Some Modest Proposals
I said I’d post again with some plans for autumn winter knitting and so here they are. I went on a bit of a shopping spree in Winnie’s before I headed off on maternity leave. I have plenty yarn in my stash and lots of projects lined up already but as we all know you never have quite the right yarn for some new project that takes your fancy.
I seem to have become obsessed with baby hats, since my last post I’ve finished yet another baby hat. It’s called Propeller and it’s from Woolly Wormhead‘s excellent e-book Wee Woolly Toppers. It’s a great collection of baby hats mostly in double knitting yarns so it’s easy to knit them from stuff you have in your stash already. The patterns are very clear and very cute. I fell in love with the pattern for Kilkenny as I’m from there and it’s cute so I bought a skein of Sirdar baby crofter to make it with.
I discovered that I have the pattern for Woolly Wormhead’s weekender beret in a magazine so I decided I would make that for myself. It’s done with Rowan Cocoon so I bought a lovely skein of it in a neutral colour so that it will go with a lot of my knitted scarves and shawls. Cocoon is a lovely heavy feeling yarn, I also really like that it comes in 100g balls. I really dislike chunky yarns in 50g balls as you always need more than one of them to make anything and then you have the added hassle of joining them. 100g balls make things much easier as they go further. I can see why companies put yarn in 50g balls as the price for one sounds much more reasonable but it makes for a more annoying knitting experience.
So far my plans are pretty reasonable, two hats isn’t an insane amount of knitting. I know who say that I won’t be able to knit anymore when I have a baby. I’m not entirely sure about that as many of my knitting friends have young children and many of them took up knitting as a hobby when they had a baby. So I think I’ll be able to snatch a few moments here and there to knit. That’s the good thing about knitting and crochet, you can do a row or two and put it down without affecting it. You don’t need to be in a special room and you don’t need much equipment that has to be set up to do it either. If you have to stop in the middle it doesn’t matter. If you try doing that when brewing or some other hobby disaster will ensue. Saying that I’m hoping I’ll get to do a brew at some stage before the winter is out.
As a challenge to myself I have bought the yarn to make one of Aoibhe Ni‘s beautiful crochet shawls. I fell in love with her Dublin bay shawl the first time I saw it. It is gorgeous. I also have no idea how it was done, the stitches and pattern are so very clever. That’s part of what attracts me to lace patterns, some people do jigsaws, play chess or do crosswords, I work out lace patterns. I will probably wait some time until I start this one as baby brain and new baby tiredness would probably mean I end up with a tangled mess. It will be there waiting for me but in the meantime I’ve started crocheting Aoibhe’s winter warmer. It’s a crochet hot water bottle cover done in crochet cables and there is a crochet a long for the pattern over on Aoibhe’s Ravelry group. I love my hot water bottle in the winter but to my shame I don’t have a hand made cover for it. I’m using yellow studio Donegal aran tweed. I hadn’t really done crochet cables before but they are fun to do and I’m finding it easy to remember the repeat.
That’s all for now. New baby is due to arrive very soon so there might not be much blogging for a little while. Happy knitting and crochet!
I’ve started so I’ll finish
I’ve been finishing up a few projects recently and I’ve now reached the point where I don’t have much on the needles or hook. I feel like I can plan some lovely autumn and winter knitting and crochet without feeling any guilt for projects that I haven’t quite finished. More of plans for colder days in another post though, in this one I want to show you lots of lovely finished things.
A little while back I started the Elise shawl and I finished it recently. I really enjoyed making it and it seemed to take me no time at all, I don’t even remember working particularly hard on it. I just looked at it one day and realized I had used almost all the yarn and so I added on the border. It’s a very pink affair and while it looked good but I thought it might be a little small. This all changed after I blocked it. I use a yoga mat to block and when I pinned out the shawl it was huge and the edge went over the mat. I’m delighted with it, it is gorgeous. I will definitely be crocheting more shawls in the future and I will be wearing this one with pride.
