This is not a crochet related post, but it had to be made. Back when I was more active, studying my BSc, I used to post my travel experiences to a website called MyWanderlust. Due to the rise of websites such as Facebook and twitter, MyWanderlust as it was doesn't exist anymore. I didn't have a lot posted there, but during the time I was posting I was featured twice in the editors "Best of" section for 21st December 2012. I found out today... The article I wrote can't be read on that website anymore, but for posterity I decided to post it here. Just because.
Welcome to the Jungle
My top three experiences from the university trip to the Brunei rainforest.
Do you know, I wouldn't even know where to start. My trip to Brunei was the most amazing experience of my whole life, and currently I'm not sure of anything that could beat it. Rather than describing the entire two weeks in great detail, I just picked out a few of my favourite moments as highlights, so even if nobody else ever reads this, when I'm old and forgetful I can look back and think "I did that!" :) So....Here are my top three Borneo experiences.
Canopy Sunrise
Watching the sun rise over the Bornean rainforest canopy of Kuala Belalong may just be the single most awesome moment of my entire life. No matter how much I try, and no matter how many photo's I took, I still can't describe how amazingly peaceful it was, nor how unbelievably beautiful.
We got up while it was still dark to take a boat to the walkway before the sun rose. The ride to the walkway in the dark was rather uneventful, and we got to the walkway pretty easily. Walking up the path along the side
of the valley to get to the walkway entrance was pretty harsh though! After two weeks of kayaking and forest hiking, I had thought that I was getting fit. Apparently not! Heheh. As with most of the forest hikes, I was bringing up the rear in our little group. Still, walking through the forest in the dark was a whole new experience, and I found myself more focussed on where my feet were going on the ground than where everyone else was ahead of me.
When we got to the walkway, it was definitely not what I was expecting, although right now I'm not entirely sure exactly what it was that I WAS expecting. The walk way consisted of a large scaffold structure, with staircase towers and long gang-planks between them. I've never really been afraid of heights, (although I do get vertigo at times due to my crazy glasses prescription!), but standing there at the foot of the tower and looking up, I had the craziest urge to run away, and I actually hesitated. My lecturer had to look at me and say something along the lines of "Well, go on then" before I even moved. But move I did, and before I knew it I was climbing up the seemingly-neverending ladder of doom, passing several small wasps nests on the way to the top.
At the top, the view was so absolutely amazing, that the evil pathway-of-stumbling-and-tree-roots and the daunting staircase-of-infinite-steps suddenly didn't matter any more. The sun wasn't peeking over the horizon just yet, although the sky was lightening up all around, and the birds were beginning their morning chorus. Bees buzzed past on their way to places I can only imagine, and fine clouds of mist were floating just over the top of the trees, following the path of the river that we had left behind a while ago. I felt like I didn't dare speak, lest I completely ruin the moment, so I just took my camera out and started taking some video recordings. I stood there just watching for what felt like hours as the sky lightened and the sun rose, and more and more calls joined the dawn chorus.
I don't think I'll ever experience anything that peaceful again, (certainly not with a hyperactive 8 year old!), and so of all of the amazing things I did that fortnight, the canopy sunrise was possibly the most amazing moment of them all.
Crocodile-spotting
The water was perfectly still and black, and all of the stars were out in a cloudless sky when we decided to go kayaking on Tasek Merimbun lake and look for crocodiles. Stealth-kayaking behind our lecturer who was shining a torch around the lake until he found the eye shine of a croc, we could barely see anything. I never knew there were so many different shades of black!
When a crocodile was found, we'd all turn our torches on and point them in that direction, lighting up its eyes even further, before quietly paddling towards it. What amazed me was that the crocodiles were actually scared of us! I never expected that in a million years! Of everything I've ever heard about them, shy was never one of their descriptors.
We stayed on the lake for over an hour, paddling around as quietly as we could, talking in hushed whispers while listening to the fish splashing around us, jumping out of the water to eat the midges flying above
the lake. At one point, a fish landed in my kayak, and so I had to reach around to catch it and let it loose over the side, and believe me it was the slimiest thing I've ever touched, xenopus frogs and aquarium fish included.
