cosmicpluto knits!

the yarn…and a first!

I bought a lot of yarn while I was away. A lot. I only bought one piece of clothing (an expensive but amazing, made-in-France skirt) and the one pair of shoes (which, by the way, are Doc Martens for anyone who asked), but I bought a hell of a lot of yarn. I hadn’t really intended to, but whatever. Yarn makes a great souvenir!

I got some at k1 in Edinburgh, some at Le Bon Marche in Paris, but most of it came from iknit day.

In the top left, there’s cashmere from Devon Fine Fibres, some for presents and some for me – they raise their own flock, and have a very limited supply of yarn, but it’s sooo beautiful. And inexpensive, for sure.

Top right is organic merino from ColdHarbour Mill, a working mill and textile museum! They had 100g skeins of the undyed organic merino on for 5 pounds, and I bought a sweater’s worth of the 4ply plus some others for gifts.

Bottom left is two skeins of Bowmont wool from Devon Fine Fibres, a new rare cross breed. It’s a mix of merino and shetland, and is really soft in a still-wooly way! They didn’t have much left when we got there (I blame erqsome, she bought a sweater’s worth of the grey) so I just got the two skeins. Now, what to make?

And in the bottom right, not yarn of course, it’s fabric from Liberty. Expensive, but sooo pretty. I’m going to have to make a few more practice skirts before I commit to cutting this up!

And the first?

Last night I held my book for the first time – a box came into the store just when I was starting to work last night. And I sold my first book, to my friend Jeff (I’m sure books have sold so far, but this was the first one *I* sold!). And I signed my first book.

Whew.

just a liiiitle more

My flight home was uneventful, if a bit long – the flight itself was about 7.5 hours, plus all that waiting around on either end (and it was far from the gate to customs and everything here in Toronto!). They showed one of the same movies as on the last flight (Ironman), which I thought was pretty lame – but this plane had leather seats. Did I mention that this flight was also delayed? I got an email last week from my booking agency with the details – it was delayed by almost 6 hours. At least, again, I knew in advance!

My sister apparently harvested a flying saucer (patty-pan-type) squash while I was away that had gone unnoticed – and when harvested it was the size of, I dunno, a smallish cabbage? The one thing I asked my family to do while I was away was to watch my plants, and they didn’t really do it. So now I’ve lost a few tomatoes and harvested a couple baseball bat zucchinis this evening. Sigh.

I think my attempt to beat jet lag is working, because it’s 11 pm here and I’m still (sort of) awake. I’ve been up for about 20 hours though, so I think it’s now time for bed!

Yarn photos shortly! I got some great stuff across the pond!

heading home

(Paris, view from Sacre-Coeur)

It’s my very last day in Europe, and I haven’t left Ysolda’s flat all day! It was nice, though, homey and such. And since we’re both headed out tomorrow, we could spend time packing without rushing. I vacuum-packed my clothes and yarn into the bottom of my suitcase, packed most everything else (except my like, pjs and wash bag) and I think I’ll get everything in there no problem. Getting the suitcase down the circular staircase on my own might be a bit tricky though!

We ended up getting pretty cheap tickets on a flight from Paris to Edinburgh – booked them Thursday night for a flight on Friday afternoon! It turned out to be way easier than taking the train anyway, and we got in around 7pm. Thank goodness Ysolda’s mom watches the news and rang us up to let us know – otherwise we would’ve just gone to the train station and been stuck!

Saturday morning we headed out to the Edinburgh farmer’s market for lots of goodies for dinner-making, plus I got a little bag of border tablet for my Scottish food souvenir – one certainly doesn’t need more than wee bit of that super-sweet stuff! ysolda blogged about our lovely dinner (with photos, which I couldn’t take because my hands were covered in pasta dough!).

So my European jaunt has come to an end (or close enough anyway). I had really great fun, especially in Paris! I think the sunshine had a lot to do with that! I did have a few feeling sick or homesick points, but overall it’s been a fantastic trip. I’ve got tons of photos, yarn and other souvenirs (more on that when I get back home!) and I had a great time going around with ys and experiencing Europe for the first time.

I’ll be back.

And psst – Teach Yourself Visually Sock Knitting (by yours truly) is now available on Amazon!

Join me for a book launch celebration at lettuce knit in Toronto on the evening of Wednesday the 24th of September!

la bonne paris

Paris rocks.

Monday morning rather bright and early, we lugged all our stuff onto the Underground in London, having found a close-by tube station that was on the same line as King’s Cross (technically, St. Pancras since we were travelling internationally) – much better than the changing we had to do to get everywhere earlier! The Eurostar ride was nice and quiet, uneventful, and quick! I’m definitely into this train thing.

