another visit to the Baltic

My boy and I took a short vacation to the coast again this weekend. Rügen is a beautiful island we really enjoy visiting because it's so beautiful and quiet and a very nice escape from the city.

 This was our view during dinner.

 I had delicious schnitzel, jäger-style.

My boy had chicken and pasta.

We walked out to the pier after dinner and discovered you can see the water through the floor. I'm glad it was a calm day.

We could see our hotel from the pier, but it's not actually possible to get to the water from the hotel.

I got a new camera and tested out the zoom. Not bad considering I didn't have my tripod to try a longer exposure.

We went back to Jasmund National Park and it was cold and foggy that morning. It had been crazy hot in Berlin all week so we packed for hot summer weather and were not prepared for the cold and fog.

 View of the Königsstuhl from the Victoria Sicht.

 View of the Victoria Sicht from the Victoria Sicht.

We decided to walk the 2+km back to the car park instead of taking the bus. We did this last year as well and forgot how long it was. 2km isn't really that long but all of my photo stops really added to the travel time. It was interesting to see things that had changed, such as logs in the water that I remembered photographing.

Next we went to Prora and I walked in the water. I wasn't prepared with my bathing suit, nor did we have any towels, so I held up my skirt and waded as far as I could. It was lovely and crisp and I wish I could have actually gone swimming. It's probably best that I didn't though as I got a crazy sunburn on my back and arms from this walk on the beach. Damned dress!

The one problem was the occasional patches of seaweed. I don't like swimming in rocky beaches and I don't like being touched by seaweed in the water. This beach is sandy but seeweedy. The next beach we went to, where I really felt my skin burning, was all seeweed so we didn't go in the water at all. The third beach was all rocks so we ended up coming back here for an hour or so to sit in the shade and enjoy the evening beach before a quick walk in the water.

The next day we walked to the end of this pier. We didn't do it last time and I regretted that, so even though we were tired, we made the 2km walk. Near the beginning of the walk I took this photo and two hours later we were on the next boat! That was something totally unplanned, but another thing we can cross off our Rügen to-do list.

The lighthouse didn't seem to be getting closer at all and there was no shade the entire walk, which was okay on the way there, but the return trip really exhausted us, as is usually the case.

On the other side of the lighthouse the water kept splashing up - so much that the metal barrier had fallen off the pier!

On the boat. We sat on the starboard side, which meant that all the photos we took on the way to the chalk cliffs were though the heads of everyone else on the boat, but on the return trip we had an unobstructed view.

The lighthouse is visible at the far left of the picture. The pier starts at the white building on the right.

The Victoria Sicht on the left and Königsstuhl on the right. Last year we climbed down the beach.  There was no way I was going to do that again! 

 The viewing platform on the top of Victoria Sicht.

a rainbow

Drops had a sale in the month  of May and I just couldn't resist buying a box full of Alpaca.  I bought it online and while I was trying to decide which colours to buy, I just kept adding them to my cart until I pretty much decided to buy all of them. Well, except for the brown shades because I'm not a fan of brown. 

I first thought of making a blanket with successive gradients of colour, but decided it would be too messy.  I then thought about making a spiral gradient blanket, but couldn't figure out a way to do it without cutting the ends and joining them every row - which is a waste of good alpaca in my view!  So I settled on huge blocks of colour.

55 stiches in each colour, 28 cm tall before changing colours.  I hope it will be as gorgeous at the end as it is in my  head.  It's already so soft and wonderful that alpaca is my new favourite yarn.

the neverending blanket

It feels like I crocheted this blanket non-stop for six weeks, and then spent an additional two or three weekends joining the squares. 238 squares at 26 minutes per square, 13 joins at nearly an hour each, 16 joins at about 45 minutes plus the border each equals a lot of time spent on this blanket.

A lot of some colours, a few of others

I lay them on the floor and attempted an even distribution of colours. I tried to be random, but also wanted to make sure the same colour wasn't joined to itself.

First I joined every other column, then I went back and joined the missing columns before finally joining the rows. To ensure I didn't mess up the colours I actually crocheted the columns while sitting on the floor, which hurt my back quite a bit.

This blanket is crazy heavy and probably weighs nearly 2000g.

 Tilly approves.

I realized it would take more grey than I had to join it, but I didn't want to go to the store to buy more  so I just alternated the rows and columns with the other colours I had remaining.

All in all, I'm really happy with it.  I don't do random well, so having a completely random blanket is a big thing for me.  While it's too hot to actually use it this summer, it really brightens up my room, so it's always on the bed.

my boy's blanket

This started as a blanket to crochet in the car. I can't even remember the first trip - maybe up to the Baltic? My boy made a few comments about wanting a blanket and when I was at the store I saw these colours and thought he would like them, so that was it.

I really like this pattern because I has so few ends to sew in. I want to make another blanket like this - but for myself and in shades of pink. I'll add it to the endless list of things I want to make...

At the end I decided on some single crochets for the border. I added four or five rows and it seemed insubstantial so I added a few more, however it then started to curl! Each row took so long to do that I just didn't want to undo them, so I've decided the curling adds personality and warmth at the edge of the blanket. Yes, warmth.

joining my blanket

I have finally finished four squares of each colour combination.

I should start by saying that I normally don't like mitred square blankets when I see pictures around the interwebs. Many people make them end up looking like diamonds! But once I started making them I decided I liked how easy they were to make and how different they are from normal grannies. I mean, how many granny blankets does a person need?

It's time to start sewing them together, so I don't have a massive pile of tiny squares to sew together whenever I finish them all. The pile would be so overwhelming that it would probably take me another six months just to sew them together.

I debated about the best way to join them. Straight rows?

Some sort of expanding pattern?

Angled columns wins!

Now, how to join? I didn't like the edge this stitch made.

White yarn stood out WAY too much.

The colour of the end row was perfect.

After joining four squares I realized I wasn't following my angled pattern. Arg. Also, one square was backwards. I didn't notice that at the time, and in the final product two are reversed already. I'll have to start paying attention when I join!

All 32 squares joined! I've calculated that this swatch took approximately 23 hours of my life to crochet and join, not including mistakes.

the sweater, complete

Please forgive the bad photos.  I finished last night, well after sunset, but my boy wanted to wear the sweater today so I had to take photos without natural light.

I'm quite happy with it.  It's really crazy warm and turned out pretty well.  I had him try it on all the time so I could test out the length of the cuffs and when I needed to reduce the sleeve stitches.  For a first sweater, I'm pleased.

I'm working on something new

I'm making something for my boy. I'm already working on a blanket for him, but I like to mix up my projects. This pattern is mostly from the January issue of Crochet Today, but some things didn't work with the yarn, so I'm changing some elements. Also, the store didn't have enough of the creamy yarn, so I added stripes.

I mostly work on it when here's over, so I constantly ask him to try it on. I do not want to get to the end and fight out it's too loose/short/bulky.

This is my first piece of clothing for an adult, so I hope it works out!