Yarn Crawl

3/9 - At Sea: Cruising Around Cape Horn

We had been told that we would be approaching "The Horn" at about 7 am this morning, so to either be on deck or turn on our stateroom TVs to the ship's information channel then. The "Renaissance Man", Colonel Reid, was giving a talk on the ship's information channel regarding the history of sailing around the Horn. He was an interesting guy who was giving lectures throughout the cruise on the area, as he is an expert on South America in general, and on the southern half of it specifically. We bought his book too, which was specifically about exploring South America by cruise ship.

Anyway, it was super super cold that morning and this is what it looked like off our balcony. We stayed under the covers, but opened up the balcony door so we could see what was going on.

Here's what we saw at about 7 that morning - the sun doesn't come up until around 8 or 8:30 around there:

Then later on:

Later that day, it was still way too cold to do anything outside (I think it was about 30 degrees F) so I spent a good amount of the day sitting on my couch next to the balcony, knitting away on Forecast:

We had our second formal night that evening as well and it was a lot of fun. Here's some of the pictures:

Here we are at dinner with Martinho and Ned, our waiter and assistant waiter:

When we got back to our room after dinner, we saw that we had received these certificates for sailing through the Strait of Magellan and around Cape Horn:

Nice idea, even though the verbiage doesn't make a whole lot of sense - we got the idea!

Sweetheart Vest and Anna Tunic Progress

I finished the front of the Sweetheart Vest tonight and tried it on. I actually really like the way it fits now, and it is hitting the same spot on me as it does on the model, as I only shortened it 2". This is usually the amount I need to adjust patterns to make them fit me the same way they do the models, lengthwise, and this worked out well.

The armholes and neck are pretty deep on the pattern, but will be narrower once the neck and arm bands are added.

I also started a new sewing project this morning, the Anna Tunic by Amy Butler. I bought this pattern a few months ago but hadn't had a chance to start it until now. I felt like making something out of cotton, as it is so easy to work with and I had quite a bit in my stash.

I'm skipping the flower - a little too cutesy for my taste - and making the tunic length with the belt. There is a choice of lengths included in the pattern: cami, tunic and minidress. I decided to make the tunic length unadjusted, which is 27.5" from the back neck and will hit me on the upper to mid thigh, so it may be more like the minidress, but I am planning on layering this with a long sleeve black top under it and a pair of slim black pants for the current weather.

I am working on the yoke and buttonhole loops now, which is Step 4 of 9. I used muslin for the lining like the pattern suggested and I wasn't sure how I would like it - but it is actually really soft and looks nice. Here's a progress pic - disregard the goofy threads hanging - those are for the gathering stitches for later when I connect the yoke to the body of the garment.

I ran into a sewing machine problem when making a narrow band for the buttonhole loops that maybe someone has some insights on. I had to crease a strip of fabric lengthwise, then fold each side toward the crease and press it, then fold it over and stitch the fold down. Well, this all worked out great until I got to my machine and it would NOT move the fabric strip with the feed dogs!! It kept getting stuck and thread was tangling up from the bottom.

I'm not sure what to do to fix this. I tried adjusting the tension up to 9 and fabric weight to "heavy", but it didn't work. And this is my Viking 960, the workhorse from the 80s with the super strong feed dogs! It wasn't even my "wimpy newfangled made-in-China overpriced electronic" one. So my next move is going to be to try it on the other machine, because there are more settings on that one that I can play with, unless someone has an idea for how to fix this?!

Juliet, Sweetheart Vest

I FINALLY figured out a way to work Juliet into an outfit:

It is curling up a bit at the sides because it's been a while since I blocked it, but it's also not as huge as it was when I blocked it either. I think I'm liking it!

The fair isle on the Sweetheart Vest is done already! I did it yesterday while waiting for my co-worker Patti to finish her homework for her class before leaving for Monica's latest spring Prescriptives makeover party yesterday. I think I did ten rounds of fair isle in the hour and fifteen minutes I worked on it, from 5:15 to 6:30.

