The hats I posted about in March:
11 :: Broken Rib (you can find a download link for the free pattern in the post)
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Mad Hatters' Link Party ~ March
Month: March 2018
Three on Thursday :: Breathe…
I wish my to-do list had only three things on it. Well, actually it does:
1. finish house
2. keep up with everything else
3. relax
It’s just that that first item is a huge one. Before we left we were already on it, but our time frame shrunk from “a few years” to “one month”. So there’s that. Also, I conveniently totally forgot I was halfway sorting through my parents’ paperwork when we left.
They’ve always lived in big houses, but recently downsized and I told them I would take care of their archives, sort it, shred what can be tossed and store what needs to be kept. And then December happened with all the holidays and then we left and I just shoved two giant boxes of paperwork in a corner. Hmn.
Anyway, I am getting there. Slowly, since there’s also the rest of the work that needs to be done (more taxes, household chores, etc.)
How about #3, you ask? Well… I try. That’s where the pictures in this post com in.
This is by far my most favorite spot on Curaçao. It’s not easy to reach. After a shaky ride on a dirt road, you have to walk on ancient coral (sharp and uneven) to reach the point where you can see it. But when you do… we think it’s spectacular.
A local once told us: “This is where Korsou breathes”. And that’s exactly what it sounds and looks like.
It always gets me to breathe a bit slower too.
I needed to be reminded of this spot. Let’s look at those pictures and breathe….
52 hats :: 11 – Broken Rib Hat (free pattern)
I made this hat before (it was actually the last hat I made last year and the one I had so much fun with that it started the whole 52 hats idea) and liked it very much.
Naming patterns is not a thing I’m good at. This name? I know, it sounds weird. But that’s what the stitch pattern I used on the rib was called. I found it in a book that once belonged to my grandmother. It looks very intrigate, but it’s actually just simple slipped stitches that create this effect. Really fun to knit and a great one to use for the brim of a simple hat.\
Want to make one? You can download the free pattern here. Let me know if you have any problems or questions. I also love to hear from you if you make it.
Have you been knitting hats this month? I’d love to see them! The next Mad Hatters Link Party will be up on Saturday (March 31st).
Linking up with Frontier Dreams’ Crafting On
52 hats :: 10 weeks on Curaçao
It’s silly, I knew this would happen, but every time we travel this far, I’m sort of surprised being hit by a serious jetlag. We left Curaçao last Tuesday and arrived back in the Netherlands on Wednesday, after a very short night (we loose five hours traveling back).
In the comments of last weeks (scheduled) posts someone asked what we call home now (sorry I didn’t respond to any of your comments – my foggy brain wasn’t capable of putting words together into readable sentences). Before we left I probably would have answered “both Curaçao and the Netherlands”.
But to be honest… both me and my husband have been caught mumbling “I just want to go home!” these past few days. So yeah… the transition is hard and there is no doubt we will be working towards going back (home) as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, we’ve been visiting with and visited by the girls and my parents. They still have to get used to the idea that we’re packing up to leave. It’s hard to witness, but… well. We really need to do this. In only a few days, my husbands health plummeted back to what it was before we went to Curaçao, so that’s a really good reason, though not the only one.
So, our plans for the weeks to come are simple: do what we normally do (clean, work, write) and use every spare moment to finish work on the house (we’re still in the middle of a renovation), sort through our stuff and get rid of things that we don’t really want to keep and work out the financial kinks (we’ve got a few businesses and have to look in to the fiscal complications of our move). It sounds simple, but when I look around and try to list what we need to do, it’s kind of overwhelming.
Anyway, knitting (my plans to make this blog about more than just knitting have to wait until we tackle this moving thing).
I thought it would be fun to have some record of what I actually have been knitting in those 10 weeks on Curaçao.
This is what I brought with me from Holland in January. Eleven 100 gr. skeins.
And this is what was left the day before we left (I actually started another hat with some of those leftovers after I took the picture).
And this is the pile of hats that I took back to Holland with me.
A total of thirteen hats, that’s an average of 1,3 hats a week. My one hat a week challenge is working out sofar.
I’m not sure about how to handle the logistics of the rest of the year’s knitting. I’d love to have some final pictures of all 52 hats together by the end of this year, but it seems silly to take them back and forth to Curaçao with me (we hope to move to Curaçao in August, but we’ll be back in the Netherlands in December for the holidays and birthdays). Maybe I can put them in storage or something. Oh well, that’s a (silly) problem for another day.
Back to cleaning and sorting now…
Three on Thursday:: Friday Visits
Yes, we’re officially back in Holland now, but I’m going to linger on Curaçao on my blog for a while. I’d like to say I’m lingering in my thoughts, but those are filled with things to do before we can go back. No lingering there, I’m in full action mode (despite the giant jet lag)
Anyway. I thought it would be fun to show you three pictures of what we used to visit (almost) every Friday night. Our main reason to go to Seaquarium Beach every Friday night was to have a snack at Aloha and a drink at Wet & Wild Beach Bar but between the snack and the drinks we usually took a walk down to the Seaquarium to see:
1. Fish
Lots of them in the water there. This is not a pond or another restricted aerea, it’s open to the sea and these fish are free to come and go. But it seems there’s a lot of food in that water, because it’s usually very busy with all kinds of fish. We liked watching them swim.
2. Iguanas
There were usually one or two around, sometimes even more. I love looking at them, they’re all different.
3. Sealions
These are in captivity, sadly, but they seem quite happy. In this picture they were napping in the water. So cute to watch. One of them held his nose above the water the whole time, the other one moved his head up and down to breath.
