Tag: knitting

A real 'Curaçao' weekend

~ Maggie ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes our weekends here are very boring. Enjoyable, but not much to talk about afterwards. Just relaxing, driving around, not doing much.
Last weekend though… Not boring at all.
We started with our (almost) daily swim at Daaibooi Beach. I remembered to bring my camera this time.

Then we went home to take a shower (and admire some flowers).

We usually go to Mambo beach on Friday evenings (told you, kind of boring) but this time we went to Blue Bay Happy Hour, to meet some friends and to meet some of their friends.
One of them was a dinosaur.

That was such a fun evening! We were invited to join them at the beach the next day. So on Saturday we packed our cooler (with beer for T. and water for me), grabbed some snacks and off we went. To Kas Abou Beach.

Can you guess where some of our new friends come from? Let me zoom in a bit on their floaties.

Yep, that’s an American Eagle. The other one is a Trump floatie. We stayed the whole afternoon. Swimming, talking, snacking. Loved it.

On Sunday we went to a Food Festival, but next time we’ll try it for dinner, not for lunch. It was really hot and not very populated.

The burrito we had (first time we tried one!) was very good though. And the hot dog we had a few hours later wasn’t too bad either.

We drove around the island for a while and then we headed home, but on our way home, we remembered that Kokomo beach has a familystyle Happy Hour on Sundays, with a rock band playing. One of the things we really miss on this island is good music, so we decided to check it out.

The music was great, so we stayed until they stopped playing. And we got to watch a perfect sunset too.

Also, this happened. Found a shop that carried (some) knitting needles and cotton yarn.

So now I’m knitting myself some potholders, because I actually need them. But I guess I’d even knit something I don’t need, just because I’m so happy to be knitting again.

How was your weekend?

Last week in pictures

~ Maggie ~ Leave a comment

Well, actually just Friday in pictures, but that was what this week was all about. I spent the day knitting at T.’s bedside (except for three hours when he was in surgery). I actually finished two hats and started a dishcloth. It was a long day…
Anyway, everything went very well. They found the problem, fixed it and he is feeling better than he’s been feeling for a long time. He was discharged on Saturday morning. We’re both taking the rest of this week off and away from the computer/internet to rest and heal (my ear is still acting up).
Wishing you all a great start to your week!

52 hats :: 34 – this yarn

~ Maggie ~ Leave a comment

Oh, I love this yarn so much! This shade of blue is my favorite (like the sky on Curaçao) and combined with that greyish brown… oh my. Yes, I love it. I figured it just needed to shine on its own, so I made a very simple hat, that I love just as much as the yarn itself. I may have found myself a new keeper…

A to-do list

~ Maggie ~ Leave a comment

Three things I need to work on today:

1. decide what yarn to use for my next hat (told you, I should stop buying yarn – or find better storage)

2. clean up this mess (this is what’s left of our former bedroom after we took out the bed and the wardrobes)

3. work on those photo albums

Oh yeah, and prepare for tomorrow (T’s surgery). But I prefer not to think too much about it. This surgery is supposed to be routine, but it scares the hell out of me… Anyway, trying to avoid thinking, or blogging, about that. I’m scheduling tomorrow’s hat post to keep on track and I hope to be will be back on Monday to tell you I was just worrying too much, like I always do when loved ones have medical issues that I can’t take care of myself.

Linking up with/inspired by Carole Knits’ Three on Thursday

52 hats :: 33 – it really is my favorite pattern

~ Maggie ~ Leave a comment

Yes, it’s that pattern again. I’m not going to apologize for it, I just like knitting it. It’s like talking to an old friend or something like that.

I did something funny a few weeks ago. I have this beautiful notebook that the girls gave me for Sinterklaas years ago. I started using it as a knitting notebook after months of not knowing what to do with (didn’t want to ruin it, but most of my notebooks end up like a mess, tearing out sheets etc.). The first year of notes is 2015 and I sort of kept it up through the last years. But I thought it was a shame that the years before that were missing.
So one lazy Sunday I browsed through my blog archives and took notes of every knitting project I posted. Starting with the red cardigan and working my way through 12 years of blogging. Oh my.
I know there are some projects missing from the blog (like the hats I made for a friend and her family and my first shalom cardigan), but at least now I have a bit of an overview.
And at least now I was able to count how often I actually made this hat.
This is number 25.  Ahem. No wonder I can knit this without thinking about the pattern too much…

Three things making me happy today

~ Maggie ~ Leave a comment

1. My yarn stash. I know it’s not that much, but it’s enough for me right now (with a move to the other side of the world still in the works). I love being able to browse through it and choose what to use for the next hat.

2. Rain! Oh, I’m sure I won’t be that happy about it in a few weeks. Or months. Because this is actually normal around here most of the year. But it’s been unusually dry around for two months. My garden (or in fact the whole country) really needed a few rainy days.

3. This leather backpack I found at the thrift store yesterday. It needs a bit of love (it was completely dried out and stiff, I’m working on cleaning and greasing the leather), but it’s still in very good condition. I’m really looking forward to using it.

Linking up with Carole Knits’ Three on Thursday

52 hats :: 31 – spiraling up

~ Maggie ~ Leave a comment

This one was really fun to make! I’m sure there is a more sophisticated way of making spiralling hats, but I usually just cast on one stitch less than I need for a rib (this one is k4 p4, I cast on 71 stitches on a 5 mm needle) and just keep going round and round. It’s really easy but very satisfying to do.

52 hats :: 30 – pointy hat (finally caught up!)

~ Maggie ~ Leave a comment

I’ve loved this type of hats since I first saw them online years ago. Elf hats, leprechaun hats, gnome hats, pointy hats. Love them all. I could have downloaded a pattern to make it easy on myself, but hey, where’s the fun in that? So I just went ahead and tried to get a pointy top.
I think it worked out alright, though it didn’t end up as pointy as I envisioned. Also, it was meant as a hat for a child, but it still fits my adult-sized model. Maybe I need to cast on fewer stitches next time (did 66 stitches on 5 mm needles). So, in conclusion: loved making this, but needs some tweaking.

Also: finished this hat (number 30) on Saturday, July 28th., which was the end of week 30. Finally caught up! (also posted two hats today, since I wanted to be back on track in August).
Trying to knit one hat a week for a while now and work on other projects too. Though the thought of keeping this flow of three hats a week up and finish early still appeals to me too. Hmn. We’ll see.

linking up with Frontier Dreams’ Crafting On

52 hats :: 29 – ribbed

~ Maggie ~ Leave a comment

So I actually think this is the best design I came up with so far. It’s interesting to look at and fun to knit, though not too hard. I think I’m going to make it again and write a pattern for it. Would you like to knit this one?