I put the vest on scrap yarn this morning and tried it on, as it was looking small, but it's going to fit nicely, I think. I made the 36" size, knowing that my gauge is a little tighter in fair isle than in stockinette, and hoping for 34". It's actually 32" and fits fine now, but I think when it's washed and blocked it will loosen up to 34" and will fit better at the bottom part. I may make it hipbone length though instead of the length shown on the model just to be safe.

I got all 40 of my remaining professional photos scanned in this morning as well (gotta love that skinny latte from Starbucks!!) and dropped off 21 rolls of Advantix film from my 2002 Mediterranean wedding cruise to be digitized at Walgreen's. The physical prints from this film have been sitting in my closet since, well, 2002, and I decided I would much rather be able to show them online than make an album. So I think I will post some of those on here as well to show you all, as the South American pictures seem to be such a great hit!

I also picked up my Partylite candle order from Monica last night and was having fun setting up my new candles and holders this morning. Seriously, I need to go to Starbucks every Saturday morning at 7 am.

I'm heading out for some lunch with Jim and to hit the 99 cent Simplicity pattern sale at JoAnn's (thanks, Jenny, for letting me know about it!) On top of that, I have a JoAnn gift card to use so I will get them for free.

Hoping to do some sewing later and work on the vest! Hope everyone is having a great weekend! My mojo is officially BACK!

3/8 - Ushuiaia, Argentina and Sweetheart Vest Progress

This was a truly incredible port with beautiful scenery. The catamaran ride through the Strait of Magellan to the Beagle Channel, with its views of Seawolves Island and final destination of Tierra Del Fuego National Park and all of its lakes and views, were simply amazing. It was also very cool to have visited "the end of the world", as this is where navigation by land stops on the South American continent and you can only proceed south on the water from this point.

Our first view of the area from our balcony was beautiful:

After meeting our tour guide, we started out our day with a catamaran cruise through the Strait of Magellan to the Beagle Channel. The catamaran was very comfortable - completely covered and heated on both decks, plenty of room to walk around, bar with coffee and other drinks, decent bathrooms and roomy decks outside for picture taking. I was impressed after the ferry the day before, which was pretty bare-bones.

The first thing we saw on our trip was a glimpse of Seawolves Island, with tons of sea lions/seals (I never can keep the difference straight) and cormorants (the birds that look like penguins in the picture.)

We then arrived at Tierra Del Fuego National Park - here's a map showing the overview of the area we were in and some of the main sections of it.

Here's me entering the park:

Laguna Verde, inside the park:

me standing on the shores of the Beagle Channel:

The water was as smooth as glass and very beautiful, surrounded by mountains all around:

I really like this picture of me and Jim:

After a beautiful day, we headed back to the ship dock and I bought a really cool cat figurine made from Argentine Ruby. It sounds like it would be red, but it is a coppery-brown mix, and looks like the coloring of a calico cat. I'll take a picture of it and show it as soon as I get a chance to take pictures of it and some of the other souvenirs we bought. Maybe that will make a good separate post as I'm not sure which exact days I bought some of the other things, and I also have artwork I bought that I want to show (two pieces haven't arrived yet but are en route from Park West, the ship's art auction firm.)

Next up? A few days at sea with a formal night on the first and some warmer weather on the second. I will cover both of those in one post tomorrow after scanning in some formal night photos taken by the ship's staff.

A little bit of knitting content now:

Here's the Sweetheart Vest I started yesterday - I got a lot done very quickly. Gotta love those 3.5 stitches to the inch projects! Lately I don't seem to have the patience for anything else, so my other projects are going to hibernate in the yarn closet til I feel like working on them.

Have a great weekend!

We Interrupt this Trip Report with Breaking News...

No big deal or anything, but I think I've gotten my knitting mojo back because of this:

I had kinda been feeling blah about my projects, but today it is snowing and I felt like swatching for this. It's even designed by a lady who teaches at my local yarn shop, who I've not met before in person, but I like her designs.

