Slow August – Yarn

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Hello! Today it’s all about yarn – a subject that I’m fairly sure will speak to all of you knitters out there.

“Yarn is essential to us as paint is to the artist, flour to the baker, soil to the gardener. We can improvise on most of the tools, tying string into a stitch marker, sanding down a bamboo chopstick in a pinch. But without yarn, our hands are idle.”
– Clara Parkes in A Stash of One’s Own: Knitters on Loving, Living with, and Letting Go of Yarn (New York: Abrams, 2017, p.7)

I am slowly sifting through my yarns, petting and organizing them. Here are some of them. Organic everyday yarn on my needles…

Traditional Norwegian yarn with a plan…

Yarn dyed by a dyer living nearby, purchased recently without a plan (something I rarely do anymore)…

Merino singles yarn in four shades of blue for which a plan is beginning to form – a gift from one of my best friends dyed by herself…

Ordinary sock yarn for two pairs of everyday socks for my beloved everyday companion…

Luxurious cashmere yarn, very affordable if you buy mill ends (leftovers), that has lived under our roof for over a decade and I hope to knit up into a luscious lace shawl someday…

Golden brown sock yarn made with a very humble fibre…

Yarn worth its weight in gold if you count the hours it’s taken me to make it – mohair from a local goat breeder that I washed, combed and carded, blended on my drum carder together with some merino and silk someone didn’t want anymore, and then spun and plied. To dye or not to dye, that is the question…

I do have (considerably) more yarn than this, but maybe not quite as much as Kay Gardiner, who calls herself a minimalist and writes about her yarn: “Yarn to the rafters. Yarn in my closet. Yarn in everyone else’s closet. Yarn in the enamel-over-steel covered roasting pan that only gets used at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Shopping bags of yarn that I have to step over every night to draw the blinds in my bedroom.”
– Kay Gardiner, “The Minimalist Speaks”, p. 57 in the same book as above.

The essays in A Stash of one’s Own are fun and often thought-provoking. Here is one last quote: “… I’ve learned that not all collections are created equal. There are acceptable things to collect and those that are less so. […] It’s been my experience that a bountiful yarn stash is perceived as a distinct indication you are slightly nutty and lack restraint.” Anna Maltz, “Morning Yarn / Portable Stories”, p. 81.

Nutty or not, I treasure my yarn collection. To me, it is beautiful, comforting and inspiring in and of itself.

Slow August – Welly Path

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Hello! Come and walk the Welly Path with me today. For most of the year wellies are essential, but in high summer other sturdy shoes are fine, too. As I promised last week, I’ll keep quiet so that you can hear the wind whispering in the reeds, the reed warblers warbling and the insects humming. Be prepared to ferry yourself across several waterways and enjoy the walk!

The Welly Path starts and ends at this visitor centre:

Slowing down for August

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Hello! Almost August. All schools are closed. Many people are away on holiday or will be going soon. And even more people have come to spend their summer holidays here, cycling and canoeing, sailing and sightseeing. We’re not going anywhere (having already had a holiday in May), but I do feel the need to slow down a bit. Usually I’m buzzing about like a bee, but in August, I’d like to be more like a snail, taking things slow and withdrawing into my shell from time to time.

That doesn’t mean I won’t be here, on my blog, but it does mean that my posts will take on a different shape. Maybe I’ll send you a few ‘postcards’. Maybe I’ll take you along on an outing. Maybe I’ll have some knitting or other crafts inspiration to share. I don’t know yet, but I’m fairly sure my August posts will involve fewer words. Today’s post will still be an ordinary chatty one,  though, with some knitting, two books and a few other small things.

My Lang Yndlingskofte is growing nicely.

Only the yoke has colourwork in it – the rest is just plain stocking stitch. So there’s room for some more Norwegian colourwork alongside. I already have the idea and yarn for that and can start swatching.

Speaking of swatching, I’ve knit a couple of swatches using Ístex Léttlopi. I’ve never used it before because it feels rather, ehm, rustic on the skein. I very much want to like it, though, because it comes in so many beautiful colours, is an ideal weight for warm winter sweaters and because it comes from Iceland. But won’t it be terribly scratchy? Will I be able to wear it at all?

After knitting and washing the swatches, it feels considerably softer. Not supersoft, but maybe just about soft enough to wear. Should I give it a try and use it for a sweater? Have you ever used it? What do you think?

