Tuesday 30 October 2007

Get crafty

I simply cannot resist japanese craft books or japanese fabrics. And yesterday was a good day fabric-wise, because the mailman brought my latest acquisition from nuno-plus. (This was the second time I ordered from them, and this time I had even faster delivery than the first - great place!). Sorry about the colours being a bit dull when compared to real life, but daylight saving time and the approach of winter makes for poor photography:



Are they not cute? I can see a lot of christmas presents made from these - hope to get seriously crafty in a month or so...

Inspired by all the images on Ravelry, I digged out my progressing Earth Stripe Wrap - design from Rowan Mag 42 - which I hope I will be able to get a bit further with really soon. The fabric and colours are great (again, apologize the dull photo),



but I must confess that I subbed some of the shades with what was handy in the Kid Silk Haze stash herearound. Love Kaffe Fassett's way with colours, though.

Kiddo has finally given in to the knitting bug. Yippie!!! Maybe mohair is not the best choise for a first-timer, but it had to be pink, and pink yarns in a light worsted weight are not really in abundance in this knitters stash.




At least it is a good quality mohair ;-) I can see some pink yarn shopping in the near future...

Saturday 27 October 2007

Jack is back

Trying to keep up with the demands for Halloween action around here ;-)

A few mini-punpkins are spread around the house, and Jack is sitting (standing?) on the veranda.



I have started knitting with some of the Habu from AllyPally. One strand of Tsumugi (A-1) and one strand of the Wool Stainless Steel (A-148), on 4.5 mm needles. Supposedly it will end up as a jacket/cardi. The drape is just great!



It looks like it will be a quick knit, but one never knows around here. Really love the feel of the yarn. Maybe I should also try to get some action going on the Habu Linen Paper/Rowan Kid Silk Haze jacket I started a really long time ago? Hmmm...

Sunday 21 October 2007

Where did that summer go?

No I'm not complaining. I love the autumn season. But the last tree months just seems to have gone by so quickly. Oh, looking at my saved photos I can see that they were at least put to use here around.

Summer vacation this year was a trip to Trinidad & Tobago. Rather exotic for this dane, but as my youngest niece was getting married on Tobago, I thought I'd rather go.



Kiddo absolutely loved being a brides maid!

Danish beaches are usually really good. But they do not have palm threes like this



And we rarely have these views



And certainly the flora and fauna on Trinidad are not really like the danish. We have no humming-birds



and our flowers does not look like this



I think that I could have stayed for a month just looking at this



though it made me think of "Gorillas in the Mist" more than of leaving the Asa Wright Nature Center on Trinidad.

I thought that vampires and such were mostly at home in Transylvania. But maybe they also live on Trinidad?



After going home again to dull, old Denmark where it was rainy or cloudy for most of the summer's end, we did manage to harvest some of the best fruits around, the summer berries



Actually we don't have any berry bushes ourselves, but I always get to loot the bushes by my sisters summer cottage, and we just love to make berry compot/stewed fruit, marmelade and berry muffins. Yummy!

In the last part of summer we managed to also get a trip to Lego-land in Billund, the home of Lego. And a bit of sword fighting just fit the bill after surviving one of the new attractions, a waterfall roller-coaster



I was really a baaad Rowanette this year. Managed to be awfull late in getting my gift for the annual exchange finished,



but it went in the mail just before I left for London. Went there to visit with knitting-friends that I know through knitting lists, and to go to Ally-Pally for the first time. I had a truly wonderful time in London; being with such nice knitters is always a treat!

Regarding the Ally-Pally visit I tried to be a very moderate shopper, and only (mostly?) buy things that are not readily available here in Denmark (ahem - rather easy, as I can usually only get "foreign" brand yarns through internet-shopping, unless it is those large british brand-names like Rowan or Debbie Bliss). So my Ally-Pally loot



mainly consisted of Habu yarns. I love Habu yarns!

The rest of the London trip was spent on both cultural and yarny doings. I had a visit to the V&A, but also managed to do a bit of damage at Stash in Putney, Cath Kidston, Orla Kiely and Liberty. My poor feet!

Came home again at the start of the school's autumn break. So we have spent the last week kite-flying



and a lot of other autumn-doings. Halloween in the US form is not traditionally celebrated here in Denmark, but it has started creeping in. Tivoli in Copenhagen has happily adopted Halloween now, as a means to prolong the season in the amusement park, and so we had to go there together with all the other Copenhageners with kids. Apparently, spinning is a pastime for Halloween witches, at least those in Tivoli



but thankfully, there are also more peaceful pumpkin scare-crows.



As a service to the tourists, Tivoli has translated the info-signs to english



but maybe a little proof-reading would be appropriate? Well, at least the danish opening hours are before the closing ones ;-) Nope, it was not just on this one sign - it was all of them.

Never mind, we had a really good time, and enjoyed the pumpkins all over the place, and the illuminations that came on with the dusk.



Ack, this post was a little long, and a little picture-heavy. But that is probably what happens when trying to cover more than 3 months in one blog post... I'll try to do better next time ;-)