Linking up with Carole Knits’ Three on Thursday
52 hats :: 10 – A Favorite
If you read through my older blogposts or remember my old blogs, you’d immediately recognize this one. In fact, you’d be wondering why I made nine hats before I made one of these. Somehow this is the one pattern I knit over and over again. I’m not sure how many I knit exactly (because I deleted my old ravelry account – silly thing to do) but I know I made over twenty of these already.
The weird thing about this hat is that I really don’t think it looks that great on me. I never wear any of them. But it’s fun to knit, that counts too, doesn’t it?
The pattern is Soulemama’s (apptly named Soulemama’s Favorite Knit Hat Pattern) and can be downloaded from her blog. I slightly adapted it for thinner yarn and thinner needles. I cast on 72 stitches and used a 4 mm needle. The yarn I used is Julia from Zeeman.
I actually finished this one a few weeks ago, but I’m still going steady with showing one a week for now. Dreading the jetlag I will be sporting after we land in Holland on Wednesday (I hate nightflights) and the work we have to do before we can go back to the island. I don’t think I will finish knitting up every bit of yarn I brought, but I’m getting close. Hat # 14 is in the works…
Linking up with Jeannie Gray Knits’ Makers’ Monday and Frontier Dreams’ Crafting On
Three on Thursday :: Santa Martha Bay
Three pictures from last Sunday.
We drove through Banda Abou again and made our way to Santa Martha. It’s a nice drive (if you’re like my husband and like to drive narrow, curvy roads in the hills) and it has some beautiful views (but we didn’t stop to take pictures – you can see the ones I took four years ago here).
That route takes you to an abandoned resort and a beach that is usually very quite. It wasn’t now, a group young men and women was gathering there and having lots of fun playing in the higher than normal (we’re having some strong winds) waves. We brought our swim suits, but decided to stick to just standing in the water (in Dutch we call that “pootjebaden” which could be translated to “leg bathing” – I don’t know if there’s a word for it in English).
We just stood there for a while, enjoying, savoring the moments. We’re getting good at that 😉
Linking up with Carole Knits’ Three on Thursday
52 hats :: 9 – Zigzag
Oh my, this hat. It looks simple and cute, but it’s totally not what I intended it to be. Ahem. I wanted to brim to have more zigzags, but the pattern I got from a magazine turned out to be too high for that. And then I wanted it to be a slouchy hat, but something went wrong there too, so after I frogged that part back to the brim I decided to get it over with and make a beanie.
Yes, it’s cute and I’d probably wear it myself. So maybe things just worked out the way they should have been planned in the first place.
My knitting came to a full stop last week, when I found out that my e-book subscription featured all books by Agatha Christie too. I love them. I even have them all at home (I prefer not to think about having to get rid of them right now). I tend to reach for these books when I’m not feeling well and that’s exactly what I needed last week. I’ve lost count of how many I read, but I think six or seven. And I didn’t feel like trying to knit while I was reading them (sometimes I can, sometimes I can’t). Oh well. I am back to knitting now, but I think there will be some yarn to bring home with me (only one week to go!) after all…
Linking up with Jeannie Gray Knits’ Makers’ Monday and Frontier Dreams’ Crafting On
Three Things :: moments to savor
Even though it’s comforting to know we’ll be back, it feels like time is going too fast. Not even two more weeks until we go back to Holland. And since we’re not sure when we’ll be able to return (lots of things to take care of first), I’m trying to savor every moment we’re still here. Three things I’m really going to miss (apart from warmer temperatures and sunshine of course) :: swimming. We plan to go every day, but usually end up swimming about two or three time a week. Still, we love it. During week days we drive to the nearest beach around 4:30 pm and have a little swim. We usually just float around for a while and swim up and down the bay a few times as exercise. I found it’s a great way to loose stress and anxiety.
:: driving around Banda Abou. This is the less populated, more natural region of the island. I love how green it is right now, after all the rain, but it’s just as beautiful in dryer periods.
:: watching sunsets. We’ve still got two weekends ahead of us and usually spent Friday nights at Seaquarium Beach where you can see the sun set while you have a drink at the beach bar. A great way to start the weekend.
Linking up with Carole Knits’ Three on Thursday
52 hats :: 8 – Twisted
Such a simple design, but I really like this one. I did a simple k1, p1 rib, but twisted the K stitches. And then I just did a lot of stockinette. Sometimes simple is the right choice, isn’t it?
Ha! I could get all philosophic about that, because simple is usually the right choice in everything, even life decisions. I even might state that it’s the reason we are going to sell our house in Holland and really move here permanently. Our first plan was to keep our house or eventually buy a smaller house in Holland and to buy a house on Curaçao too, and travel up and down a few times a year.
But we already had two situations (a big storm and very low temperatures) that caused damage to our house in the Netherlands while we were here these two months. That involved calling around, bothering other people to ask for help and worrying about inanimate objects. Worrying about family is something different, but worrying about a house while you’re not even there? Nope, not right.
So our new plan is to put the things we’re really attached to in storage for a few years and live in a rental here on Curaçao to see if we really want to stay. That gives us the freedom to change our minds, but without the burden of having two houses to worry about. Simple. But right.
Anyway. Knitting. I’m actually doing very well. Working on #11 already. Since we go back to Holland in two weeks, I suddenly decided that I want to try to work through the little stash I brought. Since it’s all part wool, I don’t think it’s smart to leave it here (moths!) and I would rather take back hats in stead of skeins. After I finish #11 I have two complete skeins left and some scraps I could combine. Seems doable (probably isn’t)…
Linking up with Jeannie Gray Knits’ Makers’ Monday and Frontier Dreams’ Crafting On
NOT A STATION 