MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR

Knitting Group Christmas Presents 2010

These were the Christmas gifts exchanged in our knitting group this year. I want to thank everyone for the lovely gifts. Mine was the owl scissor fob, I made them in various colors and each person chose their own personal favorite. Cookies were made by Mari, the sweater by Xana, the crochet heart by Filomena, the "dessert" in the jar by Maria Jose. Thanks again

2010 Neckwarmers - Shalws, Cowls and Scarves

Top1: Adam's Rib Cabled Scarf by Margaret, Tulip Cable Scarf by Daniela Perreira, Shizuku by Angela Tong, Saroyan by Liz Abinante, Top2: Annis by Susannah IC, A Buddy Cowl by Ann Lundblad, Trevi Cowl by Ashley Knowlton, Entangled Cowl by Janelle Martin, Camouflage by Hilary Smith Callis

Bottom1: The Age of Autumn 1 & 2 by Orange Flower, Ranco by Ysolda Teague, Aestlight Boticelli by Gudrun Johnston, Traveling Woman by Liz Abinante

Bottom2: The Age of Purple & Green 1&2 by Orange Flower, Haruni by Emily Ross, Forrest Olives by Ysolda Teague

2010 Gloves, Mittens and Fingerless Gloves

Top: Mittens by Daniela Perreira, Texel Gloves by Dagmar Mora, Blue Leaves by Laura Peveler, Mittens by Xana/Ovelha Negra Workshop.

Bottom: Igulavu by Raquel Garcia, Bamboo Field Mitts by Holly Terrell, Mystery Gloves by Cheryl Romanow, Birnam Fingerless Gloves by Dagmar Mora, Cafe Au Lait by Paula McKeever

2010 - Sock Projects

Since learning to knit socks at the beginning of the year, I've made 8 pairs of socks this year. I'll be making more in the years to come as my mum sure appreciates them and I am liking the warmth of them as well in the cold weather we are currently experiencing here in Portugal.

Christmas Knitting

I've been busy doing Christmas Knitting. That's to say I've been busy knitting present to give at Christmas. These are all the same pattern, but using a variegated yarn (Carina bought at Wibra in Den Haag and Leidschendam, Holland), they get a different look. The two above were from one ball of Carina, leaving me with about 10g left over, these two are currently blocking. The one below is the first one of two as well, the second one is about halfway done. These mini shawls/kerchiefs are super easy to make and you can find the pattern here, it's a free Ravelry download. I manage to average about 4 hours per kerchief. I hope the recipients will like them.

Afternoon at the Beach - Leça da Palmeira

Halloween

We celebrated Halloween this year by dressing the little darlings up with outfits that my sister bought recently on one of her many trips to London. Aren't they cute?? Those Dracula's/Vampires are definitely ones to watch out for, they have the fangs and they know how to use them. The little Witch and the Devil on the other hand are pretty harmless, most of the times that is.

And pumpkin Jack was in a foul mood this year, so no happy face, guess he didn't like all the doggies licking him that much.

Test Knit Texel Gloves (Stormy Seas)

This is the latest project I've completed. It was a test knit for Dagmar (I also did the Birnam Fingerless Mittens for her) and I absolutely loved it.

These are my first pair of actual gloves and they were no where near as difficult to make as I thought they would be.

I can't show any other projects I'm working on at the moment because they're this year's Christmas presents and I don't want anyone seeing what they're getting ahead of time.

Sunday morning at the Park - Senhora da Hora

I got up this morning and decided to take the dogs out to the local park. They met some new friends and tried chasing the pigeons, they didn't catch them though. Rusty and Dakota had a really good time. Will have to take them to the park more often.

Busy Weekend

So I go over to my parents' farm all the time, and I spent a lot of time playing with the dogs or doing my crafts, but sometimes I also feel like spending some time outside. So last weekend while I was there, the weather was quite nice, not too warm, not too cold, just right, and I decided to go have a look and see if I could find any mushrooms to photograph, so I got maybe halfway through the usual path I take, when I noticed a whole bunch of chestnuts had already fallen from the tree, ran back to the house, got a bucket and some gloves and came back to the path. I managed to pick about 600g worth of chestnuts from the path. They's a bit on the small side, but they were quite good. Even though the markets and the stores already have them on sale, it's still a bit early, give it another 2-3 weeks and I'll be picking them up by the bagloads and then we'll have months worth or chestnuts to eat.

