Homeless II

Some more finished hats for the homeless, I've finished 9 in total already and am working on number 10. I'm using every last cm of yarn, the one I'm working on now will be in three colors, left overs from other hats.

Poor Fruit Harvest

The quinces (marmelos) will soon be ripe enough to harvest, most likely we'll be picking them next week, some of them are still fairly small, but if we don't pick them now and try to wait for them to grow or get riper, the birds will get them, and then we won't have anything. I can't wait to get some more homemade marmelade (with quinces not oranges, it's really delicious).

Last year we added them to some vodka, which is absolutely delicious, I'll be adding some more to my jar, and some extra vodka, not that I've drunk that much of it, but the quinces suck it all up.

These grapes might look ready to be picked, but let me tell you they're still extremely sour. They definitely need to spend some more time catching the sun and hanging on the vines, we have so many of them all over the property, that it doesn't matter if the birds get some of them, we'd never be able to eat/drink them all anyway. We eat lots of them, but we also make some sweet wine out of them, I like the wine during the first week, it tastes just like grape juice, but it's much thicker and really sweet. I'll be helping my dad make some more this year and we'll have to keep Dakota away or she'll have her head in tub lapping it all up. I tell you I have one alcoholic dog, guess it's left over from her street days. The figs this year were a bit of a disappointment. Last year we had non-stop figs from end of May all the way to the end of October, this year we had some sunny days when they really started growing, but then it got colder and it really affected them. They remained green and only last week did we pick them off the tree, the big green ones had long since been eaten by the birds, but we managed to pick approximately 3kilos (didn't get a chance to weigh them after picking becuase we had more things to go pick, and when we came back, my mum and gran had already been eating loads of them). They might be small, but they're really sweet and some of them were so ripe already that they were really hard to get off the tree, we needed to use our nails as knives to be able to get them off the branches. We had to leave the ones all the way at the top of the tree because the branches are really flimsy, pull too much on them and they'll break right off. So we left them for the birds, maybe next week we'll have some more to pick.

The blackberries have been a major disappointment this year, I only managed to pick about 1kilo last weekend, whereas last year I was picking them throughout the summer. It's been really hot, but we've not had enough moisture/rain, and so the majority of them all really small and practically dried out already, but at least I managed to get some. I made blackberry smoothies on saturday and then on sunday I had to make some for my mum as well as she really liked it a lot, I must admit it was really yummy.

Camouflage/Citron

This is my finished Camouflage (Citron). This will be one of many Christmas gifts I've started making. I haven't really decided who will be the lucky recipient, but I still have several months to think about it. I've already had comments on the colors and the shawl itself, and I'll be making one for myself with a different shade of Malabrigo Lace. This color of Malabrigo Lace is called Jaen and I used 4mm needles as recommended in the pattern, I might use 4.5mm in the next one I make, but will swatch first to see how it comes out. I think I had about 5-10g left of the skein at the end of the shawl.

Pretty flowers

Completed Mittens

Mystery KAL Fingerless Gloves

This is the first of the pair of the Mystery KAL Fingerless Gloves I'm making. It's a mystery KAL because we got the clues once a week throughout July, and now we have until the 15th of August to complete the pair. I've already completed the first one with some modifications, and I've started the second one and about halfway through to the thumb.

Homeless

So last Saturday I finally started knitting the hats for the Homeless. My knitting group had the idea of using yarn that nobody was going to be using anymore for knitting hats, gloves and scarves for the Homeless. Someone had a lot of yarn she wasn't going to be using anymore, so I got several balls of yarn and on Saturday during out get together I started the first one. I finished the first one (the grey/blue one in the bottom left hand corner) in about 3 hours, and when I got home I started the light blue one. I managed to finish the brown, grey and striped one on Sunday, I've also made a brown one, but I've not taken a photo of it yet. I've taken a bit of break right now because of the heat wave we're having here in PT. It's just too hot to work with the thick yarn, so I'm working on my Mystery KAL Fingerless Gloves.

Entangled Cowl

This is the latest piece of knitting that I've finished. It was a Test Knit for Ravelry and a really fast project to make. I used Rowan Cotton Glace and needles 3.75 and 4mm.

Tiles, Doorknobs and Doorknockers

Took the dogs out for a nice leisurely stroll around the area where I live and decided to take my camera with me to photograph some of the tiles covering houses. These are just down one road, the road names at the top are obviously different roads, but also using tiles. There are some modern, retro and old style tiles around and each house has a different look. There's some with plenty of colors and others are just one shade with some pattern on it. Here in Portugal a lot of the older houses used these tiles to cover the outside, unfortunately due to lack of upkeep a lot of them are losing the tiles and most of them are irreplaceable. Downtown Porto also has a lot of houses with these type of tiles on it, I'll get around to photographing them eventually.

Day at the Beach

We spent yesterday afternoon walking along the boulevard at Leça da Palmeira. Rusty and Dakota met some new friends and had a fun time looking at the waves and people. They were pretty tired out by the time we came home and just lay around the rest of the evening relaxing.

Summer Cardigan

This is the beginning of my summer cardigan. I'm using the Shalom pattern, but I decided to use Rowan Cotton Glace (shade 829 - dark blue, 100% cotton) instead of the suggested yarn, so I also had to adjust the size. I've had this project on the backburner for a while, but now that I've finished my KAL and a Test Knit that I was working on, I can work on it again. More pics shortly

Annis

Here's my finished Annis which I made with Manos Del Uruguay Lace in Teal.

