Kate (who just has no idea how much I appreciate her) is really going to town with the
FFFA. I'm not sure I was
clear on Tuesday that everyone is welcome to join
the Fuzzy Feet Felt-Along on February 4th. (Hehe... I just noticed that even the date is an alliteration.)
But everyone is! (And lots of the folks who have signed up have blogs that are completely new to me! When did I get this far behind?? I'll answer that question later.)
Click on the banner on the
right for more info and to see who has already joined up!
The first ever Oslo "Stitch n' Bitch" happened this afternoon! Sissel, who has been spotted
felting with
Emma and wrote to me
after coming here, and I met and talked and knitted socks together in public for nearly 3 hours!
We even got some interest from a few young-ish people sitting near us! Perhaps because I was speaking English and she was answering me in Norwegian.
The next meeting will be February 15th at 1pm.
If you're near Oslo, email me for more information!
A package from Sue with a package of Minstrels (now mostly an empty package) and
Lady Cottingley's Pressed Fairy Book!
You can see a fairy that was blown onto into our window last night by the high winds sweeping through Norway here
and read the true story of the Cottingley girls here. Thank you soooo much, Sue!
I got a very nice compliment this morning (well, I thought it was nice) from lady at my local voksenopplæring office (that's adult learning). I went in
to talk about Norwegian classes to get me prepared to take a test in advanced Norwegian as a second language
and she had thought I was either a nurse from Sweden or Finland when I spoke to her on the phone Thursday. My husband doesn't consider that a compliment but understands that I do. ;O)
Louise, an American knitter living in France, was the 50,000th visitor! She reports that she's
fascinated by Norway (and has gone so far as to get herself a copy of Norvégien sans peine) but her man has caught on that their
trips to Scandanavia are just reconnoisance missions for yarn, so I'll be sending her some Norwegian yarn as a prize! :O)
In other frequent visitor news:: Wendy, a knitter and spinner who also happens to be learning Norwegian has gotten
her own weblog! Go visit! I had that url wrong, but it's fixed now.
The 50,000th visitor was one from France and came by at 4:25pm. If you think that might be you, email me
with some sort of verification (like your operating system or browser type - which I can check by looking at the sitemeter) and I'll send you a prize! ;O)
As some of you may know, I'm starting to actively look for work. (Gasp.) I know there's at least some people who visit this site who
are in Norway... do any of you know of a job for a experienced nurse / knitter, nearly fluent in Norwegian and
waiting for her nursing license to be recognized by the Norwegian authorities? Honestly, the experiences I had working as a nurse would lend
themselves to soooo many professions...
...I'm supposing this is a long shot, but it can't hurt. ;O)
Stacey noticed the Burt's Beeswax LipBalm
in my Altoids container. I don't know why I haven't mentioned my love for
Burt's Bees before! Their Hand Salve is marvelous
too. These
are in the top 5 of things I must stock up on when I visit
Asheville. I can't think of what the other things are at the
moment.
But
speaking of Asheville, Earth Guild is close enough to several relatives to enable me to get spinning supplies there. These being my
choices, what do you spinners out there recommend for beginners?
It's been well over a year ago that I started the "Country Socks" pattern from Folk Socks.
I ran out of Charcoal for the second one before I should have, got frustrated and buried them with my stash.
I pulled them out a few days ago, ripped out the finished sock's toe ...then ripped out the toe a few more times, but I won't go into that... wound up
starting the Natural sooner and Voila!
Closeup of the ribbing...
I think they were made with the recommended Brown Sheep's Nature Spun 3 ply sport in Natural and Charcoal, but it's been so long now that
I don't remember. Mmmm... warm feet.
For you Norwegian speakers (and even not... the pictures are worth seeing) :: Hvor seig er egentlig en seigmann?
Seigmenn and Seigdamer are a type of candy. Think extra-sweet (yet not quite as chewy) Gummi Bears rolled in sugar. If you don't want to see little mushy people being tortured, don't go here.
Okay. Not a flu bug, after all. Rather a nice adverse reaction to antibiotic ::
lovely decorative spots on my arms and legs with a good bit of joint pain thrown in just for fun.
Just in case I forget later, here's a Norwegian recipe for
tiramisu from Tine. Må ha det, bare må ha det. Okay, that probably didn't make sense.
Click here to see a Norwegian milk commercial.
I bought some lady fingers a couple of
weeks ago and want to use them for something good. Oh, and I'm going to try to make this coffee liqueur.
I realize I'm rambling. I think I'll go back to the sofa and knit some more...
The emails flew between here and Chicago last night making the ripping out of hours of work seem fun. Especially since the marvelous
Bonnie Marie sent me pictures of her efforts complete with high action shots of her ball winder, swift, and some marvelous fuzzy blue slippers, all of
which I now have on my wish list. I had some unused skeins remaining, so I treated myself to starting on a ribby cardie
which is coming along quite nicely.
...the hooded baby sweater was finished on Friday and the kids and I agree it is by far the cutest thing ever to come
off my needles. (Check it out :: Jenanne just finished one, too! )
Some time ago I did a trade with Wendy :: her (gorgeous) Virgin sweater Gjestal
yarn for some lovely Charcoal Mission Falls 1824 Wool.
