We’re back to dull and grey April weather, with heavy clouds and the hint of almost-rain in the air, so the first pink blossoms of the cherry trees in Spånga are a welcome splash of brightness.

I started knitting on the next cardigan during the conference trip to Italy. With a thicker yarn than I tend to choose, and a slightly looser knit, it knits up fast.

The yarn is Drops Lima, a lovely wool and alpaca blend. I love the way alpaca yarn feels.

The design is a very simple one and mostly my own. I’ve been eyeing the Ankers cardigan, but I didn’t like the high neck with no neckline shaping. (Any cardigan design that does not show a single photo of it worn fully buttoned, is probably not going to look good fully buttoned. Knitwear designers ignore neckline shaping and waist shaping way too often, in my opinion.)

Overall a round yoke seems simple enough, and the yoke on the Ankers is just bands of ribbing interspersed with increase rows, and I figured I could do that myself. I’ve knitted enough sweaters now to feel like I mostly know what I’m doing, and the Internet is full of helpful tutorials and guides.

It took a full evening of arithmetic (there are a lot of details that need to line up!) and one aborted attempt that I ripped up, and now I have something that looks like it will work out and fit me decently well. It looks better on me than on the table. Even then it takes a bit of imagination to add the missing details, such as button bands, neckline edging. I hope it all comes together the way I have it planned.

I originally made this sign for marking my locker at the tretton37 office. After ripping off the self-adhesive magnet strips, I have now pinned it to my chair at Sortera.

The older I get, the more picky I get about all kinds of things. Office chairs are definitely near the top of that list. I can deal with soft seats and hard seats and I am mostly not too bothered about the back rest, but I have very firm opinions about the armrests (no thank you), headrests (no thank you again), seat position and angle.

One of the best office chairs I’ve ever had was at ReQtest, where I sat on a large, inflatable exercise ball. Guaranteed no slouching. tretton37 had a variety of chairs so everyone could pick and choose, and when I could, I picked a saddle-style chair from Backapp.

Sortera doesn’t have anything as fancy as that, but they do have pretty good chairs. I’ve found one extra firm variety, on which it was also easy to remove the armrests and headrest. I’m not there every day, though, and sometimes the chairs move around on my WFH days. Now I’ve branded my favourite chair as mine, so I can find it again when I am in the office.

One of yesterday’s cakes: banana cake with chocolate and walnuts. Super moist, barely has any structural integrity even after cooling. It was a whole project to carefully slice it and stack the slices for freezing; I don’t think I’ve ever had to handle a cake with such care. Now I have banana cake in the freezer.

Electricity prices in the negative gave me a push to do three loads of laundry and two rounds of baking today. Sunny weather and a bit of wind made for perfect drying conditions.

Today was the first day warm enough for the team at Sortera to have lunch outside in the sun on the quay.

Today was also the day I found a last, lost, lonely lussebulle in a corner of the freezer. Still tasted good.

Finished the organza-over-silk-over-print embroidery. Still not in love with it, but it’s better.

I think the original idea has promise, though, so there will be more attempts. This was one quarter of a larger square of printed fabric. I think I’ll make variations on the theme of the other three quarters, and then perhaps frame them all together.

Today I learned that tetraptych is a word.

Do you know what they have in Italy? Handbags!

My red backpack handbag, which replaced an identical red backpack handbag, needed replacing again. Just like its predecessor, it failed by losing one half of the magnetic clasp. And, well, it was beginning to look a bit ratty.

I kept my eyes peeled for a replacement when we were in Italy last summer, but couldn’t find anything similar. During this weekend’s trip I walked past exactly one leather goods shop, during our twenty minutes of free time in town, saw that they had backpack-style handbags, and walked out with a new one 5 minutes later. What a stroke of luck.

The new bag is a somewhat smaller and simpler model. It doesn’t have the “flap” in the front, which makes it look a teeny bit less interesting, but maybe also more durable. It does have that magnetic clasp for the little closure strap at the top, but I’m thinking that if/when the magnet falls off again, which I’m almost betting it will do, then this bag should look OK even without it. (On the flappy version, the flap hangs askew when it’s not fastened, which looks distinctly ugly.)

Last Friday I went to the last of the concerts in the “Friday evening new classical” series. The one that made me book tickets to the series to begin with. Strings and a didgeridoo – which was too intriguing to pass on.

For a while it looked like I would miss it because of the conference trip with Active Solution, because that was originally pencilled in for Friday to Sunday. But the dates got changed so I got to do both.

It was… not bad. The strings and the didgeridoo fit together quite well. Especially the cello, which is roughly in the same register as the didgeridoo. But the didgeridoo didn’t stand out as much as I would have wished – it was somewhat drowned by the strings with their stronger, sharper voices.

Not a bad finale for the series, but it confirmed my already quite firm conclusion that this is not the series for me.

This morning we had our usual conference talk and team coding session. Then after lunch our team activity for the day was a hike – either around Monte Isola, or to the top. Both options were very tempting but, as another photographically inclined colleague pointed out, from the top you only get one kind of views, whereas the walk around the island will offer more photo opportunities.

The island is surrounded by a ring road, mostly trafficked by mopeds. The south and west coasts have small villages dotted along the road, with the hotels and restaurants clustered at the south-eastern tip. The north had fewer, and the east mostly held the industrial underbelly: ferry quays, a recycling centre, a fire station.

When we got back it was time to pack up and prepare for the trip home.

I still struggle to fully take in the reality of the historic castle that we stayed in. There’s just… a giant centuries-old, hand-woven tapestry in the dining hall. Just hanging there, for anyone to poke at.

It’s quite worn and faded, and has been painstakingly restored at some point.

A similarly aged painting hangs in a random hallway corner. I’d expect museum lighting and a label, but it gets no particular attention.

I thought at first that it might be a modern painting, done in an old style to fit in, but with the ragged canvas and flaking paint, it really isn’t.

Some of the guest rooms/apartments were ex-ballrooms, complete with painted ceilings, candelabras, fireplaces and antique furniture.