We rented an apartment in Le Marais, which turned out to be an amazing location – walking distance to tons of stuff, including the Louvre; and in an easy place on the Metro as well. Although, after all the time we spent in the Underground in London, we were eager to spend some time exploring above ground!

The first day after we settled in, we just went for a walk all around and took some photos in the sunshine (also very different from London!). Some sitting and knitting, too. We had falafel from L’As du Falafel for dinner, which was super.

Tuesday we briefly checked out La Droguerie (and Ys was admonished for taking a photo inside) before heading down to the Louvre, which incidentally is closed on Tuesdays. That was okay, since we weren’t planning on going to the main museum anyway! And it meant that the whole area was a bit less busy than it would’ve been had the museum been open.

We sat in the square a bit, taking photos, knitting. Paris has been great for more chill time, more just hanging out and people watching, not really rushing to get anywhere for certain times or anything like that.

After some lunch in the Jardin des Tuileries, we headed into the Musee de la Mode et du Textile – they had on an exhibition of Valentino! The museum is part of Les Arts Decoratifs, so we also checked out the Musee des Arts Decoratifs (included in the admission price). Some pretty awesome stuff – particularly the rather large collections of chairs from lots of different eras! man, the sixties were a crazy design time. We took the Metro back to the apartment rather than walking…we were a little tired by then!

Wednesday we actually set an alarm clock and headed out to meet up with Samia of French-Kit.com at Le Bon Marche – a big, super chic (expensive) department store on the Left Bank. Their yarn department stocks Rowan (didn’t really look at it, though), Phildar, Debbie Bliss, Anny Blatt, Plassard…can’t really remember what else, but it was a pretty decent selection. Yeah, I bought yarn.

Colour theme, anyone? I also got some needles so I could continue my sock! We hopped a bus with Samia (it’s nice to travel with a guide!) and headed for an organic and vegetarian restaurant near where we were staying, called Le Potager du Marais (22 rue Rambuteau, 3rd). The food was really nice and although the place is small, it’s very friendly. Lots of things on the menu are vegan-friendly as well, including the desserts!

Samia gave us some suggestions for getting around, bus routes to take and such, before we said au revoir. We left our yarn back in the apartment, then headed out to do some intensive shopping! We’d been sort of noting cool little shops right around the area of our apartment, so it was time to do a little exploring and purchasing. I bought a bunch of stuff, including a fancy made-in France skirt and some gifts for people back home. Since we ate out at lunch, we stayed in for dinner and made some random stir-fry with rice noodles I’d been carrying in my bag since London. Green veggies to balance out the croissants!

Finally, in my week-in-Paris roundup, today we took a bus up to Pigalle, then did the hike up to Sacre-Coeur in Montmartre. Unfortunately the sun and the steps sort of did me in, and I felt a bit lightheaded and faint up at the top – not so fun. The view was amazing though.

Bit of a rest, some sugar and salt (Coke and crisps), and we made our way slowly down the Butte. We wandered around the cemetery a bit, which was full of interesting things. Didn’t seek out any famous people, just walked and looked. And took photos – I’m working on getting them up on my Flickr, where incidentally, you can all see many, many, many more photos of my trip if you so desire!

On our last night here, baguette, cheese, and tomatoes for dinner, macarons for dessert. Some serious tidying up and packing to do! Tomorrow morning I’m hoping to get out to this chocolate shop we passed the other day to buy a jar of caramel beurre salé. And I need to buy postcards. Things we’ve not done in Paris: gone to the Eiffel Tower or the Champes-Élysées, visited the main Louvre, gone to Ladurée (or any other fancy food places, actually), well, lots of other touristy things. And you know what? It suited us just fine.

(Frozen yogourt from around the corner. Mmmm.)

Tomorrow it’s back to Edinburgh, on two trains…our train tomorrow to London is at 2:15, but…there’s a slight snag. In case you don’t want to click – the Channel Tunnel was closed today (Thursday) due to a fire on a train, and service was canceled for at least the rest of the day. Eurostar is saying that they don’t expect to be running anything in the morning. And then I’d expect that the afternoon ones will be insane (or at least, the stations are going to be insane!). Arghhhhh. We certainly can’t afford to fly back to Edinburgh at 700 pounds a ticket!

Send good travel vibes? Or alternate travel ideas?

