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Yesterday afternoon I braved the weather to go for a walk and take some photos. Don’t let the sunshine fool you. It was windy and very chilly. I ended up walking for 2 hours and was so tired when I got home. I got a few nice photos for my troubles.
Herons are so common around here. In Amsterdam they are scavengers and hang around the street markets waiting for the fish sellers to pack up for the day so they can get any fallen scraps. These in our local fields are more wild. They are actually hunting in the little creeks.
There are geese everywhere. Further out in the fields they are hidden in higher grass and it’s really hard to see if they have any goslings or not. I managed to see these….
Yes, those are WWII bunkers in the background. They are still a common site in this part of the Netherlands.
I also saw these birds, which I first called ducks, but DB quickly corrected me and informed me they are ‘fuut’ or grebe in English.
Even though there are a lot of wild birds in the area, it’s not really a wild area. There are people everywhere and that means people trash. Some birds are really good at scavenging human waste. This bird was pulling out everything he found in this trash bin, located next to the path along the Spaarne. I can imagine people will walk by and blame the fishermen or teenagers for the mess, but they’d be wrong.
When I was nearly home I saw the local black swans again. Today I saw 4 of them. I think there are 5 in total in the area.
They are very difficult to photograph. Their feathers seem to swallow all the light and I either get black holes or reflected shiny light off their backs.
Next walking trip I need to head into the dunes and wait patiently for rabbits, foxes and woodpeckers!
I finished my fingerless mittens yesterday. Super quick and fun knit! The pattern is Chasing Circles. The instructions say to use size 6 US / 4mm needles, but I used a size smaller so the mittens fit my small hands.
The yarn is Madelinetosh DK, color Lettuce Leaf. I had it leftover form another project. They only took 46g of yarn! Can’t beat that! I absolutely adore this color, but it’s been discontinued! Can you believe it? What a disappointment. I have 3 skeins of sock weight waiting for me at my mom’s house in California which I bought from a couple of people destashing. I’m so lucky to have found it! It will become a sweater at some point.
I modified the pattern a little. You can see on the outer edges of the mittens, just below the top ribbing, I decreased two stitches on the front and back of the hand. This is where my little finger begins and my hand gets smaller. I want a good fit! 
Only 5 people on Ravelry, including me and the designer, have made these mittens. I for one will recommend them to others. They would make quick nice gifts too!
I’ve written up the sock pattern, but my sock has no name! Help me find a name for this sock!
You can read more about the sock on an earlier blog post here. Or see my project page on Ravelry here.
I’ve decided to have a contest to get your help in naming this sock. Here are the rules:
- Write a comment to this blog post with your name suggestion.
- The contest will run from today 15 May 2012 through 25 May 2012. Any suggestions entered after midnight CET on the 25th will not be considered.
- The suggested name cannot be a duplicate of any other pattern name in Ravelry’s database. Please search before suggesting!
- I’ll choose the winning name based on, well, a name that fits! The winner will be announced here, and on the Ravelry forums where this contest will also be announced.
- What does the winner get? First, the ever lasting glory of having your name mentioned in the pattern and on the Ravelry pattern page. Second, and more importantly, the winner will receive a set of stitch markers from my FAVORITE stitch marker makers Crimson Orchid. The winner can choose their favorite Droplets set and I’ll have it sent.
Ready? Got some good ideas for a name? Comment below and let the contest begin!
I was putting some knitted things into the washer this morning and discovered holes in my socks! These are the first hand knit socks that I’ve ever worn holes in. Really. These socks are 14 months old. I have older socks that are 100% wool. These are wool with some nylon. The yarn was inexpensive stuff I bought somewhere along the line and dyed myself. The sock pattern is Skew from knitty.com.
What is the lesson here?
Whether or not sock yarn contains nylon or other made-made material has no bearing on how well the socks will wear. I have socks that are 100% wool that are wearing much better than these. If the yarn is tightly spun and is somewhere in the range of 380 yards per 100g, then the content of the yarn is not so important if you ask me.
