Andalusia

Do you have a bucket list? I kind of do. It consists mostly of places I absolutely must visit. Like Venice, Florence, Barcelona, Portugal, the South of France, Capri, Crete, Bali, San Francisco, the northern fjords, and countless others. Seriously, countless! If I calculate the number of years till I turn 80, and am probably too old to travel, I will never be able to visit all of the places on this list. How depressing is that? Am I the only crazy person out there to go through this exercise?

To be honest I did the same calculation with my must- read books list...

I have always loved travelling. I love the anticipation leading up to the trip, the hustle and bustle of the airport, and especially that first glimpse of your destination.

Spain has always been one of my dream destinations, and it did not disappoint. The weather was perfect, the beach incredible, the food delicious and the sights....breathtaking. We managed to sight see quite a bit, in Malaga, Granada, Gibraltar and Seville.

Andalusia is a beautiful region, the landscape is peppered with olive groves, there is wild oleander growing everywhere, and the streets are lined with orange trees. The colors are just overwhelmingly beautiful. The architecture is striking as well. The south of Spain was heavily influenced by the Moors, and that is particularly reflected in the buildings you see. Walking the streets in these cities, visiting the Palaces and cathedrals, you can't help but be in awe at the beauty of it all.

I could go on and on about each of these destinations, but I know that I would never be able to convey the beauty of it all. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I leave you with a sample of the 2466 photos I managed to take (I'm nuts, I know!)

First, the beach of course. We stayed in Torremolinos, about 10 minutes outside of Malaga. It's a beautiful stretch. It was never too crowded, simply the perfect place to relax with a book, or stroll along before sunset.  Can you believe that there are wild parrots flying about?

And then there's the food...oh the food, let me give you an idea:

I've already mentioned the flowers, right?

At night, once A. was in bed, the hubs and I would relax on the balcony, with a glass (OK, bottle) of wine, absorbing this view:

One of our side-trips we took was to Gibraltar, also called the Monkey-Rock. It's the last place in Europe where wild monkeys have survived. It is a maze of little streets, a very lively place, especially since it was getting ready for the Queen's jubilee celebration.

Next was Granada, where we visited the Alhambra palace, the most visited site in Spain. "Incredible" does not do it justice.

Malaga did not disappoint either.

A.loved running around this fortress with a map in his hand looking for treasure at every turn.

It was unbelievably hard to say good-bye, we all hope to go back one day.

There are hundreds more photos, and I will be posting quite a few on flickr, for anyone who's curious.

I will have a separate post for Seville, because as I discovered, it is a knitter's city, so stay tuned!

First summer project

I'm back!!

I intended to blog about this FO before our departure, but never got around to it. On the last day before our flight, I was searching for ideas on how to photograph the bag, and could not come up with anything. So I thought, why force it?

After all, the best way to show off a beach bag, is to photograph it in its intended environment, right? So I packed it up and off it went to Spain.

Great idea, right?

This is a pattern that I put together myself. The inspiration came from a scarf pattern of Joelle Hoverson's, and it' also very similar to a Purl Bee pattern that I had knitted last year. I wanted a bag that could be worn cross-body, I find that practical, so I added a simple garter- stitch strap. It does stretch quite a bit with wear, especially if the bad is heavy, so the next time I knit it up, I will have to come up with something to prevent that.

For anyone interested , I wrote up the pattern in Ravelry, here.

As soon as the rest of my vacation are downloaded and formatted, I will be posting about Spain...a seriously amazing experience! Stay tuned!

Toddler vest and bonnet

Growing up, my sister and I were very close to our cousin. The 3 of us were inseparable. Perhaps because we have such a strong link we remained close when life separated us. We have been living on different continents for 17 years now and have been plotting reunion for a while. In one week, we are meeting halfway, in Spain.

We all have kids now, and I cannot wait to see them play together and interact. Getting to know each other through Skype conversations is great, but certainly not enough. I really hope that one day they can share the same bond that our cousin shares with us.

In one of the lovely care-packages my cousin sent for Easter, she also included some lovely yarn, asking me to knit a vest and a hat for her adorable 2 year-old daughter. I was more then happy to oblige. After researching patterns for a bit, I decided to adapt this Joelle Hoverson design. Nothing too fancy, as it is the first time i am veering off a pattern, but it's a start. I incorporated a little heart into the pattern, and I am happy with how it turned out. I have added the detailed notes to Ravelry, if anyone would like to try it as well. It can be easily incorporated into any pattern.

As for the hat, I chose a pattern from the same book, "More Last Minute Knitted Gifts"and I really like the design. It only took 2 evenings to finish. I had trouble with the photos this time around, I am not sure why, this is the best I got.

Mother's Day

I have attempted writing this post several times, and I have to admit I have found it hard. I was planning on writing about my own relationship with my mom, which is certainly not picture-perfect and about my own experience of motherhood, but it turned into more of a rant, a string of thoughts that is more appropriate for my journal then for my blog. So I decided to take a different approach.