Next up is a project that had been hanging around for ages and ages. I found my scroll lace scarf by Ysolda in the back of the wardrobe where it had languished for some time. I had the exact yarn for this in my stash, it’s Old Maiden Aunt alpaca silk sport weight in the colour way bracken, a lovely soft green with some brown in it. I started the scarf just as the winter came to an end and then got fed up with it, during the summer I found it when tidying up. I picked it up again and did the scroll lace repeats. After the lace edge was done it was a matter of picking up the stitches along the edge and then working in short rows to create the rest of the scarf. It’s worked at a very loose gauge which seems to suit it. I’m not massively keen on garter stitch lace but I do think it looks much better as a finished scarf than it did when it was just the lace edge on it’s own. I tend to wear a lot of green and brown so I think this will definitely be worn a lot this winter.
In between finishing up those projects I did some quick and easy baby knitting. I knit a baby hat in sublime baby cashmere merino silk DK. It’s such a lovely soft warm yarn and it knits so nicely, love it. I cast on about 64 stitches in the round with some 2×2 ribbing and then decreased at the top to make this hat. I was using metal double pointed needles and I think they were the reason I got some laddering between the needles which sort of bothered me but not enough to rip back the hat. After that I made some baby mittens in the same yarn from the book Irresistible gifts to knit volume 2. There are a lot of nice baby and toy patterns in this book. There are some particularly jaunty looking chickens in there and I’m hoping to get around to making them sometime.
Lastly I have yet another baby hat to show you. This one was made to go with the purple baby dress. The pattern is called sea star and not only is it cute but it’s very cleverly constructed too. You cast on and make a scalloped edge and then the edge continues up the side of the hat. It’s very sweet. The photo isn’t the best but as the baby arrival date gets closer I think I won’t have time to be posting as much. I will get a photo of herself wearing the whole outfit and post it at some stage.
One last thing to show you. This is another hand made finished project but it wasn’t made by me. I’ve mentioned a few times that my Mum is an excellent knitter but she is even better at sewing. A friend of ours very kindly gave us a moses basket for the baby. I looked for a nice cover in the shops but none of them were great. My Mum decided that this just wouldn’t do so she set about sewing a cover. So here’s what she came up with. Isn’t it just adorable? Much nicer than the shop ones and it’s so nice to have a place for the baby to sleep that has been handmade. Lots of finished stuff in this post. The baby will be arriving very very soon so I may not be able to post here for a while. I’m hoping I’ll still be able to snatch some knitting time though!
Baby Dress and Bonnet
In my last post I mentioned I’d started some baby knitting. Some women are seized by a great urge to knit a load of cute baby things and they churn out all manner of cute outfits. Some even learn how to knit when they find out that they are pregnant. I wasn’t consumed by an urge to knit, for the first three months I didn’t want to knit at all, not for me and not for the baby. Luckily babies are small and it’s quick to knit things for them. In the past two weeks I’ve started baby knitting as it just wouldn’t be right if the baby didn’t have some stuff to wear that was knitted by me. Also I was in danger of being shown up by my Mum as she is knitting two baby cardigans. I’ve knit a dress, a bonnet and a pair of booties. I’m currently powering my way through another hat.
The dress was knitted using this really simple pattern by Rebecca Gunn. It’s very simple and effective. The yarn is King Cole’s Bamboo Cotton which I got in Winnie’s Craft Cafe. I work there but don’t say much about it on the blog, it’s a great place to work and of course I think it’s well worth a visit to buy some yarn and have some coffee and cake in the cafe. Say hello to me if you do call in! Bamboo cotton is one of my favourite yarns, it’s a blend of 50% bamboo and 50% cotton, the cotton gives it some body and structure and the bamboo gives it softness, a bit of shine and good drape. It also comes in great strong colours and the balls are good value 100g ones. I love purple so decided to make the dress purple with lime green stripes. I’m not a huge fan of pastels and the pastel pinks you see for baby girls are very wishy washy so my baby is going to have cool strong coloured clothes. There were quite a few ends to sew in on the dress but I don’t mind as I’m one of these odd knitters who likes the finishing up process. I did a mattress stitch seam up the sides. There’s a nice article explaining different types of seams and when they are appropriate in the new Twist Collective here. While you’re on the website you might as well also read Carol Feller’s excellent article about the last remaining Irish woollen mills too. The dress is very cute and I got to use some of my button collection as I had some lime green buttons that matched perfectly.
