Travel Chitchat

Hello there, I hope you had a lovely (long) weekend. Although I'm back home again - picking up my daily routines and work - I still owe you some last yarny travel stories.

Let me start with my travel doilies, I made these with cotton I couldn't use for my Travel Blanket. (Picture made with my phone.)

I especially like to the pink one. Both patterns are taken from Japanese crochet books. Ah... those Japanese crochet books... That must have been one of the best surprises of Thailand - only yarnwise speaking of course! - the incredible choice of Japanese crochet books on sale. Most of them translated in Thai - which is fine because I speak neither Thai nor Japanese so I'm using the charts anyway. However, there are several Japanese bookstores which a huge selection of craftbooks. So I also bought a couple of them in the Japanese language. Have a look at my choice... Patterns for hats, bags, doilies, wraps, scarfs, blankets and lots of trims and edges - you name it!






















Pretty good, don't you think? ;-) I made a lovely pair of mittens from a pattern taken from one of these books, I'll show them here soon.

Also, while still travelling I started playing with my hemp yarn. It soon became clear that whatever I'm going to make with it, it will be very delicate. The yarn is at some points so thin it breaks just by looking at it. But the texture is rather nice I think. I'm using my 2.7 mm crochet hook - another of my travel souvenirs.

I especially liked the circles. However, after two circles a major drawback occurred: my fingers were indigo blue... And not a little bit either... So I guess that before continuing I have to do something about this, or the white soon will not be white anymore. Maybe rinsing the blue circles in cold water with vinegar? Mmm, not sure if I'll bother to do that any time soon...

Oh, and before I forget, there's one really good travel tip I'd like to share with all you fellow-crocheters. Take dental floss with you! For example on the plane where you're not allowed having scissors with you. It's ideal for cutting yarn. I used it for cutting cotton and acrylic - maybe it worked even better than my special craft scissors... Anyways, I can't recall where I read that tip for the first time (it wasn't my own idea), but I did make a small visual reminder. ;-)

Okay, I guess that's it for now. I'll have another post lined up already (how organised for once...), so I will be back soon! Thanks for visiting.
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