The pink sweet peas next to the swatches were a thank-you gift from my knitting student’s garden. Aren’t they gorgeous? In our last lesson before the summer break, she finished the wedding ring cushion she’s been knitting for her sister’s upcoming wedding. For the scalloped edges she also had to learn to crochet – a steep learning curve, but she did it! Before the ceremony, the wedding rings will be fastened to the cushion with the ribbon tied in a bow.

The cushion measures approximately 14 x 14 cm/5½ x 5½ in. We substituted a mercerized cotton for the silk yarn used in the pattern, and an improvised scalloped edging for the pattern’s simple one.

The pattern is from Luxury Yarn One-Skein Wonders: 101 Small Indulgences (Storey Publishing 2008, Ed. Judith Durant). The book can be found here on Ravelry. There is a whole series of these One-Skein Wonders books (Designer, Lace, Sock-yarn One-Skein Wonders etc.) and each one is filled with great ideas for small gifts.

While knitting on the Norwegian Lang Yndlingskofte I’ve also been reading a Norwegian novel – The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas (NO: Is-slottet; NL: Het ijspaleis). It is about two young girls: outgoing and popular Siss and quiet and withdrawn Unn. Shortly after they become fast friends, Unn disappears and Siss more or less freezes. It is a story of loss, grief and healing in which a frozen waterfall (the ice palace of the title) plays an important part.

It’s a beautifully written and poetic story that couldn’t be anything else but Norwegian. Here is a quote (Penguin Modern Classics edition, p. 91):

“The pine needles stretch their tongues and sing an unfamiliar nocturnal song. Each tongue is so small that it cannot be heard; together the sound is so deep and powerful that it could level the hills if it wished.”

What I found particularly moving was how the girls’ classmates gather round and support Siss. In that sense The Ice Palace is the antithesis of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies with its children turning into little savages. The Ice Palace is a true gem – thank you for the tip E.!

I hope to read another Norwegian book in August, and also hope to have lots of quiet spinning time.

Before closing off, here is one last thing – the second of my embroidered cross stitch bees. (This one was a great exercise in French knots.) On the whole I don’t like tiles, artwork or crafts projects with “Be Happy” on them. To me, it feels like a brusque command to do something I’m afraid I’ll fail miserably at. Happiness is such a fleeting thing.

But this time I’m taking it to mean:

May you be happy, may you be well, may you be peaceful and at ease for many moments every day.

A far less catchy and embroiderable phrase, I know, but I prefer this kind of nuance and gentleness. Whether you’re staying at home or going away on holiday, this is my wish for all of you.

What Insect are You?

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We have been photographing lots of insects lately. Well, let’s be honest, ‘we’ mainly means my husband – he is much better at it. But sometimes I’m lucky and get a good shot, too.

Let’s zoom in – bzzzz – and wow, look at that huge eye!

Because of the size and shape of its eyes alone, it must see the world totally differently from us. Looking at insects through the lens of my camera made me stop and think. We share our world with so many creatures we don’t even know exist. Of course I know that there are bees and bugs, midges and mosquitoes, but when you begin looking at them properly a whole new universe opens up. These creatures also have (love) lives…

They are busy gathering food, caring for their offspring, developing and going through different stages in their lives.

Different life stages of a six-spot burnet (above)

I wonder, if I were and insect, what insect would I be? To find the answer, I took a test. Turns out I’m a bee. Hmmm, yes, I’m always busy as a bee. But living in a big colony? Everything in the service of the Queen Bee? That’s not really me.

But wait, not all bees are honey bees. There are also bumblebees. Me, bumbling around? Not really. No, come to think of it, I’m more like a wild solitary bee. And then my husband came up with the answer: I’m a wool carder bee! (Thank you for the wool carder bee photos and info, sweetheart.)

In our garden they visit the hairy lamb’s ear plants…

… to scrape ‘wool’ from the leaves, roll it up and use it for making their nests. Here is a close-up of a wool carder bee with a ball of ‘wool’:

A wool carder bee, that’s me to a tee. How about you? What insect are you? Are you a grasshopper?

Or a butterfly? (Are butterflies even insects? There is so much I don’t know yet.)

A bee like me, or a different insect altogether? The British Natural History Museum has developed a fun quiz to help you find out.

Well, I’m buzzing off to add some woolly things to our nest. I’d love to hear what insect you are!

