I am not going to make resolutions. Because we all know that most resolutions are not kept anyway. But I do want to put here things I’d like to do this year. In no order of importance, small or big, doesn’t matter. I’m not even going to call them goals, like other bloggers are doing this year. Because having a goal (or a resolution) will most likely set me up for failure. So this is just a list of things I want do do!

Here we go:

• Getting my bachelor’s! Yes, halleluja. Moving to Belgium and finishing my studies here was the smartest move ever I think. Right now I am one exam period and one semester (with its own exam period) away from this. I still can’t believe it!
• Sewing more, and drafting some more patterns. I want to try a t-shirt and some trousers.
• Knit more. I am enjoying knitting my first cardigan, so I might jump in and make a second.
• Crochet more. I’m still taking toddler (not any more baby, I’d say) steps in crocheting. I prefer knitting, but there are some things that are more suited to being crocheted.
• Keep reading. Brain candy! Something to let my brain rest after studying in Dutch.
• Cooking. I want to try new recipes, adapt some Belgian classics so they’re vegetarian.
• Blog more. I wrote a whopping 5 posts last year :(
• Getting acquainted with our Nikon D7000. Maybe even read the manual gasp
• Be happy!

And there is probably more to it. But that covers the basics. Enjoy the year, and don’t be hard on yourself. Who’s going to love you if you don’t?

Tuesday 5 July
We got up bright and early (not really), packed a suitcase with all of our stuff, and hopped in the car to drive to Amsterdam. We made a stop for lunch before we left our beloved Belgium, and then went on. We managed to get close to Amsterdam without the GPS or a map and not get lost! And then we turned on the GPS to find our hotel, Hotel Casa 400. And that’s when we took a wrong turn in a crazy Dutch roundabout (or traffic circle, or rotary, whatever you want to call it), and ended having to drive a couple extra kilometers. But in the end we made it safely and found the underground, locked, parking garage where our car would stay for the rest of the trip¹.

We checked in, and puttered in the room until around 5, when we decided to head out and do something. So we bought an I Amsterdam card that includes transport and entries to most museums and other attractions. With this in hand, we went out to explore the transport system and got to the Museumplein. We walked around a bit, and took some pictures. It was getting late-ish, so we decided to have dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe since neither of us had been to one before. We had a Veggie Leggie burger each, that came with a nice side salad, and we had troubles finishing. And eating, actually, because they pile it so high, it’s impossible to take a bite.

After eating, we kicked back a bit, had a peek at the Hard Rock Cafe store and got scared at the prices of merchandising, and decided to heat back to the hotel to watch some tv and get some rest.

Wednesday 6 July
We got up with time to go down for breakfast in the hotel, where we enjoyed the usual fare in a continental breakfast buffet. Then we grabbed our stuff and headed out to the center, taking the tram to the Museumplein again (easiest route for us). We spent the morning visiting the Rijksmuseum. The general exhibition is magnificent, an we got to see some famous paintings, and lots of not so famous ones. There is a lovely replica of a ship on the left of the first room that is lovely.

We grabbed some lunch from the Albert Heijn supermarket (salads to go), and picnicked in the park / Museumplein, like so many other tourists and not-tourists. Observation: Dutch people are weird and like to have milk / milk based drink / yogurt based drink with their lunch.

After lunch, seeing as it might start to rain soon, we headed to the Van Gogh Museum. Two tips: 1) do get your tickets in advance, or use the I Amsterdam card here, 2) they have free WiFi. Why should you do number 1? Because there are always queues. Long queues. With advance tickets or the card, you get to skip those queues and get in way faster! Number 2 is handy sometimes ;-) Anyway, we enjoyed viewing the exhibition, including the room where they explain about restoration, x-ray, comparisons, etc. Oh, and they have some tablets where you can explore certain paintings and their x-rays and so on. Quite nice. Since it was still raining when we finished, we had some down time in the Museum Cafe, where we enjoyed some coffee & cake.

After the Museum, we went for a boat trip through the canals. They give you quite a nice overview of the city and point out some things that otherwise you wouldn’t see. Of course, it started raining again while we were on the boat, but luckily it was covered, so we didn’t get wet. Since it was too early to have dinner, but too late to go anywhere (museums closed already) we went to an Irish pub to have a beer and decide where to have dinner. We walked to De Bolhoed, that came highly recommended. However, it seems to be very recommended and it was full (another couple got also turned down). Then we tried to find another veggie restaurant called Green Planet, but it was no longer there (that’s for having an older travel guide). Finally we gave up and went to have dinner at Wagamama, a noodle bar chain we had tried in Canterbury. Tip: if you use FourSquare, check in here and get a free drink with your meal²! We ordered some spicy food that was quite mellow, so we had to order some extra spice!

Once fed, and tired from the exploring day, we headed back to the hotel to sleep.

