Sandra's Guide to: New York City

Time for a guide to New York City. Hope you'll enjoy! Please click links for addresses and opening hours etc.








When I'm in New York I prefer to walk and good shoes are recommended even if you're not planning to walk a lot, because you end up walking a lot anyway :)


Tribeca Grand
The last time in NYC I stayed at this hotel. It's very good and the location is great. I was lucky to stay there for free thanks to my husband's job but if you want to spend money on a good hotel I recommend this. Otherwise I'm sure there are plenty of great places to find via Airbnb. Johan really recommends the Soho Grand, I've only tried the bar there and it's highly recommended!



M A N H A T T A N

Balthazar
A legend. Really recommend making a reservation at this place.


Freemans
Great cocktails, interior and food. Highly recommended.


The High Line
Don't forget a walk along the High Line.


Magnolia Bakery
Sorry for the shabby shoe picture, but at least you see how beautiful the floor is in this New York City institution for cupcakes etc ;)


La Colombe
Amazing coffee and the best almond croissants I've ever had. They have three places on Manhattan, I visited the one on Church Street as it was next to my hotel. My favourite coffee place in NYC for sure, not only because of the great coffee but because of those beautiful cups and saucers.


Lucky Strike
A favourite bar with great cocktails and good looking interior.


Sockerbit
Swedish (and Finnish) candy, pick and mix. Yum!


Schiller's
My favourite restaurant on Manhattan. The interior is perfection. Don't forget to visit the bathroom. Cocktails are good, they have nice beer and a brunch here is highly recommended.


Tiny's Giant Sandwich Shop
Across the street from Schiller's you find this sandwich and coffee shop. A good place for breakfast.



B R O O K L Y N

Brooklyn Brewery
I didn't take the tour of the brewery (Johan did and he loved it), but I tried all their different wonderful beers - there are a few they only serve at the brewery and if you are a beer lover - go there!


Black Brick Coffee
A nice coffee place on Bedford Avenue.


Blue Bottle Coffee
More coffee, highly recommended!


Diner
This place is a must when I'm visiting in Brooklyn. Great breakfast, great cocktails and nice atmosphere.


Marlow and Sons
Around the corner from Diner you find this place. This is where I go for oysters and beer and they have a pretty shop as well where you can buy Mast Brothers Chocolate among other great things.


Café Pedlar
A beautiful coffee shop with really good coffee.



Other places I recommend, without pictures though:

MANHATTAN
King Cole Bar (great cocktails and very fancy)
Purl (yarn etc!)

BROOKLYN
Juliette (good food, good drinks, beautiful place)
Roebling Tea Room (beautiful place, nice atmosphere)
CB I Hate Perfume (an experience of its own)
Brooklyn Flea Market
Dumont Burger (recommended by Johan, he says the burgers are great)

Don't forget to walk the Brooklyn Bridge, from Brooklyn to Manhattan. It's always recommended, no matter what season or time of the day. Aaah.



Enjoy your visit in NYC!



Feel free to visit my virtual tip jar if you found this information great and helpful! Thank you :)

An interview about working with yarn

Karen asked me if I wanted to answer some questions about my yarn work and tools. Read the whole interview here.

How was your weekend?

My weekend was so good. Started it at the rooftop terrace of Johan's studio with some of his nice colleagues and drinks. The rest of the weekend continued with coffee, walks, parties and admiring beautiful buildings. Do you follow me on instagram? I've created a hashtag to collect some tips in Berlin every now and then. The hashtag is #sandrajutosberlin - hope you'll enjoy!

Happy Monday!

New month, new place

Well, hello August!
Started the new month with breakfast at an amazing new place: Salumeria Lamuri. Have been passing by just waiting for it to open as it looked so beautiful from the wee bits you could see from the street. And stepping in made me all dizzy, every detail is so beautiful and well made. New favourite place for sure!

Tutorial: How to make Sandra Juto's Grannysquare Blanket

The time has finally come to make a tutorial about how to make my Grannysquare Blanket, yay! Since I don't know how to write patterns in English, I will do my best to present the process in pictures. Basic crochet skills are required. If you don't know them, YouTube has lots of great tutorials or you could purchase the book Happy Hooker which is great!


What you need:
Yarn (I use double alpaca yarn), 3 different colours and 1 colour for the borders (I use off-white)
Crochet hook (I use this one, 4mm , highly recommended!)
Scissors
(& not in the picture: a needle for the finishing touch)

The amount of yarn depends on how big you want to make your blanket. You can of course use other materials such as wool and cotton. My blanket weighs approximately 1.5 kilos where half of the weight is the off-white.


Start with 3 chain stitches which you connect with a slip stitch, to make it a tiny circle.


Continue with the same colour of the yarn and make 12 double crochet stitches with 1 chain stitch between each double crochet stitch. Connect the last chain stitch with a slip stitch in the first double crochet stitch.


Colour number 2, 2 double crochet stitches between the first row's double crochet stitches and 1 chain stitch between each couple of double crochet stitches. A tip is to let the previous colour's "left overs" join the journey so you won't have to sew them in later on. Saves you many hours of work.


Join together like the first row.


Colour number 3, 3 double crochet stitches between the second row's double crochet stitches and 1 chain stitch between each three double crochet stitches.


The colour part is finished! This is where I usually stop and mass produce the amount of squares I want to make, to keep better track on the colour combinations (I always make each square different), before joining all together with the off-white border.


The beginning of the off-white border. IMPORTANT: The squares are crocheted together, so you do it as you go along. This to make the pattern between the squares, which I will show you below.


The border! This is where the square shape happens. Between two groups of double crochet stitches, make 2 double crochet stitches, 1 chain stitch and 2 double crochet stitches again. Repeat between the next two groups (I hope the pictures show what I mean). Between the third group of double crochet stitches, make 3 triple crochet stitches with 3 chain stitches between them and repeat until finish.


The finished square!
Time to make another one.


Second circle to become a square.


Crochet the squares together as you go along (IMPORTANT!). Why important? See below:


To get this pattern between the squares.


This is what it should look like when the squares are joined together.


A tip: Sew in the threads as you go along, it's more fun than doing it all at the end of the project.


Now it's time for the finishing border which will go around the whole blanket. It's only made of double crochet stitches.


Crochet crochet crochet.


Crochet crochet crochet.


At the 4 corners of your blanket you make 5 double crochet stitches, 1 chain stitch and 5 double crochet stitches.


Around the blanket you make 3 double crochet stitches, 1 chain stitch and 3 double crochet stitches at the same place. Repeat as shown in the picture. Where the squares meet I make 2 double crochet stitches, 1 chain stitch and 2 double crochet stitches at the end of the square and repeat it at the beginning of the next square. The border can be made with thousands of variations and here I present the way I make it.


There will be many leftovers, someone gave me the tip to put it outside for birds to build houses of. Imagine how colourful that house would be!


The result! I make my blankets with 14x12 squares. The finished blanket is measures about 125 x 105 cm / 50" x 40" and weighs approximately 1.5kg.

Good luck and LOTS of fun!

Feel free to visit my virtual tip jar if you found this information great and helpful, thank you :)