Sock it to me

Finally I have finished my second pair of socks! It really was a struggle at the end to get there, as I wasn't in love with the colour choices I had made, but thanks to a looming KAL deadline I pushed on.

I ran out of my contrast striping colour just above the ankle, which really didn't matter so much as by then it wasn't contrasting anymore. Lesson learnt, next time I need to check a lot further in to the striping yarn before settling on a contrast!
The mock lace cable stitch I used on the leg is excellent, easy to knit (no cable needle), looks effective and gives a lovely squishy stretchy rib to the sock.
So I'm not in love with them, but I've learnt a lot along the way. The fit is excellent thanks to learning about knitting a gusset to accommodate my fat ankles! The heel fits much better than the afterthought heel I previously tried (although I think again that's mostly down to the gusset). Learnt a great mock cable rib, and a new bind off 'Jenys surprisingly stretchy bind off', which again is easy but so effective.
I've also learnt something about joining a KAL. It worked well for me by having a deadline to meet, I know these would have been cast aside when the striping yarn ran out otherwise. I didn't get any sense of being 'cheered on' as I've seen people comment, conversely I find it hard to ignore those who completely go against the spirit of the thing by entering items they clearly made before the KAL commenced. Not even smart enough to edit the dates on their project pages connected to the entry. Clearly just in it for the prizes, and I'm finding it hard to keep quiet about it, but at this stage, I know better than to stir the crazy when it comes to internet groups!

I've joined the next KAL already, with a Christmas gift theme, although I'm not sure what I'm going to knit on for it! I have been trying out a few Christmas decoration patterns and thinking over what I might do with them, and I still have two shawls on the needles to, so keep knitting!

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Knitvember

Is it the cold weather? Is it lack of other distractions? Is it an addiction? I don't know, but I have gone knitting crazy of late. Which also means I've been spending hours on Ravelry queuing up even more things to knit! Having been home with a cold for a week has provided plenty of Harry Potter watching and knitting time too!

There's the socks from Knitabulls Podcast KAL, these have been a learning experience. I've only made one pair before, and then used an afterthought heel. This time I tried a short row heel, and I tried it over and over, for some reason I kept stuffing it up and ending up with an uneven number of decreases. After a few goes, I settled on good enough and knitted on:

As the colour change progressed in the yarn though I didn't like them, it looked like the foot part and the leg part were two different socks? So I bit the bullet, and have now pulled them back to before the heel. In searching for a new heel style, I discovered 'gussets' so I pulled back a bit more and knitted a gusset and short row heel, making a much neater and better fit. Now I'm continuing on up the leg and including the stripes to try and make the colour blend better - I'm not sure how many more stripes I can squeeze out of the purple yarn though.

Then I cast on a new hat for myself, the Elfunny Beret by FadenStille. The pattern states for an average sized head, of 53.5, mine is 60, which means ‘one size fits all’ sit on top of my head like a fez. I was in need of a new hat for winter, one that properly covered my ears, and use a yarn that I don’t find itchy. I generally don’t have any problems with any yarn mix, until it’s a hat, then my forehead is incredibly itchy!

Using two balls of Patons Click, from my stash (yay), I increased the cast on by 10% to 88, adding a full graph repeat, cast on with 4mm and changed to 5.5mm for the lace work. I kept getting a bit lost on the lace chart and making errors, mostly down to reading it from the iPad, and watching a movie on the same iPad-meaning I read the chart line, then close it to resume movie. It would have been a very quick knit if I hadn't needed to pull back a number of rows to correct an error, I must learn how to use lifelines.

I blocked it using an upturned large soup bowl on a dinner plate! Fits great, I'm really happy with it.

Then an even quicker knit was the Gaptastic Cowl by Jen Geigley. I bought this yarn in Stockholm with the intention of trying a Wellie Warmer pattern out, but I wasn't happy with they way they knitted up. I immediately frogged them and found another use for the yarn so it didn't add to the stash! This will be for a friends birthday. I would definitely knit this again, as it makes for a super quick gift knit, although I don't enjoy knitting on such large needles - I used a 12mm circular. I also found it difficult to successfully hide the join of the two balls of yarn, so next time I would look for single skeins of enough length. This one used two balls of Drops, Andes.