I started this as KAL on Ravelry with my friends from Ovelha Negra. We started it on our WWKIP day, June 19th, and I worked on it only during lunch time this past week, except for yesterday evening when I decided to finish it. I only managed to finish it just this morning, and I still need to sew in the ends and block it, so I'll have more photos of it soon.

Rusty's Sweater

Here's Rusty modeling his new winter sweater which he'll be wearing for sure this coming winter. I'm not to happy with the cast off I did, so I'm going to undo that and fix it, and after sewing in the ends, I'll put it away until winter.

His little sister Zara has one also, and so does Jojo (in a previous post). The only one I still need to make a sweater for is Dakota, but I'll get to that one shortly after finishing some other projects firs.

Flowers at the Farm

Porto 2010 Visit

At the beginning of June a friend and her husband came to Porto for a visit. I showed them around the Baixa (downtown) and we went to the Wine Cellars across the river, we even took a river cruise of 50 minutes which was very nice. We took the tourist bus which saved us a lot of walking (not that I mind at all). On their last day here, we took the train to Braga and went for a walk around there, but it wasn't as sunny or dry as the previous days had been, and so we didn't stay took long. The photos above are some pictures of building and sights to be seen in Porto or Gaia.

WWKIP Day

WWKIP stands for World Wide Knit in Public Day. The knitting group I belong to here in Porto decided to hold it in the Jardim da Cordoaria in downtown Porto where we decorated a small area of the garden with knitted and crocheted flowers along with some animals as well. It was a great turnout and I had great fun.

Recent Projects

Here's Jojo modeling her new winter sweater, she didn't much care that it was about 25 degrees outside when she tried on this sweater. The color is not as red as it looks, it's more a cherise color in real life.

This is going to be Annis made in Manos Del Uruguay Lace in Teal

This Rowan Cotton Glace will be turned into Shalom Cardigan a freebie on Ravelry.

This is Liz Abinante's Saroyan, that's to say I followed her pattern, but the scarf is mine. I made it in Malabrigo Sock Yarn color Velvet Grape.

And finally my very own design, I called these fingerless gloves Igulavu (meaning gloves in Zulu) and I used some Blue Faced Leicester wool that I home dyed several months ago.

Rusty's Summer Haircut

Rusty loves his new haircut, he might not look it on the photo though. He can run a lot faster now too, causing the carpets to go flying in his wake. His little sister Zara wasn't too sure who this new guy was when we were done cutting his hair, but she soon figured out it was her brother Rusty, can you believe she actually growled at him, poor guy. Jojo and Dakota were also a bit unsure at the beginning, but now it's as if nothing ever happened

Mittens

At the beginning of April, my LYS had a workshop for making gloves/mittens. During the workshop we learned two ways of making the thumb gusset, and we made a mini mitten, which would probably fit a 2-3 yr old. We got some lovely Rowan Kid Classic (50g=140m/153yards, 70% lambswool, 26% kid mohair, 4% nylon). I wasn't going to start them straight away as I had a lot of other things to finish, but one of my fellow workshop friends told me on Sunday that she'd already started, and I caved. I completed one whole mitten in about 4 hours and started on the second one, but I couldn't finish it that night and finished it he following day. The pattern is so easy to follow, so thank you Xana & Ovelha for the pattern. In case you're wondering this colorway is 841 - lilac, I also got a really nice burgundy color to make a pair for myself, but I'm first going to finish some other things that I have on the needles. Besides, spring is here, apart from the occasional rainy day, it is no longer cold enough to justify wearing mittens.

Spring has arrived in Portugal

This onion doesn't really have anything to do with the post, it was in my very dark pantry for quite some time, and I guess it mistook the coolness and the darkness for soil because it started growing, although I have no idea where it got the moisture from, becuase there is definitely no moisture in my pantry. So when I went to get some onions to make some soup, this is what I found. My dad ended up planting it at the farm, because I wasn't going to eat it anymore, so lets see if it gives us some more onions to eat later in the year.

Anyway, I've been spending quite a bit of time at my parents' farm lately and from week to week I've noticed that spring had arrived. Each week there are new flowers in bloom.

I love this red flower, I have no idea what half the plants are at the farm, and I'd not seen this one last year, turns out my dad had seen it along the roadside somewhere and picked some and planted it not knowing whether it would survive or not. Obviously it did, and it multiplied, we have a whole section of a field filled with them. I fell in love with this Rose, I love roses and I'd seen this type before, but never her in Portugal, so when I saw a guy selling them at the market , and he was only asking 8.5 Euros for it (It's quite a big plant), I had to get it for my mum, who also loves roses. So it was my gift to her on Mother's Day which we celebrated here last Sunday. (It was also as a way of an apology for my naughty dog's behaviour while she was taking care of him one day last week, the little rascal peed on the brand new curtains, and he had the nerve to be looking right at my mum as if to say, see I'm being naughty and you can't do anything about it). These lovely pink flowers below are growing in our garden, but this picture was taken inside the house, as my mum cut some and put them in a vase to brighten up the table by the TV.

Before you know it I'll be picking blackberries (I have a great recipe that I'll share some time soon), and figs, as the fig tree is already full, and so in about 2 weeks time we'll be picking the first figs, and if it's like last year, we'll be picking them all the way till the end of September. I'm really looking forward to all the fruits I'll be picking this year.