about:turning the season

we're off for a week to hunt down the summer that left us in a puddle of rain water. i've got the sun hat... and i'm working on my - uhm - err - what?!?!
... a needlebinding hat for charlotte. i might be 'interesting', but i'm not crazy! see you in a weeks time, with 'about: raising the dead'!

hilarious, but scary

in these health hysteria times...
i came across this in the news a couple of days ago:

the us newspaper investor's business daily has declared that the world renowned theoretical physicist stephen hawking, who suffers from ALS, would be dead if he was british and under british health care system.
they kind of missed the fact that he is british - and still very much alive.

krohnegården

forgotten post from earlier this summer. or should i say; forgotten post from the summer. now it's been raining for a month and fall is already here. we're planning to do something about that, though.

digging for earthnuts. on our first 'date' (we don't really 'date' in norway), my husband and i went for a mountain hike and he showed me how to find earthnuts in this very field.

we took our kids back to the lake we used to live nearby when our son was born. i don't think i've ever walked around this lake without at least one of our two dogs accompanying, and our cat following behind us. it was a bit sentimental to be there, since they're all dead from old age now. we plan to do something about that, too.

hm, raise the dead, turn the season?

to be continued....

viking summer, part 7: stalheim/the royal mail road

just below the stalheim path lies a beautiful piece of the old royal mail road between oslo and bergen. water fall, mist, steep green mountain sides and ice cold river.

(oh, and just in case you didn't get it: the you tube clip is ironic, and the accent is on purpose. and this will be my last viking post) :)

this is norway

maybe this won't be as funny for the non norwegians of you, but still... i just had to share it :)

viking summer, part 6: stalheim

just a little outside of gudvangen there is this spectacular place: stalheimskleiva.

at the top of this extremely steep path there is a folk museum (above), and a big hotel. the hotel was first built as a prolongation (right word?) of a small inn. the inn was a stop on the royal mail road between bergen and oslo, and was in turn a prolongation of a farmhouse. the mail road was opened in 1647, the inn was built in 1750, and the first hotel was built in 1885. then it burned. 3 times. the photo below shows the third and, in my opinion, the most beautiful of the four hotels.

skiing activities during winter
biking was a popular sport in the 1800's. some time in 1889 these guys were out exercising. impressive. but the most impressive fact? well, look at them; they got there wearing suits.

viking summer, part 5: composition

achievements

i met the multi talented helene in gudvangen, and she taught me how to make holes for thumbs in my needlebound wristwarmers (make sure to check out helenes incredibly beautiful printed sheepskins here). so now i can finally make those long (and sometimes quite ladylike looking) warmers. these are made with yarn dyed with cochineal, a small louse originally from mexico. that's right; this kind of dried up lice makes red and purple colours!

i didn't get one single good shot of our stall at the market, but i just have to show you my bottles of elderflower syrup - homemade label and all, but i thought it looked quite pro!

kindness

when my grandmother died a couple of years ago, i chose some of her old breakfast plates to keep. i like retro plates, and i used them a lot. but this particular plate broke (a triangular piece down to the left, see it?) i tried to glue it, but it broke off again. still, i wouldn't throw it away. then i remembered having seen this norwegian blog and webshop of a woman who makes jewellery out of broken ceramics. it was perfect; someone else could use it and i didn't have to throw it out. i contacted her and sent the plate off in the mail (and i didn't even have to worry about it breaking during transport, ha).

this was a couple of months ago. yesterday, a small package was in my mailbox.

she had made a pendant for me out of the plate, as a thank you gift. isn't that wonderful?? imagine; an old, broken plate. from my grandmother's kitchen.

thank you, mimmi!

viking summer, part 4: craft

this year, i sold every piece of childrens linen clothing i had brought. i sold wristwarmers made in the needle binding technique, using plant dyed yarn. i sold every bottle of homemade elderflower syrup i had made, and the first day i even persuaded my kids to walk around the marketplace and sell pre made elderflower lemonade in small glasses. it was a hit. i also sold several of my felted pouches. new this year was hand stitched, embroidered linen napkins like the ones you see in the above pictures. the motives are bronze age rock carvings, embroidered with plant dyed linen thread.

my friend, the bone carver

from around the market:

we both came home with one of these each.

salt smoked with juniper.
leather work

needle binding - hats, wristwarmers, socks. needle binding was the technique used before knitting and crochet was invented. even though i would say it's almost impossible to learn without having anoyone to show you, randi - a norwegian woman living in the u.s. - proved me wrong. she visited gudvangen last summer, was intrigued by the technique, and when she came back this year she told us that she had tought herself from various tutorials on the internet. i'm impressed!