I am travelling to Germany this weekend (my first overseas travel in a LONG time!) for an Open Studio event with Martina Behm. I'm super-excited about it on so many levels! Firstly, I'll be able to spend some time with Martina, and we've been friends online for a few years now. We met in person very briefly at EYF three years ago, but this will be the first time we are able to hang out together. Hurrah! Martina's design aesthetic is so inspiring to me – that perfect blend of simple but also interesting – I'm hoping to return home full of energy! Travel is always a great opportunity to have some extended knitting time. I'm deep in the samples for the next book, but I'm also not so busy with them that I can't work on fun projects too. I'm already planning a ridiculous amount of travel knitting to take with me. The planning is half the fun, isn't it?! And I'm so looking forward to meeting lots of lovely German knitters (and possibly some other nationalities too!). I did a GCSE (the qualification we do at 16 years of age in England & Wales) in German 26 years ago, and haven't used it very much since then, but I really love speaking foreign languages, and I've spent the last few weeks brushing off vocabulary in the recesses of my mind (why is it always obscure words like "Fußgängerzone" – pedestrian zone – that stick, rather than something more helpful like breakfast cereal?).

If you are anywhere near Damsdorf in northern Germany, please do come along to the Open Studio event between 2pm and 6pm. Full details are on Martina's website here: 30th June Open Studio

If you aren't in that part of the world this weekend, then I hope that you too will find some time for knitting. We're having a heatwave at the moment, so I'm craving small portable projects. How about you?