In honor of the Olympic Games some members of Ravelry organized the Ravelympics. The idea is to cast on a project during the opening ceremony of the Olympics and be finished with the chosen project(s) before the Games end. I challenged myself to do the Presto Chango, a baby sweater. I’ve never attempted anything of the sort before plus I wanted to use a sport weight yarn instead of the worsted recommended. So I had to swatch and measure and use mathematics to find out how many stitches to cast on and which needles to use. It wasn’t that hard to figure out, but it did took some patience, something I just don’t have when it comes to crafting. Ideally I just print out the pattern and get going. Luckily for me however, this pattern is now flying off the (4mm) needles. I’m about halfway through already and it looks pretty much baby size. So far so good! All I’m worrying about now is if I can find suitable buttons for it on time.

Oh and to everyone takes any interest in crochet or knitting at all and hasn’t done so yet: Go over to Ravelry and sign up for an account! It is really one of the most inspiring places on the web. I spend nearly all my online time there nowadays.

I can’t believe it’s already August and I still haven’t completed the report on my vacation back in June! When I got back I was thrilled to have so many things to blog about, but then my well known laziness set in. Thankfully M. and I kept a little diary during our trip because I’ve forgotten half of it already!

June 25
This was to be our last day in Paris. Perhaps you remember that the day before we were told that the Louvre was closed. Today we returned and found it open for the public again. What really surprized me was compared to the crowds outside of the museum, inside it was quite empty. Sure the main attractions, like the Mona Lisa were very popular, but the lesser known pieces could be studied in peace, and there was almost always a seat available for us, which was great because we both were very tired. The place is huge and I decided that I really needed to return there to spend a couple of days on the museum alone. There are so many things I haven’t seen yet, like the Venus de Milo.

As I mentioned before, M. and I were dead tired, so after a couple of hours we decided to leave the Louvre and Paris behind us and return to the hotel, where we slept untill the evening and only got up again to get a sandwich for dinner.

I took a lot of pictures of the art at the Louvre so be sure to check out my photoset.

Craftwise I’ve been quite productive lately and this is a post dedicated to the fruits of my labors of the last month or so. The first finished object is, once again, a scarf. It’s a pattern I tried before, but I never found a yarn/needle-size combination that seemed to please me. I had some Patons SWS in Natural Plum in my stash for ages but it was bespoken to the Danica. But I only recently acquired a pair of 8mm needles. It wasn’t untill I finally gave up on ever completing a half decent Danica that I combined the SWS with these perfectly sized needles. It only took me two skeins (and two days!) to complete My So Called Scarf!

I knit the second project, Sheldon once before, but ended up giving him away. It struck me however that this green turtle would fit perfectly in our nursery which has a green theme. I still had enough anonymous green cotton left after completing the older brother, Stoffel to make a second turtle who is now called Schildje. He’s named after a real life turtle M. once owned. Schildje has a pointier head than Stoffel though, I don’t really know how that came to be. Oh and Schildje has eyes, Stoffel didn’t when I last saw him. Schildje is very lucky to have eyes actually; I almost gave up on them and the whole project after I had place them on his behind by accident and couldn’t get them off. Thankfully doctor M. was willing to lend me a hand there.

Last is this cute Cupcake I completed this morning. A sweet little time killer! I wanted to make more but sewing on the “sprinkles” (actually they’re tiny buttons) took more time than I had hoped, so there’s only one for now.

June 24
Instead of the RER train and metro, we took the car into Paris today, because we discovered it was considerably cheaper to park the car in a carpark all day than to get two round trips to the Parisian center. As it turned out, M. blends in perfectly among the average Parisian drivers; he’s just as reckless and frustrated when driving a car.
We planned to visit the Louvre this day so we parked the car near Centre Georges Pompidou and made our way through Les Halles towards the museum. Unfortunatly, when we arrived we were informed that it was closed for the day. We decided to go back the next day and instead headed towards Galeries Lafayette. On the way we had lunch at a bistro where the waiter royally messed up our order. After visiting the store we took the metro to the Eiffel Tower, where we chilled at the park for a couple of hours. I’ve visited the Eiffel Tower quite a few times now, but never actually went up. The lines are always outrageous and I just don’t really see the appeal. In the evening we had a pizza before returning to the hotel, exhausted!