Overall, it was one of the most relaxing things I've ever experienced. The blackness of the sky seemed to wash over everything with an almost muffling effect. Nothing could be heard of the people in the hall, and the few out on the lake seemed almost afraid to break the silence, so it was just us, sat in the starlight, listening to the chirping of insects, splashing of fish, and trickling of water over the paddles.
I have no words to explain adequately how amazing this was. It was just.....perfect. Absolutely perfect.
Snorkelling
Disaster!!! I'd never been snorkelling before, and I am an appalling swimmer. So why in the world I thought I was suited to a lifetime as an aquatic biologist, I will never know. Nevertheless, despite my first foray into water deeper than my waist being incredibly humiliating, trying, and immensely difficult, it was still amazing, and I now I have the knowledge that I should really ask Santa for a lifetime membership to the local pool!!
My first difficulty seemed to be with my sense of balance. There hadn't been a considerable amount of rain in the Brunei area for quite a while, and so the Kuala Belalong river water level was very low in areas. This meant walking (and wading!) across slippery rocks in order to get to where we needed to go. Apparently, slippery rocks plus me equals Bambi on ice. If you've ever seen that movie, you'll know what I mean. Legs in all directions, with frequent landings on my backside. It was physically painful, and unfortunately for my ego - not an amazingly large presence at the best of times - it was destined to continue the entire way down the river, into the tributaries, and then back again. Ouchies! I thought I'd be safe once I reach the deeper water, but that was not to be. I had not been swimming since I was 9 years old, at which point I had managed to get my 25 metre swimming badge before being banned from the pool for running into breathing difficulties! I kinda forgot about that in the excitement of going splashing up river. Ooops! So, combined with my incessant falling, my weak swimming led to my trailing a good distance behind my lecturer and peers.
We got to the tributaries, and went snorkelling in the confluence of the river, looking at the different fish there. Of course, like the numpty I am, I kept holding my breath under the water. Hello?! Snorkel here?! Heheh - my scuba-loving high school biology teacher would have been SO ashamed of me! I had to keep coming up for air, which was quite ridiculous, but I did eventually begin to override my innate sense of silliness and I even got to see some fish! My lecturer pointed out this really cool eel, and as he poked it out of it's hiding place, it shot past me in a streak of brown and was gone as quickly as it had emerged. The endemic suckers were the best though. Amazing vibrant greens, with streaks of yellow and little black spots. There were other fish, too. I was actually amazed by how many fish were present in the river, and even more surprised by the fact that 9 students and a lecturer splashing about in the river didn't scare them away!!
Moving on up the tributaries turned out to be just as much an exercise in bi-pedalism as getting to them! Climbing up the waterfalls was much easier than staying on my feet once I got to the top, for example. At one point, I slipped so badly that my friends thought for sure I *must* have broken something! But I didn't. I did find a teeny weeny little frog stuck to my arm though. He was black, and shiny, and I very nearly wiped him away thinking he was river ooze! And I'm not sure whether I was more or less embarrassed when the lecturer turned around and said "Get to solid ground before you begin multitasking Alex - Three points of contact, not seven!" On the one hand, it was kind of funny and took the heat off of me, but on the other..... >.<
Still. As black and blue as I was by the time I got back, and as stiff and achy as my muscles were the next morning, I would do it again in a heartbeat. And I *clearly* need more practice in the water. ;)
More unicorns! I swear, this little guys are the only thing people would have me crochet! Beautiful blankets, creeper toys, even the My Little Pony plushies I have planned.... Nope! None are enjoyed as much as these little chibi unicorns! I think I have made nine of them so far, maybe more! Most of them have been gifts, but since people have been asking me to make them for other people, I have started asking for a donation to the Aching Arms charity. These guys made such a difference when we lost our son last year, and it's nice to be able to give something back. I usually ask for a teddy bear to be donated in Quinn's name - a plushie for a plushie seems fair to me! It seems like such a small thing, but having that bear to cuddle when you have to walk away and leave your baby in the hospital - It's actually a very big thing.
As always, the pattern used is the Shy Little Unicorn, by Ana Paula Rimoli. The pattern is available as a paid download from Ravelry, but I have it as a pattern in a book - "Amigurumi Toy Box". It is a very simple pattern, and I have had very little difficulty in mastering it. In fact, parts of it are becoming permanently embedded in my memory now. It's not often I have to pull the pattern out to make a unicorn - usually only when it's been a while, to refresh my memory!