Then more stash matching to my Ravelry queue, and I cast on the Olympic National Park Shawl, by Very busy Monkey. I had three balls of Drops Alpaca in the stash which is so lovely and soft and I think will make a lovely shawl. I have no idea what I originally bought it for!

Just incase that wasn't enough, I went for one more cast on, another shawl. I managed to match up two more balls from the stash to cast on Dream Stripes by Calliau Berangere.

There is kind of a plan in all this casting on though. The socks are a good small portable project, which now the heel is turned, I can work on anywhere, without a pattern and pick up and put down without a problem. The KAL goes until the end of November so that won't be a problem to finish them, and it will make sure they are finished! The National Park Shawl requires constant pattern watching, and is a perfect chance to give something more complex a try while I'm home to focus on it. The Dream Stripes is a really simple increase pattern, which I've cast on ready for the next travel trip, and or when the socks are finished.

I'm trying very hard to resist casting on for Christmas gifts and ending up with panic knitting, like last year! Instead I'm going to focus on chipping away at the stash, and perhaps there will be some finished objects that then become presents.

Enough typing, I've got knitting to get on with!

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New York New York

I was very lucky to have a weekend in New York, on the way home from the work trip to Orange County. I was so excited, and although it was only a weekend we visited a lot of the highlights. Autumn colours, pretzels, outdoor skating, yellow cabs, lots of coffee, miles of walking, visiting iconic stores such as Tiffany's and FAO Schwarz, we rode up to the 86th floor of the Empire State, and so much more!

I've always thought of it as somewhere I wanted to visit one day, now I think it's somewhere I certainly want to go back to!

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A different type of Autumn

This week we are in sunny California, and amazingly, this is what Autumn, or Fall, looks like! This is the view from my hotel room, how very spoilt. It's even been warm enough for people to be swimming in the gorgeous resort pools, in the middle of the day when the sun is overhead anyway. I had to go buy sunblock! I seriously can't wrap my head around the fact this is November (maybe that sounds odd coming from a native Aussie, but I've gotten used to European seasons now).

So it's been rather odd, that I've been sitting out on the cabana by the pool, knitting socks! This month I've joined my first ever KAL (knit a long for the uninitiated). I'm still trying to understand the online knitting world, discussion boards etc on Ravelry, and decided to get into it and give it a try. I have become addicted to watching video podcasts about knitting, which led me to find Knitabulls, who have a group on Ravelry of 4000 members! Knitabulls is the lovely Diane, who appears to have a very laid back approach on the whole KAL rules - some other groups I've previewed seem to have long complicated rules and conditions to even join the group, never mind enter anything.

The November KAL is Socks, something I've tried only two times so far, one pair successful the other a total failure, here's hoping this time around goes well. I had to dig out my Knitting Master class book again to get the Invisible cast on right, so knitted up the toes at home before coming away, then I got this much knitted on the flights!

Wow did I get in a mess though, trying to take yarn from the inside and outside of two balls of wool within one bag. I spent more time unraveling knotted yarn than knitting I think, but loving the effect of the self striping against the solid.

I may have overestimated how much knitting I would need for my trip though, I brought these socks, yarn for a new winter hat, some boot toppers that I've started but want to start over, and my shawl to finish the lace edge! Of course, I've spent more time queuing up even more patterns! Somehow there's just never enough hours to knit is there?

 

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Skansen tropicarium or 'When Lemurs attack'

Just before leaving Stockholm I revisited Skansen's tropical section. I've been once before about 18 mths ago, and it's taken me till now to get over the last visit. Let me explain. I love Lemurs, they are the funniest things to watch, especially on a cloudy day when the sun suddenly pokes through, and every Lemur stops, sits cross legged and faces the sun with their eyes closed. It's like the weirdest yoga class you've ever seen.

So when I first read about the tropicarium, and that as part of it you walk through the Lemur enclosure, I was so excited. It's quite a large enclosure with a winding path with stairs upto the next level to exit, and there are a lot of Lemurs in there.

