First Stop: Singapore

Hi Guys,

I know I am incredibly behind with blogging about my trip, everything is just so exciting!
To start off, I am having the best time of my life. My hair is blonder, my skin has a nice tan and my bank account is on a diet.

SINGAPORE:
To be honest, I did not expect much of Singapore, because my friend's opinions on the city are quite diverse. I can only speak for myself, but I really liked it. If you belong to the wealthy half of Singapore, you can have an incredibly good time.

The City: Singapore developed incredibly fast and you can see that it was designed strategically. Everything works. Public transfer is incredible, the taxi prices are fix and affordable and the streets are clean. Buildings are mostly modern, some talented architects and designers have done their best.

Sightseeing: The city is wealthy, but also cultural diverse. Must Do's are Marina Bay, the Gardens by the Bay, Little India and Chinatown. I also enjoyed a walk through the Botanical Gardens. If you haven't realised that you left Europe while you are in the city, you will definitely see the difference in terms of plants and nature.

Food: There are tons of amazing cafes and restaurants all over the city. If you are looking for a local experience, I would recommend to pay a visit to one of many food courts. You have all kinds of food combined on one place and can have small bites as you like. In case you want to have a nice dinner out, there are a couple on Dempsey Hill. I went to PS Cafe, a cute place with healthy meals and a great selection of Gins. Potato Head Folk has great burgers, try to get a seat at the rooftop terrace. If you are a desert person like me, star chef Janice Wong opened a 2am:dessertbar where you might enjoy one of the best sweet bites you have ever had.

Cafes: My favourite Coffeeshop in Singapore was Common Man Coffee Roasters. Coffee lovers are having a hard time chosing between all kinds of slow brewed speciality drinks. Although slightly overpriced, I could also recommend a place called Curious Palette. They make delicious buttermilk Waffles with fruit and Greek Yoghurt.



Shopping: I haven't done much shopping because I needed to save money and space in my backpack, but if you want to blow money, you surely can. Orchard Road has the size of a Manhattan Avenue and I have seen a store of almost every brand I know. If you are more a boutique kind of person (I am) Haji Lane is your street! Here, you might even forget you are inbetween a skyscraper city.

OVERALL
What I liked most: I have been to many places on our beautiful earth, but I have never felt as safe as I felt in Singapore. It might be due to the unbelievable penalties (blow with a stick, death penalty, shortcut to years in yale), but if you are willing to behave, you will enjoy it.

What I did not like: The advantages of a strategically designed city kills the vibes of a developed city.  It might be love at first sight for some people, but I prefer, grown, old, unperfect cities with a unique character.

I would go here again, but not in the near future! My next post is going to be about Bali, stay tuned :)

Love,
Johanna

Johanna loves... being on Tour.

Hi Guys,

As many of you might already know, I decided to postpone job hunting for a bit and packed my bag for a 10 week tour through Asia, Australia and New Zealand. I am so excited! My plan is to blog about each country I am going to visit. 

This is going to be my route...

 

I start off visiting a friend in Singapore for three days. Then I will fly on to Bali for two weeks. Here I will be accompanied by three other girls and I cannot say how much I am looking forward to surfing, diving and tasting some balinese coffee. 

After Bali I move on to Sydney, to visit a friend I lived with in Dublin for my undergrad studies. I haven't seen this lady in 1.5 years and it is totally time to catch up! After Sydney I catch a bus to Melbourne. After a little road trip I finally make it to New Zealand, something I have been dreaming about since I watched The Lord of the Rings! 

From there I change back to warm weather, off to Thailand. In Krabi Id like to either surf or do Yoga, and after a couple of days in Bangkok I head out to my final two weeks in Vietnam.

If anyone has any tips or recommendations, let me know!

Love,

Johanna

Dream big: My experience with Chunky Merino Wool

Hello dear knitting community,

first of all I'd like to apologize for my long absence. I have been writing a 15,000 word dissertation and needed a full month to recover my fingertips. I am happy to say that I am about to graduate and finally finish my student life with an MSc in International Marketing.