After that I was on a roll so decided to start a baby hat. I was reading Knit Inc’s blog and loved the gorgeous baby bonnet she had made and so I decided I had to knit one too. I decided to try out a new yarn, Adriafil’s Sierra Andina, it is as soft as a cloud. The pattern is from Drops and has the imaginative title of bonnet in wavy pattern. I enjoyed knitting this as there is a bit of a pattern and some interesting details what with the sewing up and the picking up stitches for the bottom part. I used to hate picking up stitches but recently I think I’m getting the hang of it. I especially liked the eyelet row and turn back that creates the nice edging on the bottom.
I had a bit of the yarn left over so decided I’d knit some baby booties to match the hat. I got a loan of Knit One, Knit All by Elizabeth Zimmerman from a lovely knitter at knit night and decided to try out the tie baby booties. I’ll direct you to Knit Inc’s blog where she has a great review of the book including pictures. I think it’s a great book and I have to get a copy for myself. The things EZ does with garter stitch and shaping, it’s such inspirational knitting even if you never made anything from the book. I don’t think that would happen though as many of the patterns are so clever you feel like you just have to try them out, she also designs using a classic style that never goes out of fashion. The baby booties were a lot of fun to make and are very cute. I ran out of yarn so had to cast off the second one one row from the end. Luckily I had some similar white Drops alpaca in my stash so I used that to sew them up. I may add some ribbon to up the cute factor even more.
Toucans, hooks and shawls
While on holidays I started my first crochet shawl. I’ve knit many shawls but had never crocheted one for some unknown reason. The pattern I chose was the Elise shawl (Ravelry link) and it has been plain sailing and very enjoyable to crochet. There are only two rows to remember which makes it very easy to do. The yarn I’m using is Malabrigo sock and it’s gorgeous to work with and I just love the bright pink. In fact I was loving everything about this project until the crochet hook I was using started to really annoy me. I use a few different kinds of hooks. My favourite ones are the Clover hooks as they have a big comfy handle and the metal is smooth so the yarn slides easily on them. I have them in the sizes I use most, they are more expensive than other hooks though. For the other sizes I use Pony hooks as they are easy to get and fairly inexpensive. From 4.5mm down the Pony hooks are made of metal and are fine apart from the fact they don’t have a comfy grip. I usually prefer metal hooks as I find the yarn slides over them more easily. The larger Pony hooks are plastic and I was using a 5.5mm one.
The problem is with the little groove where the size of the hook is printed. You can see it clearly in the picture here. Every time I made a stitch the loop would slide up and get stuck in the groove. Maybe it’s the way I crochet and it wouldn’t bother some people but it started to really irritate me. I’ve checked my other Pony hooks and my 6mm hook doesn’t have this annoying groove and 6mm is embossed on it higher up than on the 5.5mm. I got a Clover 5.5mm hook which solved the problem and I started flying along happily on the shawl again.
I’m still working away on the shawl, I seem to be working on loads of things all at once these days. I’m hoping to get the numbers of projects down to a manageable level soon though. I did manage to get one thing finished recently. A friend asked me ages ago to crochet him a toucan and well who am I to argue with a request like that? It just so happened that I had just the pattern. I found a toucan in Brigette Read’s Super super cute crochet and promised to make him. Reading the reviews just now it seems like many people had problems with the patterns in this book. I have to say I didn’t find anything wrong with the pattern for the toucan at all. Now saying that I’ve made quite a few crochet toys at this stage and am used to the usual construction and increasing and decreasing methods. To me most crochet toys are made in a similar way so perhaps I just didn’t notice any mistakes. Perhaps a beginner might find it more difficult. I was very pleased with how the toucan turned out especially his fabulous beak. I made sure the beak would have the proper curve by stuffing a pipe cleaner into it and using that to give the right shape. However the real test was whether my friend would like him. Thankfully he was very pleased with him.
I’ve finally started some baby knitting and am making quick progress so I should be back here soon with some cute finished stuff to show you.
Endless Summer?