All looking so innocent

Excuse the blurry selfie, but this was me, full of excitement when I first entered the enclosure. The Lemurs seemed quite happy to completely ignore my presence, and I pulled out my sketch book to draw, and things went down hill, quickly. Despite the warning signs everywhere about not feeding them, clearly people do, and reaching into my bag, and some rattling paper set off a signal to every Lemur in that enclosure that I had food, and they wanted it. I found myself in the ludicrous position of running back and forth and literally in circles trying to outrun a pack of Lemurs! They were an organised gang, some took up place blocking the exit door! All I could think of was they would run up my legs, scratch or bite - but that I absolutely didn't want to hurt any of them stopping that, so the only solution my brain presented was 'run in circles why I think about it'.

I did get out, no Lemurs were harmed, but I was a shaking mess! Of course it's now a hilarious story, but I was terrified at the time.

So fast forward 18mths and I decide to head back, mostly to draw the Sloths. On my last visit they were hanging around looking like this:

On this visit, they were all asleep, curled up in balls.

'Jub Jub' was still there, in exactly the same spot.

As for the Lemurs, I'd convinced myself that you didn't have to walk through the enclosure, but turns out you do (if you want to see the rest of the exhibits). So I but my big girl pants on and walked through. By halfway all bravery had gone, and I found myself attempting to use a 5year old child as a shield. Thankfully neither of us were attacked, but I don't think I'll be going back again.

 

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Last bit of Autumn

The leaves are falling here in Stockholm now, but I thought I would share my last Autumn colour pics. We took a walk a couple of weekends ago around Djurgarden and back to Sergels Torg. The trees and light were too good to miss that afternoon.

I'm afraid the cold of winter is just around the corner!

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Museum visiting in Stockholm

There are some 87 museums in Stockholm, so there's always another to investigate. Each time I visit I try and see one or two that are new to me, but I must admit I'm getting to the point on the list where I either think I'm not interested (day out at the Tobacco and Match museum anyone?) or the more difficult to reach by public transport with no sense of direction and a cartoon map.

This time it's been a pleasant surprise though, I've visited two that I had previously thought too boring - The Museum of Ethnography and The Historiska Museet, or the Museum of Antiquities.

The Museum of Ethnography is described in the brochure as 'a meeting place of cultures for everyone interested in the wider world'. As a lover of the old fashioned style museum I loved the current exhibition of 'bringing the world home' which is a broad selection of objects from the museums archives, displayed in old fashioned glass museum cases, aisles and aisles of oddities behind glass - just what I love in a museum. As a twist they have displayed everything in groups as it is stored, which is by material rather than origin. In order to give the illusion of never ending cabinets they have installed mirrors at the end of the rows, which worked a little too well, as I found myself stepping aside to give way to, well um myself!

I did struggle in this exhibition to match up the cabinets with the English translation sheet, so just gave up and enjoyed the looking with no great information on what I was looking at.

This fellow wins best oddity I've found to draw in a while, the skin of a baby hippopotamus which must have been folded for transport.

The displays on climate, and how cultures adapt to extreme climates were something different, and there was an extensive Aboriginal display. It was good to see that it was fair representation on the modern Aboriginal culture, explaining the issues of the stolen generation and land rights. There was an area of displays and film related to Swedish explorers in Australia who took skeletons and recently deceased from funeral sites as museum items, and film documenting the apology and ceremonies related to the return of these in recent history.

There were displays on historical expeditions, to Papua New Guinea and the Congo (and cultural damage there by well meaning missionaries of their day).

All up, lots of interesting objects to draw, and rather sadly the opportunity to see how history has repeated itself over and over; white men travel to foreign lands and try to 'improve' the locals by stealing their children and raising them as white, introducing alcohol, tobacco and violence to traditional cultures - apologising after 200 years and leaving these cultures in a mess of identity, dependency and violence. Australia, Papua New Guinea, the Congo, North America, Canada, and Northern Scandanavia.

The Historiska Museum has it's 'Gold Room' as pride of place, with an extensive collection of antique gold, silver and jewel currency and jewellery. For me the more interesting sections were the textiles hall, with ancient embroideries, many were church vestments. The amount of work put into these was amazing. I sketched some of the animal shapes to perhaps embroider myself later as the designs were really interesting.

There were halls full of old church icons, alters, and iconastas - which made me wonder if every old church in Sweden was gutted at some point? There was so much of it. It was great to see them, but I did feel a little sad about how much of it had been removed from where it belonged? I would have liked to drawn some of these but there were no seats available and my back was not cooperating with standing and holding a sketchbook to draw.

