you scold random strangers in front of the coffee shop for littering.
Category: General
Film – Nowhere Boy
I am hurling towards the end of my mat leave at breakneck speed, which is a bit funny because I find my days to pass slowly and calmly. I have been working away at my thesis and it is now mostly written though I am sure I will have a lot more to do once my adviser gives me his feedback. I now technically only have Introduction, Conclusion and Related Literature to write up along with some formatting. Can I do it in three weeks? I think I can.
To help me unwind, I have been knitting a lot. Actually, I think fall is my knitting season. I have been knitting a lot last year around this time as well.
This sock was made from some fancy shmancy yarn I got at the Fibrefest in Almonte a few weeks ago. I am on the pleased side with them though I have not worn them yet. I need to block them first and I just haven’t gotten around to it. They are on a bit of a larger size and I was going to give them to Chris, but I made one of the bands too tight so he was not able to take the sock off without help. It is too bad because the other band was just fine. I have to work on my binding off technique. They fit fine on me and I am sure that they will shrink in the wash anyway.
I made this bag on a whim as part of the Free Pattern Testers group. It took me two days and I got to use up some of my acrylic stash which has been sitting in the mud room looking at me longingly for last three years. I am quite pleased with the bag, especially since it is my first knit AND sew project. Yay for quick knits!
Nothing new for the followers of Trev’s blog, but I am mightily pleased how Trev’s Halloween costume turned out. I have not told him that I am going to take the wire laundry basket cage back yet. Do you think he will mind?
Last month I made a hat for my sister, but I already blogged about that a few weeks ago. Needless (no pun intended) to say, I am completely sold on the circular needles.
What is the next project? I don’t know! Maybe a knitted book folder to store my thesis…
Film – The Kids Are All Right
In last couple of months I noticed that I am making more food than usual and my pots are continuously spilling over and making my stove a mess. Realising that with four people to feed the little pots from the DINK-y days are just not cutting it, I started using the larger size pots for my regular meals. Then I realised that the larger size pots are great for the stuff I usually made in regular pots but are spilling over with stuff that used to fit in them. I thought about getting a stock pot, but I was not convinced until I started pickling beets and had to boil them in three shifts because they would not fit. Not only that, but I had to use my turkey pan and oven to sterilize the bottles. Yes, it was time to get a stock pot.
So now I have a 12 L stock pot. It is huuuge! I haven’t made anything in it yet but the boys have destroyed the box it came in so it is a keeper. What do you think, will I use it often?
Opera – Turnadot
I have been knitting a lot. I made a hat for Chris. It looks good. The pattern I used is called Tychus. It is from Knitty and it truly is the easiest hat ever. Next time someone tells me they want to learn to knit, I will offer them this pattern. It is in 3D and it has colours and yet it is so easy to knit it is ridiculous.
I tried to knit matching mitts, but it did not turn out. Since then, I started an experiment to see whether I should switch to circular needles. I had a relatively positive experience with the circs this summer and a very negative experience with the current standard, double pointed needles. With dpns I kept dropping the needles or having them wiggle out while in the bag. I was knitting lace, so fixing things was a hassle. Then the ends got splayed, needles got bent and finally one of the five got lost somewhere (fell out of the bag through a hole it made a few days before) leaving me to knit short needled.
Anyhow, I got a fancy-schmancy pair of circs and all is well with the craft. I can even knit more than one project at the time. Now two boring projects turn into one exciting one.
I also pickled some beets. Isn’t this picture eery? I am expecting Q and Captain Pickard to jump out form behind the jars…
Film – Some Romans in England Film
Film review – Romanes eunt domus – That’s it.
Anyhow. I am very sad that my vacation is over. It is however over and I can only wonder at how great it was and how much I got done.
I worked quite a bit on my thesis. At least I worked on it more than I have in a long while. I also managed to get quite a bit of knitting done which made me really happy. The interesting thing about knitting is that I do it to relax, but I noticed that I am really tense while doing it and don’t like to be disturbed. I guess it is why people like smoking so much.
I already posted pictures of a hat I made for my dad. I also made a laptop bag for my sister.
The interesting thing about the bag is that it is entirely my design though my sister had significant input. I am a bad swatcher (I made a swatch for the hat, I swear) and I actually started a swatch for this bag when my sister said that it was the exact size and that I might as well continue on to the real thing. This speediness caused me to not design the handles, but they weren’t part of the requirement spec anyway. This was the first time I did Fair Isle so I was pretty pleased.
The final piece of knitting was a pair of double mitts, designed for, and with much input by, my sister. I did not need to swatch because I am quite familiar with this yarn, but I did make a prototype in a completely different scale.
The design is actually merging of three different mitt patterns. The outside mitt (blue) is Give A Hoot .
The inside mitt is Hand Springs Fingerless Mitt . However, this pattern is wrist-up and I needed a fingers-up so I redid it based on the Zigzag Mitts instructions.
My sister is going to try these out this winter and let me know how they fared.
Dubrovnik
Chris and I have been talking about going to Dubrovnik for over a decade now and we finally got around to doing it.
Despite Croatia being a very small country, it took us more than a day to get from Cres to Dubrovnik. We traveled in style however.
By next morning we were in Split…
And a few hours later in Korcula.
Dubrovnik is Croatia`s tourism hot-spot and they are seriously working on competing with world class hotels. They are fairly successful at it, but there are some systematic problems that creep up, but considering that the whole area was devastated during the war in the `90s, they are doing quite well.
Of the whole walled city, my favorite part was the main gate antechamber, a large open air `room` with solid walls on all sides and two cute lacey looking lanterns in the middle.
The second day we were there, we decided to take an excursion boat to the nearby islands. We booked the boat at the hotel and showed up at the appointed time only to be picked up by the wrong boat (did I mention systematic hospitality problems?). It was no matter though because there were two other families who were also stowed away without their knowledge. The boat, Roditelj, was actually really cool and it turned out to be the oldest boat in Croatia.
After the stop on the first island, Kolocep, we straightened everything out and got onto our assigned boat (which had actual sides and shade – more appropriate for a baby). The islands around Dubrovnik are very similar to the islands I used to vacation as a kid and I got quite nostalgic. Bathing on the rocks, though the best thing in the World, requires some skill so we decided that it would be too difficult with Owen so we had a swim on the beach in the town of Lopud.
The next day we had a walk on the walls. Because Owen categorically refuses to have anything on or near his head, we had to do the walk early in the morning and only did one stretch of the wall.
Up until about five years ago, the walled town was the center of Dubrovnik and all people living in Dubrovnik (old and new part) went to the old town to shop and get their business done. Over the last few years, the rent has gone up and some older people have sold their houses for exorbitant prices to people who do not stay there. There are some incentives for people to live in the old town year round. You can get up to 10,000 kn (2,000 CAD) a year per child, entrances to movie theater and other entertainment is free and the city covers the cost of installing internal air-conditioning. I hope that these incentives work and people keep living inside the city walls. It would be very sad if Dubrovnik turned into another Venice. It is still not too late, look at the vegetable garden someone is keeping just inside the city walls:
We had a chance to see a few museums of which I particularly liked the modern art gallery. But, I do tent to be fond or those.