Between the Showers

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Hello! While some of you have been melting in a heatwave, we have had extremely variable weather with strong winds, sunshine, rain, thunderstorms. One moment the sky was bright blue…

… and the next dark clouds gathered and the rain pelted down.

In other parts of the country, the storms uprooted trees and caused other havoc. Here, the wind only tore off some pears in our back garden.

On the whole, it’s been great knitting weather. Between the showers I’ve taken my knitting outside for some pictures. I’ve started on a Norwegian cardigan.

The pattern is in Kofteboken 2, by Lene Holme Samsøe and Liv Sandvik Jakobsen. This beautiful and inspiring, partly linen-bound book contains patterns for 27 sweaters, mostly cardigans with a few pullovers thrown in. There are patterns for adults and children as well as some background stories about designers, motifs, yarns and history. One of the great things about the book is that many of the sweaters are shown in several sizes, colours and different yarns.

It is in Norwegian, but as a knitter you’ll probably understand most terms and the photography is so clear that the sweaters can almost be knit by looking at the pictures alone. The authors’ website can be visited here, and the book can be found here on Ravelry.

The cardigan I’m making is called Lang Yndlingskofte, it is knit from the top down and has a yoke with bands of motifs in two colours. This is what it looks like in the book:

Question marks:

  • Knit a 5-stitch or a 7-stitch steek? – Answer: 5-stitch steek as per pattern
  • Shorten cardigan (considerably)?
  • Add pockets?
  • Buttons on entire front as in pattern or just on yoke?
  • Knit on facing to cover steek stitches or cover them with ribbon?

The yarn I’m using is CaMaRose ‘Økologisk Hverdagsuld’ (100% organic wool, 150m/164yds/50g).

The pattern gauge for the Yndlingskofte is 22 sts to 10cm/4”. My swatches gave: 22 sts on 3mm/US 2,5 needles and 20 sts on 3,5mm/US 4 needles. The 22-stitch swatch was spot-on, but it felt stiff and I decided to go with the looser 20-stitch gauge. This means that I’ll knit a smaller size that will hopefully turn out the right size for me at this gauge.

I’ve also washed and blocked the socks I wrote about in last week’s post. The yarn used for them is Lana Grossa ‘Landlust Die Sockenwolle’ (420m/460yds/100g) in shade 119, neutrals with bands in the rosy red of our ‘Lipstick’ roses.

The yarn doesn’t have a special starter thread to ensure that both socks turn out the same. Getting them exactly the same is a fun game.

The soundtrack to today’s post is Between the Showers – Irish harp music played by Gráinne Hambley. You can listen to some fragments here. I once attended a workshop led by her, and she told us her name is pronounced something like Gron-yuh (stress on first syllable).

Well, that’s all for today. I hope the weather (and life in general) is kind to you, and hope to see you again next week.

How to Use a Sock Ruler?

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Hello! To indicate that I’m not a sock-ruler-expert, I’ve added a question mark to the title of today’s post – How to Use a Sock Ruler? They may have been around longer, but I only came across them recently and my curiosity was aroused. So I purchased one, worked out how to use it and am now reporting my findings to you. Please correct me if I’m wrong or am missing something.

Mine is from German yarn manufacturer Lana Grossa. It is in German, and uses only centimetres and European shoe sizes. You may want to look for a different brand if you live in a different part of the world. Here it is:

It can be used for shoe sizes 30-47. (There is a separate sock ruler for smaller children.) And these are the areas of interest the numbers refer to:

  1. Yarn weight
  2. Needle sizes
  3. Number of stitches to cast on
  4. Foot length from heel to toe
  5. Total foot length

I’ll try to describe everything in a logical order, starting with:

Yarn weight and needle sizes
4-F (1. in the photos above and below) stands for 4-fach in German, meaning 4-ply. This refers to the yarn weight this side of the sock ruler is to be used for – thinner sock yarns with around 400m/437yds to 100g.

The row of holes (2. in the photos above) is a needle gauge for the range of knitting needle sizes used for 4-ply yarns. The reverse side of my sock ruler is for thicker 6-F (6-fach/6-ply) yarns (shown below):

Casting on
Before starting on a sock we need to look at the area called Maschenanschlag (4-f).

This is a handy table showing how many stitches (Maschen) to cast on for socks for different shoe sizes using 4-ply yarn. I’m knitting size 38 socks and need to look at: Gr 36-39: 60M. (Gr = Größe/size; 36-39 is the range my size 38 falls in; 60M = 60 Maschen/stitches). So I need to cast on 60 stitches, and that’s exactly what I always do for these kind of socks.

