segment of the former course of the wall that once separated the city. Truly a symbolic frontier of lights - LICHTERGRENZE - . At the Brandenburg Gate, Conductor Daniel Barenboim directed the Berliner Staatskapelle playing Beethoven's Ode to Joy, renaming it for the event: FREIHEIT SCHÖNER GÖTTERFUNKEN - ODE TO FREEDOM. 

Daily Press: Fireworks illuminating Brandenburg Gate, 9 November 2014

And then the illuminated balloons were released, one after the other, their shell shimmering for some moments and then disappearing into the night, like the wall disappeared out of view. A truly magic moment. Listen to The Winds of Change to catch the spirit.

At the center: Can you see my daughter looking back?

 An estimated one million people wandered slowly through the streets, smiling, happy and elated with the spirit of freedom and unity.

Just before sundown - near Kremmen (Brandenburg, Germany)

Grey Cranes (Grus Grus) flying South

A week before this event, friends invited us for a trip to Kremmen (near Berlin) where thousands of Grey Cranes stop to feed and rest for a few days on their long flight South. A truly amazing event it was, seeing these flocks of cranes flying above, honking as if to have a conversation or keep in close contact during their long trip, constantly changing individual positions in the long stretched-out lines but essentially maintaining their famous energy-saving V-formation, oldest birds leading.

Grey Cranes Flying South

Grey Cranes Flying South

The sky was cloudy, a blessing in disguise because it allowed us to witness an amazingly beautiful sunset, trees silhouetted against the sky of many colors, cranes crossing our path on the ground and flying above in smaller and larger groups - PURE MAGIC!

Knitting took a back seat for the past couple of weeks but a few projects saw the light of the day. I want to make an unsual textile piece to showcase the gift from a very generous and always inspiring Ravelry friend, Faith Welsh of FIBER FUSION Taos. She (Faith Welsh) and her friend Monte McBride are blessed with a true feeling for fibers as you can easily see when visiting their sites. I was the lucky winner of two skeins of gorgeous silk yarn, so beautiful I have it sit in front of me during work to feast my eyes whenever I want to. Hard to find a project displaying the yarn in its full beauty - maybe a scribble shawlette, lacy and light, combined with kid silk haze? A heart-warming idea ...

Recycled Silk from Fiber Fusion

Shining and glossy, candy of eyes and soul

Magnificent Colors!

Imagine! Faith and Monte are selling these !