June 23
We left Dieppe behind us quite early, considering that when at home on a day off we don’t get up untill 2.00PM. We did very well on this trip altogether, eventhough we were extremely tired most of the time, we never slept in.
One our way we once again avoided the main roads (thank goodness for the navigation device) and it took us about half a day to get to the Paris area. In Roissy-en-France we checked into the Ibis Hotel and we headed towards Paris by public transportation.

We had our hearts set on seeing the Sacre Coeur that day, so we got off the train at Gare du Nord and started walking. M. had assured me it wasn’t too far. Now whether it is a long walk or not, I’m still not sure, but I do know that it took us several hours to get there: we got terribly lost and walked in circles. Sometimes we saw a glimps of the white cathedral, only to lose sight of it a second later. Once we finally did reach the Sacre Coeur we were both so worn out that all we did was sit on its steps and be grumpy. Neither of us was in the mood to take pictures. After about thirty minutes of sitting and grumping, we got up and took a drink near Place du Tertre. We were fully aware how stupid this was since those touristic areas are always so expensive, so we were not surprized when the bill came and we had to pay 18 Euros for one Iced Tea and a Coke. It was money well spent because our moods really improved after that. We made our way back to Gare du Nord by Metro and travelled back to the hotel from there. In the evening we had dinner at the restaurant near the hotel: Steak Hachee and Fries. No one ever said this was going to be a healthy trip!

We came home late Wednesday evening and we’re still recovering! There’s another week of vacation left which we’ll spend working on the nursery and chilling. I’ll be filling you in about everything that happened on our trip soon. There is a lot for me to blog about and I’ve completed a handfull of items on my 101 in 1001 as well, so that needs some updating as well. For now I’ll just leave you with a picture of me at the Louvre. There’s a ton of pictures to come, so stay tuned!

Here’s my first handknit fo for my little baby boy. It’s the Gooseberry Hat. Because everyone who knit it on Ravelry said it turned out big, I cast on 80 stitches instead of 96 and adjusted the pattern from k12, p12 to k10, p10. I think it’s a nice sized baby hat now. I used about half a skein of my favorite yarn, Lana Grossa Cool Wool 2000 in light gray.

I can’t even remember how long it’s been since I’ve finished a pair of handknit socks. It must have been my Jaywalkers some time last year. Since then I’ve knit a handful of singles, but I couldn’t find the patience for another pair. Untill now! A complete pair of no-purl Monkeys, featuring my first attempt at a picot edge. Made from a skein of Classic Elite Alpaca Sox color #1835 Spring Green. I have some yarn left over and am considering to use it for a pair of baby socks.

One pair down, four more to go to complete #018 of my 101 in 1001 list.

This is the last time I will post pictures of the hyacinths.. I promise! Here they are in full bloom.

I just received an email from PayPerPost informing me that my blog has been approved for their blog network. I decided to join them because I thought that there must be something about them that makes them so popular; the program really has to work! Unlike those programs where you get paid to read emails and visit websites that hold no interest to you. (Believe me, I’ve tried them!)
And since I’d rather earn some money from the comfort of my own home then having to slave away as a postal worker an extra hour or two a week, I thought I might as well give PayPerPost a try.

Of course I have about 16 weeks of maternity leave coming up in a couple of months. And there must be moments, especially during the first part of those weeks when the baby hasn’t been born yet, that I wish to do something fruitful instead of wasting time on adding items to my Ravelry queue. Conveniently there is also an item on my 101 Things List related to this, namely #079. And I pretty much live to serve The List at the moment.

I’m very curious to see what kind of oppurtunities I get to write for as owner of an unpopular and obscure weblog from a small, non-English speaking country. And so I really hope this won’t be my first and last sponsored post.