ETA: Since Eurostar isn’t guaranteeing travel tomorrow for ticketholders (and we wouldn’t want to be caught at King’s Cross! Yikes!) we’ve just booked a cheap last-minute flight direct from Paris to Edinburgh. I’m glad that’s sorted! And it’ll get us there a LOT faster. And easier. Whew.

catching up – iknit!

Well, where have the last couple days gone? It’s been sort of a blur of trains, knitters, more trains, and Paris (more on that a little later).

Saturday morning we moved house from where were staying in Twickenham to another house-sitting gig in White City – much more central (as in, on the tube’s Central line) but still a bit of a trip to get anywhere, really. After a bit of a rest and some food (lugging our stuff around London was pretty damn exhausting!) we finally headed out to iknit. We got a little lost along the way, but were pointed in the right direction by some knitters on the street!

We managed to arrive right in the middle of Stephanie’s talk, which was in the next building, so the marketplace hall was really quite empty! I guess that’s what happens when 700 people exodus to see Stephanie speak.

We managed to find our way around to some pretty awesome yarn – I got a bunch of organic merino and some cashmere! Okay, a lot of the merino. Once we got back to White City I put it all in the compression bag I’d been waiting to bust out (it’s from MEC and it was brand new). Wow, that thing does a great job! Unfortunately I forgot to take photos of the yarn before putting it in the bag…

That’s like, 15 skeins of yarn in there! And it fits into my suitcase at the moment…although I did leave some stuff back in Edinburgh that will need to go in there. Plus there was a skirt in a shop here that I’ve decided to buy. And whatever other shopping we do here….hm. My suitcase does expand, which I haven’t used yet, so that’s promising! My backup plan, which might actually need to be used, is to find another bag to use as my carry on and check my backpack.

Anyway. More Saturday continued, after we bought some yarn, we headed out to a pub to have a drink with a bunch of London knitters, which was really cool. Then it was back to iknit in the rain, to pick up Stephanie for dinner – we walked around a bit trying to find a place, but it turns out that central London is pretty dead and closed on a weekend! We ended up at a mediocre Italian place.

Unfortunately all the cheese and wheat made me feel rather queasy on the way home and that evening, and I splurged on a taxi to take us from one tube station to back home to avoid taking another tube and walking. It was worth the money, though – I had a pretty tough evening. All this travelling might not really agree with me, thank goodness for Rescue Remedy.

And the worst thing for a travelling knitter?

This was *after* iknit! Argh! Stephanie offered me a set of 2.25mm needles, but since I’m using 2mm I declined – in hindsight I should’ve taken them! We’re headed to a yarn store tomorrow here in Paris though so I’m hoping to find something there.

Hoo boy, this entry is getting long! I’ll try to condense Sunday – we met up with Ysolda’s friend in Camden Market, walking through Regent’s Park on the way. The crowds at Camden – ugh! So crowded that we sort of had to leave (more of my feeling-ill-ness, sigh) after not much time, although I don’t think either of them minded much. Not our style of stuff to buy, either!

After a detour to King’s Cross to pick up our train tickets to Paris, we decided to finally do the touristy stuff on our last day, and hopped a bus up to Trafalgar Square.

We walked around a bit, then went up to Buckingham Palace, saw the Canada Gate, then took a nice walk along the Thames by the Houses of Parliament and finally into the Underground at Westminster station. Flickr Uploadr is being a little weird right now, so I’ll upload some more photos later!

More on Paris in another, probably lengthy, post!

twickenham adventures

Thursday morning we left Edinburgh early and took a taxi to the train. Unfortunately the photos of that train are on my other camera and I can’t really be arsed to get them off! The ride was a bit long, but pretty easy, I suppose. I took a nap for a long while to get used to the motion then did some crocheting and watching Dr. Horrible!

It took a Tube ride and a National Rail ride to get to where we’re staying outside London for a few nights, in Twickenham.

It’s a really cute town, very quiet, and pretty easy to get into the city (once we figured out which train we were supposed to take!), it takes about 25 minutes to get to Waterloo station. After a few hours’ resting in the flat (we were so tired, sitting on the train really is exhausting, not to mention lugging all our stuff on the tube and second train!) we headed out to have a little walk around town and get something to eat.

It was sort of a weird time (like 4:30 pm? too early for dinner, especially in this commuter town!) so lots of places were closed.

We managed to find a huge pub that was open, and empty! We ordered a couple pints and some random pub snacky food that ended up being dinner.

But gasp, we’d both neglected to bring knitting! So what did we do?

Our adventures continued – Ysolda’s blogged the next bit!