Knitting Sandwich

c+g - the u.s. edition

playing a bit of blogging catchup here... but i'd be remiss if i didn't post a few pictures from claire and georg's united states reception.

back at the end of december, brian, lily, and i journeyed to wisconsin to celebrate again with claire and georg.

their u.s. reception was full of claire's homemade touches - the handknit hearts, gorgeous paper flowers, and lots of adorable hand drawn claire & georgs.

it was so special to get another chance to celebrate their union with claire and georg.  especially because this time it included two important people who were missing from the portuguese celebration.

congratulations again claire and georg!!  sending you so much love!!

-melissa

ps - don't you just love georg's shirt?

 

when l+m = c+g

so you had to know there was no way lindsey and i were going to let claire get married without giving her and georg a jointly-knitted gift.  

after surprisingly little debate (we both love log cabining) we settled on buncha squares (rav link) by the lovely mason-dixon ladies in a jewel tone/black color scheme (yarn is knitpicks swish worsted, something we could both easily get our hands on from opposite sides of the country).  

the plan was we could each knit up half the squares and then linds would mail her squares to me and i would seam them up.  (at one point there was some confusion on the total number of squares we were making and lindsey ended up making 9 so i only had to make 7.  i did feel a little guilty, but decided it would be okay since i was doing the seaming and the border.)

we cast on in august, figuring that there was no way we'd make the october wedding deadline.  but the u.s. reception at the end of december - that seemed totally doable.  and we made it - i finished putting on the border on the 24th - a whole 6 days before the reception.

so without further ado, here's lindsey and i's joint project: the c+g afghan.

unfortunately lindsey wasn't able to travel up to wisconsin for the reception, but seeing as how minnesota is so much closer to wisconsin than texas, i was able to attend and to present the lovely couple with their afghan in person.

i'm happy to report that it was well received and as luck would have it is just the perfect size for snuggling and smootching under!

just as we had planned all along.

-melissa

european sandwich - the big day

for these posts about our amazing european sandwich meetup lindsey and melissa will be making tag-team posts.  lindsey will post in orange and melissa will post in green.

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the next morning was the big day!  we went over to the pink house to help claire decorate the reception tent.

 

We got to hang the lovely hearts that friends and family knit.

We scampered home to get ready for the wedding and got back just in time to watch claire's cousin putting on her makeup.

Claire's dad did an amazing job with the ceremony.  By telling his sweet stories in both English and German, I don't think there was a dry eye in the garden he dubbed the 'cathedral of nature'.

On to the reception!  the food was amazing

the cake was topped with a traditional portuguese rooster.

Entertainment was charming.  Claire's cousin's son sang traditional Portugese Fado

claire and georg didn't sing, but they did give heartfelt thank you speeches in both english and german.

We crashed Claire and Georg's photo shoot

But really, who could resist this beauty?

seriously, have you ever seen a more beautiful bride?

we even taught their portuguese photographer the word, "smootch!"

The shawl turned out perfectly and looked amazing with Claire's dress and feathers.

It was a beautiful day and we all enjoyed it long into the night.

-lindsey & melissa

what a day!

I am so so grateful that the sandwich has taken such fabulous pictures of the first international sandwich meetup and are putting up such wonderful posts of the whole thing.  What a fabulous, fairytale, dreams-come-true kind of time it was!

As a fervert photographer myself, it was beyond bizarre to not be taking pictures of each and every moment but in the swirl of it all I just wasn't able to take any.

 

It's exactly because of this anticipated flurry that I made a vow that on my wedding day we'd insist on stealing away for a few minutes to shoot one roll of film ourselves. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Actually, since the very first moments I met Georg in person, somehow I already had exactly this photograph in mind to take on our wedding day:

 

And then we had fun finishing the roll of course

Many many thanks to the sandwich for being there through it all, for coming all the way to Portugal for our first international meetup (I hope one of many more to come), for every joyous moment and for just being the two best friends a girl could dream of! 

More will come soon(ish) after I start developing the MOUNTAIN of film we aquired on our honeymoon throughout glorious Portugal!