Enough about me, we have a big thing to discuss! If you follow me on Instagram you might have noticed my latest obsession with extra chunky yarn. 

Some of you have commented on my pictures and asked about my experience with size, quality and my favourite brand. I'd like to mention that I have not been paid by any brand, I have and always will write about my honest and unbiased opinion! 

Here we go:

Size: I've been using two different sizes of chunky yarn. One was for 25mm needles and the other one for 45mm needles. Working with 25mm needles can be considered as knitting, while working with 45mm needles is a different thing. 

(this stool was crocheted with a 25mm hook.)

It took me a while to figure out how to work with the 45mm needles. My second XL blanket turned out much nicer than my first one. I posted a small video on Instagram where you can see me struggling with my first blanket and I am planning to do a full video on how to knit a blanket that size, but I won't be able to do that before December (I am going to talk about that in the end of this post). I would recommend to start with 25mm, it is already quite big and looks fantastic! (The "Monday" post I made was written with the 25mm yarn) 

Shape: There are significant differences in yarn shape! I didn't know the differences until I accidently ordered felted merino yarn (the yellow jacket). The advantage of felted yarn is that it is not as fuzzy. The yarn is harder, heavier and less flexible. I would NOT recommend felted yarn for clothing, but it might work well as seat covers. Unfelted merino yarn can be very fuzzy. Some brands do not twirl the yarn at all, it happened to me that the yarn ripped/ fell apart a couple of times while I was knitting. I'm always having a felting needle close to me, which is what I use to (re)connect the ends. I prefer unfelted yarn because it feels better than cotton candy. 

Costs: When you first see the price tag of a XL merino blanket, you might want to cancel your weekend trip to the spa hotel. Quality comes to its price. the costs of XL merino blankets depend on size and weight and vary between $250-$1000. If you think about it, it makes sense. Remember how much you pay for 100g merino yarn you used to buy for your little crop tops. The blankets are heavy! Mine vary between 2.5- 9kg / 5-15 pounds. Each sheep produces between 2-4kg/ 4-8,8 pounds of wool per year (I googled that, haven't had sheep yet) which means you have to pay for an annual salary of almost two sheep. 

You guys asked me for cheaper alternatives and I ordered synthetic yarn to give it a try. 1kg costs around $18, which is a bit less than half the price of merino yarn ($42). My recommendation here is: don't do it. It doesn't look bad, but it doesn't feel great either. I am going to use this one for experiments, but if you want to do it, to it right. Merino to synthetic is like a three course meal by Jamie Oliver compared to microwaved Ramen Noodles.

Brand: I have tried three different brands. Please keep in mind that this is only my opinion, statistically we need 49 more opinions to make a valid judgement. 

1. Warm and Tender: The yellow, felted yarn I ordered was from W&T. It was the only felted yarn I ever bought and therefore cannot compare it, but I think the quality is good. If I remember it right the delivery took two weeks. The packaging could have been a bit more professional, but after all I odered it on Etsy and therefore did not expect the highest level of professionality.

2. Manuosh: My first XL blanket (Colour Regal) as well as the 25mm yarn was from the American brand Manuosh. Advantage: The quality was the best I ever had. Manuosh yarn does not fall apart, the yarn is super soft without being too fuzzy. I really liked working with it and although I cuddle with my blanket every day it still looks great. Unfortunately, Manuosh has very long delivery times of almost 5 weeks. I know it takes a while to ship it from the US to Germany, but I order yarn after a customer ordered a blanket (for locked-up capital and stock reasons) and it really sucks if I have to tell my customers they have to wait for at least 6 weeks. The second disadvantage is the extremely high price of Manuosh. It is more than twice as expensive than the other Merino yarn I have tried. Will I order from Manuosh again? I just did. A customer ordered a blanket for his wife for Christmas and said that he does not care about price, but wants the highest quality there is. In that case, Manuosh is my go to.