Something else that's plentiful on the farm is olives. We have one tree right by the house, and several others on another part of the property. Usually one of our neighbours comes and asks if he can pick the olives so he can make olive oil out of them. Don't know if he's been by this year yet to ask, but the tree right by the house is for us. We pick the olives when they're still fairly green and then wash them before curing them so that they become the edible olives we all know and love. So in the jar above are some of the olives we still had left over from last year. we put them in the jar with some chili peppers, those mini pickled onions and some olive oil, leave them for a week or so and they become nice and spicy, just the way I like them. You see while living in Holland we used to go to the Haagsche Markt on a Saturday morning and there are some Turkish people who sell olives and spices and herbs and all sorts of things not really native to Holland. Anyway these guys had some olives mixed with peppers and pickled onions and a whole bunch of other herbs and spices and the olives were really hot (spicy), well we loved them, and now we've tried to recreate the recipe. I think it's worked out well, although not as good as the original. Will have to ask them the recipe next time I'm in Holland. This past sunday we decided it was time to pick the olives as there were quite a number of black olives on the tree and we discovered last year that it's better to pick them while they're still hard, because the black olives we picked last year were overly ripe and we ended up throwing most of them away after curing them as they'd gone bad. So sunday morning I got up and picked 3kg worth of olives. There's still plenty on the tree, but they're too high up for me to get and I can't use a ladder to get at them as the tree is hanging over the road and the ladder just won't reach. But not to worry, 3kg is plenty to see us through the year. My mum is curing them now, which takes about 2 months, so in that time we'll finish last year's ones and then have nice fresh ones.

Bike Ride through Den Haag, Nederland - Part 2

Having been to Den Haag I couldn't pass up a stop at the yarn shop WOOOL, so I dropped in just as it was opening and saw a variety of yarns, but the one that caught my eye was this Araucanía Ranco in these blue and purple shades. These were the last two skeins available in this color, so I just had to get them, despite having told myself I wouldn't buy any more yarn, oh well, I'll just add these to my stash until I decide what to use them for.

This photo shows that cyclist also have to stop at intersections and they even have their own traffic lights. Just like pedestrians the cyclists have a button to press and then have to wait for the light to turn green for them to cross. In places like Den Haag this is really necessary, not so much in the actual center of town as that is now more or less closed off to cars, but more on the outskirts where there are a lot of cars and also a lot of cyclists. Mind you this doesn't mean that all cyclists stop at red lights, some of them keep going if there aren't any cars coming. Seeing as I'd not been on a bike in years and despite not having any problems riding my friends bike, I still rather preferred stopping at the lights and not risking getting run over.

This is the church on De Binnenhof, which is the large courtyard I mentioned in my previous post that is surrounded by De Buitenhof where the parliament resides. It's a nice church from the outside, having never been inside. There are guided tours where they'll take you inside the church, but I was enjoying myself too much on the bike and riding along in Den Haag to go do a guided tour, maybe next time.

These deer are found in a park between Centraal Station (central station) and Het Malieveld a big field at the entrance to the highway which holds all sorts of festivals throughout the year or big events. There were quite a lot of deer, but you can't get close to them as they are fenced in on one side and on the other side (where I was at) they have a canal and a wooden fence separating the deer from the people. There were several males with their antlers, but they were just too far away for me to get a decent picture, so I just got some of the females and the babies.

This picture was technically not taken in Den Haag, but in Voorburg where my friend lives, but as I took it while riding my friend's bike I decided to add it. I've always love this statue just because it really depicts a typical Dutch scene where the mother or father takes their children to school on the bike (ok, so maybe nowadays a lot of parents take their children to school by car, but there still plenty of people riding their bikes). Anyway if you notice the heads on these statues are actually umbrellas, which proves the point that it could be pouring down with rain, you'll still see people cycling holding on to their umbrellas or not. Well that was it, only two more days left before I get back on the plane and head back to Portugal, I've had a great time and spent plenty of time with my friends which was the whole point of coming here in the first place. I've missed having my dogs around though I think it would have been even more fun if they'd been here with me because we'd have gone on really nice long walks exploring the neighbourhood. I'll see them shortly though and I bought treats for them because I couldn't be with them on the 4th of October which is Animal Day.