Looking forward to catching up with you all!

-cmvs

the wedding house

This October 8, Georg and I are celebrating our wedding ceremony with all of our friends and family.  We had much debate about where to have it since there is such an international crowd to consider.  My parents had a similar conundrum when they got married and had to have two separate weddings, one in Portugal and one in Germany.  As a result, after 39 years of marriage, not one member of my mother's family has met one from my father's. 

We were trying to avoid the same sort of separate affairs and thus wanted to really find a way to have our wedding be a time to unite people across countries and continents.  But where to host such an event?

Imagine our complete surprise and gratitude when my aunt offered to let us marry in her beautiful pink Portuguese home.  I spent many of my summers there growing up and it really is where many of my most precious memories were born, thus making it all the more meaningful. The fact that so many of our friends and family from all around the world are willing to gather here (including the first meeting of the Portuguese and German families), is just overwhelming beyond words. We are so touched by the graciousness and generoaisty of all of our friends and family.

But how on earth can you properly thank someone for hosting your wedding in their glorious home?

Make them a huggable verion perhaps?

Enter the huggable house pattern from More Last Minute Knitted Gifts.  I saw one on a bookshelf on a trip to Purl Soho and knew I just had to make a similar one for my aunt.  Of course her house is pink and has a charm of its own so I had to do quite a bit of futzing with the pattern. 

I had it knit up before I left the States but, with completely bulging suitcases already, had to wait to stuff it until reaching European soil.

Luckily on my very first day in our new Munich neighborhood, I spotted a fabric store that sells stuffing (and might I say that German stuffing is a million times better than the stuff I'm used to!) so the house quickly became much more huggable.

Then last weekend on a wedding-planning-designated trip to Portugal, the huggable house was able to meet the wedding house for the first time. 

I think the two are happy together.

 

It's so exciting to think how many friends and families and countries (8) and continents (4) are going to soon be gathering together within these charming pink walls.  I can't tell you how thrilled, honored and excited we are!

Sending many hugs to you all!

-cmvs

 

 

tying the knot and weaving in the ends

So, it's official...

We're married!

Only a few days after making the cross-Altantic move to Germany, we went off to the registrar's office (just Georg, I and my translator) and we did it!

(it totally cracks me up to have my translator in our wedding pictures-- I can't help but post this)

 

Immediately afterwards we hopped on a train bound for Prague and enjoyed a glorious weekend there. 

Of course there was plenty of knitting to be had on the train, especially appropriate when you're in the midst of your wedding shawl (for the official family celebration in October).

This is my first forray into entrelac (it's the Wedding entrelac shrug) and unfortunately this pattern is not at all designed for novice entrelacers.  I had a very difficult time starting out, especially because it begins differently than most online entrelac tutorials.  Thus, after I finally figured out how it worked, I made up this chart which I am hoping will someday be useful to a fellow confused knitter out there.

Glad to say that I've finally figured it out though and it's coming along slowly.  I am using someLion Brand baby alpaca which makes the endeavor all the more scrumptious.

There are absolutely not enough words to describe how gorgeous and endlessly charming Prague is. Really, both of us were totally blown away.  Unfortunately I don't have many photos as of yet since both G&I are primarily film photographers... but for the meantime I leave you with a few glimpses of Prague at both day & night...

and many greetings from us to you!

-cmvs

 

 

it's official!

...we're engaged!

Georg and I have decided to bridge the ocean between us and begin a new life together.

This exciting new beginning means planning an international move to Munich for lama and I (I've already started brushing up mr. lama on the most key German phrases like, "Gib mir ein Schnitzel!").  It also means a once-in-a-lifetime convergence of the German/Portuguese/British/American family and friends for an October wedding in Portugal.   

As you can see, my life is a bit of a flurry of excitement and planning these days- sorry that I haven't been around much lately and will probably continue to be a less-than-with-it blogger for quite some time.  We're working hard though to get everything sorted out so that I can begin anew in German surroundings and add some international seasoning to our beloved sandwich.

-cmv