Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day , eh?

Not much interesting going on around here. Coachella continues to be worked on. I'm soooo close to being done. But not yet! So, I bring you old knit pictures. My cousin and his wife had their first kid in 2001. So I knit them a baby blanket. The only pic I could find was this one:

That's Carlo (the baby silly!) and my sister. The green blob is the baby blanket.

Fast forward 6 years and 3 kids. Look what I spotted:

Cute baby and the blankie I knitted up so long ago! Ya gotta love it when your knits are so well appreciated. Makes it worth the work.

I'm off to enjoy some Canada Day libations!

Ciao

Travelling Sock

As you may have surmised from my post about Barolo, I was knitting while on vacation. Not a lot, after all, I had things to do! So, here is a summary of my travelling sock:

The sock at Casale, Italy. This was taken at the Andre Maurice factory outlet. Not just (just!) cashmere knits. There was a HUGE assortment of knit tops. Huge. I cannot begin to tell you how huge this outlet was! The sock went to Arona on the Lago Maggiore. Beautiful lake. The sock also went to Lago D'Orta. A very picturesque town. Very medieval looking. Totally worth going to see.

Today I finished the first sock. The sock, having been spoiled by all that travelling, insisted on a photo shoot. Not just a photo.

Now the sock is demanding that I start it's partner immediately!

Yeah, yeah, I can hear ya! Give me a second, will ya?

Right. So, I've got to go and cast on the second sock here. Just to keep the peace.

Ciao

Barolo, Italy

One of the first jaunts we did while in Italy was to Barolo. We picked a good day to go as they were having a mini wine festival. There was wine tasting:

My sister and my cousin Guli tasted wine. Carlo did not. I sampled as well. It was quite interesting to taste the difference between the wines. I am not usually very wise to the ways of wine, but actually having the choices in front of me and tasting them consecutively really does make a difference. Even to my untutored palate!

The view of the vineyards from the top of the hill was spectacular.

There was even a Corkscrew Museum! Very interesting.

The sock was quite taken with the castle in Barolo,

Alas, the day did come to an end and we had to drive our car down this street to leave:

Thank goodness my cousin has experience driving these types of roads. He went down this street in first gear!

Ciao

Knitting Content

I promised some knitting content. Here it is.

One of the first things my aunt asked us when we got to Italy was what we wanted (if anything) to do. I responded that a tour through a yarn shop or 2 seemed indicated. Turns out my aunt has a huge stash. Boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes....See for yourself:

Seriously, it was almost impossible to get far enough away from the walls to get a shot that encompassed the hugeness of this stash! However, my sister and I persevered. We extracted some yarn.

A close-up:And we cleared some space out of the yarn room:

A whole half of a shelf! Kinda scary, ain't it?

Stay tuned for more adventures from Italy!

Ciao

Airplane Food! Sucks....

I know airplane food is gross. I usually find something to eat, though.

The airline I was flying with gives you a little menu before they serve the "food". Here are the menus for flying over and return.

Going over: The seven grain salmon curry was gross looking. The chicken was inedible. Rubber chicken. Although the potatoes were edible. Won't mention the peas or carrots. Ugh.

The cheese was supposedly Camembert. It too was rubber. Not sure what the fruit compote was composed of. Didn't eat it. The blueberry cake was, well, weird. Not awful, though.

Breakfast was yoghurt, fruit flavoured. I did eat that.

Coming back: Tomato tarte Tatin looked like a hamburger patty made out of jello with bits of vegetable in it. Couldn't bring myself to try it. The Salmon ravioli Florentine was rubber and inedible. My sister tried the chicken fillets but found it also completely inedible. The short story is that the only thing on the tray I ate was the (stale) bread with butter.

Breakfast was unflavoured yoghurt. Yuck. A cheese sandwich with fennel seeds on the bread. I don't like fennel, but otherwise, bland and edible. And 2 butter cookies. Those were edible.

Suffice it to say that the "airplane food" legend lives.

The food in Italy was MUCH better! Shocking, I know. My favorite was pizza, naturally. Lemon gelato is a close second.

Normally, I get my gelato in a cone. Since they serve 2 flavours per cone there, my usual is lemon/chocolate. The chocolate gelato is lovely. More like the dark chocolate ice cream flavour we have than our regular chocolate. This photo, however, is my usual 2 flavours in a "coppa", or cup. I was in the Orta San Giulio on the shore of the Lago D'orta, or the Lake of Orta. A beautiful town. More on that in another post.

Jetlag is a real drag. It's worse going over, but now that I am back, I find myself needing unexpected naps at 3pm or so. Probably because I wake up at 3am feeling like it's 9am. My body rythyms are just a little ahead of themselves. Sigh. Hopefully it'll go away soon. I'm off for a nap now.

Ciao

I Have Returned!

I'm back! From Italy, that is. I had a wonderful time. The weather was almost perfect. Lovely and warm. I returned to a nifty surprise. My Knitter's Treat Exchange box had arrived!

Thanks Jen! What a great way to be welcomed home.

As for the Italy trip, there will be more posts to come, some are even knitting related. But it will have to wait for another day, as I am jet-lagged, have to unpack and figure out if I need to do laundry. To hold you over, here is a picture of what I was doing over there. Some of the time.

Ciao!