Cuff and leg
The sock ruler can be used to measure the length of the cuff and leg instead of a tape measure. How long you want them to be is up to you.

Heel
Alas, the sock ruler doesn’t help with the heel – you’ll have to figure that out for yourself. I’m knitting a pair of socks with a traditional Dutch heel flap.

Foot
To determine when you need to start on the toe, you need to look at Fusslänge: Fersenmitte bis Spitzenbeginn (Foot length: from middle of heel to start of toe). Insert the sock ruler in the sock, with one end (the end without the hole) pushed against the centre of the heel flap. The sock ruler now indicates when it’s time to start on the toe.

I’m nearly there:

The sock ruler indicates that Gr/size 38/39 needs to be 20 centimetres long from the middle of the heel to the start of the toe. That’s exactly how I always knit it.

Toe
The area called Gesamte Fusslänge (total foot length) is meant to help us with the toe. Oh, I’m starting to worry now. I’ll need to knit a very long toe (5 centimetres), to get from start of toe (indicated on left of sock ruler) to total foot length (indicated on right of sock ruler).

I ignore this and knit my usual toe, because I know that always fits and I’ll see what happens with the sock ruler.

Finished, my sock is shorter than it should be according to the sock ruler. I stretch it a bit, and then a bit more, and… then it’s the correct size by the sock ruler.

Verdict
So, what’s the verdict? Do you need a sock ruler?

Pros:

  • This particular sock ruler is made from beautiful smooth beech wood and is simply a lovely thing to hold in your hands.
  • A yarn gauge for double pointed needles always comes in handy.
  • Measuring the foot length from heel to toe is a little easier with the sock ruler than with a tape measure.
  • The table with shoe sizes and number of stitches to cast on for them is a very useful kind of cheat sheet.
  • The sock ruler tells you accurately when to start on the toe.

Cons:

  • You can just as easily use a tape measure for measuring length of cuff and leg.
  • The sock ruler doesn’t help with the heel.
  • This sock ruler is only suitable for cuff-down socks and not for toe-up ones, as far as I can see.
  • Measuring the total sock length is very inaccurate with the sock ruler.

So…
In my humble opinion you can live very well without a sock ruler, but it’s nice to have one. I will use it again, especially for sock sizes that I don’t knit very often.

Knitting in rain, sunshine and rain again
When I started on these socks, it was raining a lot and I had to take photographs on the dining table indoors. Then it became hot and sunny, and I could use the outdoor table. And then it started pouring again, with rain pattering on the outdoor table and in the bird bath.

Fortunately for the blackbird the bird table has a roof. The perfect place to shelter during a downpour.

Well, I hope this has been helpful/interesting/enjoyable to read. Are you a sock knitter, too? Have you ever used a sock ruler? What did you think of it?

Halfway

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Hello! I hope this finds you all well. Here, after a very wet spring, we’re suddenly having a week of hot and dry weather. Personally, I prefer cool and rainy days, but it is summer after all. We’re halfway through the year, and I’m halfway through my current take-along project – my third Polka Dot Scarf.

I’ve given the other two away. This time I’ve chosen a colour nobody I know likes, so that I can keep it for myself.

I’m also halfway through a simple pair of socks and halfway through a bee-themed embroidery kit.

All enjoyable and relaxing projects, but I’m beginning to feel restless. I really need something more interesting and challenging alongside, but what? My problem is never a lack of ideas. I often have so many ideas that I feel overwhelmed and paralysed. Where do I go from here? Do you know that feeling?

So I do what I always do when I don’t know what to do – write about it. My thinking process is also helped by tea.

After making a long list of the things I’d like to make and considering the pros and cons of each, I have a lightbulb moment. Didn’t I have some kind of plan for 2024? Of course! Halfway through January I made a short list that was meant as a kind of map for the year.

One of the things on it that I haven’t done much about yet is Norwegian knitting. How could I forget about that? Some of you even gave me great ideas for Norwegian books to read, too! Never mind the hot weather, that’s just what I need. It feels good to know where I’m going again.

Last week I wrote that I’m trying to make my posts shorter, and I really won’t ramble on any longer, but I just have to show you where the pictures of the Polka Dot Scarf were taken. It was in a lovely out-of-the-way place, with a hidden, disused lock from the time peat was extracted here and transported to other parts of the country by boat.