Some people think that Noro Silk Garden Sock wears out quickly and isn’t suitable for socks. I’ve made one pair of socks with this yarn and they are wearing like steel. I love them.
Maybe the tightness of the knit also plays a part in how long a sock will last. The socks above were knit using 2.5mm needles because I was afraid they’d be too small otherwise. I could have knit them on 2.25mm needles and they would have fit even better and might possibly have lasted longer. Tight yarn and a tight knit is what you need for hard wearing socks. And that’s the moral of this story.
Look at these colors! This morning in the dunes we had glorious color. The sky was so blue and the trees and grasses were that just sprouted Spring green. Lovely.
It wasn’t warm though. The air was crisp and cool, which is just fine for running. I only managed 6km running and about 1.25km walking. I’m having a hard time building back up to a reasonable distance again after the 12k at Zandvoort in April. I don’t know why. It’s just tough going. What’s a ‘reasonable distance’? For me, 10k. Once I can run 10k without feeling like it’s a death march at the end, then I feel like I’m well on my way to being a runner again.
And being able to run through the dunes to the beach, and back. That makes me feel like a real runner too.
I know I’ll get there - slow but sure. It’s just that none of it is easy. Yet.
Oh! By the way! Tonight is the first episode of a new “Boer Zoekt Vrouw“!! Yea! I love this show. Tonight we will meet the new crop of farmers (haha, get the pun?) and then we’ll have to wait until the Fall to find out who got enough letters to participate in the show and who the women are and who falls for who and who is disappointed and who ends up getting married and living happily ever after. Hope springs eternal; even more so for farmers?
Yesterday I met up with two groups of friends in Amsterdam. First I went to a talk by Dr. Herbert Puchta at Cambridge University Press. The topic was “Bored students? Try Emotional Engagement!”. It was interesting, but frankly having just finished a CELTA course, his ideas and suggestions were not much different from what we had been practicing for 12 weeks. The best part about going to the event was meeting up with 3 CELTA colleagues! We went for a drink afterwards and walked a bit through the center of Amsterdam.
 That’s me in the pink jacket, optimistically thinking the weather would be warm into the evening.
 Ivana really wanted this photo! Here you go!
At the end of the afternoon I headed to the public library to hang out and wait for my other friends to end their work day and go to dinner. We went to Casa di David where we met up with another friend who isn’t working any more. Here are photos of my friends. There isn’t a photo of me because I can’t keep my eyes open when faced with a flash. Seriously. I just can’t. It’s a reflex I can’t stop and makes for a really lousy photo.
The food was pretty good, but not great, and it was expensive for what you get. The best part of the meal was the starter. We got the special di David which is a little bit of everything. Most of the plate was covered with food that wasn’t actually cooked, just good ingredients laid out. I guess that’s what they are good at? I had zeeduivel (gosh, what is that in English? Monk fish. I had to look it up) which was obviously frozen for a long while. The texture wasn’t that of a very fresh fish. The least impressive was dessert. I had pannacotta which had chocolate sauce over the top and whipped cream on top of that. The pannacotta itself was tasteless. The chocolate sauce was cheap stuff out of a bottle and there was way too much whipped cream. Ah well. Someone else had tiramisu and it was the best dessert we had. I’ll have to put a review on iens.nl. If you want reliable restaurant reviews for the Netherlands, use that site.
It was a fun day out and great to see friends in Amsterdam. Sometimes I wonder why we moved to Haarlem when I spend so much time going back to Amsterdam. But then I remember the dunes and the beach and my little patch of garden and my attic space in the house and know that it was the right decision.
Today I went for a “run”. I put it in quotes because it was more walking than running. My stomach just wasn’t feeling good and bouncing up and down wasn’t helping. I think I just ate too much and didn’t wait long enough to run.
Anyway, while walking it’s possible to take photos. The geese and ducks and swans are hatching babies and they are beginning to be visible out in the fields. I took a few photos with my iPhone.
These black swans live in the canal near our house. They don’t seem to have any babies this year. I think there is another pair out further in the polder that are the parents of these 3 and possibly they have some offspring this year, not seen yet.