3. Woolly Mahoosive: The brand from the UK sells fine merino, felted merino and synthetic yarn. I'd say this is the brand I recommend. Although the yarn is a bit fuzzier and might rip once in a while, the quality is still great and the blanket I made looks awesome. The price seems very fair and the best thing is the quick delivery: it took less than 72 hours! I contacted the brand a couple of times through Instagram and the response was always very nice and quick.
Here is a link to their website:  http://woollymahoosive.com/

That's it! I hope this helps a little bit. If you have any more questions please let me know, I am happy to help :) If you have any brand recommendations feel free to share it with me.

***

That's it on my XL experience, now I'd like to share some private things:
I might slow down on Instagram for the next 10 weeks, because I am going on a Solo Backpacking Vacation through Asia, Australia and New Zealand. I am SO EXCITED!! I have been wanting to do this trip for a while but only recently found the balls to do it. It's a graduation present to myself and at the moment I am single, finished my studies and don't have a job yet, the situation could not be any better! If you are interested in my travels, I have a second, more private Instagram account (Johanna_ontour) where I am going to post pictures of my travels.
Obviously I will bring my favourite crochet and knitting needles, but there is not much space for yarn in my backpack. I selected 5 yarn balls that I will bring with me, but you guys know that will never last for 10 weeks ;)

Enjoy fall/ autumn for me!

Love,
Johanna

#keepcalmandknit

Hippie Croptop

Instructions for Hippie Croptop

Quick instructions for this cute croptop :) If you are a beginner, these instructions won't make sense. I would recommend to watch a YouTube Tutorial on how to crochet Bikini Cups. 

First, start off with the cups. I chained 6 and made 12 rows, thats perfect for a B/C cup. I connected the two cups and made the back ties (I always do 3 rows for the ties).

After I connected the cups and made the neck ties, I chained the length of the first back tie (around 60 cm, depends on your chest measurement and how big you want the back bow) and connected it to the bottom left corner of the two cups. I crocheted to the middle of the first cup and then switched to some double and triple crochets to fill the triangle between the two cups and the mid section:

After I crocheted three white rows to finish the back ties, I started the mid section. (2)

 I wanted the mid section to go almost around my body but obviously not on the back ties, which explains the shape of the top on the very first picture.

The mid section exists of five rows (3 white rows and two golden rows). All five rows are made in a stitch called the hound's tooth, very easy, look it up in a YouTube Tutorial ;) 

You basically switch between single and double crochets and then put a double crochet on each single crochet and a single crochet on each double crochet from the previous row. Very easy to do!

After that, make one more single crochet row in white. 

For the third part you start off by chaining 5, skip three and then single crochet into the fourth loop from the previous row. Chain 5 again and so on. I would look it up into another YouTube tutorial if you have never done this part before! 

Finally, cut around 70 pieces of yarn (twice as long as you want them, because you attach them in the middle). Fold them in half and pull the loop through each loop of the last row. Then pull both ends through your loop to fix the strings. 

I usually cut the frays (is that a word?) so they all have the same length.

Good Luck :) 

Edgy Croptop

Tutorial for the Edgy Croptop (Credit for the name @thequeenstitch)

• Yarn: Lana Rossa Merino 3,5-4mm, I used white and dark green for the border.
• Needle size: 3,5mm
• Made for: 75B/75C

I would recommend to crochet top to bottom. I tried both and noticed that each "Low" leaves little holes as we crochet three into the same chain, and each peak makes it nice and tight as we crochet three together. Therefore, we want peaks to cover our nipples ;) 

1. Chain 90 (6*15, each "peak" needs 15 up and 15 down. This top has three peaks.) If you have bigger breasts, chain 6*18 (or more!)
2. Flip work, crochet 14, for 15 crochet three in same chain (first low in the top, but as we work upside down it looks like a peak while you are doing it)
3. Crochet 14, for 15 crochet three together (first Peak)
4.  Crochet 14, for 15 crochet three in same chain (Second low)
5. Crochet 14, for 15 crochet three together (second peak)
6. crochet 14, for 15 crochet three in same chain (third low)
7. Crochet 15, chain one, flip work
8. Skip one! Crochet 14, for 15 crochet three in same... and so on 
9. Crochet as many rows as you want- I did 24
10. Take your second colour and crochet around it once. Remember to do the lows and peaks.

