Rocking Your World 2019; Week 10

Hi everyone. Here we are at Friday again. This will be a short post as it has been a 'flat' week, but there are still things to reflect on and smile. Like, for example, these lovely freesias. Last week they were all in bud, but the sunshine has brought them all open. Such a lovely range of 'autumn colours' for pretty spring flowers, and they smell divine.

Yesterday I had two parcels to send to UK. Both were too big and one too heavy, to post at the little office in our village, so we drove over to Vera where there is a main Post Office for the lighter parcel, and a Mail Box company that acts as a collection point for some couriers, and a very pleasant lady there, helped me find the cheaper option for the heavy one, and did all the necessary labels for me, so hopefully both will find their way to their new homes by the end of next week. I felt it was a good mornings work.

As we walked through the centre of Vera, which is mainly pedestrianised, we crossed the plaza in front of the big church  and along the edge we saw two long beds just full of bright red geraniums. They were all in bloom together and made a gorgeous splash of colour on what is otherwise a fairly plain plaza.

It was lunch time when we got home so we went to a bar in the village for a drink and tapa. They were particularly nice tapas so between us we had four drinks and four tapas and the bill was 8€. Talk about value for money!

I usually buy my wool online from the same company, and their service is second to none, but my order for my next project has hit a snag. They wrote to me straight away and said they were one ball short of one of the yarns but expected more the following week, so I agreed to wait. But then, I received my dispatch note but the order did not arrive. I have written to them twice more but they say they cannot track an international package until 21 working days after the dispatch. It is not really their fault as they did dispatch the parcel on 11th February, but they can't even investigate it until next Tuesday. Then they will hopefully send a replacement order which will be at least another week before it gets here, so I decided I couldn't wait that long. I wanted to get started on another blanket and it won't be too long before it is too warm to work on a large project. So I went to a local Chinese 'todo' shop, (todo meaning everything), and bought wool. It is not quite as soft and nice as what I buy from UK, but for a blanket that is not so important. So I have done the first eight rows. There is not much to show but here it is.

As you can see I am working with two balls of wool together, going across with one, and then across again with the second working through the first row, and then turn around and work back with each of them in the same way. I am using a big hook so the 'fabric' is not too dense, so it is all a new experience for me. It is not a pattern for when I am watching TV. Every row is counting all the way and I have to mark off every little group of stitches as I work them so that I know where I am! It takes anything up to 45 minutes to work one row! The design comes in five sections so I will show it again when the first section is done.

On Tuesday it was my turn to lead our house group and we talked about Lent and some of the traditions that surround it, why  and how we observe it. It was interesting to hear other folk's views and everyone seemed to enjoy our discussion.

I had a phone call from Jonathan (son number four) this week to say he had found very reasonable flights from Manchester to Almeria so he and his wife will be here for a short break, five days, at the start of May, so that is something to look forward to.

I have been hit by my annual bout of hayfever as the mimosa, (acacia or wattle depending on where you live), and olives come into flower, and the long haired cats all start to moult. So I have been coughing and sneezing and the medicine always makes me feel dozy, so I spent most afternoons sitting on the patio with a book. It is ages since I read so much but it made a nice relaxing change. Unfortunately my cough has deepened into something a bit more, but hopefully it will clear again soon.

And now I just have some sky photos to share that I took on Wednesday evening. We had a day of horrendous wind that rattled the windows, tossed the trees around, and left the yard covered in debris. By tea time it had settled down but cloud had blown in and hidden the sun, though it was still warm. But just before sunset, the sun tried to break through giving this lovely view.

Suddenly the sun won, the clouds broke apart, and the sky was a mixture of deep blue, orange and yellow. It was beautiful.

The orange quickly turned to red and the clouds darkened, and few minutes later it was gone.

Meanwhile, as I turned just a few degrees to my right, the sky looked like this!

It never developed into anything more sinister and we are back to sunshine again now.

So time to link up with Rocking Your World on Virginia's blog, and Annie's Friday Smiles.

 

Rocking Your World 2019; Week 9

Hi everyone. And as Lucy from Attic 24 would say, I am starting this week with my "Ta-dah" moment. Yes my Havana blanket is finally finished so it is time for the big reveal.

Back in my October 14th post from last year, I wrote about starting this blanket. It took me ages to work out the colours I would use. I spread out all my colour pegs for Stylecraft Double Knitting Yarn, and divided them into two sets which gave good contrasts between them and then arranged them travelling roughly through the rainbow to the centre, and then back out again. I used forty-one colours altogether. I did not want it to have any hard stripes so I randomly worked through one set of the darker colours and at the same time the set of contrasting colours, and I have to say, I love how it turned out.

The technique is called 'mosaic crochet' and it is worked entirely in DC with Trebles used to work into the row two below making the texture. (That's SC and DC in USA terms). Here is a close up to show some of the texture.

The border is double with the mosaic pattern on the front and plain trebles on the back. It's background colour is deep purple, not black as it looks in the photo, and sandwiched between the two layers, is a multitude of yarn ends, because every row is worked from right to left, and the yarn is then cut. Sewing them all in would have been a nightmare, but instead they are tied together in pairs and hidden inside the border which was a great idea.

