Amsterdam, Aachen, Anne and Angst

There will be no knitting items to show you this time, except if you click on the last link of this posting, and even then they're in disguise.

The past two weekends were full of activities, even though I haven't had an opportunity to show any gory details. Two weeks ago I was in Amsterdam (that's where I found those first balls of Tapestry. And in case you're interested, I take Clapotis to work almost every day and knit as much as I can during the bus or metro trip. It's just that Clapo has grown so much that the bus driver wants me to buy a separate ticket for it.)


Mummy, I want one of these.

Anyway, Amsterdam was great, and before heading home on Sunday, I sat on the scaffoldings on the Dam square, knitting and listening to some classical music. It was quite an experience, there were two orchestras and two conductors simultaneously on the stage. Whoo!

I also found a new beads shop there, a quilt shop and then a real Aladdin's cave for fabric enthusiasts. Go and visit A. Boeken if you ever have an opportunity. The address is Nieuwe Hoogstraat 31, and the shop is full of buttons, fabrics, sequins, zippers... you name it. Judging by the people roaming the streets of A'dam, there's a great market for this kind of speciality shop.



Would you zip me, dear?


If you ever get tired of crocheting when making a flower poncho, help is near.


And sometimes an ordinary zipper just will not do.



Just what I need: a cap made of yak wool, costing 90 euros.


One would certainly get noticed wearing this.


Nope, it's not a hot iron, it's a shoe.




There's something similar in these photos, isn't there? Last weekend the World Equestrian Games ended in Aachen, and the city was even more vibrant than normally. (If you like horses, check the photo section in the previous link.) Even if you didn't manage to get a ticket to the day's events, you could always watch them in the city center for free. And Belgium got a gold medal, yahoo!



Which inspires me to show you this brooche. When (not if) I finish my Clapotis, this will be used to attach it.






Görg & Görg yarn shop has got a new web page, while Junghanswolle's wonderful "yarn barn" wasn't there any more. Plenty of yarn, yes, but not the dirt-cheap plastic bags they used to have. Why can't things remain the same? Why?


And while we're on the horsey subject, here's a show I feel really ambivalent about:
Battuta horse circus. I would have liked to go there, almost reserved some tickets, but then I took a look on the photos available on the site. It seems that they had a riding bear in the show, and that's why I decided not to go. However, another photo looks like it's a fake. Too bad that I made the decision after seeing a bear riding a horse which was protected by a thick leather coat - that looked real to me. Oh well, now it's sold out anyway. As is this one, well, almost. So many attractions, so little time.

Maybe I should just stay at home and watch the telly. Has everybody seen this ad?
Ariston commercial