new year's smocking cowl

Happy New Year ! I hope you all had some nice holidays, and may 2012 bring you all you wish for.

Christmas and New Year's went by in a blur, a lot of time spent with family and friends and so much good food, which is how it should be. Not much quiet time, but I managed to start and finish this cowl somehow. Actually it only took a couple of hours, I think I spent more time deciding on the pattern than knitting it. I only had one ball of yarn - something someone sent me from a swap years ago when I didn't think mustard yellow was such a fabulous color - and in the end decided on a simple smocking stitch. Directions are below if you wish to make one for yourself (consider it a New year's gift ... as I said, it only takes a couple of hours ;)

(E para quem perguntou, os sacos de celofane vieram desta loja do ebay. Cá em Lisboa infelizmente não sei onde se podem comprar.)

Yarn: any bulky yarn, about 100m (I actually made this cowl using 80 m which was all I had, but it depends if you want it larger or longer)

Needles: (short) 9mm circular needles (you can also use DPN's or magic loop on longer circular needles, depending on your preference)

Abbreviations: RH (right hand), LH (left hand), CO (cast-on)

Directions:

CO 56 sts (or any multiple of 8)

Join in the round, placing one marker at end of row. Purl 1 row.

Start smocking pattern:

• R1: *K2, P2, K2, P2, repeat from * till end of row.
• Knit 2 more rows following the ribbed pattern.
• R4 (smocking row):  * insert RH needle from front to back between stitches 6 and 7 on LH needle, pull a loop of yarn and place it on LH needle. Knit that stitch and the next together. K1, P2, K2, P2. Repeat from * till end of row.
• Knit 3 more rows following the ribbed pattern.
• R8 (smocking row): K2, P2, * insert RH needle from front to back between stitches 6 and 7 on LH needle, pull a loop a place it on LH needle. Knit that stitch and the next together. K1, P2, K2, P2. Repeat from * till 4 stitches after the end of row.
• Knit 3 more rows following the ribbed pattern.

Purl 1 row.

Bind-off.

(For a longer cowl just repeat R4 and R1 another 3 times before knitting the final Purl row).

a handmade christmas - fruit jam

For family the bags of cookies were paired with fruit jams. We made three varieties this year: strawberry, pear and berries. With very little sugar and a lot of fruit. For the packaging I chose a red gingham fabric (always a favorite) and matched it with the color of the labels (which I designed and like to think it didn't turn out so bad).

on books :: the best of 2011

Somehow I don't think I'll make it this year, do you ? I guess I was little too ambitious (after all I read 71 last year, and will probably read about the same this year), but as in most things quality is better than quantity, so I'll leave you with my list of best reads for 2011.

Fiction/Historical:
- Major Pettigrew's last stand, by Helen Simonson
- Fall of Giants, by Ken Follett
- Clara and Mr. Tiffany, by Susan Vreeland
- The Priory, by Dorothy Whipple
- Mariana, by Monica Dickens
- The Shuttle, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
- The Diary of a provincial lady, by E.M. Delafield
- Cold comfort farm, by Stella Gibbons
- Between shades of gray, by Ruta Sepetys

Comfort reading:
- Daddy long legs, by  Jean Webster
- The girl who chased the moon, by Sarah Addion Allen

Young adult:
- The Penderwicks series, by Jeanne Birdsall
- What happened to goodbye, by Sarah Dessen

Fantasy:
- Twilight robbery, by Frances Hardinge
- Fire, by Kristin Cashore
- The Lies of Locke Lamora and Red Seas under red skies, by Scott Lynch
- The cloud roads and The serpent seas, by Martha Wells
- Troubled waters, by Sharon Shinn

Now, on a side note, 2011 was the year I converted to electronic reading. I never thought this would happen, but there you go ... out of the 68 books read, 51 were e-books.

What about you ? Any good reads this year you would like to share ?

a handmade christmas - ginger and spiced cardamom cookies

This year for the first time we decided to bake cookies for Christmas gifts. After a bit of research we settled on two recipes: the spiced cardamom cookies by Martha Stewart, and a ginger cookie recipe I was given by a friend. We made a trial run a few weeks before Christmas, tasted them and decided on a few changes (more spices, and less baking time). The final batch we made a few days before Christmas was much better, but already we're thinking of ways to perfect it next year. The packaging was much harder though, and above you can see a few of the ideas I had for that. The gingerbread house labels are also by Martha Stewart, and the minute I saw them I realized they were perfect for this.

Prague - day 2

Second day in Prague we planned to do the touristy thing and went up to the castle area. It's a nice walk from where we stayed, and lots of fabulous viewpoints to take photos from. Actually we walked everywhere in Prague, I read somewhere we should take the subway at least once but we never did.

 

It was crowded (it was Saturday) so we didn't go visit any of the museums and prefered to enjoy the sunny weather outside. We took a peek inside St. Vitus Cathedral, and then decided to go up the tower for the panoramic views. It's a looong way up but worth the effort.

 

On our way out we spotted the Lobkowicz Palace and the lunch special at the café inside. We sat outside with yet another great view of the city and enjoyed some warm food. I had a pasta dish that was delicious while A. enjoyed another goulash.Then we spent a good couple of hours inside the Toy Museum in front, but that deserves a post of its own.

 We crossed Charles Bridge once again, this time with barely enough space to move.

 But just in time for another sunset.

We headed to the Choco Café, which besides having the best hot chocolates we ever tasted (check out this menu), it turned out to be Sara's favorite café of the whole trip (I think that elephant slide might have had something to do about it) ... we didn't have a reservation this day, but were lucky that a small table soon cleared up (and quickly decided to make a reservation for the following afternoon)

Then another stroll through the Christmas market ...

  I love the Czech wooden toys, especially the pencil hedgehogs !

And finally, dinner was at the (supposedly) best vegetarian restaurant in town (reservation also needed). The food was ok, but nothing exceptional, so I can't really recommend it.