I ran out of time to take in everything, and while doing a speed view through the remaining exhibitions on my way out, this fellow caught my interest. At about four feet high, carved from wood with rope decoration, holding a skeleton which appeared to be various real bones with a wooden carved skull. I had to stop and read, and then draw;

"Associated with the cannibal dancing society: skeleton made from various animals such as seal paws and a carved human skull. When covered in vegetable pastry it looked like a human corpse. Used in ceremony when someone was obsessed with the cannibal spirit to regain their human nature"

I'll definitely look forward to another visit when I'm looking for a drawing refuge on a rainy day.

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Autumn goodness

I'm spending most of the month of October in Stockholm, and the city is beautiful at this time of year. The first two weeks of the month the weather was perfect for Autumn - cool but clear with warm sunshine, then a snap of crisp air as soon as the sun lowers. I took advantage of one of the sunnier days to visit Skansen.

Found a lovely spot of afternoon warmth for a bit of knitting. I'm working on 'Birch' by Rowan, but using a lace weight wool I purchased a while back in Stockholm, and Addi lace circulars. This took me a long time to get started, but it's moving along now.

The bear cubs were still out playing, they've grown so much since they were born! It's been such a priveledge to be able to visit frequently enough to watch their progress. I think hibernation must be just around the corner though.
It was a little too cold, or rather I wasn't inspired enough to draw despite the cold on the day, but had a bit of a sketch when I got back to the hotel room.

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Cruising along

Well no surprise I've fallen behind again on my posts, I just can't get the hang of blogging whilst travelling. I'll just have to knuckle down and figure out this Blogsy app, and no doubt have a few accidental postings along the way. Apologies for what I will assume will be rubbish formatting, brought to you courtesy of Blogger, Blogsy and Apple iPad - or the axis of blogging evil as I think of them.

I did have a pretty good excuse for September though, I was at sea for most of it, 24 fabulous nights aboard an Eastern Med cruise, including the Black Sea. It was brilliant, we loved every minute of it, and were both surprised to find after 24 nights we still didn't want to get off. Just to postpone that moment, we followed the trend of our previous cruise holidays, and stayed up till 3am on the last night, enjoying lots of laughs, and plenty of Gins, with new friends. Of course in the morning, when we had to be out of our cabin by 8am, this didn't feel like it had been a brilliant idea!
So as way of warming up to blog posting again, I thought I'd share a few photos;

Firstly some craft: I just, and I mean just, finished my Mohair Bias Loop in time to pack it (pattern from Churchmouse yarns on Ravelry). I'm not really a fan, it served it's purpose with this dress for the first (of six) Black tie nights. By pinning it with the brooch it meant I didn't have to keep fiddling with it, and didn't find I had to use T-Rex arms too much! Overall though, it's never going to be an 'easy wear' to have it off the shoulders like this, it's prone to either slip down to the elbows, or off one shoulder etc. Love the Rowan Kidsilk Glamour though, and I imagine I will wear this again as a cowl.
Onto the gratuitous holiday shots: Our first port of call, Lisbon, early morning sail in

Next stop Valetta, Malta. An even earlier morning sail in, but it was a beautiful sight in the early light. We splurged on a cabin with a balcony, and took our Nespresso machine aboard with us - and both were worth it to enjoy these early sail ins.

Then onto Kusadasi, Turkey. We went on an organised tour of Effasus and the Terrace Houses, which was an amazing archeology site to visit. There is rubble, slippery marble, and feral cats underfoot all around, yet I managed to fall down a half flight of modern metal checkplate stairs inside the Terrace Houses. There is a network of stairs and glass viewing platforms all above the houses, for viewing. I'm afraid I was too busy viewing and didn't quite get the top step right. Ouch, as always though, the embarrassment hurt way more than the bruises!

When we pulled into the dock in the morning, we were just enjoying a coffee on the balcony, admiring the view, when another ship pulled up alongside. The Azura dwarfed The Queen Elizabeth! In fact we realised our fellow passenger number of around 3000 equated the population of the town we formerly lived in back in South Australia!