I am in LOVE with this yarn. The Highland Bulky is sooo different from the other Elann Peruvian Highland yarns. It is super soft and almost even fuzzy looking, one-ply instead of two, has great stitch definition, and is total immediate gratification wool. 3-4 stitches to the inch baayyybeee. I think it might even be the long sought Rowan Polar substitute, which is the Holy Grail of yarn searches for me.

And in other news, Jim finally said goodbye to an era. Specifically, the era of this 1993 Lincoln Mark VIII that he's been the one and only owner of since, well, 1993. The Beast was a good car, and 140,000 miles, one replaced air suspension system, and lots of Bob Marley Cds later, it saved us about 10 years of car payments. RIP!

It fetched the princely sum of a whole $100, which we promptly took with us to use for a great sushi dinner at Blu Coral last night.

Tomorrow, back with the program: Ushuaia, Argentina!

3/7 - Punta Arenas/Magdalena Island, Chile

This was truly an incredible day and another one of my favorites. There were a few different ports in which there were tours that included penguin sightings, but of all the ports and tours, the tour to Magdalena Island to see over 70,000 pairs of Magellanic penguins was the most appealing. Some of the other tours said that it would take 3 hours each way, then a mile and a half of walking, then MAYBE you would see 10-20 penguins.

After a short bus ride through the center of Punta Arenas, the actual port city, we boarded a ferry to head over to Magdalena Island.

The ferry was pretty packed both upstairs and downstairs, and so Jim (who tends to be more claustrophobic and less sensitive to cold weather than I) spent a lot of time outside on deck.

It was really cold at this point, but I went outside on deck a few times.

When we arrived at the island two hours later, the penguins were standing on the shore waiting to greet us

and were EVERYWHERE!

They traveled in couples, two by two

Or were hanging out together in their burrows:

These two were fighting:

This guy was posing for a picture, hamming it up:

It was an amazing day! I couldn't believe I was able to get so close to them.

3/6 - At Sea: Cruising the Strait of Magellan

This was a day of beautiful snow capped vistas and relaxing cruising. It was EXTREMELY cold out though, so every time I went outside to look at anything or went out on our balcony, I had these thick wool blankets on.

Here are all the views from our balcony and up on the pool deck:

Tomorrow is a big day - PENGUINS!!!! 140,000 of them, in fact.

3/5 - At Sea: Cruising the Chilean Fjords

This was a great day as well. Most of the day was spent hanging out around the ship, other than Jim playing in a ping pong tournament and me participating in a "food and wine pairing" wine tasting at 1:30 pm. The food and wine pairing was a total bust, but I ended up meeting some other people that we kept seeing and hanging out with throughout the ship. The tasting was really boring - the worst one I've ever been to. Everyone was seated at round dinner tables set for ten people. Each person had five wines in front of their place, along with a plate with pieces of plain (cold) boiled chicken, more cold boiled chicken with a pesto sauce on it, some pieces of parmesan cheese, and some black olives. The chief sommelier was running the wine tasting and was going super slowly, and spent half his time scolding people for going ahead of him and the other half telling people they wouldn't get any more wine (duh, the more people drink, the more wine you're going to sell! I don't think anyone bought anything.)

I didn't expect it to last as long as it did, and we had been told that at 3 pm we should be able to get our first glimpse of the fjords, so I left early as I wanted to be out on deck for that and was bored silly. I met Jim on deck and Milos, the naturalist on board who was super interesting and had tons of great information, was giving a talk on deck about how the fjords were formed by glaciers and other facts about them.

Here's what we saw (and it was freaking COLD by this point - probably in the 50s with a cold wind - so this is why I was wrapped up in a blanket after a while.)

Both sides of the ship were surrounded by the scenery as we were sailing right into the middle of it. At this point there was not yet any snow or ice covering anything - we would not see that until the next day.

It was absolutely gorgeous, as you can see, and an awe-inspiring experience that would get even better the next day when we sailed through the Strait of Magellan!