I made 3/4 of the Burma Rings pattern from the Winter 00/01 Interweave magazine
before I finally accepted that it was coming out waaaay too big.
The ever wonderful Bonnie Marie volunteered to go to the frog pond with me soooo...
here we go!
I started this last night and all
that's left is the hood and sewing up! Talk about
satisfying...
It's from a Knit List pattern called Fran's Hooded Baby Sweater and
I've used Sirdar Denim Chunky (only most of 1 skein so far) and 6.5mm needles and it's
for a cousin's baby due in March. I'm thinking of making some buttons out of polymer clay. Won't it be cute? Almost as cute
as Kristi's bigger bulky baby bibby.
First of all I want to say a huge Thank You! to Kate
who did indeed wake up and was instrumental in helping me figure out
what I was doing wrong on the spinning front. It's still slooooow going, but I've been practicing with the
wheel Dad made and
my Louet bottom whorl drop spindle. My results so far
are what could only be called, if you were in a kind sort of mood, "novelty" yarn. But I'm on my way.
In other news, we finally took the tree down last night.
Remind me to buy a tree from a tree farm next year... we thought this year would be better since we got it
from the nursery rather than the guy selling trees on the roadside who said "Yes, it's from Denmark, but it's not like
you're going to be making conversation with it..."
I grabbed some yarn and needles while flying out the door a few days ago and started these socks (I did the
figure 8 cast on from memory!)
with some of the leftovers from Theresa's cardi
which, incidentally, I finally managed to fix. I wound up just tightening the top rather than trying to add a collar. The neck was (surprisingly for me) too big. Now all I need to
do is sew in the zipper and she'll finally be able to wear it! I think I'll go do that now...
While waiting for Kate to wake up and feed her children and respond to my whiny email saying I can't figure
out how to use my wheel (actually it's drafting that's eluding me) I found these links and thought I'd
share ::
I stumbled across this Finnish site today and really
like the way she's got her knit and crochet projects grouped together with other similar projects. And I just
love the scruffy teddy bear!
Today is our one year wedding anniversary! Six months each. ;o)
I got a package in the mail day before yesterday from a friend I used to work with containing 2 skeins of Lion Brand's Homespun and started on
a pillow cover in order to have a mindless something for working on while watching Swedish movies. (I don't understand Swedish well enough to
watch without reading the Norwegian subtitles at the same time.) It was Hamilton we watched,
a movie based on a character by Jan Guillou and starring Peter Stormare. I didn't know he was
Swedish. The movie was quite good! This Hamilton fellow is
apparently the Swedish James Bond. And his girlfriend has on the most amazing
cabled sweater when she gets kidnapped by the Russian fellow near the end. (Oh, come on, you knew she would get kidnapped!) At any rate, I thought I'd share the pattern, such as it is:
Very Easy Free! Pillow Pattern ::
Cast on 70 stitches (loosely) with US 8-9 /5-6mm needles. I'm knitting this on 60cm circulars... what is that? 24 inch? Something like that... Gauge is sooo unimportant here,
especially if you're going to make the stuffing for the pillow. Like I am. Probably.
Work in seed stitch for 4 rows ::
Row 1: *k1, p1* across row
Row 2: *p1, k1* across row
Repeat rows 1 and 2 one more time.
From here, work a seed stitch border on the first and last 4 stitches in the row and stockingette stitch for the "body" of the pillow.
Row 1 (RS row): *k1, p1* x 2, k62, *k1, p1* x 2.
Row 2: *p1, k1* x 2, p62, *p1, k1*
x 2.
That's where I am right now. The plan
is to get to the top, do 4 more rows of seed stitch and then bind off. Then... hmm... I'm thinking I'll pick up along the edge just inside the seed stitch border,
and if I can figure out how to do it pick up a stitch along the edge as I go up and knit it together with a stitch on the needle. Does that make sense? Would that work? Or, alternatively,
just sew the crazy thing together once I'm through knitting the back bit.
Happy New Year, Everyone! Once again, the fireworks going off on New Year's Eve in our neighborhood alone were unbelievable. Fireworks
are only sold here between Christmas and New Year's Eve and they're not wimpy fireworks either. It's like the 4th of July but in a 360 degree kind of way.
Mom and Dad arrived safely last night back home. Dad did finish my spinning wheel while he was here and I have
used it a bit... but I need lots more practice...
I didn't finish his sweater while they were here, unfortunately, but that's okay. I've been working on it the last couple of days and
also quilting a bit. I'm no experienced quilter, but I'm practicing and watching the stitches get more consistent. I'm also in the planning stages
of a Knitty submission with the ever-lovely Amy, but I won't be talking about it.
And lastly, but not in any way leastly, it's Izzy's Mommy's birthday today!
This is a weblog. It's mine. It tends to be about knitting
with occasional ramblings about my experience living in Norway.
(Sometimes it's the other way 'round.) Want to know more? Read
this! :O)
The 50,000th visitor was one from France and came by at 4:25pm. If you think that might be you, email me
with some sort of verification (like your operating system or browser type - which I can check by looking at the sitemeter) and I'll send you a prize! ;O)
I've spun a strawberry!