Next destination: Yalta, Ukraine. We had been so looking forward to visiting the Ukraine, as the highlight of our trip, as we have close friends in Australia who are of Ukrainian heritage - and what great times we've had with them at family functions and New years. The pickles, the vodka, the singing, the dancing, and the food that just keeps coming at you! All excited at the prospect of a 'traditional lunch' as part of a scenic tour day we set off. Things went down hill quickly. I had accidentally booked us on a tour focused on the Crimeon War, and wow did our guide Olga know a lot about it, enough to talk on the subject ALL DAY, barely stopping for a breath. The traditional lunch turned out to be a disappointing unidentified fish and Greek style salad.
We did enjoy the start of the day though, a visit to a former Soviet Nuclear Submarine base, hidden under a mountain in Balklava during the Cold War years. The last stop was interesting too, a visit to a circular museum housing one of the largest mural paintings, 'The siege of Sebastopol'

To add a bit of excitement to the day, whilst we had been in Sevastopol there had been some extremely heavy rains closer to Yalta, causing flash flooding and land slides across the road separating our tour bus from our Ship. These are the moments where you feel happy to have paid for the ship organised excursion, as it's their problem to get you back! So we pulled over and waited for word that we could get through, across the road was this little church perched on a cliff.

I suspect in true Ukrainian culture some cash exchanged hands as about 30 mins later our bus drove past all the waiting traffic and through a gap cleared at the slide!
Our next port was Odessa, Ukraine. This time we were determined it was going to be the Ukrainian day we wanted, and it was. We wandered around the city on our own for the morning, admiring many of the lovely old buildings, sadly in need of attention.

We then found a restaurant for Varenyky for lunch - a sort of tortellini made from potato flour, sometimes stuffed with potatoes, we chose chicken though. While waiting a complimentary vodka appeared, complete with tiny piece of bread and pickle - this was more like the Ukranian way we know! After lunch we returned to the ship, refusing all offers to hold eagles and monkeys on the Potemkin stairs, to join our afternoon tour.
We had booked to do a home visit, where a small group of passengers (7 in ours) are invited into a locals home for the afternoon for tea and a chance to find out about local life. Our host Lucy was great, very open about the way of life in Odessa with crooked politicians, double entry book keeping, working cash in hand off the books. She spoke of life under Russian rule and the good and bad since. We were fed well (of course), with various pies and tarts, and tea and coffee. As expected the vodka appeared, and how could we offend, of course we shall drink! Tradition required three (large) straight shots before we could eat anything!
Lucy explained that very few older people in Odessa speak Ukranian, so my chance to try a bit had to wait until her granddaughter arrived, who learns Ukrainian (and Spanish) in school, and English from Lucy. Stacia was very sweet, quietly tapping me on the arm to correct my pronunciation of Varenyky (it was agreed it was my Australian accent!). The funniest moment was when we asked if Stacia knew 'Mnohya lita' - a sort of Ukranian all purpose song of joy. She was a little hesitant, so Lucy suggested why don't we just sing it and see. So two Australians sang a Ukranian song, to a round of applause and a very Russian response of 'no, we do not know this song'. Hilarious! It was then pointed out the vodka must be finished, another couple then, oh and then the congac. We returned to the ship with happy memories of the day, and our eyes rolling around in our heads!
Lucky we had a sea day before Istanbul, we needed all the energy we could muster to cope with a day in Istanbul. It was an amazing city to see and experience, but constantly shuffling in crowds and being on pickpocket alert is not something either of us enjoy.
There were some amazing sights to see though;

Mosaics inside the Hagia Sophia

The amazing Basilica Cistern

Oh and what a glorious day Athens put on for us;

We feasted on fried Greek cheese with fig sauce, hot dolmades, and pasticio oh the pasticio, yum!
Our last stop was Vigo in Northern Spain which was a good port to find a bar with friends and enjoy a beer and tapas in the sun before we returned to the grey UK - so that's exactly what we did.
Oh and one last tease, the sunsets at sea, are amazing.

The moons a bit trickier to capture from a moving ship with a basic camera, but it's lovely to watch with a late night cocktail in hand, sigh.

We spent the first week home searching future cruises, checking out the cruise line recruitement pages, and generally sitting around waiting for someone to appear with a cocktail or 5 course meal. Sigh, normality has resumed.

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