Stroopwafels, sock yarn and soap!

Apologies for the long gap since my last post. Mr Josiekitten whisked me off to Amsterdam after work on Friday, and since getting back, I've been super-busy catching up with all the jobs I normally do at the weekend! The weather was glorious, and we spent the weekend walking by the canals, drinking coffee and eating stroopwafels, visiting local markets, going to a concert, eating a delicious dinner and going round the Hortus Botanicus. It was such a relaxing time. Here's a snapshot of our weekend.

We stayed in a lovely hotel on Herengracht, right up in the attic room. I don't know if you're familiar with Amsterdam canal houses, but the stairs are incredibly steep, and we had 55 to contend with to get to our room. Infact, when we opened our door, we were met with another flight of stairs! You can get some idea of just how steep they were from this photo. These are the stairs leading down to our door.

Mr Josiekitten was horrified by the sight of his 'bald' patch in this photo (he's been in denial up 'til now!), and has ordered me to knit him a toupee at once! Anyone got any fun fur going spare?!

We are very much creatures of habit when we visit Amsterdam, so I had to pop in to a couple of my favourite shops. La Savonnerie is a delicious soap shop, with a rainbow of soaps on offer. I found it very hard to restrict myself to only buying four, and I shall ration them until my next visit! The owner let me take one photo!

We also called into De Afstap, a small yarn shop, where I was most restrained and only bought one ball of a new Regia yarn, called Regia Hand-Dye Effect. The colours are lovely, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it knits up. It may not become socks, as I've seen some rather nice shawls on Ravelry. I don't think that I'll be making a pair of thigh length socks as shown on the label! They'd never stay up! Anyway, this is the colourway I chose....

The weekend finished perfectly too - there was a chef cooking fresh stroopwafels at Schipol airport. Yum Yum Yum!

Knitting-wise, I've finished two things for a swap that I'm taking part in on Phoenix Knitting Forums. The theme of the swap is 'Something Blue'. I can't show you the photos yet - all will be revealed later! My September socks aren't going to be finished by tomorrow! I've finished one and started the second. The pattern is Bubblewrap from Sockbug, and I'm using an Opal yarn. They have a definite wintery 'boot sock' feel to them. My aim this week is to finish off the July and September socks! I shall be glad when the Sock Challenge year is over. At the start, when all I was doing was knit socks, it wasn't a problem at all, and I often knit two pairs in a month. But I've moved on a bit and want to knit a greater variety of things, so having the pressure of making a pair a month is getting a bit much. I know that it doesn't really matter one bit of I don't do it, but it does matter to me, if you know what I mean?! Anyway, enough of my wibbling on! I'd better go and knit a bit more sock! Toodle pip!