About a year ago I started work on my Summer’s End cardigan. I think I got distracted by a summer of shawls and didn’t manage to finish it for the end of the summer. I then forgot all about it and it languished at the bottom of the WIP bag. A few weeks ago I decided I better finish it off so I could wear it this summer. It’s been an unseasonably cold and wet June here so a wool cardigan makes sense especially in the evenings. The cardigan is knitted all in one piece to under the arms and so the rows are quite long. I drafted in my Mum to help with a few rows as she knits really quickly, luckily we have very similar tension so it doesn’t look any different. I then started the sleeves which went pretty quickly, I did them on double pointed needles which I find quicker than magic loop. I decided to do the lace pattern on the sleeves. I had been tempted to leave them plain for speed but I’m really happy I didn’t as they look much better with the lace.
I joined the sleeves to the body, I had done a few rows when I noticed the right front was wider than the left. I had messed up the raglan decreases! Some drama may have ensued… Luckily I was at my parents house and my Mum calmly helped me to rip it back and pick up all the stitches. She gave me a good tip, I’d usually try to pick up the stitches so they are facing the right way on the needles when I go to knit again. She picks them up as they present themselves and then knits them through the back loop and it’s much easier to pick up the stitches that way. Luckily the yarn is quite sticky so I didn’t lose any stitches.
After that I made sure to do the decreases properly and it all went smoothly from there. I cast off the main body and then swiftly moved on to the band around the front as I knew that if I put it off I wouldn’t finish it. I didn’t put any button holes on the band, instead I sewed on popper fasteners and sewed buttons over them. There was some debate and time was spent getting just the right buttons to match the cardigan. I blocked it lightly but the end of the cardigan still rolls up a little. I’m hoping this will smooth down with wear or maybe I will need to wet block it to sort it out.
We went on holidays to Cork recently, it was a misty and rainy sort of a week so I wore the cardigan a lot. After a few nights in Kinsale we moved to the Beara peninsula where we stayed in a friends cottage. The Thursday was nice so we walked to Cashelkeelty stone circle which is located off the road between Ardgroom and Lauragh. One of my many other interests is megalith hunting. The walk up is along by a pretty stream and waterfall and through some rock filled fields, we may have disturbed some sheep on the way. The stone circles are in a really spectacular setting with a fabulous view. I was wearing my cardigan so we snapped some photos.
As you can see it actually fits me! I was careful to measure it against me as I knitted to make sure that the lace stopped at my waist and that the part to the underarm was the right length and that the sleeves were just so. I love the colour and think it will get a lot of wear. I also don’t think I will make another cardigan for a while, it just takes me ages being a slow enough knitter. I think I enjoy making smaller things more. It’s nice to prove I can do it now and then though.
Just in case you’re looking for it, the pattern is available for free here.
Elderflower Cordial, The Taste Of Summer
This summer I promised myself I’d explore other things to drink. This was partly inspired by Victoria Moore’s excellent book, How To Drink. In it she explores different drinks through the seasons. There are a lot of cocktail recipes and sections about ore unusual spirits. I really enjoyed it even though I don’t really drink spirits, her writing is excellent. It was the non-alcoholic sections that really interested me, from how to make a proper coffee to tea to lemon presse it gave me loads of ideas. I’m not a fan of sickly sweet artificially flavoured fizzy drinks at all so when not drinking alcohol I like to try something different. Obviously now that I’m pregnant I really have an incentive to seek out interesting non-alcoholic drinks. She also talked about fruit cordials which really interested me so I resolved that when the elderflowers bloomed this year I’d make elderflower cordial.
Luckily Dave works near a load of elderflower trees so last week he arrived home with a large bag full of blossoms. I cleaned them off by shaking them lots. There were some small flies on them so I made sure that they were all gone. I used about 35 flower heads. I looked around on the internet and found this recipe from Ashridge Trees. This recipe uses camden powder to preserve the cordial, I had some from home brewing so I used it as the recipe makes quite a lot and I didn’t want it going off before I had a chance to drink it all. The cordial was surprisingly easy to make.