The first unicorn was actually finished a few weeks ago, before the end of the summer holidays. I started the latest three plushies at the same time, but one of them had a rush on it as it was for my son's LSA at the school he just left. Of course, it had to be ready before school broke up, and so it was the first to be finished. Fortunately, the unicorn was much loved! I do like it when gifts I make are appreciated - A lot of effort goes into them.
The remaining unicorns were a little less hurried. The first is a gift to my niece for her first birthday. I have made unicorns for all of my nieces, and so I couldn't let this milestone pass without making one. I'm hoping she will like it, though I am sure she will be completely spoiled on the day. I haven't seen a kiddies birthday go by yet in our family where the kiddie isn't spoiled - My son lead the way for this. Ooops! The second was a request from a friend, who wanted to give a unicorn to his friend as a birthday present at the end of August. It's finished well in advance (for a change!) and has already been delivered.
Hopefully I won't have to make any more unicorns for a while. They're very cute, I do agree, but making so many of the same thing can get very dull after a time. It becomes almost a chore to make something so cute, and surely that in itself is a crime to crochet?
One of the things in my seemingly never-ending 'to do' list has been to weave in the ends on my sister's wedding blankets. I should really have done this long ago, as they spent three weeks in South Asia on their honeymoon, but the weather was just too hot for working on a blanket. When I make blankets I spread them over my legs - I mean, where else would they go? And unfortunately, the short-lived British summer made this impossible! So the blankets were not ready for them coming home from Bali. They are ready now, however!
Fortunately for the blankets, the temperatures have dropped since my sister returned home (though probably not so fortunate for my sister, coming home from a tropical paradise to damp and dreary?!) and so I was able to bite the bullet. I hate weaving in ends with a passion! I usually like to weave as I go, crocheting each row over the ends of the last. I could do this for some rows, but unfortunately the nature of the blanket design meant that I had a lot of ends hanging out, and in the name of a speedy finish I made the rookie mistake of leaving all ends til last....
It literally took me days to get these ends finished, but I finally finished them several days ago. I am so glad to get them off my plate though - the blankets look amazing. I don't think I will ever use this pattern again, as I didn't enjoy it as much as I enjoyed, say, Sophie. But I can't deny that it is a beautiful pattern, and I know that my sister will treasure it. And with the UK winter coming, you know they're going to need them!!
Success!!
Following my first attempt at intarsia, I learned a number of things. The biggest thing I learned was that I hate intarsia! I can't stress this enough. Working on the Star Wars blanket for my partner is definitely going to be a labour of love. I also learned a number of minor things, such as the need for a printer that actually works, or that there is such a thing as a ball of yarn that is, in fact, too big. But mainly I learned that the Star Wars blanket is going to take me a LOT longer than I realised, and that it will be imperative that I actually weave my ends as I go. As a result, I am trying to get up to date on all the little odds and ends that are lying around. Having half a dozen unfinished projects lying around when I am about to start a monster doesn't seem like a good idea.
The first project I decided to finish was my Truly Hooked circles blanket. The latest pack was pack six, and the colour scheme was yellow. And I do mean yellow - Like, the standing in front of you with a megaphone, screaming YELLOW!!!! at the top of it's voice sort of yellow.
I didn't enjoy this pack as much as the previous packs. It's not even the colour that bothered me (as it did others). I don't mind the brightness of the yellow - there were bright pinks and oranges in previous packs, and I'm fully expecting an almost neon green at some point. I love bright rainbow colours, so the colour didn't bother me in the slightest. What did bother me, however, was the texture of the really bright yellows. The texture of the yarn I use means a lot to me - I prefer soft yarn over the scratchy feel of cheap acrylic. In all of the previous packs I have gone on and on - almost gushed - about how wonderfully soft and squishable the yarn has been. When I received the first pack, I sat there for a good ten minutes just squishing the yarn over and over. When I was showing off the yarn packs the first thing I said to people was "feel how soft it is!!!" And this time I just couldn't feel it. I don't know whether it was the dye that hardened the yarn, or whether it was maybe a guest dyer (I know that the next pack features a guest dyer) but the neon yellow skeins had the feel of acrylic rather than the soft wool feel that I have come to be used to. That said, the remaining colours in the pack were as soft as I remember, and once I got the neon colours out of the way I began to thoroughly enjoy working with the skeins again. I don't expect that I will come across many more that I don't enjoy working with. Overall, the blanket club has been a wonderful experience! I would love to do it again one day.
