Little knits III - London Love

It has been a while since my last post but I think I'm excused, traveling around Iceland, the most amazing of all islands! And, as knitters know, also famous for its "Lopapeysur" - a post on this will follow later. In the meantime, I still have some catching up to do with past projects that I didn't post yet and I'll start with my "Prince George" vest.
 
As you may have noticed, besides knitting I also love London. I only lived there for one year but it just feels so much longer, considering all the amazing things I saw and did when I was there. And every time I go back, I get this excited feeling that everything is possible and beautiful and amazing. In those moments I miss the big city and the activities, the lifestyle, the creativity, the millions of opportunities. 

And since I also like a bit of kitsch, royal kitsch included, I immediately took a liking to this "Prince George" style vest, originally designed by Cath Kidston. I was super happy to find a pattern by Susan Crawford (whose amazing vintage knits book "A Stitch in Time" I got for Christmas last year) that was straight forward, even though I mainly needed it for the intarsia chart anyways. I changed the shape of the neckline a little bit and I added the yellow trim, inspired by my mug (see picture).

While I already took a liking to the pattern it so happens that one of my friends from Uni in London announced that she was going to have a baby: the perfect occasion to make this cute little vest for another London-lover. It turned out a bit bigger than expected so it's probably not exactly for a newborn but considering that it's the middle of the summer I don't think they will mind waiting a little bit. 

I love the colour combination and it makes me happy to look at it, maybe I'll go for an adult version next?

Polka dot socks

 

 I realized I haven't been posting anything about knitting lately. That does of course not reflect reality because I'm still working on two different projects at the moment and I finished two more that I haven posted yet! Here's the first one:

Another project from Anna Wilkinson's book "Learn to knit - love to knit" were these cute polka-dot socks. I've had them on the needles for a  loooooong time, mainly because I only have one pair of bamboo needles that I use when travelling (experienced knitters will know the struggle with metal needles and airport security....). I've been working on the socks pretty much a whole year, on and off, every time I was taking a trip somewhere. The first sock was finished in Riga and the second one in Cologne, those are real travelling socks!

Even though I really like the way they look, knitting them was a pain in the a**. And, as my aunt mentioned it when I was almost finished, the long floats are also not great because your toes get caught when putting them on. I followed Anna's pattern by inserting a rib pattern at the back to keep the  ease, which is the only way I can get those stranded knits over my clumsy feet. I still don't understand how people can knit socks in complicated stranded patterns because they're totally unflexible and not stretchy at all - maybe they have some secret techniques to put them on their feet? I haven't discovered those yet.

The colours are my favourite though, makes me think of candy floss. I still had the darker shade left over from my Yosemite socks and I bought it on a desperate "I have to knit NOW" stint when I was in San Francisco; the lighter shade is a normal Regia sock yarn I bought in Veritas in Brussels.Oh, and isn't this "Wanderlust" poster wonderful? It was designed by Brussels artist Fanny Dreyer for a project in Ixelles and I begged myself a copy from the cultural center where it was advertised. Now I have it framed in my living room and I love it.

Doel & Verbeke Foundation

 

The abandoned village of Doel has been on my "To Do" list for a long time. In January, I made the first attempt to go there with some friends but a lack of planning meant that we didn't get a rental car for the weekend. In the end, that was probably good because I'm sure that Doel is much nicer in summer!

For those who haven't heard about this spooky, abandoned but also somehow magical place: Doel is a village located pretty much inside the port of Antwerp and right next to a nuclear power plant. Since the port is still expanding (and it is huge already), the land turned out to be more valuable and the village became wedged in between industrial estates, the port, and the power plant. It was practically cut off from the surrounding area.

The authorities have been buying up the houses and given people incentives to leave but some few inhabitants still live there, so technically it is not totally abandoned. Surprisingly, the church was actually taken care of really well and sported nice flower arrangements! The majority of buildings are empty, though, houses are boarded up and totally overgrown with plants. In fact, you can almost tell how long each house has been abandoned for by looking at the amount of greenery around or on top of it. I really liked seeing how nature is taking over again so quickly; on a nice summer day like when we visited you can find lots of wild flowers and beautiful meadows in the middle of the village.

And then of course you have the graffiti. One of the main reasons I wanted to go is that I had read on the internet that Doel has become somewhat of an outdoor museum, attracting street artists from all over the place to leave their mark. And, indeed, it's fascinating to see all this colourful art and even spotting some famous artists (my favourite is of course ROA) which actually makes it look more alive again. Ironically, it is probably more attractive now as a tourist destination than it ever was as a "normal" village!

Also, you can rent a bike from the visit centre of the nuclear power plant and cycle the "Eco-Route" - no joke.

On the way back to Brussels we also passed by the Verbeke Foundation which has an extensive collection of contemporary art and mainly outdoors installations. It's a strange location, right next to the motorway but still very calm and beautiful with a pond and a lot of greenery. Even though it still looks like in Doel (especially the abandoned train) this is art and you can walk around and explore everything independently.

I think my favourite was the wooden dome or gazebo which cast funny shadows in the sun and had a nice geometrical structure. I was less convinced of the taxidermy animals that were cut apart and sewn together in weird positions again, like a pig that was answering a phone for example... I spared you the pictures.

All in all a great day and an easy trip from Brussels. I can only recommend making this escape from the city at some point, those are some of the coolest things that Belgium has to offer.