Ingredients:
35 elderflower heads with the stalks pulled off
2 sliced oranges
2 sliced lemons
1300g of sugar
1 heaped tbsp of citric or tartaric acid. I used a mixed acid blend of citric, tartaric and malic acid that I use for brewing
3 pints of boiling water
Method:
In a large pot I boiled the water and dissolved the sugar in it. I then added the acid and the orange and lemon. Then I stirred in the elderflowers. I covered the pot with the lid and left it twenty four hours. The next day I decanted the liquid into a demi-john, if you don’t have one you can just decant it into another pot. I used a sieve to catch any stray bits. I added a tsp of camden powder to the demi-john and swirled it to dissolve the powder. I then left it for a few hours. I used two slom bottles from Ikea to bottle the cordial. I cleaned them using brewing sterilizer. I also used another smaller bottle for the last bit of cordial which we gave as a present to a friend. I then decanted the cordial using a funnel and some muslin fabric to make sure any bits were gone.
The smell of elderflowers and fruits in the kitchen was fabulous. I love the smell of elderflowers. The next day I had some cordial diluted with water and ice. It is fabulous even if I do say so myself. It’s really refreshing and the smell of elderflowers really leaps out at you. It’s not too sweet and I feel like I have bottled the summer. I have two big bottles and I don’t think they will last until the end of the summer. This evening I tried some mixed with sparkling water and ice and that was great too. I hear it’s also lovely when mixed with sparkling wine or champagne. I was really impressed with the results of this cordial and I think I’ll be making more cordials. They are easy to make and the results are quick too, none of the waiting around that you get with brewing beer.
Gardening
I’ve never really been much into gardening. I do like flowers but have never been so into them that I could be bothered growing them and tending to them. Our garden here has a few pots, hanging baskets and a raised bed down the end of the garden that looks nice and is easy to look after. Westley the dog likes to dig up and eat flowers so the pots mostly have hardy plants like roses in them. He keeps away from roses after he once tried to eat a rose at my parents house and he ended up with a mouthful of thorns. He’s a silly dog but not that silly.
My Mum and Dad on the other hand like gardening, their garden is a riot of colourful flowers in summer. My Dad grows lots of fruit and vegetables in his patch and greenhouse at the back of the garden. There are apple and pear trees, plums, redcurrants, onions, lettuce, herbs, potatoes and much more. When I go home I usually get a bag of lettuce and tomatoes to bring back with me and they taste great. I also love using fresh herbs in cooking as they taste so much better than dried ones. This all started me thinking that I would like a small vegetable garden where I could grow easy stuff like lettuce and herbs.
The main problem is Westley, he is left alone in the garden and a bed of vegetables would be too much temptation. He would dig it up just from curiosity. I have even caught him trying to jump up to eat the flowers which overhang the hanging baskets. Also the soil in our garden is terrible, we paved most of the garden as it gets completely water logged as the soil just doesn’t drain. So I started to think that a raised bed would be a good way to solve the soil and dog problem in one foul swoop. My Dad was enlisted to see if he could make something from wood that would be high enough to keep the dog out. He arrived shortly after my birthday with an amazing raised bed.
I started a thread on the Irish Knitters forum on Ravelry to see if anyone had any advice. Of course knitters know everything about everything and soon there was a great discussion about what to plant and everyone’s gardening plans. I set to work pottering about in my shed and I planted a load of seed in pots. I wasn’t terribly hopeful that they would germinate since I have rather black thumbs but to my surprise they did! I got a few starter packs from Erin, they contained seeds, compost and fiber pots that eventually break down. I planted mixed lettuce, rocket, spring onions, chives, parsley and thyme. We filled the bed with some sort of compost for vegetables, I know loads about this can’t you tell? I planted some chives and lemon balm that my father in law gave me, he’s also a dab hand at this vegetable growing lark. I also put in some scented stock, marigolds and geraniums for some colour. Dave painted the wood the same colour as the shed and it looks really great now.
I’ve been surprised by how much fun it’s been. Dave has even gotten in on the act and planted some potatoes in a grow bag that has been left at the bottom of the garden, surprisingly Westley has left it completely alone so maybe he is getting some sense. The lettuce and rocket are almost ready to eat at this stage and I’ll have to plant more soon. The parsley has raced ahead and has been transplanted to it’s own pot. I also planted onions and some garlic. Since the photos were taken everything has gotten a lot bigger since we’ve had plenty rain recently. I’m looking forward to being able to go out and chop my own herbs when cooking. I also grew some chilli plants inside and these have taken off really well. I’m slightly concerned about how much I am looking forward to having real chillis that I have grown from seed. It’s a short step from there to becoming a complete chilli nerd and sending off for packets of seeds of all the different varieties. I’ll report back with more progress later in the summer.