Depending on your size, chain the straps and attach them to the top like shown in the picture. 

Done :) Feel free to link me in your creation, I would love to see what you made!

Happy Crocheting!

Love,

Johanna

Responsibility

This blog entry might sound like it, but it is not my purpose to sell myself in a good light today. People who know me know it is true: I love being responsible.

Lately I am thinking a lot about everything that makes me happy or unhappy, but also which characteristics are special about me. This might be due to all the job interviews lining up.
I think one of my strongest characteristics is that I like being in charge. As head of a society I loved having an overview, managing tasks and working together with people. I always want to see the big picture. Currently I am class representative and I realized that age and experience made me confident. I am not afraid to talk to authorities anymore, even if I have to deliver critique- the right tone and an open mind solved almost any problem in (my) history. Even in daily life when I am out with my friends, I am usually the one organizing a trip, getting the group's birthday present, driving the car, knowing where we are and where to go (I love Google Maps!). This is not necessarily a good thing- I am pretty sure that in history I ruined someone else's chance to step up. Since I started my masters I am trying to stay put and trust other people's organisation skills.

Apart from being in charge, I like being responsible in an ecological way. One thing that really bothers me when I live outside Germany is that people do not recycle or separate trash. The building I am currently living in only separates paper. Food, plastic, glass and everything else go into one bin- this is upsetting me every day. In the supermarkets I am trying to buy loose fruits and vegetables and always get a funny look from the cashier when I refuse to take an extra plastic bag.
Once I earn money I will buy as much as possible from local markets or organic shops. At the moment I am mostly shopping in discounters and the more I think about it, the guiltier I feel. I am not a vegetarian, but luckily French discounters sell organic meat, eggs and dairy products.

Great step forwards: EU wide organic sign.

I really do not want to lecture anyone because I am far far away from being an ecological role model! There is room for improvement. If anything, I would like to encourage people to find their own ecological balance. I am not asking anyone to buy more expensive, organic food, eat less meat or buy less clothes, but sometimes, waste is really unnecessary. "Think twice" will be the title of an upcoming post, I feel like this one is getting too long.

Recycle on,
Johanna

#keeploving

Dancing sunlight.

(Above the clouds: the only reason why I'd become a Pilot)

One of my earliest childhood memories is when we spent our summer holidays in a house at Lake Lugano, Italy. I remember that when I woke up the first thing I would look for was the "dancing sunlight" on the ceiling. When the sky was clear, the morning sunlight would be reflected in the water and a small sunbeam would make it through the old, wooden folding shutters. The reflection would copy the movements of the water and made it look like it was "dancing".
I would then sneak out, often being the first one awake, go to the waterfront and look at the "sun street". I remember that I thought the sun would only shine in my direction and made this sparkling pathway on the water only between us. I could not understand that only I could see the "street" between the sun and me and would not believe my father when he told me he had his own one.

Even tho I spent two years in Dublin and last semester in Edinburgh, my passion for sunlight has not changed. When the sky is clear, I am having the hardest time staying inside. Now that I live in the south of France I am looking for ways to take my work on my balcony to not fail the semester. Who ever invented the non-reflecting laptop screens: you are an absolute genius!!

(Sunrise on a hiking trip in August)

One thing I want to increase in the future is the amount of sun rises I see. Too often I miss the magic moment! When I think about the ones I did not miss it, the emotions linked to the memories are all positive. 

(Travelling in a VW T4- best thing ever.)

If it is sunny today you get a chance, go outside. Let the warmth touch your cheeks and your skin produce some vitamin D.

After all, best things in life come for free!

Shine on and write soon,

Johanna

#keeploving