3/4 - Puerto Montt and Puerto Varas, Chile!

This was a FABULOUS day - one of my favorites with the best scenery.

We started out early, at about 7:30 am, and drove through Puerto Montt to the nearby resort area of Puerto Varas. Both towns are part of the "lake district" of Chile and were settled by Germans in the mid-1800s in response to incentives (free land and building materials, no taxes) provided by the Chilean government, which wanted to clear the forests surrounding the lakes and build communities there. According to our tour guide, the incentives were offered first to Chileans, but due to lack of interest, extended to people outside the country.

You can see a great amount of German influence throughout the entire region, and to this day, there are German language schools in each town that was settled by the Germans. They even have a dessert, called Kuchen, that was brought to the region by the Germans and still bears the same name in the midst of the Spanish that is spoken there. It is a sort of bread pudding - layers of custard and raspberries on top of a crumbly bread pastry.

So we arrived in Puerto Varas, we were given some free time to look around and shop and then were to meet back at the bus at noon for lunch. Puerto Varas is called "The City of Roses" and there were many different varieties of beautiful roses lining the streets.

We went into some of the shops and got a penguin figurine which we couldn't believe was only $5 and some postcards. The lady who owned the shop had some handspun wool on the walls and I asked her if it was for sale (or for making handknits- as there were many displayed and not many places sold the actual wool, just the sweaters, scarves and hats. As an aside, they were selling hats and scarves in the ship's boutiques for a great deal of money that looked like something we could whip up in a few hours out of Rowan Big Wool. I doubt they were locally produced - could be a business opportunity.) The lady said that yes, the wool was for sale, but when I had her take one down to look at, it was really rough and had a lot of weird stuff in it, like sticks and dirt, etc. Plus there wasn't enough there to actually make something out of it.

So I bought one miniature ball as a souvenir, with the postcards and penguin and we headed back to the bus.

We then had lunch at a very nice restaurant overlooking Lake Llanquihue and the Osorno volcano, near these buildings that looked like Swiss chalets. It almost looked like pictures I've seen of Switzerland rather than the beginning of the southern region of Chile!

This is an overview of the area where we were eating lunch:

with a closeup of the restaurant

and views out from the restaurant's glass walls of windows and terraces surrounding it:

The lunch was really delicious and actually pretty elaborate for lunch, with multiple courses and wine. We had our choice of Chilean white or red wine and also were served a Pisco sour, which is kind of like a lemonade liquor (very much like Limoncello served in southern Italy.) It was pretty tasty! I took a picture of it so I would remember it:

We then had a vegetable soup which was broth based with lots of pieces of corn, which seemed to be much less salty than most usual soup, and a salad. The main course was a large piece of grilled salmon, which was perfectly cooked and delicious, and some small boiled potatoes. The dessert was a piece of kuchen that I described earlier, and a really strange but delicious coffee served in tiny expresso cups. I had expected it would be really bitter, as it looked kind of like mud, but it was heavy and sweet and a little chocolaty.

Jim snapped a picture of me after lunch and I must have enjoyed it, judging by the look on my face!

After lunch, we went to Petrohue (said Petra-way) Falls and national park, another scenic spot. Petrohue River rapids are popular for rafting trips as well.

Here's one of the waterfalls:

Here's a picture another guy on our bus took of us, standing on a rock in front of the volcano (although that part got omitted somehow!)

While waiting a few minutes to go back to the bus, we checked out the handcraft market and met a little cat (who was pretty skittish and not very friendly.) I couldn't figure out whether it was a kitten or just a little tiny full grown cat.

Because of the recent trends toward global warming, many of the rivers which were previously unnavigable had dried up and we could see the bottom of the former river beds (and crossed them via our bus, as part of a very bumpy road.)

We then went to Emerald Lake, or All Saint's Lake, named for its discovery on November 1, All Saint's Day. This was also very beautiful and there were more gorgeous views of the Andes and Osorno Volcano as well.

