Back home!

Hellooooooo there! Mr Josiekitten and I arrived back home late on Sunday night, after our two week jaunt around Germany. We had a great time, catching up with family and friends, visiting beautiful places and eating far too much delicious food! But it's nice to be home - there's nothing like sleeping in your own bed with fresh bedding, is there? Our garden has gone mad too! The courgettes have become marrows, tomatoes are now compulsory with every meal, the watermelons are getting huge, and just what can you do with six butternut squash?! Yesterday was spent catching up with 'housey' things. And now I'm allowing myself the indulgence of an hour or two surfing my favourite sites, and catching up with fellow bloggers. I did make one or two discoveries whilst I was away.

• It's a good idea to discover that the back of your car isn't magnetic before getting on the boat! (But at least I had some scissors handy in my knitting bag for the sticky tape!)

• It's true what they say about never forgetting how to ride a bike. It must be at least 17 years since I last did, yet I managed to cycle about 20km through some beautiful countryside, without falling off, and being able to walk the next day!

• The German tradition of Kaffee und Kuchen (that's afternoon coffee and cakes to you and me) may be very civilised, but after a fortnight, it plays havoc on the waistline! My favourites were strawberry streusel kuchen and gooseberry quark kuchen. Yummy! Sorry there are no photos, but the cakes never stayed on the plate long enough!!

• German cats are just like English cats, and always go to the person who's knitting!

• I am totally in awe of the technology behind Tom-Toms! I love the person who invented it, as it allowed me the luxury of knitting, rather than navigating Mr Josiekitten up a crease in the map!

Anyway, here's a snapshot of our fortnight away.

I did manage to get some knitting done (although my holiday knitting bag was perhaps a little bit over-ambitious!) I knitted 2 whole pairs and 2 half pairs of socks..........

The first pair are Jaywalkers, my August sock challenge socks. I've had no end of problems with this pattern in the past, but this time it worked out ok. I made the smaller size and used 2.5mm needles for the cuff, and then 2.75mm needles for the rest of the sock. If anything, it's a little bit too big, but it's not being frogged, no way, never! The yarn was a Lana Grossa one. The second pair are one of my favourites, Waving not Drowning, from Violet Green, using Dazzle yarn from the Natural Dye Studio, colourway Sweet Pea. The third pair is my basic plain vanilla sock pattern, using a Trekking yarn, and the last sock is my 'July' sock challenge sock. This yarn has been started so many times. I finally found a pattern where the pooling wasn't too bad. It's Jules, by Kate Blackburn. I'm making the larger size. One sock down, one to go on each of the last two!

I also made a scarf, using the beautiful Drop Stitch pattern by Christine Vogel. I used 2 skeins of Mirasol Hacho, and it knitted up very quickly. This one is a present, but I can see myself making another one! It needs blocking, but I was impatient to take some photos. But I will block it to open up the pattern even more.

I started a shawl using Manos del Uruguay yarn. I haven't got very far, as it's quite 'anti-social' knitting - you need to concentrate on every row, so wasn't the best thing to knit when staying with people! The yarn is absolutely gorgeous. The last project is my Posy crochet scarf. I've joined a CAL on Ravelry, but my crochet is very rusty, so I needed to concentrate very hard! I only managed 3 motifs!!

I did manage to sniff out a couple of yarn shops in my travels! I even managed to impress Mr Josiekitten, by finding 2 in Stollberg, a small town in the east of Germany, almost as soon as we arrived (and that was without pre-planning!) I bought some sock yarn there - 2 lots for Mr Josiekitten (NOT black, and he chose!), some for Snoopydog, and some for me. We also visited a shop in an old village called Fischerhude with Mr Josiekitten's (non-knitting) cousins. They couldn't understand my need for yarn. 'You have a big box of wool at home,' they said. (They'd seen it when they'd visited at Easter.) So my delight in browsing a beautiful yarn store was cut short by them standing waiting in the doorway! I quickly found some Lana Grossa sock yarn with some viscose in it. It's beautifully soft, and I love the mix of colours. Anyway, I needed to be restrained, as I'm meant to be on a stashbust, and the I Knit day is just around the corner!

Many thanks to all those of you who left me messages on my last post. I used a random number generator in the presence of an independent adjudicator (Mr Josiekitten), and this is what happened. Drum roll please!

The fifth person to leave me a message was menthapip. Congratulations to you! If you're on Ravelry, send me a message or email me at josiekitten at hotmail.com to let me have your address, and the yarn will be winging its way to you!

I'm off now to spend a bit of quality time with Henrycat. He returned from his pussycat hotel this morning and is still being very vocal in his disapproval of the events of the past fortnight! He's desperate for a sleep, and his eyes keep closing, but he won't allow himself to, just in case he gets whisked off in his basket again! So a bit of smooching and cuddling is in order. See you soon!