Thursday 7 July
Wake up call. Or rather, alarm on the cellphone. Breakfast, and then some planning for the day. We headed to the Centraal Station, and from there walked to NeMo, the Science Museum. It’s mainly oriented towards children, but we are children at heart and it was quite fun to play with all the experiments and learn some new things. We also climbed to the terrace, where you get an incredible view of the city.

Afterwards, I wanted to visit Ons Lieve Heer op Solder, a traditional 17th Century canal house that hides a complete church in the attic. However, we didn’t find the street, and I got frustrated with it, so simply gave up. Now I see that it’s undergoing restoration and it’s empty, so we didn’t really miss much in the end.

Lunch time arrived, and we went again for a picnic in the Museumplein. Well, it is cheaper than eating in a restaurant or a cafe! And the Albert Heijn has a nice selection of take away meals. Afterwards we headed for the Diamond Museum, mostly because I was curious, since Jan had already been in it with work on a previous visit. Lots of bling-bling to see, but most of the jewels are certainly not my style at all. Probably because of too much bling-bling.

We then decided to take a look at the House Boat Museum. It is, as its name says, a house boat. You can see the bedroom (two small chambers that fit a tiny bed, and that’s it), the kitchen with stove and cupboards, the family room with tiny B&W tv. Basically, all you’d need to live in a boat. You can also have a cup of tea or coffee in the family room if you wish.

When we left the museum it was still early but we had had an overdose of visiting, so we decided to relax a while with a drink. We were lucky to get a table on the terrace of the Hard Rock Cafe (great place to people watch), and ordered a cocktail each. Apparently, people are willing to wait, standing, for over an hour, for a table to eat here. And they give pagers to let you know that a table is free. Crazy! How do we know? Because there was a couple with one of those pagers waiting around, that jumped at our table the moment we stood up to leave. At least they were nice enough to give their pager to another couple so they could still be on the list to dine inside.

We had decided to have our dinner at an Indonesian restaurant that was recommended to us, Kartika (warning, website with music). And we have, in turn, recommended it to friends that have gone to Amsterdam. Why? It was, simply, delicious. The service was amazing as well. We ordered the Shinta rice table, a selection of 12 vegetarian dishes, served with rice. For 18€ per person, it was a very cheap dinner, considering all the dishes we tried. Happily stuffed, we headed back to the hotel to sleep.

Friday 8 July
Our last day in Amsterdam, we got up and had breakfast, and decided to spend a couple hours in the center doing some shopping. Jan had brought a couple of gift-checks that were only valid in the Netherlands, and we used them to buy a Wii remote. Yes, we could have bought the same here, but this way we got rid of those checks. I wanted also to pass by Penelope Craft to have a look. I only bought two knitting needles of a brand I can’t find easily locally. The yarn, while pretty, didn’t really call my name. Our last purchase was lunch. We also returned a (plastic) bottle to the store, since they give you credit for even plastic bottles.

And with that, we returned to the hotel to pick up our car, and come back home. We thought that leaving around noon we would be able to avoid all the traffic jams, but we were wrong. A trip of 3 hours turned out to be more than 5. But we got home, and were happy to be back.

To see all the pictures of our trip, please visit our gallery.

Meret Number Two

• Pattern: Meret
• Yarn: Rowan Pure Wool DK, 125 m per 50 gr ball. Color 010 (a lovely blue). Used about 1.5 balls. This yarn was a gift from a penpal.
• Needles: 4.5 mm Addi Lace (120 cm), magic-looped all the way
• Gauge: 22 st = 10 cm
• Size: Fits my head.
• Modifications: Added two repeats around since my gauge was small and my head seems to be big, and made it super slouchy: started on row 7 of the lace chart, finished that repeat, did 4 whole repeats, and ended on row two as instructed, then did the crown shaping lace chart.

Saroyan

• Pattern: Saroyan (Sorry, ravelry link only)
• Yarn: Adriafil Sierra Andina, 100% Extra Fine Alpaca, 50 grams / 133 m. A bit under three skeins, in color 098, a lovely deep green. Bought on offer 3×2, total price 6,24€.
• Needles: 3.25 mm Addi Lace (80 cm)
• Gauge: 25 st / 30 rows = 10 cm
• Size: 165 cm long, 30 cm at its widest (center).

Some facts about the upcoming year:

• The United Nations has designated 2011 the International Year of Forests and International Year of Chemistry.
• NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft is scheduled to arrive in orbit around Mercury. NASA’s Pluto probe New Horizons will cross the orbit of Uranus, after a five-year journey.
• Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, and Mars all visible within a roughly 6° area of sky.
• There will be several partial sun eclipses (June 1, Arctic; July 1, Antarctica; November 25, Antarctica) and total lunar eclipses (June 15, Africa, India, Middle East; December 10, Asia, Australia, Alaska).
• European capitals of culture are Tallinn (Estonia) & Turku (Finland).¹⁶

Today we had to put Nero to sleep. Unfortunately he caught an infection, for which we treated him, but it was too late. He never really got better, and we couldn’t see him suffer any more. We’re gonna miss him very much, our little pooter.