I am really beginning to love this blanket as it works up. I have loved it from the beginning, but as I see it grow I love it more and more. It makes me feel a bit sad to think that it will be finished soon - We are two thirds of the way through the packs - but I am also excited to finish it! I am definitely keeping this blanket for myself. It's a bit small to go on my bed - I think it's the perfect size to be a single bedspread - but it will make a great sofa blanket, if I can only keep the cats off of it. I think what I really need is a box by the sofa in which I can store blankets for the cold nights that come with having those pesky British Victorian sash windows. I would also put my ever suffering rainbow ripple blanket in there, my scrap square a day blanket, and the three shop-bought blankets I have - though those would be right down at the very bottom, for when we are desperate!! Alas, our flat is way too small, but I can dream, right?
It's been a few days since I had any crochet news - I am still recovering from an impromptu family 'holiday' to Chessington World of Adventures. It was a full on couple of days in which I did more walking than I've done in a very long time, drank more Cola than I thought humanly possible, and got absolutely no crochet done whatsoever! Now I am catching up on laundry, resting my aching muscles, and hoping our bank account recovers quickly! :D It was worth it though. Look how happy he is!
Since getting back, I had my first attempt at Intarsia. I have decided - I hate intarsia. I was watching the tutorial videos linked in the Star Wars blanket pattern by Ahooka, (last mentioned here) and I noticed that the edges of the motif always have little 'bites' out of them if you use single crochet intarsia. I hate it. I would like a smoother edge, similar to what you get with a C2C blanket. So I tried my first design for the blanket in the C2C style... I got about one third of the way up the edge of the motif before realising that this was impractical - The square would work up to be about 45 cm long on each edge!! That's fine if you're only doing a few designs, but my partner has expressly told me - "As many designs as possible". Using C2C and a 4mm hook, the blanket would be at least 3 metres along it's shortest edge. While it would be a lovely snuggly blanket, it's really too big! So then I tried double crochet intarsia. This made the square smaller than the C2C did, but it was still almost 30 cm along each edge. Still too big. And so I had to resign myself to single crochet intarsia. And I hate it.
I probably didn't start with the easiest pattern for my first try - the number of colour changes along a row gets to be quite high in some places. I think at one point I was working with six balls of grey and six balls of black, all at once! And I didn't do a very good job of keeping the balls separated, so the strings all got tangled up towards the end and I got quite frustrated. But the tutorial said to start with a pattern that only used two colours, just to get the hang of the colour changes at first. I don't think I've done too badly for my first time. It helped to have a symmetrical pattern, so that it didn't really matter which direction I read the pattern. I do need to get the hang of reading the pattern in the right direction for future squares though. My Jabba will come out a bit squiffy looking if I don't get the hang of it!
At least you can sort of tell what it's supposed to be....right?
As I find myself melting over my current WiP's, I can definitely say that Summer is well and truly here! Today is the hottest day of the year so far in the UK, with temperatures reaching 35C. Melty!!
Summer brings with it the end of the school year, which is especially important this year as my son will be making the transition from primary to secondary school. He is rather upset about leaving, as he will not only be leaving his friends behind (he is going to a different school than the majority of his friends) but he will also be leaving behind some wonderful teachers. One of the people he is leaving behind is the LSA who has been working with him for the most of the last seven years!
Proud parent moment: He received the Headteacher's award at his school yesterday!! Lookit how grown up he has gotten!!
As such, I have promised that I will make a unicorn for him to give to her. I am currently making another three of these unicorns in total - one for my son's LSA, one for a friend who has put in a request (I did say they were popular!!) and one for my baby nieces first birthday next month.
The pattern used is the same one I use for all over my unicorns, and can be found over on Ravelry. Be warned though - it is not a free pattern. It is wonderful though. The directions are simple, and it works up quickly and easily. I could probably put one together in a day, if I tried, with the mane being the most time consuming part - As I give my unicorns to children, I have to make especially sure that the mane is well secured!
