MOONSTITCHES

La Turballe

The moment I saw Veera's Gathering Stripes - adult version, I knew I had to knit one. But which colours should I choose?
Those stripes, that collar... all the sudden I had the impression this sweater was speaking French to me.
Not exactly looking like a traditional Breton Sweater but very much like a modern, very cozy version of it.
And thinking of Breton Sweaters I immediately was remembered of that beautiful bicycle tour I once did, with my husband (boyfriend back then), starting in Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) with the intention to ride to Brittany.
With a rough idea which way to go we started our journey. A few hours later we discovered we had forgotten all our maps at home... and since we were young and had no money to splurge, we decided to just rely on the sun and road signs. Later on we followed La Loire, passing beautiful castles and famous, old towns. And ten days after leaving home we finally reached the Atlantic Ocean at La Turballe.
We didn't get to Brittany, no, but that little town, the beautiful, deserted beach (off season) were just perfect.
What a great moment - reaching the coast after ten days of hard work!

Inspired by Stéphanie's wonderful version (Ravelry) of the sweater I ordered yarn at Jamieson's Of Shetland in french colours. One could argue they look much more dutch in this horizontal striping... anyway, this is the french sweater!
The yarn is fantastic. Rustic, yet so soft, also light and I guess quite durable. Very pleasant to work with and the knitted fabric is just beautiful!

More photos and details on Ravelry.

I want to thank you for all your sweet comments and messages. You made me smile!!!
I started replying to you but couldn't get back to all of you yet. You'll be hearing from me soon!

Au revoir!

issho ni - together

Thank you very much for your warm welcome!
Many of you have been writing to me over the last twelve months - most messages I left unanswered. I will try to reply to you during the next ten days. Hope you are all well!
This is a sweater I started shortly before the earthquake, finishing it while we were on Okinawa in March last year.
I mentioned here on the blog we would be staying on Okinawa... we've been there until the end of March. Came back to Yokohama afterwards, been here since then.
The sweater was made in a bigger size to let Dagny grow into it, and she did, just now, as I mentioned earlier today on Ravelry. Being so completely simple and a little rough meets my almost nine year old girl's sense of fashion perfectly - anything cute must be avoided now, we're becoming kind of cool these days.
And I am not making fun of this - this is only my attempt to take it with humor as I find that all this growing up is happening way too quickly. You know what I mean. Sometimes I'd like to push the pause button for a while.

Last year was the anniversary of 150 years of friendship between Japan and Germany - that little badge symbolizing this friendship found a permanent place on this otherwise completely unadorned sweater, giving it its name - issho ni - together.

It is a DROPS design, old fashioned bottom up raglan without any bit of fanciness to it. Perfectly satisfying if you want to knit a basic raglan sweater.

I will continue with a series of knitting posts here on MOONSTITCHES over the next days. Have been knitting all year, always am, and all those knits, not shared here or on Ravelry feel like a pile of laundry which needs to be taken care of.
Bye! Talk to you soon!

to gather

Dear friends out there,
this long break wasn't planned and I didn't expect to need such a long time to get back on my feet again. I want to apologize to everyone who has been concerned and written to me, but not getting an answer. That was not kind of me.
I lost my voice and couldn't recover for many months. When I can't wrap my head around something, being not well, I retreat, hide away, in order to think and let things sink in.
That earthquake changed our lives.
And it ended so many people's life.
Other people lost their home, lost everything.
How can I speak to someone outside of Japan and explain what is happening here when it's even difficult for us to understand?
How to explain why we still would want to live here, while I wasn't really sure if that was in fact the case?!
Fukushima.
Realizing what a stupid idea it was to use nuclear energy in the first place, not only on such an unsettled, fragile, little island like Japan but anywhere on earth made myself, at times, wish we would already have found that other planet to live on. Being here in Japan or in another country might not actually be that big of a difference.
Surely, I don't think those circa 250 km distance between here and Fukushima were a lot. Frankly spoken it appears to me I am having the atomic catastrophe right in my front yard - which is no thing everybody here would agree on. I might be one of those rather hysteric persons, taking the crisis that seriously.
But I don't want to go too far into that now... might risk the enterprise of getting back into blogging and sharing my crafts and snippets of life here in Japan with you.
Let me just say hello to you, I am back, hoping to be able to get in touch with you again.

A first knit I want to show you is that shawl I made in summer last year.
You can see, Japan was on my mind. Red. Round. And I was trying to gather all the good - strength, courage and myself, too. Hence the many, many gathered stitches... A bit tedious but also quite soothing.

It is, you might know and have already made one yourself, a Citron, more pictures and details on ravelry.

Thanks for reading.
Take care!