Lace Flower Brooch
It’s all quiet here on the blog. Work continues on my never ending Summer’s End cardigan. I’ve started the second sleeve so the end is in sight. I’m not knitting anything else until I get it done. Then I can cast on a baby hat and cardigan and start making some small quick things like toys that I’ve been planning. I’m a slow knitter which usually it doesn’t matter too much to me, I knit for the enjoyment of the knitting, working out a lace chart or a new technique pleases me and the end result isn’t my main goal. However when I knit a garment like a cardigan I really see how slow my progress is. I want to be wearing this cardigan for the summer so I’m going to plug away at it and finish it as if I leave it again I know it will never get done.
However I did cheat on the cardigan last week and make a quick flower brooch for my Mum. She wore my Captiva wrap to my cousin’s wedding last week. However it needed a pin to help keep it on. So I had look and there in my copy of Brave New Knits was the perfect brooch, the lace flower pin. I used the remainder of the yarn used to make the Captiva to make the bottom of the brooch. On top I used some leftover kid silk haze to make the lace flower. Luckily the leftover kid silk matched the grey of my Mum’s dress. It’s a very easy but effective pattern. There are many gorgeous patterns in Brave New Knits, it’s a lovely book. I also liked the fact that it includes interviews with the designers of all the patterns. A knitting book that you can also have a read of is a win for me.
Back to the pin. The knitting and assembly of the brooch took only an evening or two. I liked that the base was composed of short rows of garter stitch as that echoed the construction of the wrap which is also short rows of garter stitch. I presume nobody else but a knitter would notice that. The beading you see on the centre took a bit longer as I’m not terribly good at beading. Eventually twelve swaroski crystals and a load of seed beads were sewn to the middle of the brooch. I’m glad I did the beading though as it really sets it off and completes the look of it.
I also have to report the arrival of some new stash! This was unexpected as I won a prize on Undermeoxter’s blog. Last year she had an Easter hunt on her blog and she did it again this year which was great as it’s a lot of fun. She laid a series of clues asking where she was. I’ve visited Carrowmore megalithic tombs before, my photos are here. So I recognized Listoghil tomb straight away. She sent me a really fab prize, a lace shawl kit from Easy Knits. The colours of the yarn are gorgeous, the purple is just my thing and I love the buttons. Thanks D!
Expecting
I did promise to explain why I hadn’t been posting here recently so I better do that. So here goes, I’m pregnant! I’m due in October, I’m really excited and utterly delighted as is Dave.
It relates to the blog because not only was I incapable of writing blog posts I didn’t have anything to write about. I had an awful lot of nausea and was really really tired in the evenings. I tried to knit and it wasn’t happening. I tried to crochet another square for my blanket which I’ve decided will be for the baby if I ever get it done. I think I ripped out the same row about five times before I just gave up. I couldn’t concentrate enough to work it out. I then tried spinning as usually when I not feeling the love for knitting or crochet I spin. Nope spinning made me nauseous, like being really really car sick. I still haven’t tried it as I don’t want to associate it with being sick.
I started the lovely ruff shawl by my favourite lace designer Kieran Foley as it is not too complicated and I hoped that it would cheer me up. I made some slow progress and was happy with knitting a row or two now and then. The start of the shawl is very simple, there are eyelets on the edge and it’s a half circle so there are a few increase rows. I looked at the shawl more closely yesterday and I have discovered that it is full of mistakes, I forgot the eyelets on a few rows and no I can’t live with it so I’ve ripped it out and I will try again when my brain is co-operating. I also started a very simple chunky cowl using yarn I got in France that isn’t going well as there is something about the yarn that I really don’t like, it made me ill to knit with it. Maybe it was just the nausea colouring my view of it but now I can’t finish it.
