Central Park Hoodie

My Central Park Hoodie, flickred here and ravelled there (pattern by Heather Lodisnky) is an almost finished object. Not quite though, because I put it on the exact moment I finished sewing it. And I´ve worn it since, every single day. Mine, in loosely plied alpaca yarn bought in Bazar Lanero (gracias por el dato, Jo!), in the yarn district here in Buenos Aires, is a total success. I couldn´t love it more. I´m actually finding it hard to take it off to wash it and block it.

Still, this post is to tell you about this hoodie´s travels. Before leaving for our vacation I started to take a look at our travelling hours and, really, long flights plus airport waiting needed more than books and magazines. So I took a cheap, plastic sewing needle with me and my hoodie´s parts. I´m not a fan of sewing, so I figured that an airport wait would be a good place to do it. Knitting needles are not allowed, so an actual knitting project wasn´t an option. And yes, I do envy those of you who show your knitting in airplanes. It just isn´t allowed here.

I finished the knitting during our ski week and the sewing adventure started in the airport in Ushuaia, where I assembled back and two fronts:



I then realized I had forgotten to leave the sleeves on my hand-luggage, so interrupted the work there. It proceeded the next day, in São Paulo-Guarulhos airport, where I sewed the sleeves to make them tubes, but didn´t have time (nor patience) to attach them to the armholes.



While in Portugal, no sewing at all. I had the mystery sweater (which is not a mystery to its recipient anymore) to knit on, and that´s what I did. There was a bit of knitting in the car, too. The AC was broken, so my knitting while travelling didn´t last long: with 32ºC outside, a sweater on my lap was pure torture.

So the next sewing moment was the daytime flight from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro. After watching all the movies I could and taking all the naps I managed to, I started sewing. And because this was the last thing I did during the long and boring flight, you can assess how little I enjoy it). I started to see that there may be a chance that I finish sewing and weaving in the ends before we landed there - and I did, but only just. Tha plane landed as I was putting away needle and dental floss box (used to cut the yarn) away.



I had a couple of ends to weave in:



And then... it was ready! Well, button less and lacking a good blocking, but ready. And it definitely came in handy because it was so very cold in the airport - what´s with airports and air conditioning? Still, a bit of modelling and showing off my hoodie was necessary:



And the sleeves, probably the part I love best:


And this is the story of my Central Park Hoodie. Now, guess what I´m wearing today...

It´s good to be home

Our vacation was splendid, even more than I can describe it, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Well, maybe not the part when it was -15ºC - I wore clothes I didn´t even have names for! - but the skiing and being in Portugal, all with the fish and the seafood, the family and friends we got to meet despite the short time we were there, wow, that was really pleasant.

Now we´re back to winter, to Argentina, and it´s good to be home again. As probably everyone else who lives abroad and goes back home for a short time will understand and relate to, those three days we spent in Lisbon were very good, but very tiring too.

We started off flying south to the very tip of the continent. We had been to Ushuaia once and had since wanted to go back in winter. The town sits on a bay, surrounded by snowy mountains. The ski station is about 30 minutes away and it´s wonderful.



There aren´t a lot of people around, and there´s almost no waiting for the ski lift. The place is so little populated that we even had this little guy visiting while we were having lunch:



We then flew to the summer in Portugal:



Had a wonderful time visiting friends and family, obviously with the best diet around, fish and seafood. All topped with this:



A bit too hot for my taste! (pun totally intended)

And now we´re back and looking forward to showing you everything that has been happening here, but that´s for another post!

P.S. - Thank you all for your good wishes; and thanks for coming back!

Holiday!

We´ll be having a winter/summer vacation split between two continents until the beginning of September. Please come back then!

Winter part will be spent here:


And summer part will take place here:



Shop orders made during the break will be dispatched on September 8th. Thank you!

Until then, stay well!

Some good news

In April 2007 I moved from Lisbon to Buenos Aires to come and live with my then boyfriend, now husband. Portuguese like me, he had been relocated to Buenos Aires the year before and, really, travelling back and forth between two continents wasn´t very comfortable for anyone.

When I left my design studio in Lisbon I thought that this was the perfect time to start to invest a lot more on illustration, something I always wanted to do but never got the time to, because of all the design work I was having. But one week after coming here I fell ill and had two weeks in hospital and about five months of recovery. It was a very hard beginning of our life together and of my new professional life in another country (or continent, for that matter).

In early 2008, I really can´t remember why, I felt like relearning to knit. I asked my Mom for the basic instructions - I had to refresh my memory and recover all that my grandma had taught me over 20 years ago. What I never thought - and couldn´t imagine in my wildest dreams - was that knitting would change my life here, for better.

(to be fair, knitting, painting and joining german classes were crucial to my adapting to the city and to getting to know people and make new friends.)

I joined ravelry and then a couple of groups, one of them of knitters here in Argentina. It took sometime before we got together but in March this year we finally did.

That´s where I met most of my knitting friends today, and specially my "partner in crime", Joji.

And this brings me to the good news: we decided to start a small venture together, which will be launched in September (hopefully). We´re joining forces and skills to build a sustainable, mom and earth-friendly business, which we hope and trust will succeed.



Isn´t this yummy?

Until the day we can launch it publicly (a couple of legal matters are still pending), I´ll leave you with some pictures of the backstage of our photo shoot last Wednesday.





We´re having lots of fun (and hard work too) putting it all together and we´re hoping you´ll enjoy it too.

After the flu hiatus...

After a full month of flu hiatus, painting classes have resumed. We´re now painting a fixed, standing pose. after the first two-hour session, I had the model pretty much on canvas:




So, on my second session, I wanted to focus on working on the background, something I tend not to work on too much. I´m not sure if it is because I like simple backgrounds, or abstract backgrounds, but it´s usually something I don´t explore that much. During quick pose exercises I usually work out a tiny, undetailed stroke that somehow suggests a context, but that´s mostly it. This time, though, I wanted to focus on the background, as I felt the figure was pretty much done.

After the second session, it looked like this:


I still want to work on the background as I feel the painting to be unfinished. Any ideas?

Enchastrating: the result

Some weeks ago I posted about a yarn hand-painting session. Last Saturday I finally made it to the meeting at Virgi´s and was finally able to see how it had turned out after dry. The blue colour washed out a lot, leaving a very light blue. Although my colour universe is way more saturated than this, I´m very happy about the result and looking forward to actually knitting it.

I don´t think there´s a yarn hand-painter waiting to be discovered in me, but I had a lot of fun doing it and I think that the fact that the coulouring was made by me will increase the pleasure of knitting.

Another week

Whew, another hectic week! I think that´s because vacation time is just around the corner, right? Work commissions and meetings with potential clients have been pourint in (and I´m certainly not complaining!) and then there´s all the other things I want to do as well.

Still the week started like this:



...followed by four long hours waiting at the police headquarters for whatever documents that were needed. This is a long and funny story, and if you understand portuguese, read it here.

Then, on a very good note, we had a birthday boy here at home. As usual, giving gifts to him is no easy task so it took me about a month of thinking, searching and actually buying and making things. I found him an old pasta-cutting machine, made of iron, I believe and fully functioning (mechanical things keep beating digital ones in longevity).



And then the mystery sweater I had to sneak-knit:



He loved both! And the great sport he is, he was totally fine trying on a work-in-progress sweater, needles and stitch holders and all. (I´m relieved that the sweater fits.)

And now, back to work. One more week to go and then... holiday!