Mother's day is about me! I hope that all you mommies out there are treated like royalty and spoiled by the men in your lives! I know you deserve it!

To celebrate, I treated myself to some scrumptious yarn. Now, it has not yet arrived, it is in transit, so I can only show you a picture of the listing, but look at it, is it not the most amazing color palette?

I really hope it will arrive on time for me to take on vacation, because I have some grand plans for it. To me, it looks like the perfect yarn to knit with on the beach.

Before I go off and enjoy the mother's day festivities I thought I'd share my son's theory on how he ended up in this world. He told me recently that he believes his dad and I went to a cave with babies and simply chose him. He keeps asking us why we picked him, and not a girl, why we liked him and not some other child. Maybe it's me, but I think it's adorable.

Another adorable thing is this bouquet of wildflowers he picked for me today. I really could not have picked better in that cave....

The brief appearance of Betsy (White)

In my crafty adventures I've repeatedly come across really interesting and cute DIY's that require you to know how to use a sewing machine. Learning this skill has been on my list of resolutions for a couple of years now.
I am happy to be able to say that I have finally taken my first steps into the sewing world.

An acquaintance was kind enough to give me and old sewing machine, a family heirloom really. It was and old "white" machine from the 60's, very "Mad Men", she is pink!. As soon as I saw her, I decided to name her Betsy (White). As I mentioned, I know nothing of sewing, so I took her to Sonia, my sister's sister-in-law, who's a sewing machine guru (she used to give sewing lessons). Her verdict? Betsy's motor is in great shape, she is however missing some essential pieces, which make her in essence, unusable!

Imagine my disappointment! My dear sister however, came to the rescue and let me borrow her own (largely unused) sewing machine for an extended period of time.

A three hour session, during which I filmed (thank you IPod), and took copious notes, has made me feel confident enough to attempt making a place mat. Here's a glimpse of it, and the somewhat wonky details, but please keep in mind that this is the first thing I have ever sewn.

And I am also missing some basic tools, such as a rotary cutter, properly sharpened scissors, a cutting mat and even a ruler. I had no idea that cutting straight is such a difficult thing to accomplish.

My source of inspiration was this post from Design Sponge, it's incredibly well explained.

And because I was on a roll, I also "whipped up" this little beauty, inspired by a tutorial I found on the "Purl Bee".

And I will be honest, this one isn't perfect either, without realizing I closed the drawstring channel on one side, so it's an absolute pain to close, but hey, that's easily fixed.

Now that I am armed with a sewing machine and have been bitten by the sewing bug, any suggestions on what to try next? Any book suggestions? Any supplies I absolutely have to get?

Random Thoughts

One morning, this week, as my husband took A. into daycare, I was left alone in the car for a few minutes.

It was quiet, well, almost, I turned the radio off and listened to the birds chirping. The trees are finally budding and the hedges are starting to turn green. I saw a squirrel running along a wire against a steely-blue, almost lavender sky. The wind was pretty strong and had blown the neighbour's gate open, so their giant poodle was happily roaming the front yard.

It's such a common picture, but it gave me tremendous pleasure to watch. This sense of calm overcame me, a true ..ahhhhhhh moment.

Spring is such a happy, positive, invigorating time. It makes me think of all my projects and plans, and their progress. Now that things are settling down, I am finding renewed energy to continue working on my stash for the Craft Market I am planning on participating in. So here's a picture of what I worked on in the past few weeks.

Our Easter

We celebrated Easter this past weekend. The advantage of celebrating it a week later then most people, is that I've been able to scour Pinterest for cute decorating and crafty ideas. The amount of talent and inventiveness out there is crazy!

I had it all planned out. The menu, the activities and the decorations, and I was pretty pleased with the results.

Holidays and family gatherings, such as these, can be tough. Our family is always reminded that we are spread all over the globe, and only get to meet face-to-face rarely. At the same time this fact makes us appreciate the family members that are close by, and nurture these relationships as we know they are precious.Generally I would say that we are too dependent on technology, but to be honest I cannot remember what it was like before we discovered Skype. To be able to "see" your family, to have cousins that have never met interact, recognize and speak to each other has helped me tremendously in accepting that we are living our lives separated. But I am getting too sentimental here.

I started this post by telling you how nicely I had planned out the festivities. As always, plans are one thing, and reality turns into something completely different. The kids squabbled all day, over chocolate, over coloring the Easter eggs, over who was doing a better job with their activity book. I bought the wrong dough for my dessert, and then forgot to defrost the blueberries I needed for it as well (thank God my sister had brought a "just in case" cake), and then I realized I had forgotten to buy lemons, a major ingredient in one of the dishes we were preparing. Finally the laptop shut down in the middle of our Skype conversation because it was not connected to the power-supply.

So our Easter celebrations ended up being the usual mayhem that our family celebrations are.

I will be leaving you with some photos that portray a completely different picture, make you believe it was all a very "zen" get-together. But I am not complaining, after all, how boring would that be?