getestet Archive - Seite 8 von 10

Edinburgh

Veröffentlicht am 12. September 2014 von Carina3 Kommentare

It’s been a while – I know. What can I say? Life has been (and still is!) busy and somehow I never got around to write lately. However, there has been a lot I wanted to write about!

First and foremost, the five days I spent in Edinburgh together with Julius, a friend from school and her daughter (Julius‘ classmate) in late August.

We would stay in Portobello in a beautiful apartment, hang out at the seaside looking for sea shells, listen to pipers, and take endless walks with naked feet and windbreaker.

We would go to Edinburgh’s old town by bus, climb up Arthur’s Seat, „a hill for magnitude, a mountain in virtue of its bold design“ to quote Robert L. Stevenson (author of “ Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde“ but you probably new that all along), and admire the Edinburgh castle. We would have tea at Stevenson House, listen to the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s dress rehearsal for a fireworks concert (the fiery finale to the Edinburgh International Festival) and the kids would count all signs saying „yes“ or „no“ (to separation of GB) that were glued or put up literally everwhere.

We had rain and sun and cold and warmth – we absolutely loved being in Edinburgh!

There’s a tiny „but“ though …. As always, when travelling in a group you have to submit yourself to majority decisions – and sadly the majority was not interested in yarn. So Julius, my faithful son, was the only one to accompany me to Ginger Twist Studios.

A perfectly wonderful store with a lovely owner. She was working on wrist warmers (just like mine: no thumb hole), we would chat a little about Martina Behm’s Leftie Shawlette, about twitter, our following each other and of course about her beautiful hand dyed yarn, and I so wanted to sit with her and knit for a while!

However, the rest of our small group – the friend and her daughter – were standing outside in drizzling rain (…) and so we left, promising to come back … but never did. Somehow, the weekend was too short to return to the little store – I am already planning on visiting Edinburgh again.

Even more after the second yarn store I had on my list, Kathy’s Knits, was closed on Sunday and Monday of all days (we left Tuesday morning). Looks like my research prior to departure wasn’t all that well, I know …

Next time we’ll go as a family. The man and the son will visit the castle and that should give me plenty of time to look for yarn 🙂

—

Julius wants me to add that he went for a swim. Voilà:

No more Knitting Water

Veröffentlicht am 19. August 2014 von Carina

I am done with knitting water. No more! Over and out!

However, here are pictures of the dark blue water for you to see. As always, J is modelling for me and – again – he prefers to be a bird rather than a fish (or any other animal living under water).

He would flap and flitter and turn and twist (there is some Usain Bolt in it – can you see it?) for a while …

… until I told him to stop.

Now we’re off to hand all water – the blanket and the wrap – over to the artist.

Same old, same old

Veröffentlicht am 7. August 2014 von Carina

Still working on water, occasionally knitting squids or making jam when tired of crafting. Amy is busy bringing the huge red octopus into being. Same old, same old …

J has been gone for a week now (he is in France) and will be gone for another (hear the mother hen cackle? …). Ideally, I would use those weeks to do all the stuff I never do when he’s around. Well, ideally …

Stitch Markers

Veröffentlicht am 10. Juni 2014 von Carina3 Kommentare

In need of stitch markers I have made my own.

So far, they’re only prototypes: some are too long, the two on the very right may be too sharp-edged (depending on the yarn), and the little ring is too small on all of them (whereas the top loop is too big … sigh …).

I found these beads in the streets of Chicago when walking along. 17 beads all in. So I would pick them up, wondering what to do with them whenever I saw them again in my purse. Stitch markers were (and still are) the perfect solution. And guess what – they do the trick: they mark stitches 🙂

Plum Colored Cardigan

Veröffentlicht am 26. Mai 2014 von Carina8 Kommentare

I still owe you the pictures of my cardigan – I almost forgot. Remember, I worried about ruining it in the washing machine? Well, luckily I did not.

Finding the perfect buttons took pretty much as long as knitting the cardigan. For days I could not decide which ones to attach. Finally, I decided on mother of pearl. Depending on the light, there is some brownish-violet-plum inside that beautifully matches the yarn.

Then, I had M take pictures. That – again – would take a long time as either the yarn was depicted a lot lighter than it actually is (but all stitches were clearly visible) or it was pictured in its beautiful proper color (too dark to see anything at all).

Now, here is what we agreed upon:

It is a perfect cardigan in a very pretty color. However, if I were to make another one of these, I would probably choose a different yarn as the cardigan is now very heavy. I am afraid it might wear out at the yoke sooner or later. But for now it fits like a glove (is that what you say?).

Talking about colors, my hair started to turn gray when I was in my mid twenties. I would color it for a while (brown, blonde, blue) until I became too lazy (and less of a revolutionary …). Weird to see how white it has become (actually, quite a nice contrast to the dark cardigan 🙂 ).