May you rest in peace, Nero. ° August 2006 – † 5th Nov 2010

The first pattern in the book is a simple A-line skirt with front and back darts, made to measure, of course. The only modifications I made to her instructions were adapting the seam allowances to metric (1.5 cm is easier for me to measure than 1/2″), and add a bit more ease around the hips. For this skirt she uses 1″ / 2.5 cm ease for both waist and hips, which I found too little considering my hips “grow” 7.5 cm when I sit down. I took a compromise and used 5 cm ease for the hips, maintaining the 2.5 cm for the waist, since it doesn’t expand as much when sitting down.

Pattern pieces before cutting them

To make this skirt I had decided to use one of the fabrics I scored in the Ikea Sales’ Corner, the Cecilia in white / green / black. It is however too thin and see through, so it requires some sort of lining, for which I used another Ikea fabric: Ditte in off-white. I cut one front and one back out of each fabric, then sewed the darts, folded them towards the center on the outside fabric, and towards the seam on the lining, then pinned them wrong sides together and sewed them together on all sides. From here on I treated this pieces as if they were made out of just one fabric. Inserted a 20 cm YKK coil zipper on the left seam, then sewed both side seams. To finish the seams I pinked since they were already straight stitched.

I’ve finished the waist and the hem with green cotton bias tape. Then fold the waist down and stitch in place, and fold up the hem and stitch. I didn’t do the double fold hem because it felt the double fabric was too stiff. The bias tape does add some structure to the hem without making it too heavy looking.

Taking advantage that Stoffhaus Tippel has a few fabrics on sale, and others are quite affordable while not on sale, I went on a spree and bought fabric enough to sew three skirts (one with underskirt) and a jacket (or two and a dress) for my mother and a t-shirt, some trousers, a dress and a skirt & jacket combo or another dress or trousers for myself. And so I don’t forget what fabric is what, and what is it destined to be, I’m listing here what I bought.

For my mother:

• Ramie Linnen in a dark natural solid color. 100% linnen, 140cm wide, 340 grams per meter. 1,6 meters at 6,95€/m. It will become a skirt.
• Broderie Anglaise in chocolate brown. 65% polyester 35% cotton, 145 cm wide, 110 grams per meter. 1,6 meters at 4,80€/m. It will become a skirt with underskirt.
• Batiste in light cream. 65% polyester 35% cotton, 150 cm wide, 160 grams per meter. 1,6 meters at 3,00€/m. It will be the underskirt mentioned above.
• Stretch Poly-Wool mix, in beige. 42% wool 55% polyester 3% elastan, 150 cm wide. 4 meters at 2,00€/m (down from 7,50€). It will become a skirt and a jacket, or a dress.

And for myself:

• Stretch Jeans in black. 97% cotton 3% elastan, 125 cm wide. 3 meters at 2,50€. Will become a pair of trousers for myself (either jeans style or dressier).
• Stretch Poly-Wool in grey. 42% wool 55% polyester 3% elastan, 150 cm wide. 4 meters at 2,00€/m (down from 7,50€).Will become a pair of trousers and a jacket, or a dress and short jacket.
• Pure wool in a blue / grey / lilac flecked colorway. 100% wool, 150 cm wide. 3 meters at 2,50€ (down from 9,50€). Will become a short sleeved winter dress. It’s sold out, bummer.
• Wool-Poly Jersey in black. 50% wool, 50% polyamid, 160 cm wide. Approx 1.9 meter at 4,00€/m (down from 7,50€/m). Will become a LBD (although not so Little since I’m not what you’d call little). This substitutes the flecked pure wool from above, that is sold out (insert pouting face here).
• Stretch cotton jersey in red. 95% cotton 5% elastan, 145 cm wide. 2 meters at 4,90€/m. It will become a t-shirt style top, hip length.

The total came to be 64,40€ (still the same since I ordered fabric for the same value to substitute what was sold out), plus 12€ shipping. That is 76,40€, and an average of 3,67€/m 3,88€/m including shipping. I can’t complain. If I add up how much it would have been with original prices, it would have come to 129,40€ 115,05€ before shipping (in which case the shipping would have been 6€, and 6,51€/m 5,84€/m on average). I saved 59€ 45€. I can do a little happy dance and start drafting patters now!

Quirks of this shopping:

• the store is only in German, so if you don’t speak German, be ready to use a dictionary or translation website,
• sometimes the classification of the fabrics makes no sense (at least to me), so take your time to browse all the categories,
• they only specify shipping for Germany and rest of Europe. If you’re planning on shopping from abroad, you’ll have to email them to check the shipping rates,
• they only take bank transfers for payment. Forget about credit / debit cards and paypal.

Other than that, it was quite a painless shopping. I’ll let you know when my fabric arrives and I’ll make sure to take pictures for the stash.