Thursday treat

Hot chocolate with marshmallows and Arne&Carlos' new craft book, "Håndarbeid fra hagen", at Lykkelige dager

Tourist at home

Sometimes it's nice to be a tourist in your own town.

Today we visited Maihaugen.

Young girls in one of the old houses, making "hosoband".

Somebody had done crochet, too.

I love these old mountain farms!

And all the flowers!

Natural and artificial:

"Håndlaga 2011" Norwegian handmade championship

I'm participating, are you? You can, if you're a Norwegian crafter, that is. Click on the photo to see the blog.

Everybody can nominate, and you can nominate two items in each category, something you have made yourself, and something made by somebody else. All the items have to be published online, on a blog, on Epla ("Norwegian Etsy"), on Flickr, or somewhere else. You can read the rules here.

The organizers are Elisa Kolle from Lin & Papir and Unni Strand.

Thank you, ladies, this will be fun!

Here are my nominees:

(To nominate, you have to comment on the category on the "Håndlaga" blog, which I have done, I just thought I'd tell you about it here too.)

Category 1 - redesign

My "Birthday tunic" made for a friend last year. Read about it here.

I nominate the on of the dresses by Karin in 2jinter, MODELL: 2jK-023.







Category 2 - children

My Lullaby Love Blanket.

More photos on Flickr.

And to make sure I don't win this category, I nominate this blanket, by Pinneguri.




Category 3 - clothes

My Sparkle! cardigan, made last autumn. More photos here.

I also nominate a dress by Torill Vestad, from Cocoon Art, a local crafter, who makes the most wonderful dresses. (I'm the lucky owner of this one, btw...)



Category 4 - jewellery

I have made very little jewellery, but here is a necklace I made some years ago.

I also nominate this cute bird by Flowermouse Design

Category 5 - for your home

This is an old blanket I made 14 years ago, initially two baby blankets, later joined to cover an old chair.

And the competition is hard, look at this fantastic blanket by Solgrim, which is my other nominee in this category.

Category 6 - accesories

My Hippocampus mittens. More photos here.

Another pair of mittens, by "Knittnetty", Winterland.

Category 7 - picture

Not much to choose between there, here's the only picture I could find, made for a friend when she moved into a new appartment some years ago.

Have not decided on what else to nominate yet.

Category 8 - best craft blog

"You can nominate one item made by yourself, and one by someone else".

So, challenging the Jante Law, I nominate my blog.

And then I nominate a fellow knit blogger, Pinneguri, whit her blog "Med pinner".

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There is one jury in each category. There are already lots of nominations - I'm not sure the know what they've taken on yet. Have a look for yourself! And have a nice weekend, everyone!!

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Mystery mitten from Norway - not a mystery any longer!

My blogging friend Mary Lou has seen this mitten from Norway, and wonders if I know the pattern.
I remember having seen a pair of mittens like these, I just don't remember where.
Does anybody recognise the pattern?

Edited: No mystery - after 10 minutes I had the answer from Monstermønster: It's a pattern from the Museum's crafters at "Norsk Folkemuseum", you can see their mitten here. I've sent them an e-mail and asked if the pattern is available in English.

Happy new year 2011

Happy new year! Thanks to everyone who has visited my blog in 2010, and thanks for all you comments. Hope to see you again this year!
No crafty resolutions this year, as the ones from last year has not been fulfilled yet...
(Well, I believe I did make more mittens and less hats, and I've also tried out new things, but
apart from that, no...)

Mexican colour and craft - and Twist collective's two weeks sweater challenge

I've decided to join Twist collective's two weeks sweater challenge (ravelink). I'm not going to make a whole sweater, but I intend to finish this one. It's my version of Paper dolls (ravelink).


I wrote about the pattern and discussed the colours in an earlier post. Let's say I've been inspired by Mexican colours - I'll make the birds yellow on purple background, and use red and green for the rest of the pattern - at least that's what I think today.

And here some Mexican colour and craft to brighten up your day!!

Tapestry crochet

Small, bright, plastic thingies

I had never heard of stitch markers before I entered the knitting world on Internet. If I needed to mark stitches, I used contrast coloured scrap yarn. And was happy with that. But then I saw one beautiful stitch marker after the other, and became a little envious. It looked so simple and elegant - "place marker", in stead of looking for scrap yarn (that's not hard to find in my house, though..) Anyway, I finally have my own stitch markers! I first saw them on Tikru's blog. And then made my first Etsy purchase, from Succaplokki. I have considered it before, but most sellers are in the US, which means unreasonably high shipping cost for some small stitch markers. Buying from a neighbouring country like Finland is cheaper. And the markers are lovely.

When I was a kid, we also had these plastic beads. But I never saw those small spiky tables to make patterns on. I know I would have loved that! None of my boys have accepted my offers to teach them to knit or crochet, but they've done a lot of beading, so they must have inherited something..