Just follow the grassy path below and enjoy a moment of calm in this special place. Xxx

Teaching Someone to Knit

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What I haven’t written about so far is that I’m teaching someone to knit. It all started on New Year’s Eve when I was taking batches of traditional knieperties round to our neighbours. Invited in for a cup of tea by a neighbour across the street, I commented on her cross stitch embroidery. She asked me if I was still knitting and then her 6-year-old blurted out, ‘Mummy wants to learn to knit!’ She did, but hadn’t dared ask me. I said I’d love to teach her and we started lessons in February.

I thought I’d share what we’ve done so far, in case you’d also like to teach someone to knit and could use some ideas.

1 A Swatch and a Knitting Notions Case
(Techniques learnt: Garter stitch, casting on and binding off)
We started with a garter stitch swatch. I cast on for her and knit one row, and then it was her turn. When she’d got the hang of it, I bound off. Then she cast on stitches for a knitting notions case herself – a simple rectangle in garter stitch. This was good practice for making her stitches more regular. She also learnt how to bind off. I seamed the notions case for her and gave it a lining and a zipper.

2 A Scarf
(New techniques: Edge stitches and slipped stitches)
When I asked her why she wanted to learn to knit, my neighbour said, ‘I’d love to be able to make beautiful things with my own hands, like my grandmother used to do. Perhaps a cosy scarf for myself or things for my children.’ An excellent motivation, and a scarf for herself was the next project.

To make it a little more interesting than just garter stitch, we chose a nice stitch pattern that is basically garter stitch, but with columns of slipped stitches on the wrong side. I wrote it out for her and added edge stitches to make it extra neat.

My student chose an aran-weight pink yarn knit on 5 mm needles. The scarf will take her months to knit. A huge project for a new knitter, but that’s perfect for her to relax with in the evenings, when the children are in bed. Meanwhile, she can learn other techniques through smaller projects.

3 Another couple of swatches
(New techniques: Purling, stocking stitch, ribbing and seed stitch
Next up: learning to purl. First a swatch in stocking stitch that I didn’t photograph. And then a swatch with various combinations of knit and purl stitches – ribbing and seed stitch.

4 A Doll
(New techniques: Decreasing, seaming and duplicate stitch)
The next project was for her youngest child – a doll the image of this 4-year-old daughter, down to the ponytails.

This little doll is knit flat in one piece.  Apart from being good practice for stocking stitch, it teaches decreasing (for the top of the head) and seaming. I found the pattern on Ravelry – Fairisle Friends by Esther Braithwaite.

Only instead of a Fairisle sweater my student knit a plain sweater and added a heart in duplicate stitch afterwards – another new technique learnt.

5 A Teddy Bear
(New technique: Cabling)
My neighbour’s middle child (the boy who told me his mum wanted to learn to knit) wanted a softie as well – a teddy bear instead of a doll. We used another of Esther Braithwaite’s patterns, the Izzy Teddy Bear Dolls. The pattern gives instructions for knitting in the round, but I thought it too early for that and had my student knit it flat like the doll. The pattern has 4 sweater variations and we chose a cable.

My neighbour’s eldest child, aged 9, hesitated for a while but in the end decided that he was too big for a softie and preferred a ‘cloth’. He got a 25×25 cm/10×10 inch square, knit on the diagonal from very soft wool that he could carry with him and cuddle secretly (sorry, no picture).

In less than 5 months my (very driven and enthusiastic) neighbour learnt A LOT. I’m very proud of her, love teaching her and hope to pass on more of my skills to her over the coming months.

If you don’t have anyone to teach, the small projects above would also make great little gifts. And they are excellent for using up some of those leftover bits of yarn that I’m fairly sure you have in a box (or multiple boxes like me) somewhere.

That was rather a lot of information. I keep trying to keep my posts shorter, but there is always so much to share. Well, I’ll have another chance next week. See you then!

Laundry Day

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Except for a few warmer days in early May, we’ve had a cool and very wet spring. But now, mid-June, it really is time to wash those warm scarves, shawls and wraps and store them away. These are the ones I’ve worn alternately through the colder months.

From left to right: Story Lines, Color Play Mohair Scarf, Thús 2, a modified version of Sursa, and Striped Linen Stitch Wrap. I’ve only hung them on the washing line to take a picture, because after giving them a lovely lavender-scented bubble bath I dry them flat on our drying rack.

