Knitting Together my Travels (PUNS!)

Knitting = life. I knit the sweater & hat in this photo.

I just got back from a trip to Berlin, Brussels, and Amsterdam, and it was AMAZING! I ate so many waffles, at least 8 pieces of chocolate a day, and probably my whole weight in bread (twice). I had a great time traveling with some wonderful girls from my program, and there is no way I'm going to be able to unpack all of it into one blog post so for now, I'm going to talk about knitting!!! My favorite thing!

Knitting is a huge part of my life. I've been knitting since I was probably 10 years old, and it's come and gone in frequency but I got really into it in college, and now it's extremely rare that a day goes by and I don't pick up my knitting needles. It's kind of at the point where it's an addiction, but that's okay because I could be addicted to negative things, but instead I'm an avid participator in a hobby that is scientifically proven to decrease stress levels, increase creativity, and enhance self esteem. Don't believe me? Check out this New York Times article.

So, naturally, I wanted to document this huge experience of study abroad somehow using knitting. I considered making a garment with yarn from each place I visit, but I really wanted to be able to see my travels as they progressed. I wanted each and every journey to be encapsulated into one project.

So what's giant enough to work on for a whole semester and accommodate a bunch of different colors without looking like a garbled mess? A BLANKET! I've always wanted to knit a blanket. It's really not that hard, you're just knitting a rectangle - but it's expensive and time consuming. Trying to buy all of the yarn for a blanket at once takes a huge sum of money, and I am a college student trying to be responsible, so my blanket dreams had been put on hold - until now.

A blanket is the perfect way for me to be able to look back on my journey. I can literally wrap myself in my travels - I can touch yarn that was purchased (and hopefully made) in each unique and beautiful place I will have visited. I'm going to be honest, I am REALLY excited about this project.

I decided to make a super cozy lap blanket - so I'm going with all bulky wool yarn, preferably 100% wool, and working in a simple seed stitch pattern (which probably doesn't mean anything to a lot of the people reading this but I promise it's lovely). Later, after knitting the different city sections, I'll embroider the name of each city into its color. I'll research local yarn shops before I visit a new place, and pick the bulky yarn that I feel best represents the city I'm in. Granted, I can rationalize just about anything - so my reasonings and feelings about what might be the right yarn for a city could make just about no sense, but "it just felt right!" is as good of a reason as any, I suppose.

I was really excited to start this project, and I got some really wonderful yarn and some even more wonderful experiences in the process of picking out my first few skeins.

Vienna

Purchased from WolleWien.

My first purchase was, of course, in the beautiful city where I'm studying. I love Vienna. This camel colored goodness called to me right away. Vienna is a very clean and beautiful city that is planned out immaculately, and camel just kind of seems organized and put together. Also a lot of the buildings are this color. This yarn is also made specifically for WolleWien which is very cool!

WolleWien is in an old beautiful church. It's magical.

This store is so wonderful and has so many locally sourced yarns, and it's only about a 10 minute walk from my apartment. I'll probably be there too much...

Berlin

Purchased from Wollparadies Fadeninsel.

Berlin was vibrant and wonderful. Sure, it's a pretty grey city with some uglyish postmodern buildings that are the result of the Cold War era, but it just felt so alive with different cultures and ideas that I felt the very opposite of grey being there. This bright blue yarn captured all of that for me. Like I said, my reasoning doesn't necessarily make sense - but it makes sense to me.

Brussels

Purchased from Kaleidoscope.

This was probably the craziest yarn-buying experience I've ever had. Not because of anything to do with the store itself, which was a lovely place, but because of the journey to get there.

We had spent the first part of the day in Bruges, then went to the EU Parliament Museum, and by the time we were done there it was about 5:30 and I was exhausted and hangry but it was my last day in Brussels and I still needed to get my yarn. I knew where one yarn shop was, but I didn't really know the best way to get there and I didn't know the hours and I had no way to look them up because I was stranded without wifi, but I decided to just go for it.

I took the train a few stops from where I was, and then got off and ended up trekking up and down steep Belgian hills in the rain for 25 minutes before I made it to Kaleidoscope. The whole way I was incredibly grumpy, and I kept saying to myself that there was no way this place was even going to be open because nothing is open past 6 PM and it was 6:15 at this point, and I was also even more hangry, but I had to keep going just in case by some miracle the store was open. Honestly, I did say a few prayers that it would be, which felt a little ridiculous, but I figured it couldn't hurt.

There was a miracle. It was open until 6:30, which seriously IS NOT A THING. It's a weird time and Europeans like to close early and I'd like to think that somehow the universe was rewarding me for that trek in the rain (and in slightly heeled booties, no less).

The woman who owns the store was SO nice - I told her about my project and she asked me to connect on social media and she was British and wonderful and I want to be her friend. I was so flustered that I didn't even get a picture or anything, but Kaleidoscope was great and if any of you are ever in Brussels I highly recommend paying them a visit, even if you're not a knitter. It's just a beautiful place.

Bruges

Purchased from Scharlaeken.

We made a kind of last minute trip to Bruges, and this yarn was also a last minute, unexpected purchase. I walked into a craft store and saw this gorgeous blush color that I've been obsessing over lately and it was just so lovely and Bruges was just so lovely and then I bought it.

Amsterdam

Purchased from Stephen & Penelope.

Stephen & Penelope is my soul mate yarn store. From the minute I walked up to this store I knew that it was my everything. Even the design work on the logo is magical.

SERIOUSLY HOW CUTE IS THIS PLACE?!??

Confession time: I went to this store every day we were in Amsterdam. It was just so perfect!!!

I picked out my blanket yarn on the second day. Amsterdam is a beautiful, dynamic city with a lot of rich colors and a very rich culture. This maroon-y wonderfulness summed all that up for me. It felt classy, but also fun. It was perfect.

So what's the next stitch?

Bad Kim Possible/knitting pun. I'm so sorry.

I had some wonderful experiences getting my first few skeins of yarn, and I'm so excited to knit all of these memories into my blanket. Stay tuned for blanket updates and posts on all the wonderful places I went this past week! I start classes tomorrow so say some prayers for me that I can get back into the academic spirit. Happy Valentines Day!