Canadian geese and their goslings.
I don’t know what kind of geese these are. Do you?
I should go for a walk out there with my new camera and get some decent close ups of all the birds. If we get some nice weather in the next few days I will do just that.
Today I gave an exam to 15 teenagers at a school in Amsterdam. Their usual teacher was off eating tapas and speaking English to Spaniards.
The students were very nice and the staff were also welcoming and helpful. It was a great experience. I really do love being in a classroom. Maybe they will need more subs this coming school year……
Mad May has sucked me in - again.
Today I cast on these fingerless mittens - a super simple and fast project which I should be able to finish before the end of May. I’m using leftover Madelinetosh DK in color Lettuce Leaf. This is a discontinued color and is almost worth its weight in gold. You can’t find it in retail shops anymore and you’re lucky if anyone in the world wants to let go of it. This is the last of my DK weight. I adore this color and am very sad I won’t be able to get it any more.
So, what is this “Mad May” all about you ask? Well, last year on Ravelry, the Madelinetosh Lovers group had this little fun thing going where you’d start and finish a project within the month of May and since we all knit with Madelinetosh yarn, the month was called Mad May. I made this sweater for Mad May last year:
Last year the whole Mad May thing was pretty low key and was organized by fellow knitters and was a lot of fun sharing projects with others on the forum. This year it’s suddenly become this big event with lots of prizes and organizers and organization and frankly it’s put me off a bit. I also realize that I’m in the minority. Most people are loving the whole Mad May event going on at Ravelry. Here’s a link to all the hoopla. I’m one of those people who pines for the days when Low Lands was smaller and had lots of unknown bands. I hate to go to Yosemite in the summer because in my memory it is small and cozy and everyone knows everyone. When something becomes popular, I’m outta there.
However. Yes, I’m joining in again, but just in a small way. Just because I need a small traveling project and I know I will use these mitts and I love the color. And it’s Madelinetosh and I can never resist Madelinetosh.
I’ve started a new sweater that I hope to have finished before we go on vacation in California. The pattern is Vodka Lemonade by Thea Colman, who’s website is called Baby Cocktails. It’s made starting at the collar and working down, all in one piece. What you are looking at above is the collar, folded over, with the back facing you, the shoulders on the left and right, and the front sections are scrunched up at either end of the needle so that you can’t really see them.
I’m making mine with Cascade Ultra Pima, 100% cotton. This stuff is as soft as butter and flows almost like silk. It’s a dream to work with and it’s my new favorite summer yarn. How did I never knit with this before?
The pattern is written for wool, which drapes completely differently from cotton, so I’m very curious how this will look and feel. If you go to Thea’s web site and look at her pattern photos you’ll see that she designed it not to meet in the center front. There are no buttons or button holes. I want mine to meet, and even overlap a little, in the front, so I cast on 10 extra stitches which are added to the front sections. This makes the front about 2 inches wider than the pattern is written. I am not however adding button holes as I knit down. That’s just too big of a commitment for me. What if I just want to use a big shawl pin to close the front? What if the drape of this cotton is so soft that buttons would just weigh it down too much? What if my 10 stitch addition isn’t enough to really close the sweater in the front? There are too many unknowns here. If I really want to be able to close the sweater completely when it’s finished I will add snaps. Yes, you heard me, snaps. Andy just added snaps to a sweater he finished and they are cool. I’m really impressed with snaps in knits. Snaps are the new buttons.
By the way, I actually finished TWO projects today but both of them are gifts so you don’t get to see them yet. Soon, dear readers, soon.
I also frogged a project. Remember the socks I was working on a while back? Well, I decided yesterday that the stitch pattern was just getting lost in the stripy yarn and the combination of yarn/pattern just wasn’t working. It wasn’t showing the best of either element and both the pattern and yarn are so fabulous that they both deserve their own showcase. So today I frogged the socks. The yarn will become a sweater (such fun wild colors!) and the socks will be socks in a solid color one day. Maybe I love knitting so much because it’s possible to change your mind so often.
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