Dank u wel!*

Look! Tall skinny houses with gables and hooks for loading things in through the windows – it must be Amsterdam.  I took this photo while on a canal boat tour.  I loved it, Amsterdam is such a cool place to visit.  I went to 7 museums and saw lots of amazing paintings by Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Van Der Ast and many others.  I even went to the Tassenmuseum and saw the most amazing collection of vintage and modern handbags – funnily enough I only saw one man in the whole place. 

And these were everywhere and I mean EVERYWHERE.  This was the most extravagantly decorated bike I saw but there were millions of them.  I quickly learnt to look both ways at junctions of pavements and roads, not for cars or trams which move quite sedately in the city centre, but for bikes.  The riders of which seem to do everything they would when walking including using their mobiles, holding umbrellas and most people cycle one handed permanently.  If I go again I am definitely hiring a bike for the day just to experience life in Amsterdam from that point of view. 

On my first evening I headed out across the city to De Jaren eating a cone of chips ‘met fritsaus’ (which is with mayonnaise but it’s not the same as mayo you get here and instantly brought back memories of eating chips in Germany when I was about 7 years old) and joined the Amsterdam Stitch n Bitch group.  I really enjoyed meeting them all and had a lovely time knitting some socks I had cast on especially as my holiday knitting. 

All in all, I can happily recommend Amsterdam for a visit, it’s small enough to walk all over but there is plenty to do to keep you busy if you want.  If you want to just get a coffee and sit by a canal and watch the world go by (probably on a bike!) then there’s tonnes of opportunities for that as well.  The only downside is they don’t drink proper tea there so if you want tea TAKE TEABAGS!!!

* thank you very much – pretty much all I said in Dutch as everyone speaks amazing English.

Presents!

Look what I got today!! It’s so awesome. It’s a copy of Really Wild Tea Cosies by Loani Prior. And even if I never knit any of the tea cosy designs I still love this book as it makes me smile. The designs are just really good fun. I only have a small tea pot and I have made it a very functional cosy but I am really tempted to make it one of Loani’s now. But which one? there are too many to chose from. I may end up making some of them into baby hats instead as they don’t care what you put on their heads!!

I also got this wonderful bag made by my mum.  I chose the fabrics from her huge stash and she’s made it for me.  It has pockets inside for my phone and iPod and loops to tuck pens into so they don’t disappear to the bottom all the time.  I chose a turquoise lining so that I could see inside it –  I hate it when bags are all dark inside and black straps so they won’t show the dirt. 

It’s got a strip of multicoloured scraps down the middle that are a mixture of modern and older fabrics.  One was from a dress mum had, one used to be a shirt and there’s even a piece from a dress I had when I was little.  I can’t wait to take it to Amsterdam on Monday!!