Mallorca!

I love summer holidays in the Northern hemisphere which signifies the end of the school year and the start of extensive travelling trips. Whilst the summer holidays in the South are great too since it coincides with the Festive Season, I think summer holidays hold extra significance in the North when nature awakens from a long winter’s slumber, summer days are pristine and Europe shines on long summer evenings.

This year we travelled to the Netherlands (Amsterdam, Maastricht, Rotterdam, Groningen and Breda) and Spain (Mallorca and Barcelona). It was a fantastic holiday and I will be sharing more with you in the coming weeks. First about the relatively small island of Mallorca with beaches that dreams are made of. We lived in the historic quarter of Palma, rented a car and explored the island. 

Playa de Formentor

 We swam in the crystal clear azure sea of Cala Deia, Cala Mondrago and Playa de Formentor. I loved the intimate coves below dramatic cliffs, wild natural beaches which are accessible only on foot and huge swaths of soft golden sand backed by palm trees.

Cala Mondrago

Unusually for a Mediterranean island, Mallorca is fertile and green, with an amazing array of natural landscapes from soaring mountains in the west (the Tramuntana mountains), to beautiful vineyards in the fertile central plain. 

We indulged in the cuisine and spirit of the Mediterranean, the food something out of the ordinary. Where else can you find wild boar, osso buco, traditional seafood dishes or the best paella this side of the Atlantic? With new-wave chefs championing local cuisine and converted castles and convents in the countryside harbouring Michelin-starred restaurants, Mallorca is fast flourishing into one of Europe’s most exciting and authentic foodie destinations.  

 

Walking to Cala Deia

 

The above below photos were taken in and near Deia. This small town is well-known by many, but we followed the winding road down from in front of the gorgeous La Residencia hotel and we hit Cala Deia, a small and pebbled but very pretty beach. Two restaurants blend into the surrounding rocks and, though they look rather shack-like, serve gorgeous fresh local fish and cold San Miguel beer. We tucked into seafood platters at  Ca’s Patro March, the restaurant perched on the cliff overlooking the sea.

Dining at Ca Na Toneta, a small and charming family restaurant in Caimari, a quiet village located at the foot of the Tramuntana mountain range was a highlight. The six course tasting menu changes weekly, or more often, based on seasonal products organically grown in the home garden.

Ca na Toneta Restaurant

Crochet Ca na Toneta

Crochet Bowl Ca na Toneta Giftshop

Crochet rug, Ca na Toneta giftshop

We had a fabulous meal at La Despensa del Barón located at Posada Terra Santa, a new boutique hotel in Mallorca. I enjoyed a superb dish of 3 months aged Angus Fillet with foie gras and potato gratin. 

La Despensa del Baron - chef 

Cool Teen awaiting her food

Taking a sneak peek at the restaurant when we made the booking

Parked at the entrance to the restaurant and hotel

For “Where to go in Mallorca” take a look at the blog posting by Swede Jacqueline Mikuta. Her Instagram is to die for.

Linen Love

An inherent quality of linen is the endless design stories it creates for living spaces and wardrobe alike. I am especially drawn to the fiber due to it's cool, fresh quality that is in stark contrast to the extreme hot weather climates I call home. This past summer stood out as one of the most brutal recorded in the Middle East, no doubt the driving force behind my continued obsession with natural fibers.  Linen is notoriously laborious to manufacture, but an affair with this ancient fiber, dating back thousands of years, is a lovestory for life! Linen is going through a revival stage with bloggers such as Beth from LocalMilk honouring the integrity, showcasing the beauty of the fiber in their daily narratives. 

The pincushion above and the broach below is by the uber talented Namolio. I was doing the happy dance when I opened my parcel to see that she has gifted me with no less than 3 skeins of 5 ply linen yarn in  3 colourways. What a wonderful gift, thank you so much! The fragrance of lavendar emanating from the pincushion transported me straight back to our summer vacation in Croatia. Ah bliss.

Find Namolio on Etsy for exquisite gifts, Flickr for incredible photography, and Instagram for daily snapshots into her life.

My fingers itched to give the linen yarn a whirl and the result is this textural piece hooked from a pattern by another very talented woman, Sandra, the driving force behind the Mobiusgirl label. She has just started her own blog on which you will find the pattern for this beautiful mandala. I have yet to decide what to do with my mandala, but see some of the options below! 

Have a great weekend, we are off to enjoy bistro style dining in a hip, relaxed atmosphere at Opal, a Gordon Ramsay restaurant where we will be celebrating my birthday that took place earlier this week. 

Norwegian Woods

The Project

~ a breathtakingly beautiful lacy blanket titled Norwegian Woods. 

