Last day of vacation, cooking time

So, today is my very last day of vacation, of the one week I’ve had after september exams. That’s a whopping whole one week of true vacation, without having to study or worry about exams or anything like that. On the last day of vacation, I decided to prepare a few meals that would only need to heat up or bake in the oven right out of the freezer.

The morning started killing a pumpkin and roasting it in the oven, then boiling and roasting its seeds with a bit of oil, worcestershire sauce and salt (mjummy!). Meanwhile lunch was cooking: a pot of lentils with onion, garlic, courgette and tomato, to which I added part of the roasted pumpkin at the end.

After lunch, I made a no roll pie crust, and a pumpkin pie filling, and baked it. Meanwhile (multitasking is your friend) I made lasagna with: onion, carrot, courgette, aubergine, blue foot and shiitake mushrooms, tomato and seitan, and assembled three of them with pasta and white sauce.

The only pic of all the cooking is this of the pumpkin pie (my first ever) right out of the oven:

pumpkin pie

Tomorrow, classes start at 8.30 *sigh* And I still don’t know in which courses I will enrole, so for the first week or so I’ll attend all of them and see which I like better for this semester. Wish me luck!

On the knitting end, the turkish stitch string bag is nearly finished, after having had to rip it off completely when I was a strap from the end. Just need to sew the ends in, and voi-là! Sorry, no pic yet :)

Back Home Again

After those lovely forty five days with Jan, I’m back home to take exams, do paperwork, and go back to uni for yet another year ™. What have we done this summer, you ask? Well, 45 days seems long, but it definitively wasn’t long enough for us.

We had joined a group trip to Scotland, but for several reasons, it didn’t work out. That was my first week there, and instead we just had a quiet time at home, since Jan had the days off anyway.

We fancied a boat trip, and so we went to Overmere Donk, rented a slow boat, and had fun around. We also walked in the park by the lake, so pretty. Pitty the triathlon was so noisy and taking most of the routes!

We went to a friend’s wedding, that consisted of a civil ceremony and a medieval party, which we had to skip (will link to pics whenever, if ever, they are up).

We went to Germany: Dusserldorf (and pics en route), where we met up with Susann and her husband, then from there to Greifswald (with more pics of the drive), where we met up with Laura, and then we drove to Münster. And finally drove back home.

And we also went to Brugge, to buy chocolate at my favourite shop, The Chocolate Line, which you will know already if you read this blog often. I can’t praise this shop enough. All the chocolate is hand made in situ, and you can see the Meester Chocolatier at work through the window at the back of the shop. And visited the Sand Sculptures Exhibition. Lots of work involved in them, and all will be destroyed in a couple of weeks.

Other things accomplished during the summer: knitting (not much), spinning (two whole bobbins, still to be plied, next time I go to Belgium) – no pics of either, stash enhancement (four skeins, enough for a pair of socks and a skinny scarf, pics coming, sometime), cooking a few recipes from our database, visiting family, going out, going five(!) times to the movies (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Over the Hedge, Miami Vice, She’s the Man & Monster House), general happy living together, adopting our two little critters, going out with a bunch of friends for bowling and dinner, and much more! Oh yes, studying too.

Leaving was hard, again, very hard. And I so want to go back very soon. Plans right now are me spending my “winter break” in early December and New Years in Belgium. Meanwhile, Jan will be coming over some time in October and November!

For those of you who care about my flight back, it was okay, if it weren’t for the more than three hours of a detour. The story is, we left Brussels airport on time without problems, the flight was good and we got to Madrid at the scheduled time, but there was a huge storm with lighting that kept more than fifteen planes waiting to land. That meant we had to wait over fourty minutes to land, but we didn’t have enough fuel and detoured to Valencia to fuel there. Once the storm was over, all the detoured planes wanted to leave for Madrid at once, and we got a slot for 10pm (that’s 2.5 hours after we were supposed to land in Madrid). We finally made it to our destination at nearly 11pm, then wait for my suitcase, which luckily was one of the firsts to get out, and get a cab to go home. I got home at midnight, a whooping three hours and a half after I thought I’d be! Luckily for me, I bought the last sandwich on board, and that was all my dinner.

So that’s all, we’ll be back to the regular irregular updates of the blog after my exams and the end of summer cleaning week chez moi!

Help Me Choose A Pattern

Here I am, yarn and needles in hand, trying to find a pattern. When Ashley came to Madrid on vacation, we met and did a little swap. She went home with two skeins of Sirri yarn and half a kilo of Sirri fiber for spinning and dyeing. I was the lucky recipient of two skeins of Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in Forest, and one skein of Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Merino in Fall Foliage.

