Traveling the world again...

Hello everyone!

Let's start with a little apology! I'm sorry it has taken me so long to write a blog post!

I've had good reasons though! I wrote my last post just before I left for Dubai where I went on board of the cruiseship I'm working on. The first weeks on board are always the busiest since you have a lot of extra rehearsals and drills etc. I've been very busy, but have also had some incredibly nice free time! In between rehearsals and shows I got to see some amazing places already. Writing this now, I can't believe all this happened in only 3 weeks.

I've seen the most beautiful Mosque's I've ever seen, had an incredble jeep tour through the desert outside of Dubai (with crazy scary dune bashing!). Walked through 2 mountains in Muscat (Oman), completely alone with no one in sight for miles (remind me to bring a bottle of water next time).

I sat on a camel, I ate amazing food, I was on a beautiful beach, saw the highest (or 2nd?) building in the world, watched local dancing.I shopped in the biggest mall of the world (It's not even funny anymore, it's like a city). I saw the biggest fountain show in the world.

I got to know so many lovely and nice people on the ship. The shows we're performing are going very well, and in general it's just a great feeling being on board again. I sometimes love to take my thermos flask, fill it with a nice coffee or tea, and sit on one of the outside decks, and stare over the ocean for hours. Reading a book, or just listening to the waves. I just wish I could have taken Matt in my suitcase with me ;-)

I brought loads of yarn with the plan to knit, knit and knit, but so far I haven't accomplished much. There was too much to see and experience!
I can't even believe how much of the world I've got to see in the last 3 years. It's well over 30 countries by now, which seems crazy to me.

Not so much (or at all) a knitting post this time, but I wanted you all to have a little look into my life, and share the beautiful places of the world I have visited! These pictures are from the last 3 weeks! Enjoy! (You can click on the pictures to see a bigger version!)

Dubai - UAE

Abu Dhabi - UAE

Muscat - Oman

Dennis xxx

The 3 T's of the month: Tech Editing, Test Knitting & Travelling

Hello everyone!

A quick post before I get in my Taxi and drive to the airport! Yes, the time has come again. I'm off for 3 months to start working again on a cruise ship! I've been 'cruising' for about 3 years now, and have been so blessed to see so much of the world. This time my job will take me to Dubai, Bahrein, Oman, Egypt, Israel & Jordan. It's very hard saying goodbye to Matt every time I have to leave. I wish I could just pack him in my suitcase, and take him on my travels!


I have to keep this post quick since I'm not even completely ready to leave yet, and I should be in the cab in an hour! Stress!

I still wanted to share a little update on my pattern progress with you guys!
I was so naive to think you just write a pattern, and submit it to Ravelry. I'm glad I've listened to advice from other designers, and got myself someone to look at the pattern and help me out with the wording, and logic of it. After a couple of edits, I decided it was ready to be testknitted!

I've been very fortunate that so many people on Instagram have been asking me to testknit the pattern. One of them has even started already, and already 2 little mistakes have been found. So glad I'm going through this progress, and it's great how much help I'm getting from people.

Here's one more teaser of the 1st page of the pattern:

It might be a bit quiet here for the next 2 weeks, since we will have 'Premiere Weeks' on board, which means we have rehearsals, run-throughs, sing-through's, work-through's, shows, etc...

I'll keep you updated soon though and hope to share some pictures of the beautiful destinations I'll be visiting!

Have a lovely week everybody!

Dennis x

Design Teaser!

Hello everyone!

How are you all? I'm great! I've started work again which means I'm a lot busier than I was before. I'm rehearsing again 6 days a week, for the next ship I'm going on! Time is flying when you're at work again, so before I know it I'll be sailing again!

I've shared my little wish to start designing some knitting patterns with you all. Well, I've had a little go at it, and it's definitely not easy! I've been trying, and ripping back, and throwing my knitting on the floor in frustration! I'm not very patient when it comes to knitting or crocheting in general! If I can't finish a shawl/scarf in about a week, than I don't really see the point of making it anymore or I lose interest! The worst is when I run out of yarn, I'll start another project with other yarn that's in stash, and forget all about the project I was making. But I've been very good recently, there's only one project that needs finishing, but the yarn has already arrived!

So, back to designing! I came up with a scarf. I don't want to say too much yet, since it's not completely finished yet! I'm working on my second prototype at the moment of the same design. I wasn't completely happy with the first prototype, so decided to simplify and change some things.
Let's start you off with a little teaser pic!