I just use any yarn I have lying around in my stash - I never buy anything specially for it - and the customisation possibilities for this pattern are amazing. It would make a great zebra, give it a yellow and orange mane and you have a Ponyta, or freeform some wings and you could turn it into a great Twilight Sparkle allicorn lookalike! Out of all of the patterns in my library, it is definitely the one that has got the most use.
On that note, my son's unicorn needs to be ready by tomorrow morning.... So I better get a wriggle on!
Two days ago I took delivery of pack six of the TH blanket club. The yarn in this pack is again super soft and squishable - I swear, the softness is spoiling me! I have held off from posting about it's lovely softness, however, as I wanted to complete packs one to five.
I just noticed that you can see where I threw the pillows off the bed to take this photo!! Ooopsie! Haha!
It took me a few days to correct the stitch counts in each of the first 32 squares, and then to stitch them all back together. It was mind numbing, and I don't want to put myself in that situation again. Check your stitch counts, guys!! Once I finished the corrections, creating new squares became much more enjoyable. I have decided that the rather ambiguous colour from pack four, (which looked either pink or peach to me) is actually red after all! Once it was worked up it was quite obvious, and once it was placed next to the orange it was clear.
Pack five actually looked quite yellow to me, if I'm honest. There were a lot of very sunshiney or sunflowery colours in it, with some reds and some oranges, and it wasn't until I received the yarn for pack six that I was really sure it was orange. When pack six arrived, it was so yellow and almost neon that I half wanted to check whether it glowed in the dark!!
My aim now is to complete the sixth pack so that I am completely up to date before pack seven arrives, which I am pretty sure will be green! In the meantime, however, I have three unicorns to create, and at some point soon a Star Wars blanket to begin! I better get hooking then. :D
Oh, I do love a good yarn box, and this one was Absolutely Fabulous... Literally. Back in April when I had a bit of extra money from my Ragged Priest work, I saw that Lollipop Guild Yarns were doing an Absolutely Fabulous themed yarn box. Growing up in the 80's and 90's, I was of course hooked on the TV show as a teen, and so how could I turn it down? The Facebook post promised two skeins of yarn - a collaboration between Lollipop Guild and DeFarge yarns - a crochet hook, and some extra surprise goodies. Yes please!!
And so, knowing that the packs were due to go out in the first week of July, I have been stalking Mr Postie like a madwoman, and this morning my diligence was thusly rewarded! I have yarn!!!
When I opened the parcel I found two 100g skeins of beautiful sock weight yarn - One each for Eddie and Patsy. I love these yarns. It's so hard to choose a favourite. I love the vibrancy of the colours in Patsy - The richness of the red and the deepness of the purple are wonderful. But then I also love the lightness of the Eddie. The pale blues and pinks running through the length of the yarn make me think of a light fantasy theme, like unicorns or fairies. That's probably not what it's meant to convey, but I love it nonetheless!! I am not sure what I will do with these yarns - I will have to browse Ravelry for something special.
In addition to the two skeins of yarn, there was also a 6 mm moulded crochet hook. I love these handled hooks so much - I do have some clover hooks, but I love to have the hand moulded ones too. Usually I like a Harty Hook from Fleabubs. The appeal of a moulded handle is that it fits nicely in my hand. The standard hooks are fine in the larger sizes, but as they get smaller they put pressure in various places on my hand, and so cause pain and soreness. Moulded hooks all the way! This moulded hook happens to have champagne bubbles on the handle. Some are raised up to give a nice texture, and some are painted on. It's a lovely tribute to Eddie and Patsy that just had to be done!
The tote bag with the word tree will make a great WiP bag, especially as I have Sainsbury's bags lying all over the house with my various WiPs in, and in fact my TH club blanket is already nestled inside. I do fear that the cats will make a bed of the bag though - They seem to know exactly where I don't want them sitting and they make a beeline for it!
Finally, there was a lovely wax block in the bag - strawberries and champagne scented, fittingly - which I have no idea how to burn! I have a little Stonehenge shaped oil burner, but I don't know if I can put wax in there. I am scared to try, which is a shame, as I am sure it smells lovely! Maybe I will have to ask hubby if we can get a wax burner, specially?
