We’re back from our trip to Berlin to visit Stacey, and after a few days back at home with kids and laundry and grocery shopping and cooking and dishes and a lot of mama-mama-mom-mommy-mommmmma, we’re all set to return. It was a great, relaxing time and our activities consisted of all our favorite things: eating, chatting, coffee drinking, and crafting! Oh, and we saw some of Berlin too. Ok, we did a quick drive-by on our way to more eating. That counts.
The first thing Susan did was to put on the robot from Stacey’s son’s recent birthday party. Then she got stuck. After grabbing a camera and snapping some fun shots, I did eventually help her out. You gotta have priorities, right?
Then we got down to the serious business of crafting. We found all of Stacey’s beautiful scrap bags, sorted by color, and absconded with them. Thankfully she wasn’t particularly attached to any specific bit, because we started cutting and sewing them together willy-nilly.
Stacey cut out a bazillion squares for a quilt.
With 1 sewing machine and 3 sewers, a little hand-quilting was in order.
We ate some delicious currywurst. Sounds questionable, tastes phenomenal.
We went to KaDeWe, a large, ritzy department store where we enjoyed all the gorgeous Easter-y decor.
And Susan found the easter bunny she wants in her basket.
The Easter decorations were divided up mostly by color, making it very simple to avoid all things purple (yeah, it’s Adrianna writing this post, in case you hadn’t figured it out). Except for the purple journal Susan found that was on sale and made Adrianna buy.
I didn’t think this butterfly tree would fit in our carry-ons, but you might see a copycat version of it coming soon to a Crafterhours blog near you.
Every department store should have fabrics in the “F” section of the alphabetic listings:
And it wasn’t just a section. Because then, THEN, we found this:
Disneyworld for (crafty) grown-ups. Only better. It’s across the street from the main store, which made it tricky to locate… uh… except for this huge sign. That we didn’t see. Until we saw it.
I liked their pincushion display. What a great idea for those of us who have way more pincushions than we do pins.
And they had ribbon….
….and buttons….
…and crafting supplies, oh my!
In retrospect, the store was pretty average by American standards, but for Susan and I, who haven’t lived near this stuff for 2-3 years, it was eye candy galore.
Susan snagged a ton (no, literally) of felt scraps. [Susan would like to brag that they’re allllll wool and she only paid 5 euro for allllll of them.]
We took some fun pics out in front of the colorful “Idee” entryway.
And that night we had a terrific dinner of real steak with herbed butter with a side of real baked potato and real sour cream. I know, again, not very impressive if you live in America, or another steak-serving country. But for us? Heaven.
Just to prove we did more than shop and eat, here are some finished projects. Clockwise, starting at 12: Stacey’s first finished quilt block (and all her cut-out blocks to the side), Adrianna’s scrappy skirt and embellished onesie for Stacey’s niece, Susan’s ticker tape quilted journal cover, Susan’s itty-bitty teeny-weeny 1/2 inch square block quilt turned potholder, and Adrianna’s hand-sewn patchwork doll quilt.
Stacey, thanks for being an awesome hostess and letting us so thoroughly invade your space and steal your fabric! We miss you and Germany already.
What a fun trip. Loved seeing the photos!
I am so jealous of Idee. I lived in Vienna, Austria for almost 3 years and never found anything close to that. Crafts and fabrics were so expensive and hard to find! If only I had lived in Berlin!
Where are you guys located? I used to live in Vilseck, Germany with my family. I miss it so!
I’m curious where you are as well. My husband and I lived in Sicily for 3 years when he was in the Navy.
Hi Sarah and Emy! E-mail us and we’ll talk! Susan :)