February vexations

My children and I had the influenza. It caught us out of nowhere. We were all
knocked out for 5 days with high temperatures, headaches, cough and pain in the limbs. Now the fever has gone but we are TIRED, having pudding instead of muscles around our bones. 

It is difficult to manage the daily chores, even having a shower requires lots of energy. But it will get better and J is our hero, he stayed okay and brought us tea and medicine and everything that was required. For several days I couldn't even crochet, my head was to heavy. But then I started again, choosing thick felting yarn out of my stock (hooray!) to make another hot water bottle cover because my old felted one had a hole.  

 Do you remember my first hottie? 

I made it for my mum as a birthday gift. The yarn I used was pure cotton yarn and this time I wanted to use pure wool.

So I chose an undyed yarn and with hooking needle 8 I had crocheted the body in no time. The head is a ripple pattern and it is really chunky. There is just no possibility to touch the rubber of the hottie accidentally!

 I love my lovely hottie!

  In this picture I wear a pair of wrist warmers I crocheted a few weeks ago. I do like this winter accessory a lot because my arms are too long for ordinary women's clothes. Most shirts and coats are made for women with shorter arms and I always feel cold around the wrists. Wrist warmers are just the accessory for me! Want to have a closer look at these ones?

As I look at this picture I realise that both items have a cross stitch on their front. Yes, I do like cross stitch on crocheted items a lot at the moment. Though I do not like to cross stitch though. But the effect is always very nice that why I pull myself together.

I will finish this post now. I am exhausted and my hottie is waiting for me on the sofa. 

Don't come near the influenza virus! It's no fun, not at all. But if it already hit you as well, take your hottie and join me on the sofa. 

A Sunday walk 'im Treppenviertel'

Last weekend my young sister (she is just 24 years old!) and her boyfriend spent four lovely days here with us. It was so nice to have them around! We talked for hours, drinking tea or coffee, munching delicious food and playing 'The legends of Andor', one of our favourite parlour games at the moment.

Saturday was a fairly sunny day here in Northern Germany and we decided to do some Hamburg sightseeing. We went to one of the most beautiful districts of Hamburg, Blankenese. It is a district that is situated directly on the bank of the River Elbe. Here live the beautiful people! You will notice it immediately when you reach Blankenese. You are welcomed by villas surrounded by beautifully landscaped gardens.  

And in the middle of this district there is the sweet 'Treppenviertel' (stairways district). Many narrow paths are just made of staircases and they are often named after someone who has once been the owner of a piece of ground there. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Walking up and down these staircases always feels a bit like being on holiday. We admired beautiful views, tiny houses, small gardens...

a beautiful door...

or a funny sign in a window (when too perfect dear God angry').

There are so many details worth exploring there. But it is quite an exhausting trip if you really want to sneak into every nook and corner. It's worth it yet!

When we took a break to recover our breaths, we were  rewarded by beautiful views of the houses and the Elbe.

 

Needless to say that we rewarded ourselves with a nice cup of coffee and a cake...

  sitting outside of one of the most tiny cafes called 'Treppenkrämer' (staircase monger). 

When walking around the 'Treppenviertel' we're always magically gravitated towards the Elbe. It's just a river but it feels like the sea. You can take long walks on the riverbank and if you are lucky big container vessels or cruise liners pass by.

I hope I didn't overwhelm you with this load of pictures. The 'Treppenviertel' is such a lovely place on this planet and if you are in Hamburg don't hesitate to go there. 

I hope you all have a fine week, 

Viola

A cheer for a warm and cosy poncho!

I finally finished my poncho. The crocheting was done already last week, but I knew that I had to block the edging and I hate to do it. So the poncho was lying around, sadly asking why I didn't wear him (her or it?, I don't know yet). So on Sunday and Monday I felt a flush of determination, took all my T-pins and the iron and started to block one section of the edging after the other. 

And now this is it. Finished while I am in need of it - usually I finish a winter work in summer and the other way round. But this time I am lucky, delighted, successful, glad, cheerful, happy and 

SMILING!

But enough of words:

 The poncho fits my red boots, doesn't it?

Sorry for these bad pictures of me. But I always look like a nerd on pictures. Hopefully not in real life...

 

Some of you asked what my edging would be like as I didn't want the fringes. I thought a lot about this question the last couple of weeks. I had seen how Lucy of attic24 had made her edging and I liked it a lot. So I did almost the same but with some variation. First of all I didn't do the last couple of granny stripes in my main colour. But only because I was so absorbed into crocheting the stripes that I didn't realise that the poncho was already long enough. I had reached row 30 - always alternating colours - and I didn't want to get it any longer. So I kept my edging quite short: 

3 rows of single crochet (sc, in UK: dc), the first in grey purple, the second in deep red, and the third again in deep purple. Then I did two rows of chain loops and the last row I used wave-like stitches as follows: 

Slip stitch into first space to begin. Chain 2, then 1 sc, chain 2, 2 sc in the same chain space. *In the next chain space 1 sc, then again 2 sc, chain 2, 2sc*. I repeated between ** until I got back where I started.

This morning I started cleaning the house, and yes , it was really needed. I wiped the floor and did some washing. And afterwards, as a kind of reward, I bought myself some flowers.

Some white daisies that I planted in a Valentine's crochet jar. Daisies are called 'Tausendschön' in German, I do like this name a lot, it might be translated as "a thousand beauty". They are really beautiful, aren't they?

 Do you see my cleaning bucket in the back? That doesn't look very nice. So here's a picture without it, much better...

and I couldn't resist buying some narcissi, too...

and some tulips...

and a white hyacinth. I will make another hearty cover for this jar, as well. And then the hyacinth will join my 'Tausendschön'. They will get along with each other very nicely. 

Thanks a lot for your nice comments on my last posts. Your warm and encouraging words fill my heart with joy and comfort. And a warm welcome to my new followers, of course. I will have a look at your blogs - as long as you have one - as soon as possible.

This night my younger sister and her boyfriend will visit us for the first time since they are together. She lives more that 400 km away, so I am happy that they finally have found time to come. They will stay until Sunday and I am sure that we will have a super-duper time.

Take care of yourselves, Viola