Blogging tips

Sunday 18 January 2015

Adventures and misfortunes of a crocheter in a cruise-VI

Thursday 5th of September

Yes, yes, it is marihuana. You'll see...

Today we stay on board as we are navigating to Dubrovnik. No hurries, no pressure. We are going to explore this floating mini-city.

It's a huge ship and it's got everything. Actually, we could stay on board for the whole cruise without getting bored, dozens of activities, a thousand ways to get lost- as it happened when trying to find our restaurant- shopping (well wonder-Grandpas have already done it for us and they bought some souvenirs), workshops...

Little Romulan has joined the Kids Club and today is pizza day. You can imagine his level of dirtiness after the master class, can't you?

Mrs. Soft Kitty has made new friends and is "missing in action".

And what about Mc and I? Well, first thing in the morning we've found an invitation that has been slipped under the door last night. It's a "private" cocktail with the Captain invitation. Oh, oh, what a nice guy, don't you think?

Tonight, black tie dinner again. We leave the children with Wonder-Grandpas and head off to the cocktail. Oh, wow! There is a huge queue for the picture with the Great Captain Rafaello, yet again. We better drink cava to breve another picture with him... No, not enough cava in the boat for a second round of pictures with him.
After a couple of cavas we go to meet the family at the restaurant for dinner.

I'm not sure if I've already talk to you about our waiter. The fist two dinners he was a very serious and apparently very reserved guy but we've found out that he is a very nice man, a pretty good singer and he's got a particular sense of humour- we've ordered risotto as our first course and when he comes back-after serving our dishes- he offers a small pot to my mother in law, asking at the same time " Madame, marihuana?".

You should see her face, haha! Eyes wide open, dropped jaw... She slowly opens the pot to discover that its content is just grated Parmesan cheese.

He is brilliant! Our bellies hurt after half an hour of continuous laughs and I think that he is a little bit annoyed by now. I'm not sure if he knows that we are not laughing at him but because of what he has said...poor guy!

We are exhausted after all the laughing so we go back straight to our cabin. Tomorrow, our last excursion: Dubrovnik.
  • Hours of excursion: 0.
  • Hours of siesta: 1.5.
  • Hours of crocheting: 0. Yes, zero! I haven't even touched my hook!
  • Sea sickness pills: 4.
Friday 6th of September

Overview of Dubrovnik.

Our excursion to Dubrovnik is going to be an easy-going one.
We can see from our ship many detached houses,- almost all of them with a vegetable garden- scattered all over sheer hills.

We reach the town centre and from the square, we can see a beautiful fortified castle that was built on a hill by the sea.


We decide to wander though the streets and after a while we end up in a densely wooded public park with amazing views of the sea, the shore and the castle. We let the children explore the park-forest while we take some pictures.

Fortified castle.
On our way back we observe that some of the buildings still have bullet holes, a sad static and silent memory of the war.


Suddenly the children begin to run to a souvenir shop, they are hungry so it's time to go back to the ship.

Today you can still see the bullet impacts on some facades.

We have our lunch at 4 in the afternoon and go straight to the water-slide. The children haven't had the opportunity to try it and today is the last day in which they can do it.
A transparent part of it shoots out over the edge of the ship and it looks promising.
I'm the chicken of the family so I go to the deck under the transparent part of the water-slide and lie down on a sun-bed ready to take pictures of them.

From the distance I'm unable to distinguish my children from others and as they slide very quickly I take pictures of everybody. The memory of my mobile is almost full and I'm just about to stand up when I see a thin pale body attached to a blonde haired head. Little Romulan is trying to slide sitting on his bottom. I begin to try and catch his attention and explain to him with signs to lie down and cross his arms over his chest to regain speed but he doesn't see me. Finally- maybe I'm telepathic after all- he does it and slides down.
On the contrary, Mrs. Soft Kitty slides so quickly that I shot like mad hoping that at least one picture is good.

Before dinner I crochet a couple of rows but I'm not in the mood. I think that I'm sad because the cruise is almost over. Tomorrow we will return to Venice but only to go directly to the airport to take our flight back to Madrid.

Maybe we should lock ourselves in the cabin and ask them for another round.
  • Hours of excursion: 3.
  • Hours of siesta: 0.
  • Hours of crocheting: 0.333.
  • Sea sickness pills: 4. Today our little creatures have bough several unauthorised souvenirs taking advantage of my sickness on solid ground.

Sunday 11 January 2015

ILI Slouch Hat

Ha, ha! I can see youuu.

New year and I've already skipped a post. Bad, bad girl!

It's been a long time since the last ILI (I Love It) pattern. Oh! I love this acronym so from now on I will call the patterns that I like ILIs.

This one is from Lionbrand and is called Seed Banded Slouch Hat (you need to be registered to access the patterns but registration is free).

It's been quite a while since my last knitted garment and after months of intense crocheting I needed to take my needles and knit something. And that something is this hat. It's got a nice transition of different textures plus it is slouchy and I have a fondness for slouchy hats.
The only thing that I don't like is that the pattern calls for 5 balls of cashmere and it makes the hat a little bit expensive. I've knitted it using a 100% Virgin wool yarn in chocolate colour which makes it more affordable.

Detail of the ILI slouch hat.

I've knitted this hat and crocheted a cowl with a wool and alpaca blend for my sister Kiki, as a birthday present. From the very first moment that I saw this ILI hat I knew it was for her.
I've already sent it to her. I'm late- since her birthday was on the third week of December- but it happened that I had the wrong idea of buying something instead of the last years handmade sets that I've been sending to her and when I told her she asked "why, no set this year?".

Yippee! She wanted another one! It's really nice to give a handmade gift but it's better to know that what you've made is really appreciated. What a boost of happiness!
The last weeks of school before Christmas are always hectic so I didn't had time but to crochet the cowl. I took my needles and the yarn with me to Madrid just in case, but we spent all the time with family and friends (you see? I've been a good girl). 

Too much sunlight. I think I'm going to use the pompoms as sunglasses.

So I knitted the hat back in Malaga and sent her gift a couple of days ago. I'm really happy to show you her present and will be happier when she receives it and I know she will be happy wearing it as it's getting fairly chilly up there.

ILI hat for my beloved sister.

That's all for today which is no small thing.
Catch you next Sunday! (Promiss)
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...