Bike Ride through Den Haag, Nederland - Part 1

So I've been in The Netherlands (NL) since last week Thursday evening, and the first few days I drove around doing a lot of shopping for things to take back to Portugal with me. But yesterday, despite the gloomy but warm day (the first couple of days were really sunny and warm), I decided to go for a bike ride (hence the picture above of a bike) to the center of Den Haag (The Hague/Haia). Besides I needed to get some groceries for dinner which I'd be cooking for my friend and her boyfriend that evening. So here are a couple of pictures of my bike ride from Voorburg to the center of Den Haag. Just pictures of the local sights that I'm so used to having gone to Den Haag loads of times when I was still living here. So the picture above shows a bike and you find these sign posts everywhere indicating a bicycle path, so cars have to be extra careful, and let me tell you while driving here, I've been extra vigilant to make sure I don't run any cyclists over. In Portugal it isn't much of a problem as you don't see too many people cycling, especially on the roads (you do see them now and again), but here in NL they're everywhere and should you have an accident involving a car and a bike and whether or not it's their fault, usually the person driving the car gets the blame and the heavy fine and might even have to pay the medical costs for the cyclist, so if you're ever driving around in NL be very careful turning corners, if you see a bike coming let it pass first.

Here above we see the new Randstad Rail, they were still figuring out some problems with it when I left NL 2 years ago, but it now seems to be running smoothly. It connects Zoetermeer with Den Haag and lots of people use it. It's almost like the Metro in Porto but not quite. I've not had a chance to go on it yet, but maybe next time I come for a visit I'll have a go.

There are lots of things to do and see in Den Haag, plenty of museums, just lovely architecture to behold in the buildings you pass by. The building above is the Maurits Huis and is a museum of art with plenty of paintings of famous Dutch artists. I've never been inside, because looking at paintings just isn't my thing, but I love looking at architecture, and I love this building, despite it not being anything too special compared to some other buildings in Den Haag, but I like it nonetheless.

Here we have De Buitenhof which is where parliament is housed. It's a huge block of lovely buildings (there is also a new glass building on one side) with a lovely big courtyard on the inside where there's a church and the entrance to most of the buildings. On one side of De Buitenhof is a huge man-made lake with a small island in the middle and a large fountain. This little island gets used by several ducks throughout the year. In the winter they put up an ice-rink at the very far end of the lake, and should it be a really cold winter that the lake freezes over completely and it's safe to skate then people will just skate on the lake itself. I've never had the pleasure of skating on the actual lake, but I've walked by it plenty of times and taken pictures of the wildlife surrounding it.

And here we have Paleis Noordeinde, where the Queen has her office, or at least it used to be her office, and probably still is. Right next door to the left of this picture is an old house which used to be Prins Willem Alexander's house until he married Prinses Maxima and so now they live on a large property in Wassenaar. I believe the house still belongs to the royal family, but I'm not 100% sure on that.

TEST KNIT Pale Rose

So on Ravelry I joined the Free Pattern Testers Group, which is where designers request their patterns to be tested by a number of people (however many they want) to make sure that the pattern makes sense before it gets published. I test knitted this gorgeous hat for Olga Jasnovidova. It was based on Estonian lace and it was a very simple pattern to follow. I made the small version (tight fit instead of slouchy fit) and as I was taking photos to post on Ravelry, little Rusty came along wanting some attention, so he got to be in the photo also.

Aestlight Red Boticelli

This is Aestlight Shawl I made using Malabrigo Sock yarn color Red Boticelli. A lot of my knitting friends here in Portugal had already made it and I really loved the shawl and so eventually ended up making one myself. I've decided to give this one to my grandmother, either for her birthday in November or for Christmas, I'm not sure yet which. I loved making this shawl and it's so much easier than it looks I definitely will be making myself one of these in the near future.

Spud & Chloe Top Down Easy Raglan Knit-A-Long

This is the beginning of my Top-Down Easy Raglan KAL which is being hosted by Susan on Spud & Chloe's blog . I'm using Gedifra Fiocco color 4011, which I got years ago at Ribbels, but which I've never found a use for until now. I have some other Gedifra yarn which I might use as well if this sweater turns out to be successful. The yarn is really easy to work with and the "recipe" for the sweater is simple enough and both Susan and Wendy are giving really useful hints & tips along the way as we knit this. More pics soon.

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