4 days in South Tyrol

My husband and I spent a few days over New Year's in beautiful South Tyrol with my family and some friends. We stayed at a nice little hotel in the mountains near the town of Bruneck. The hotel is really secluded because you have to leave your car at the carpark and walk up the valley for about 15 minutes to get there. But with the snow the little walk was rather enjoyable. The hotel was very cosy (including a spa) and they served great food. The fun part however was to get back down to the carpark as you could take a sleigh ride from the hotel back down.

We visited the nice little town of Bruneck one day. The christmas market was still going with cute little huts, crafts, mulled wine and food specialities. We also climbed up the hill to the castle where you have a wonderful view over the valley.

We had also planned to do some winter activities on this trip. There wasn't much snow in the valleys so we were a bit disappointed at first but on the mountains and near our hotel, there was enough snow to do some sleighing and cross country skiing. This is a ski trail near one of our favourite mountains in South Tyrol.

On New Year's Day we went hiking for a few hours - a great way to forget all the wine and champagne from New Year's Eve (haha). Wonderful winter sun, a stunning scenery and an awesome nature were a very relaxed way to greet the new year...

Have you been on a trip anywhere for christmas or New Year's? Hope you can feel the sun on your skin when you see these photos. Love, Kerstine

Hello 2015!

Happy New Year! Here comes the "what happend last year and what am I planning for this year" finally from me too. I think it's not too late yet though most of the blogs I regularly read have posted this already. 

I've been on holidays a bit over christmas and New Year's and last week work has quite absorbed me. I also needed a bit of time to think about the last year which was my first year of blogging. I've just had my first blog anniversary (can't believe it's already this time!).

... and before you think you're at the wrong blog - yes, I changed the name again - I know - again! I just wasn't happy with the old one any more. In contrast to the last two names, I didn't think about it a lot this time. Within the last two days it suddenly struck me. As most of my projects on the blog are green and the blog is green and I love this color, it just seemed natural. However this name also stands for my general love of bright colors. 

Crochet Slippers

Infinity Scarf

Bunny Egg Cosy

But back to this post's topic:

What happened last year? Here are my publishing statistics:

• 25 posts (this makes about 2 posts a month)
• 16 creative projects, including
• 5 knitting projects
• 8 crocheting projects
• 2 paper projects
• 1 other project (the knotted bracelet)
• 1 tutorial (the Easter Bunny Egg Cosy)
• and 2 travel reports.

I believe this is not too bad for a blog's (and blogger's) first year. Plus I even reached my goal of more crocheting (as I've been a knitter initially).

Certainly, I have plans for the blog in 2015:

• Publish more blog posts: As I often thought "this should go on the blog" last year but then didn't get round to post it, I'd like to blog at least once a week this year. However this makes a lot of more posts so I can't promise ;-)
• Show more finished projects: Throughout last year I made quite a few things that I didn't show on the blog yet. Some of them were presents (you don't want people to see it before you give it to them) and there are some, I just made without thinking of posting them. So I'm planning to show you some of those things throughout the year because they turned out really great (e. g. my very first sweater!!!).
• Blog more about travels: I have itchy feet and my husband and I normally go on several (short or longer) trips during the year. I found that I really liked blogging about Brussels and London, so I want to show you where we're off to more often. 

Grand Place, Brussels

 Besides, I've made some plans concerning my crafting - which naturally goes hand in hand with the blog: 

As my yarn stash is really overflowing at the moment, I'm planning to straighten it up and use yarn from my stash for new projects as often as possible. I love buying new yarn but there's no point when I'm not using it, so I'm gonna try to keep yarn buys down and only go yarn shopping when it's REALLY necessary. I'm excited what I'll find in my stash and which ideas I'll come up with.

Another point is that there are some UFOs lying around or hiding in my stash (you probably know what I mean). I want to finish some of them or unravel them and use the wool for something else if I don't want to finish them. Whenever I start a project this year, my focus clearly lies on finishing it.

Yarn stash

So that's about it. I'll do all I can to stick to these plans but you know what it's like, so maybe to reach 80% of them are a good goal for this year.

Now it's your turn: What are your (crafting) goals this year? What would you like to read and see on my blog? Love, Kerstine