This is all you're getting for now ;-) You can sort of see where it's going..
I'll share some keywords with you:

• Top Down Shawl
• Unique Center Cable
• 2 colors (could eventually be made in 1 as well)
• Short Row Shaping

Hope I got you all a little bit excited! I sure am! Can't wait to finish it! The design is definitely something I would wear, but is still very unisex.

I'll keep you updated on my progress!

Have a lovely Sunday evening! (depending on your timezone :-p)

The Tart, The Duck and the Shawl

Hello everyone!

Thanks for all the lovely comments and messages I've received since I've 'opened' my blog! It gives me a lot of motivation to keep going! I hope I can keep you all excited and interested over the next many many years to come ;-)

So, what have I been up to? Well, I finished my "Leftie" shawl/scarf a a couple of days ago, but have been too busy with work to take some good pictures! But today I started work late, and Matt had a day off from work, so we planned a little 'picture' day all in honor of my new scarf. Sounds silly huh? But we were excited and made a little morning out of it including a nice coffee and cake to start off our little photo trip. We found this tiny little café around the corner, with just enough room for maybe 10 people to sit. We'd never been there, but decided to give it a go. Boy what a treat it was! Have a look at the homemade lemon tarts we ate!

The weather wasn't great, but it had just stopped raining so it wasn't too bad! We went into a park and walked around searching for nice places to take pictures. On the way I took some shots of some nice nature details!

And even a little Duck :-)

It was lovely walking around our neighborhood and seeing so many things we've never actually seen. It's crazy how you can live somewhere, and not know about all the nice places just footsteps from your own house. We talked loads, laughed even more whilst taking the pictures, and had a lovely morning!

So how about some pictures of my finished "Leftie"? Here they are.

Did I mention how much I love the colors? The Rowan Fine Tweed is a beautiful yarn, it's light but so very very warm. I love the texture of the garter stitch, and there's just enough color between the gray, to keep it from being boring.  I'm especially in love with the red!

Because of the garter stripes, it was quite a fast knit! Almost to the point of getting boring towards the end, because of the the endless rows of knit stitches. It was excited to get to one of the color rows every time, because I would have to focus a little again! I had a little difficulty understanding the short rows in the leafs, especially picking up 2 wraps at the same time, but it didn't turn out to be difficult at all! It's a very well written pattern, and quite easy to make! The shaping is very clever as well, starting from a corner, and working all the way across, until you have a big triangular shawl.

I've used a 100 grams of the gray color, and probably only about 10-15 grams of each of the other colors.

Here are some of the specifics!
Pattern: Leftie by Martina Behm
Needles: 2.5mm Circulars
Yarn: Rowan Fine Tweed
Color ways: Bainbridge, Malham, Nappa, Gunnerside, Muker, Skipton.
I've worked to a total amount of 26 leafs. I felt it was big enough at this point!
The only modification I've made, was to start the pattern with a leaf rather than a grey section.
I casted on 10 stitches and started on row 2 of the leaf pattern. 

In my other post about this shawl, I wrote about the fact that I find the pattern quite feminine. My challenge was to turn it into a shawl a man could wear. Not by changing the pattern, but by selecting some colors that felt right for me. It might not be the most manly shawl I've ever made, but I would definitely wear this every day. I love how it turned out!

Sorry for the photo overkill! I guess I'm just very happy with my new shawl and got a little bit too excited to share it with you all! It's a great project to make, and even nicer to wear. I'm very keen on using this yarn again for other projects, and saw that there's also a more worsted weight version of this yarn in pretty much the same colorways!

I wish you all a lovely week! And thanks for visiting :-)
Dennis x

Sew (UN)-Organized... Part II

Part II? Where's the other part? Maybe some of you remember reading part I over at According to Matt about 9 months ago: Sew Organized.

Well, I've been "trying" to sew again. Matt mentioned a couple of weeks before Christmas, that he really wanted to have a nice organizer for his crochet hooks. I couldn't agree more since his hooks are all over the place. He's got some in a jam jar, some in an old ugly hook case, and some just lying around. I decided to surprise him with a nice little "hook-organizer". I couldn't find anything in the stores which was good, since I really wanted to give sewing a go again.