After this last stop, we headed back to the ship and got back around 4 pm, just in time for the teatime snacks that Mac had provided for us.

At the end of the day, a beautiful sunset:

3/3 - Sea Day

On 3/3, we had a "sea day", which usually are either formal or informal nights on the ship as you have more time to get ready for them (and spend money in the spa/salon doing so) on those days. At the spur of the moment, I did go in and get a pedicure as they were able to squeeze me into a cancellation at noon, and Jim played in a ping-pong tournament. He met Claudio from Chile (possibly one of the only people that is just a little bit better at ping-pong than Jim is) and they became fast friends, hanging out throughout the ship bars after I would go to bed some nights.

Claudio and his wife, Virginia, didn't really speak any English at all, and Jim and I were only equipped with our very rusty high school Spanish, but it was fun to try to understand each other and teach each other new words. They are from Santiago and decided at the last minute to jump on to the cruise with some of their friends, as there were last minute deals and they wouldn't need to fly anywhere to get on (although I'm sure they had to fly back from Buenos Aires at the end.) It was amazing how many passengers were primarily Spanish speakers; all of the announcements and even Bingo and other trivia games were played in English and Spanish. The constant use/reinforcement helped us remember some of our Spanish vocabulary and made us feel comfortable using it - and we practiced it on many people we talked to in port as well as on board. Unlike Mexico and even Europe, where I've found that most people are likely to speak English back to you when you try to speak their language to practice, here, many people wouldn't have understood us if we spoke English. It was really different from other places I've been.

Here's a cute picture of Claudio and Virginia- they really were a cute couple. Another skinny South American woman! Throughout the three countries we visited (Chile, Argentina and Uruguay), they either tended to be either small boned and thin, like her, or were shorter and athletic looking (a lot like my build.) It was really funny. I felt pretty at home in these countries and people always assumed I could speak Spanish. But in these countries, you could never predict who would speak Spanish and who wouldn't. There was no stereotype. Because of the mixed German, Italian and Spanish backgrounds of the people, there were people who looked every different way who were Spanish speakers - blonde, red haired, light complected, dark complected.

Anyway, after hanging out on the pool deck on this day and the previous (this time with SPF 15) we got ready for dinner and pictures. We had chosen the "main" or "early" seating for dinner, at 6:30 pm as the late one at 8:30 (sometimes 8:45!) was way too late for us to eat. I'm spoiled and live five minutes from work, and Jim has been home for the past few years working on home improvement projects, also my office is pretty much a standard 8-5 one (if not earlier), so I am lucky enough to be home around 5:15 every day. Usually we eat right away when I get home, as Jim has something ready, or he picks me up from work and we go out from there. So...we usually eat between 5:30 - 6:00 and 8:30 wasn't going to cut it. We would have ended up eating so many snacks in between that we wouldn't have been hungry for dinner.

We started a new tradition of taking a self-portrait in the mirror before dinner, borrowing from the WIP/FO blogging technique of mirror portraits:

Then we had some professional photos taken - my beef with all of these is that more so than on other ships, they seemed to position you in such a way that you filled up the entire photo. I didn't think they were the most flattering, as a result. I even said something about it, and they said that their "mark" for each photo was designed to optimize the lighting and other settings on the camera so that was the only way they would take them. Every formal night, they would have three or four different backdrops that we would "do the rounds of" before we would go to dinner, and here's some of the ones I liked best:

They also would take pictures of couples at the dinner seatings (you can see here how sunburned we were - I tried to blend the strap marks with some bronzer but it obviously didn't work!)

and of the entire table. Here, only half of our table had arrived yet so this is us with Margie and Bill from Ohio and Bill's sister Stevie from Michigan. They were really cool, and told us all of their great travel stories. The other half of the table was yet to arrive, but we have another picture with the entire table (all ten of us) on a later formal night.

Tomorrow - one of my favorite port days: Puerto Montt and Puerto Varas. It was some of the most beautiful scenery I'd ever encountered!