Bagatell

April 20, 2007 - Sunday

My aunt died yesterday. Her name was Emma Lou, but she was always "Aunt Lou-Lou" to me. She was born in 1915, the oldest of my dad's 6 brothers and sisters. Her husband died before I was born and she had no children of her own but she kept me at her house from when I was about 4 years old when my parents were at work... I remember clearly being often at her house - at least until I entered my teenage years.

She loved to read and took me often to the library. I know my deep love for libraries is primarily because of her influence. She told me not too many years ago that she had taken to writing a small "E" in the front of books she checked out at the library, to keep track of what she had already read.

I remember sitting with her on the front steps of her house, watching the tiny ants carrying things back and forth to their ant hills. For an only child with no close neighbors it was a valuable lesson to learn how to find endless fascination in the details of the world around me.

She took me into the woods, searching for dragon's tongue ...

...which we carefully dug up and planted in terrariums. I planted a terrarium just last week.

She taught me to play solitaire with an actual deck of cards. And she kept a toothbrush at her house for me. She let me into her life and took care of me.

For the last few years, she was unable to live alone at home and had to be moved into a nursing home. Summer before last when I was there, I helped move her from one where she was profoundly unhappy to a different, hopefully better, one nearby. But for someone who has lived alone for more than 30 years, a nursing home is a terribly hard adjustment to make.

I feel like I didn't know her as well as I should have. Teenagers are always more interested in themselves than their aging aunts and when I moved away I can't say I visited her as much as I should have when I was in town.

But I owe a lot of who I am to my Aunt Lou-Lou. I hope she knew that.

(Picture by hansrwl.)

Posted at 5:48 pm |

April 6, 2007 - Sunday

Dansefeber!

It's time again for my great obsession! (This year they're calling it "So You Think You Can Dance - Scandinavia" but it will always be Dansefeber to me.)

Today (actually it was Thurday which WHY DID THEY HAVE TO CHANGE IT from Tuesday to Thursday!?? ARGH) was chosing finalists day and my favorites so far are...

Daniel - in the Swedish auditions, he came in looking like he just woke up. He was one of the ones you think "Å Gud, this is going to be embarassing" but then he just BLEW me away.
Emma - it kills me when they lose it completely on hearing they're in.
Junior - the lines! The elegance!
Andrea - such a cutie. And that sparkly orange costume she wore in her first auditions? Priceless!
Siv - 33 years old! (Does this mean there is still hope for me?)
Huyen - she hit it SO hard with her hip-hop in the auditions.
Mona - Mona was in last season's top 10, but hurt her knee during a dance. She really impressed me then with her versatility. Other wildly popular (OMGPONIES!!11!!) contestants in last season who got near the top (cough, Alexandra, cough) were not NEARLY as versatile. I remember Mona saying that she couldn't even try out this year, but apparently she was allowed. Yay!

In other - non-dancing related - news, I spent some time today cleaning up my how to, Red Sweater and Ribby cap) pages today, finally! Yay for no tables!

And in non-knitting related news, I'm taking a sewing class! Turning this...

hopefully into this.

Posted at 6:49 pm |

March 30, 2007 - Sunday

Let's see if I remember how to do this.

Some things I'm loving this week:

Integrity (alternative) motivational poster spotted at Design*Sponge.

Skipping Lillies flower pendants that Laura found at a market earlier in the week.

Megan's brilliant how-to-indicate-the-needle-size-in-the-actual-gauge-swatch idea, and the subsequent follow up for European needle sizes.

Etsylab's personalized dress form tutorial. (I'd seen this years ago, elsewhere, but have just enrolled in a sewing class!)

Another oldie-but-goodie... YarnStandards Standard Body Measurements. (Thanks Maryann!) Speaking of which I also love that a whole blog post has been written to me.

A very cool alternative for stash-busting. Found at Ask Metafilter.

These Very Terhi fingerless gloves. I especially love them turned into mittens.

The reindeer buttons on my recently finished Tudora...

How to sew zippers into bags at U-handblog.

And this little bag tutorial at Craftster. Look! Even I could follow it!

Posted at 8:49 pm |

November 25, 2007 - Sunday

Report from the fair

Well, there weren't quite as many yarn producers and spinners as I remember being there last time... maybe I didn't buy enough then? But still - there was so much to see and touch and buy and eat! One of the first booths we made a beeline for was Kartehuset.

I snapped up 75 grams of hand dyed merino/silk blend.

While Karine collected polystyrene feet.*

The very next booth was Ullform which had loads of felted things...

...and also silk hankies!

A little further on, there were mittens from Latvia!

Tiny blue nisse...

And VIKINGS! Helene's husband was here, but alas, she couldn't make it.

I also bought some food - Camenås cheese and marmalade from The Blind Cow. Yum!

And some brown cheese - which I apparently don't like unless it comes directly from a farm - and "troll meat" - which... tastes better than it sounds. :-)

*Also for felting.

Posted at 3:05 pm |

November 24, 2007 - Saturday

Lots o' finished stuff.

I finished my fourth February baby sweater, this time for little Marie who was just born to a lady I work with. The pattern is from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac.

This one was made with Silja sock yarn. I'm very glad Marie turned out to really be a girl. :-)

I also finally took pictures of Kate The Pig in preparation of finally getting her in the mail...

...and what was probably my oldest unfinished thing is (gasp!) finished!

This is the Tomten jacket from Knitting Without Tears. It's been lying around for at least 7 years - and I have NO idea what kind of yarn I used.

In celebration of all this finishing, I started a garter stitch blanket!

It is yet another Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern, this time from The Opinionated Knitter. After all, who could resist starting something that Jared has named Big Squishy Lovefest over at Ravelry?

And last but not least, I finished the nisse.

I wrote more about him over at The House of Wool Repute - a recently started group blog. If you haven't read Laura's "About" page, you really should.

And now! Now I'm off to a fair in Lillestrøm with Karine (who - by the way - nominated me as a way back in August! SHE's the one who rocks!) It is a truly mindbogglingly huge fair with arts, handcrafts, antiques, collectibles, home and leisure all rolled into one. We may be back next week some time!