The Pattern

~ tutorial on YouTube by Jachelle Stephanie. I am hoping to receive feedback from her soon confirming whether she was also the designer of the pattern. A chart is available on Jachelle's Instagram, but beware that the corners differ slightly to the YouTube tutorial I followed.

Tutorial Part 1

Tutorial Part 2

The Inspiration
~ the mood captured by @camillalboe from Norway and the beautiful black exterior houses of Scandinavia. Photo credits: Camilla 

The edge

~ improvised!

Fiber Meditations

~ I have been searching for the perfect black fiber for close to two years and was about to order black hemp string online, when my eye spotted a few sample balls produced by my friend Hester, the force behind MoYa Yarn. It was instant love and without a doubt the most suitable yarn for the project. MoYa is a high twist hand dyed organic cotton with the added benefit that it does not split, the ends do not fray and once woven in, also do not unravel. Perfect!

Black Tweed has the potential to become my signature yarn if I ever decide to take the leap and do what I really should and want to do, i.e. hook in stark non-colours. I am the bearer of bad news though, this yarn is not (yet) available for sale.    

Pretty Pieces and my dear Katja

Tinctory- I fell in Love with Eva's creations many years ago when it first started making an appearance in my Pinterest feed and finally got around to take the plunge and buy myself something from her Tinctory shop.  Czech born and British based designer, Eva, uses cues from geometry in nature and created several pleating studies over the years which she later translate into wearable jewellery. I love expats artists, you can see the depth of their lifestyle experiences in the works of art and craft they produce. Her pieces are etherial, intriguing, unique and if you page through her Flickr and Blog, you will also fall in love with her photography.  Eva hand dyes repurposed silk and then applies various techniques in her work, among others batik and shibori, knitting and smocking. She scanvenges natural organic materials from the forest floor and her colours represent the forest fodder and seasons. The jewelery exhudes space, stillness and calm. I am completely in love with the Feather I chose and love wearing it. Thank you Eva!

Swoon Lounge is a gorgeous new online shop by Susan Cropper, owner of bespoke yarn shop, Loop London in Islington, London. I had such a great time selecting yarns from the shop during a business trip to London earlier this year, that I knew Swoon Lounge would be a great choice to order a few linen dresses from.  I bought the Bud Dress and Fan dress by Manuelle Guibal  and it quickly became weekend wardrobe staples. Each piece is individually garment dyed and processed by hostoric mills in the French countryside and tailored in pure and simple shapes with sculptural volumes.

I took this picture in the Medieval Mediterranean garden of St Lawrence Monastery high up in the old town of Sibenik, Croatia during the summer holiday. These flowers remind me of delicate tutu wearing ballerinas.

Have a nice weekend, I will be posting more about my latest crochet project that I started making during a trip to Istanbul soon!  I am making a blanket titled "Sprinkles" in the gorgeous Moya, hand dyed organic cotton with a hight twist in a stunning palette of colours. I am in love!


Oh no, I just read the sad news of Katja's passing away on 13 October. RIP Katja, your Versponnenes blog has been a constant favourite of mine over the years and I will miss our bantering over "Visiting Sweden" (Ikea shopping) and me buying "Katja Colours" during one of my King Cole Cotton Bamboo shopping trips.  A recent blanket of mine has been inspired solely by one you made (photo below), I will most definitely be blogging about that next. I am so damn sorry, cancer is a bitch!

When something should but does not go right

One of my favourite restaurants in Doha is a Japanese fusion restaurant offering an eclectic choice of the world's best cuisines, taking one's tastebuds on a delivious trip of a satisfying feast! The interior is beautiful. It is all NYC industrial loft style with warm undertones and exposed brick walls; powdered coated distressed black steel frames, softened with beautiful lantern style light fittings. What I really love about the restaurant, is the tiled floor suprise in the cloakrooms. It is stunning, the Teen and I always take a few spins of happiness in this very small space whenever we lunch here.  

After hooking the fabulous #rusticlacesquare blanket that is still sweeping through IG like a storm  (see all the hashtags by various posters on IG), my eye was drawn to another similar, oversized lacy square design and I womdered whther that would be another great pattern to enjoy.  

I noticed the floor, I noticed the pattern, I gave it a go, I failed. Urghh!!! I really struggled to get the gauge right, in creasing and decresing stitches, started over a few different times and concluded that it simply was not working. As rerwarding as the first pattern was, as frustrating this one turned out to be. Idea: shelved!!

Trivia:

Susan named the unnamed square #rusticlacesquare after my own IG account, rawrustic (I wish I could ditch the "pigtails" moniker you see, hence a differet account name on IG)   

 Just look at this!  Mirrored wall, tiled floor, simply gorgeous.

I enjoyed playing with my failure on a photo app though!  

Teen Fashion

The Pattern - feel free to give it a go!!

 The restaurant as seen moments before it got silly busy,just after opening time

Have a nice week, cheers!