I shopped for some pretty fabrics, binding, zippers, and some thread. I wasn't really sure how the fabrics would work together, but as long as it was bright and colorful, Matt would be happy. I found a tutorial somewhere online, which also involved a clear zippered pocket and I wanted to take the challenge. I've never really worked with zippers, so it was quite a scary task! Everything went quite OK. The plastic I used for the pocket didn't really turn out to be suited for the job. It was too hard and not really bendy. I was determined to have my plastic pocket, so I just went on. It was a big flop. The pictures I took of it make it look quite OK, but in real life it's very wonky, the binding doesn't cover a bit of the case, the magnetic closure is a bit loose and I can go on... Judge for yourself.

As you might be able to see in the lower left picture, I really had to fold the plastic to make it bend with the case. I wish I had just cut the plastic shorter, and attached it a little bit to the left of the fold.

Let's just say it was a learning project. At least I knew how to sort of sew in a zipper, sort of sew a binding and sort of get the basics of sewing.

But this was definitely not the final product I wanted to give to Matt. It had to be nicer and actually a little bit simpler. I was lucky that I bought plenty fabric and even had another zipper lying around. So, next try. This time without a pattern, completely improvised!

I wanted to have it look more like a needle roll instead of a "Beauty Bag". Instead of making it a roll, I made it more like a thin book which you close by tying the ribbons hanging from the side of it. It has room for a lot of crochet hooks, and also a big pocket which can hold anything crochet related. Here's what came out of it:

As you can see above, by the time these pictures were taken, it was used quite a lot already! It's been folded and stuffed, and the fabric got a bit wrinkly! But I guess that's a good sign, at least it's being used and loved!

And here you see all three of them including the one I made for myself last year! I still love it and use it quite a lot! However, I switched to Addi Click's now, which come with their own 'proper' case. But this one is still perfect for all my DPN's and knitting accessories. 

For now I'm done with the sewing again. I did enjoy it, but find it very fidgety and time consuming. What doesn't help, is that we don't really have a lot of equipment here at home. I don't even have a cutting board or a big ruler. Everything was cut by hand, and often I just sort of guessed how big I had to cut it. And you wouldn't believe the mess I create when I sew. The apartment was covered in bits an pieces of fabric, thread, and whatnot. All for such a tiny little project!

I would have loved to share my finished "Leftie" shawl today, but I didn't manage to take any pictures yet! I finished it last night, and couldn't be happier with it! It's already blocked, and I even wore it out today. I will blog about it as soon as I got some decent photographs!

And now off to bed! I start work again tomorrow after my 6 week break! Back to singing and dancing rehearsals, until I go on board again end of this month!

x Dennis

2012... check! 2013... bring it on!

I've had such a wonderful time ever since I came back from the ship end of November. Hamburg has been beautiful (especially the snowy days!). I visited my parents and my best friends in the Netherlands. I've knitted more than should be legal. And the best off all was spending a beautiful Christmas with Matt.

He was lucky to have some days off from work around Christmas, so we had a lot of free time together, and spent most of it on over-eating (Both our parents sent us crazy amounts of chocolate!) and watching old christmassy movies (Miracle on 34th Street, The Santa Clause) and of course crocheting and knitting!

Matt spoiled me with some crazy nice yarn for Christmas. I'm sort of stashing up on yarn at the moment, because in about 3 weeks I'll be leaving again on the ship for 3 months! And after some research, I found out it won't be that easy finding any nice yarn in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Israel, Egypt or Jordan. These are the main places I'll be visiting often in those 3 months.
From a lot of negative experiences I know now, to bring enough yarn on board, or I'll freak out.

Isager Alpaca

Welthase Sport

Doesn't that look lovely? I'm quite excited to start making things with my new yarn, but I'm going to wait till I'm on board! My mission is to start coming up with some patterns of my own. It's scary but also very exciting! I guess that's why I'm knitting as many patterns as possible at the moment, to get inspired, and to learn different shaping techniques. It's very confusing so far, but I just need to give it a go, and learn from my mistakes! 2013 will be a year of new challenges.

The last month I've been knitting some patterns by one of my favorite knitting designers, Stephen West. He's one of the reasons I really got into knitting. I love so many of his designs, that I can't put my needles down, and knit as much of it as I can.

When I finished my 2 latest Westknits projects, Matt and I went out into the neighborhood to take some shots! We ended up laughing most of the time, since modeling feels rather lame and its very hard to take yourself serious, especially with people walking by all the time! Out of a 1000 shots, these are the ones I'm willing to share with you. You'll recognize some of them since I used them in the design of my blog.

Alpaca Coler Mitts!