In the last week or two I’ve started to slowly feel better and I find I can crochet so I started designing a shrug using some gorgeous shiny drops cotton viscose. I’m using the simplest mesh stitch and it seems my poor addled brain can cope with that so I’ll keep going on that. I also finally managed to do a few rounds of the crochet blanket square which was great as I was starting to fear I had gone craft stupid! I’ve also finally started the sleeves on my summer’s end cardigan which I think I will stick with and finish this time so I can finally get to wear it. I seem to be able to knit it as the pattern isn’t new to me.
As a knitter and crocheter people have been asking what I’ll knit for the baby and if I’ve made anything yet. I haven’t made anything yet but what plans I have! I love baby booties and will definitely be making some of the very cute ones I’ve seen on Ravelry (Ravelry link). I’m also loving pinterest for baby planning. Our spare room is a very bright sky blue and I think it will be staying that colour as my baby room board has shown me that I love clouds and rainbows. I didn’t use pinterest much before now but it is very good for putting decorating ideas together. That’s all for now, hopefully I will be back soon with something finished!
I’m not drinking any beer at the moment, I don’t even want any. I do plan on trying some alcohol free beers and making some cordials and whatever other homemade drinks I can think of. I’m not keen on sugary fizzy soft drinks so need some tasty alternatives for summer drinking. Any reviews and experiments will be appearing here.
Frankfurt March 2011
At the start of March we headed off to Frankfurt for a few days. I already blogged about our trip to Paris, we booked the trip to Frankfurt at the same time. It was chosen as the flight was on sale and the times suited best and neither of us had been to Germany before. We didn’t have any idea what we would see or do while there. Once the trip was booked we discovered that a friend of ours lived near Frankfurt. Dave also realized that an internet friend of his lived near there too, he had known him for years online but had never met him. Suddenly we had lots to do in Frankfurt.
We arrived in Frankfurt and checked into our hotel, it was a boutique hotel so all the rooms are different. It was quite quirky and I liked it. We went into Frankfurt just in time to catch some of the carneval parade which seems to be an excuse for normally sensible Germans to be silly, many did look uncomfortable about being silly though. Then we met up with Bernd and headed off at breakneck speed down the autobahn to visit his house. When I say house I mean computer museum… This is Bernd’s house, the analog computer museum. He has another house where he actually lives with his wife just up the road as the computers have taken over. I loved looking at all the old analog computers. I loved electronics in college and have a fondness for op-amps and analog computers, they make sense to me. Dave’s article about the museum is here. It turned out that Bernd’s wife R is a knitter and spinner so we had plenty to chat about over the delicious cake she had made for us while the guys nerded away about computers. She’s a really talented spinner and her house is filled with lovely knitted and crocheted throws and other lovely stuff.
The next day we went to the zoo. Frankfurt’s zoo is quite large and was well worth seeing. I will admit to eyeing up a lovely grey alpaca for his impressive fleece. There were also vicuña, they are believed to be the wild ancestors of alpaca, their hair is very fine and is one of the most expensive fibers in the world.
There was a small amount of yarn shopping. In Frankfurt the department stores still have proper haberdashery departments which is great. There was a good selection of yarn, fabric, buttons, notions, sewing stuff in both Karstadt and the other department store we visited. I got some crochet cotton and some fabric in Karstadt. I was also really impressed with all the lovely home stuff in the shops. They really go in for easter in Germany and the shops were filled with cute chickens, bunnies and flowers.
On the last day we were hanging around and wandering around the town when we passed a shop with baskets of yarn outside. The shop was Wolle Rodel and it had a really nice selection of yarn. Lots of Regia sock yarn and their own brand stuff which looked really nice. It was well laid out to with many nice colours. I left with these lovely sock yarns but they aren’t for socks. The plan is to knit Kieran Foley’s lovely wrap fleece with them. The version shown in Knitty is more for winter but I think the blue and green and the shifting lace pattern will look a little like waves on the sea. Well at least I hope so.
I also got some lovely fabric which you can see below. I have no idea what to do with this, it was pretty and I bought it. Frankfurt was a nice place to visit, there isn’t loads to do in terms of visitor stuff but it’s a nice place to hang out. We had an advantage in that we met up with people we knew on Saturday night and they brought us to dinner. I really liked German food, there’s a lot of sausages and potatoes. I also liked the apple juice mixed with sparkling water called Apfelschorle. In my next post I’ll explain why I haven’t been posting here so much the last while.