Do you know that feeling you get when you are in the middle of creating something amazing? You are enjoying every stitch, and can't help but look at it over and over. It feels nice, it looks great, you feel so proud of it... But the more you look at it, the more you think that something seems off... Maybe the squares aren't lining up quite right, or the tension of the stitches appears to change. So you look at it even more, trying to convince yourself that you're being paranoid. But then you see it.... That one mistake that is offsetting the entire project that you have spent so much time and energy on. And because you are a stubborn perfectionist, the realisation that hits you like a mach truck is that the only course of action from here is to sit and unpick all that you have done, taking your work back to the last point at which it was correct... It is a cold and lonely feeling.
I have been here twice. The first time was with my Rainbow Ripple blanket. My rainbow ripple was the second large project I ever started, and as yet it is still incomplete. The plan is to incorporate four repeats of a rainbow gradient of eleven colours, with each colour having four ripple rows. This means that each gradient has 44 ripples, and each ripple takes me about an hour to complete. So imagine my horror when I was just a few ripples from completing my third gradient, and I notice that for some reason, the edges of this gradient are not lining up with the edges of the previous two... It was much narrower here. What had happened was that the first two gradients had been completed with a 5 mm hook, and for some reason I picked up a 4.5 mm when I continued with the third gradient. Since then I have considered many ways to rectify the mistake, but the only way I will be truly happy is by ripping back the entire third gradient, and starting again with a 5 mm hook. As such, the rainbow ripple has gone into hibernation until such a time as I can face it again...
After this disaster, I swore that something like that would never happen to me again. I downloaded the hookers journal from the Crochet Crowd website, in which I made notes about each of my projects. What size hook I was using, the shade, dye lot and samples of the yarn I was using, links to the pattern, etc. So when I was looking at my TH Club blanket last night, I was incredibly annoyed to notice that the squares that I had previously joined together appeared to be wonky. It seems that due to the way I finished the last two rounds of cream, each and every square had three sides of 15 stitches, and one side of 16 stitches. Annoyed wasn't the word. At a time when I had previously been feeling very happy with myself because I had just finished the squares for pack four (and so was this much closer to being up to date) I was suddenly feeling absolutely rubbish. Not only did I have to un-join all 36 squares, but I then had to undo the last two rounds of each and every square, to correct the miscount on that one side that the join was on. Un-believable.
That realisation was last night, and since then I have corrected 12 of the affected 36 squares. Now I have to correct the blue and the purple blocks. Before I leave to do that though, I want to leave on a happy note. So look! Look at the 12 squares that I got right first time! Pretend that they (and I) are absolutely amazing, and they are not representative of the mere 25% of squares that I actually got correct....
Can I cry now.....?
It is so nice to be able to take a nice, relaxed approach to my crochet for a while. Over the past few days I've been able to get so much stuff organised at home, and still be able to pick up my crochet at my leisure, in my own pace. I'm enjoying it!
I am finally up to date on my Square-a-day blanket. From now on - as the name suggests - I need only do one square each day to keep on top of it. My square for July also comes from Ellen Gormley's book - "Crochet to Go!" This square is called 'Cherry Cordial', presumably because of the colour of the sample square.
This isn't my favourite square out of the book. I'm not entirely sure why. I enjoy the clusters around the edge, because they give the square a nice, soft squishy feel. But the actual look of the square is quite similar to the one I did previously (Oscar) and like Oscar, it has lots of large holes in it. I was originally planning on this blanket being a year-long project - 12 months at around 30 squares per month. After dropping it last year and picking it up again this year, I decided to add 12 months of squares to the original 4 months that I had already done. That's looking at around 480 squares, so the blanket is going to be pretty big to begin with. Now I am thinking that I might do repeat months of some of the solid squares - like the manghan square, or the solid granny square - to offset the sheer number of squares that have holes in them. I don't know if I will definitely do this, it's just a thought in the back of my mind.
Now that I am up to date with this project, my next plan is to get up to date on my TH club blanket. I have two packs of wonderfully squishable yarn waiting for me, and I believe the current dispatch date for the next pack is July 10th. That will make 3 packs left to do - literally one THIRD of the total blanket. At least it won't take me long!