Pattern: Coler by Stephen West

Yarn: Artesano - 100% Alpaca DK

Color: I forgot the name, but it's obviously blue ;-)

Longview Cabled Scarf

Pattern: Longview by Stephen West

Yarn: Artesano Aran (50% Alpaca, 50% wool)

Colorway: Midnight

I'm very happy with both projects, wear them every day at the moment. I've mady many shawls/scarfs, but none of them are as warm as this incredibly long one. It's crazy soft and super thick! The colors are perfect, and match the mitts as well!

I have so many things to write still, projects I've been working on, projects that are on my mind, some sewing I'm very proud of, and much more! But all in it's time, I'll be writing soon again!

Hope all of you had a lovely 2012 and I wish you all a very happy New Year.
Let me know if you got some lovely yarn or crafty goodness for Christmas as well :-) 

x Dennis.

Cozy Feet and a Shawl Challenge

The last weeks of my previous contract on board were on the Caribbean. It was a beautiful time and it was bizarre to spend your days at the beach at the end of November. Islands like Curacao, Bonaire, St Lucia, Dominica, Barbados, Antigua, Jamaica, British Virgin Islands...

Jolly Beach - Antigua

When you're there, it's hard to imagine that it's actually winter, and people are freezing in a lot of countries! It was the hard reality of coming back home to Hamburg. I was a little bit optimistic regarding my clothes for the flight because upon arrival in Hamburg, it was cold cold cold.

Happy Biking :)

Within a week or so, the snow started to fall, and winter was at it's best. And you know what? I did not mind a bit! I wouldn't have wanted to spend it anywhere else but at home. And I like nothing more than a winter that's snowy. I guess it's just what I'm used to. Christmas at the beach would have been wrong. It was the perfect time to leave the Caribbean.

In the Caribbean you might be wearing your flip flops, but in Hamburg you get cold feet! So what's nicer than to come home out of the cold, and put on a pair of home made house shoes!
Now these house shoes are a bit of a tradition for me. They sort of mark the start of my knitting. I was quite ambitious and one of my first knitting projects was a pair of knitted felted houseshoes. I took a basic sock pattern, modified it a little bit so it wouldn't have a cuff, took some 7mm needles, thick yarn (specially made for felting like this) and started knitting. It was a slow process back than, but oh how satisfying when they're finished and on your feet! They do tend to get holes after about a year of heavy wearing, so I make new ones every year!

This year I had a lot of left overs in many colors of the yarn mentioned above. I decided to make the craziest pair ever. I would use this project to play around with color, and even some stranded color work in it. This is what came out of it:

They are crazy, insane, hurt-your-eyes-colorful but oh so warm and happy! I put them on first thing when I get home. And don't they match the rest of our colorful home?
If you've knitted before, they're super easy to make! You just change color whenever and wherever you want to! I've whipped these up in one evening, and felted them the next day over at the laundrette. It took me two cycles to get the results I wanted, and they actually came out a little too small, but after some pulling and forcing them on my feet, they shaped into the perfect fit!

I love shawls/scarfs/cowls. And I believe one cannot have enough. I'm always searching for that perfect pattern, and I guess I have found many. But since there's always room for more shawls, I started yet another one. I was very keen on using Rowan Fine Tweed. I love the intense colors it comes in, and I love the look of tweed. Sometimes I start by selecting a pattern, and than buy the yarn, but this time I was very much set on this specific yarn. And I also knew what colors I wanted to use. But what pattern to use?

I found a pattern called Leftie by Martina Behm and to be quite honest, I didn't love it when I saw the pictures. It's very feminine and I couldn't imagine wearing something like that. However, something inside me insisted on trying out the pattern, and my big challenge was to make it a shawl a man could wear. Let's start by showing off the colors I ended op buying.

The first color I knew had to go in this shawl was the red one. Which looks surprising if you see how many blues and how many balls of grey I've bought. I wanted the red to really be the main accent though and thought this would be the best way to achieve that.

So how's it coming along? Well, I started yesterday evening, and have been knitting like a crazy person so I can have an image of what it's starting to look like. I even draped the bit of knitting I have around my neck, and can imagine my challenge is going to succeed, but that's up to you to decide when I'm finished with it!

Anyways, here's a little sneak peak of my progress:

I just love how tweedy it looks, and how the red pops out between all the muted greys and blues.
I'll keep you posted on my progress.

And look what came in the mail yesterday? More about that yarn another time!

Hope you'll all have a lovely New Years Eve tomorrow, and be safe with Fireworks!

x Dennis