Thursday 27 February 2014

Serres Day Trip

In January we visited relatives in Serres, a town in Northeastern Greece.
The trip started in fog.




Then it cleared.
 Then it was foggy again.

 Then it cleared some more.
 Ten minutes from the city centre you can see the remains of an old mosque.



 And you can walk the valley to the hill and the forest.




 Spot the rainbow.

















 The sunset was equally beautiful.We had a great time!











Tuesday 25 February 2014

Learning how to crochet!

In the beginning of January I had blogged about my New Year's Resolutions.
No 2 was to learn how to crochet!
I didn't know how I was going to do that but it has been some years now that I wanted to learn how to crochet. I think ever since finding Lucy at Attic24 and following her and some other crochet blogs!
I had made various efforts to learn from the Internet and I had made a couple of things but I really didn't know what I was doing. Crochet language and symbols were a mystery code to me!
Finally the chance came when one of my new Etsy Greek Street Team friends Vivika of 
The Wandering Deer was teaching amigurumi/crochet at Peirama, a great place to learn various skills.
So I joined in to a five week course every Wednesday. It was fun! We were only three beginners in crochet and that gave Vivika the time to help us learn well.
Here's what we learnt to make.
First and after learning how to choose yarn we learnt the basic stitches. 
  Vivika reassured us that we would be able to make those little animals by the end of the course. I didn't believe her!
 And this is the first thing we made, a bow.
I made the pink one during the lesson!

 And then made another one at home and then turned them into brooches.

Second lesson! How to make a little fish!!!! No way!
 We started!

 Slowly!
 I made it!
I made one at home too!
Third lesson! Make an owl! Really?

Mine is the pink one! It became rather bigger than the model!


 All owls together!
Fourth lesson! Learn to make hearts and try a bigger project! I chose a cute elephant!
The hearts.
The elephant! As it didn't finish in that one lesson hubby said it looked more like Morfonios, a Greek shadow puppet figure! He was right!

 What a funny creature!
Anyway you looked at it!
Even Barca found it strange!
I then made more hearts which I stitched with beads and attached them to pairs of stork scissors.
 And gave them to Vivika and my companions in crochet at a meeting after the final lesson!
At that meeting Elephantine made her first appearance!
Elephantine met Snowy at that meeting too!
I am really happy that I learnt the basics of crochet! Hoping to find more time to crochet I am eager to make more things!Thank you Vivika!