Lorna's Laces Sheperd Sock, Forest Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Merino, Fall Foliage

And yesterday I got a surprise package from the very same Ashley that contained a set of five double point needles. But not any set, a set of Brittany needles, US size 1 (or 2.25mm for us metric people) that are as short as 5in. (12.5 cm). She used these pretty tiny needles (also known as oversized toothpicks) successfully on her flight back to the States.

Brittany Needles, 2.25mm / 12.5cm long DPNs

I fly quite often (at least for a student ;) ) and needles are forbidden on european flights. However, Ashley had no problems with these, and thought I’d like to be able to knit some on the flights to and from Belgium. And she is very right, and can’t thank her enough for her generousity!

And now, for the help request! I want to make a pair of socks with either the Lorna’s or the Cherry Tree, using my new tiny needles, and that I can keep track on the plane. I want something not too complicated and that shows the pretty yarn well. Monkee (from the KnittyBoard) suggested me the generic “You are putting me on” pattern. I’d perhaps like to spice it up with a very easy lace panel on top of the foot, or the side of the leg… But I am open to all the ideas and suggestions you give me. I’ll be deciding on the pattern the first week of July (so I can print it).

Thank you in advance for the suggestions!

Oh My! A Finished Object!

And no, it’s not the kilt hose yet. I am going to start the second sock, so Jan can try on the partly done I have already and tell me if it’s too fitted, too tall, or what. Meanwhile, I needed a break from them, and some instant regard, so I whipped up a phone cozy for my poor neglected Nokia geek phone. I used leftover sock yarn: the green was leftover from (the still unblocked) Branching Out I knit some months ago, and the white was used my mum to make herself socks.

Icecream* Phone Cozy

Phone cozy - full view

  • Pattern: My own.
  • Yarn: Katia Caricia, 100% superwash merino, 175m per 50gr ball. Leftovers in green (colour #14) and off-white (#3)
  • Gauge: 32 stitches to 10 cm.
  • Needles: 2.5 mm aluminium dpn’s by Pony
  • Finished measures: to fit my Nokia (only measured perimeter, and tried the cozy on as I knitted to see how tall it should be).

I actually wanted to make it all in green, but I ran out of it, so I just digged the off-white and kept knitting, not a drama. Mum helped me with the crochet border (I still haven’t learnt and didn’t want to screw this up) and all was done in a weekend. My phone won’t be cold any more.

I used one of the beads Bec sent me along with the tangled yarn and other pretty things. I loved this butterfly bead as soon as I saw it, so I had to use it. Close up:

Pretty bead

Innit it pretty?

Kilt hose and normal schedule of this blog will be resumed some time soon!

* This phone cozy reminds me of a pistachio-cream icecream, thus the “Icecream Phone Cozy” name.

Lookie!

Nice Bec from the Knittyboard bought some pretty yarn, but when she tried to wind it into balls, she found a very big mess of tangled yarn, and, desperate, gave up on it. She wanted to get rid of it, since she didn’t think she’d be able to tame the beast, and I appeared and offered a good home for it. Last week, it arrived home, in this state:

a big mess of yarn

With my mother’s help, we untangled this beast in three (!) evenings, working on and off, together or alone… The yarn now looks like this:

a big melon of yarn

This will most like become an Ella of sorts, as was Bec’s wish. She also sent me two(!) skeins of KnitPicks Gossamer in Rose Garden, so pretty (pics will be coming), and some bunches of beads. She was so generous… I’ll have to look for something now!

Quick Update!

I’m not dead :p (sorry for those of you who were looking forward to it!). I’ve been rather busy, but I’ve been knitting and sewing a bit. A quick look at how the kilt hose is looking right now, after 10cm of cabling:

Cabling goes up!

See y’all soon. Jan’s coming here next thursday! :) *happy* *jumpy*

Been RAK’ed(!)

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeh! *happy* I’ve been RAK’ed – that is, I’ve been the objet of a Random Act of Kindness. I “signed up” for this at the Knitty Board, it’s a thread where you put your wishes, and if someone can and wants, sends you some thingies. Anyway, I want to thank Amy (sorry, don’t know your site addy, if you have one, and read this, please tell me!) for all the pressies you sent me. And since we know it, here come the pics:

knitpicks yarn! peppermint patties
recipes card

Love. It. All.

Thanks so much again, Amy.

Sade

Cabling!

So, the kilt hose adventure continues. After turning the heel and picking up the stitches, I started with the pretty braid of each side of the sock. You can see a general view:

kilt hose

And a pretty close up of the braid:

kilt hose - close up

Lurve it!

PS: that’s my little camera bag stuffing the sock so it stays up and shows the cables nicely ;)