The blanket is a birthday/house-moving present for my son in UK and he loves it too. (Sorry to my Facebook friends who have seen it all before!).

So on now to my next 'happy' moment which happened on Wednesday afternoon when we answered the doorbell to find this pallet of boxes at our doorstep. My new craft-room storage had finally arrived. It was six weeks since we had ordered it, and I feel the company's customer service was poor, but the goods are top class. I was pleased to see that all the packaging was made from recycled paper. The boxes were labelled as "used before but checked carefully for strength", and all the 'padding' inside was recycled paper and strong cardboard tubes. So when we had managed to manhandle all the boxes indoors and unpacked and checked all the contents, we made two trips to the recycling centre to pass it all on to be used again.

The storage towers are flat packed but fit together really well, and only really proved quite hard for us because the side pieces are so big and heavy, and we are not getting any younger! However, with my dear hubby doing the lion's share of the work, we got the big one assembled first, and today we made up the second one. They are designed to hold the "Really Useful Boxes" and the first one has 18 shallow 12" x 12" boxes down one side, and A4 size boxes in various depths down the other. You can glimpse my very untidy desk next to it, which hopefully will be cleared soon as I find new homes for everything. The large box on the floor is an extra I ordered which is designed to hold 12" x 12" hanging files, and it will live under my desk, eventually.

The second tower is on the opposite wall, sitting alongside the ones I have already had for some years. It is tall and narrow with reinforced shelves, specially to hold big, deep boxes for all those things that just don't fit in the shallower ones. So I am all set up and now I need a few weeks or so to sort out what is going where, and then get them all labelled so I find it all again when I need it!

Yesterday was a fun day because it was Día de Andalucía, a very important day for all the folk living in this region. Here is a picture of Andalucía and one of Spain to show where we fit in.

If you look closely at the top picture, on the far right of the white area, there is a very small star. That is roughly where my village of Los Gallardos is.

I have been reading a bit about the region, and Andalucía only became an autonomous region 39 years ago when their flag of green and white stripes came into being. "The green and white of Andalucia’s flag represent hope and peace, respectively. The Andalucian coat of arms features Hercules calmly stroking two lions, between the Pillars of Hercules. According to Roman legends, Hercules was on his way to the garden of Hesperides and used his superhuman strength to smash the mountain of Atlas in two, creating the Strait of Gibraltar. The Rock of Gibraltar, on the Iberian peninsula, and Jebel Musa, in Ceuta, have since been known at the Pillars of Hercules. According to the Law on the anthem and shield of Andalucia, Hercules represents the ‘eternal youthful force’ of the human spirit, and the two lions represent pacification of our powerful animal instincts." (That is a direct quote from the piece I was reading, but I thought it was quite interesting.)

Celebrations in our village followed their usual pattern of a concert in the big marquee on the car park, with local dancing schools and the village choir taking part. I like to watch the children dancing. 

First there were some older girls doing Fusion dance. It was very loud and I thought quite aggressive in some of the movements.

They were followed by the more traditional style of dancing, that leads them on to Flamenco dancing if they stick with it. This was one of the youngest groups and the lass on the right stood frozen on the edge of the stage and didn't move a muscle. The third from the right was a real drama queen over exaggerating every move and expression. She really made me smile. And the little tot on the left did her very best to follow the girl next to her, mostly half a beat behind, but see from their faces how they enjoy it. They must love wearing all the pretty dresses, but I wonder how they manage to keep huge bunches of flowers on a comb in their hair.

Then groups of various ages had their turn, ending with the two young ladies who teach the group, who are both very good.

The final act was the village choir, resplendent in their frilled dresses, who sang with great gusto and with much clapping and use of castanets.

As soon as the concert comes to an end, everyone picks up their chair and hastens to find a space round one of the three long tables at the back of marquee, which are covered in plates of meats, cheeses, bread and salads. These were set up earlier and covered in long rolls of white paper, and no-one, not even the children, considers touching or even peeping under it, until it is time to eat. We are very good at free meals in our village and there is always enough for all comers to have their fill.

I just have a couple more photos. This one makes me smile each time I go out the front door. A couple of weeks ago I was so pleased that three little tiny daffodils had opened in one of my pots. This week the matching pot on the other end of the steps, has six flowers open and another blue hyacinth, and if you look closely you may just spot a bud of a much larger daffodil at the back, so hopefully that will be open too very soon. The Spanish folk love them as they are not normally seen over here.

I also mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had been making Christmas cards using images, frames and sentiments salvaged from cards I received this year. Several people said they were interested to see what I had made so here they are. You can see them in more detail on my craft blog where I linked them up to a monthly challenge.

And finally one sky photo, taken at the end of beautiful day. It had been lovely and warm all day and I had spent the afternoon reading on the porch, but as tea-time approached, the sun was lost behind some fairly dark clouds, and I almost expected rain. A short while afterwards, there was a break in the clouds and a really bright setting sun shone though. So here it is.

And on that note I will bid you all good-bye and link up with my Friday friends on Annie's Friday Smiles, and Rocking Your World.

(Apologies if this turns up in your post in a variety of fonts and sizes. I do use a large font for the sake of some older members of my family who enjoy reading it, but on my post it is all in the same font and same size, but not when I publish it on my computer. Blogger just isn't on the same hymn sheet as me today).