(An earlier post about the spa treatment I give my knits can be found here.)

Pottering about on a quiet day at home, washing my scarves and spending some time at the spinning wheel that had been idle for quite a while, my thoughts went back to my visit to an antiques shop just before our German holiday.

They were holding an exhibition of old textiles called ‘Monday, Laundry Day’. It was like visiting a museum, with the difference that the exhibits were for sale and visitors could rummage among them.

There were knit and crocheted bedspreads, lots of white underwear with crocheted and embroidered details, table cloths, bed linen and all kinds of samplers.

I found the old everyday items strangely moving. In my mind’s eye, I saw some of those nimble (or not so nimble) fingers spending hours and hours on practice pieces, so that they would later be able to make useful and beautiful things for their homes and families. I’ve seen cross stitch and darning samplers before, but new to me were the practice parts of socks – separate toes and heels. In the middle of the picture below two practice heels:

Did the girls who had to knit these enjoy or curse the hours spent on them?

The objects showed so many techniques and such great skill.

Two practice pieces for sewing techniques and this darning sampler came home with me:

Just imagine: a young girl at school, perhaps in the early or middle 20th century, perhaps aged seven or eight. First she is told to knit a square divided into nine squares by bands of seed stitch. Then she has to cut holes in some of the squares and try out different mending techniques. One technique she practiced over and over again – why that one in particular? Intriguing!

I have no idea what I’m going to do with it, but I just fell in love with it. Do you love old textiles, too? Do you have any heirlooms or acquired items? What do you do with them? Display them, use them, store them in a box and take them out from time to time?

If you’re in the Netherlands and would like to give some old textiles a good home, the exhibition runs through July 7 at De Oranjerie in Zeijen, Drenthe. More information can be found here.

Mosel Travel Knitting

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The first thing I always pack for a trip is my knitting. Do you do that too? During the last meeting of my knitting group, I discovered that most of my knitting friends do. At home, I made a small start on my knitting project for our holiday in Germany, a smaller version of my Seventh Heaven Scarf, to make sure that the yarn would work and the needles were the right size.

Arriving at our cottage on a farm in the Mosel region, we felt very welcome straightaway.

We didn’t visit any yarn shops or textile exhibitions this time, but if you keep your eyes open, there is always something knitting or textiles-related to be seen. A yarn-bombed drainpipe…

… a tiny spindle whorl no bigger than the thimble next to it…

… and a saint holding a weaving shuttle. The patron saint of weavers, I thought, but it turned out to be Saint Severus, who was a wool weaver during his lifetime.

Beside the church to which Saint Severus gave his name was a fountain with a fun owl chair next to it. At least that’s what I thought at first, but looking again, no, not an owl…

Everywhere we went, my knitting went too and I photographed it here and there along the way.

It was fun to see the colours develop and the scarf grow.

This slightly macabre picture was taken in the incredibly picturesque town of Bernkastel-Kues, with its beautiful Fachwerkhäuser and narrow alleyways.

Only a few days after our visit, after huge downpours, the centre of this little town as well as many others was flooded. In some places people had to be evacuated and there was huge damage. It was frightening to see how quickly the water rose and how fast the river flowed, now brown with silt. Viewed from above, submerged trees in what is normally a park:

Our cottage was about 150 metres above river level, and our only worry was whether my brother and German sister-in-law would be able to visit us (or we’d have to eat all the cakes ourselves). With some detours they reached us, and my animal-loving SIL immediately bonded with a cow.

A couple of days later the roads along the river were passable again and we drove to Cochem for some shopping. The water level in the river had subsided considerably, but we thought we’d better not park here just yet:

Fortunately no lives were lost this time, but it was a disaster for many of those with homes, shops, campsites or restaurants along the river.

During the rest of our holiday, we avoided the area that was hit and stayed up in the mountains. I knit some more.

And we walked in the beautiful countryside, enjoying the views…

… photographing flowers and insects in the amazing flower meadows…

… seeing fox cubs play…

… and almost stepping on a fire salamander – the first time ever we’ve seen one.

At the end of our stay, my scarf had grown quite a bit,

but it wasn’t finished yet. When it’s finished and if I’m happy with it, I’ll add the details to the Seventh Heaven scarf pattern and I’ll also tell you more about the yarn etc. The knitting is almost done now, but writing everything up may take a while, so please be patient. Meanwhile there will always be something else to write about and I hope to see you here again next week. Bye!