Oslo

I have been wandering a little of late. Olso, London, Edinburgh. Let's start with Oslo.

I was there for a work meeting, arrived on a Tuesday evening to find out that Justin Bieber was playing in Oslo the 3 nights I was there. I had wondered why the hotels were so expensive.....they were full of teenage girls and their mums. Teenage girls who all seemed to be blond, wearing skinny jeans and hoodies that said I Love Justin Bieber. Oh well, I guess somebody must.....

I had to laugh when the girl at the hotel checking me in said "please tell me you are not here to see Justin Bieber?" 

Oslo is a city that is growing and developing. I was last there in 2007 and the difference along the waterfront is quite spectacular....new architecture everywhere. The amazing opera house designed by Snohetta, the new Astrup Fearnley Museum designed by Renzo Piano and the Barcode by Lund Hagem architects.....check out this article by Arch Daily for more information.

Astrup Fearnley Museum

Barcode

Opera House 

Astrup Fearnley

Of course there is also old architecture and art....try the Frogner Park, the largest single artist sculpture park in the world, with 200 pieces by Norwegian artist, Gustav Vigeland. It is a beautiful place to wander, the statues are all of people taking part in various pursuits: running, hugging whilst others are more abstract, such as the central pillar. The park is one of the most visited attractions in Oslo.

The main sculpture area

The park gates

I didn't visit any other museums this trip as I visited almost all the museums on Oslo in 2007, when it rained and rained on my visit - the Fram Museum, where Amundsen's Polar ship is; the Kon Tiki Museum where Thor Heyerdal's reed raft is housed, his adventures amazed me as a child; the amazing Viking Ship Museum - do you see the ship theme here?

One of our meetings was held in Oslo's new foodhall called Mathallen which has a number of shop/cafes and we had a lovely tapas style lunch there. 

Mathallen is built in an area of the city that is now called Vulkan, a neighbourhood for creative businesses to the north of the city centre, in a once industrial area and the foodhall sits nicely inside an old building which was built in 1903. 

We also had dinner with the mayor in City Hall and a guided tour of this building where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded each year. Construction started in 1931 but was not completed until after World War 2. The building is representative of Norway's history and full of murals painted by Norwegian artists. 

Oslo City Hall

I also got to meet the lovely Anne-Marie from Life in Yonder! So nice to meet "blog friends" and realise that if we did live in the same city we may very well be "real life friends". If you haven't been to Anne- Marie's blog pop over and say hello! Thank you again for taking time out to meet me Anne Marie!

Weekend Wanderings

It was a weekend of wanderings - out to tea with friends on Friday followed by a National Trust day out at Falkland Palace where we were finishing the footpath that we started 2 weeks ago....

We are helping to construct a wheelchair/pushchair friendly path leading to a small secluded area overlooking the burn. This involved laying a wooden border held together with posts, packing the path with gravel and after it has been compacted, covering it with bark chippings. 

This is at the end of the path where the bench will be installed, but we had to lay some concrete blocks (which will be covered) to even out the ground and raise it. Behind the concrete blocks is my crazy paving from the fortnight before, when I spent an hour smashing up 2 large pieces of limestone with a sledge hammer to create some additional underlay for the path. 

We also got to explore the orchard and see all the bulbs (all 7000 of them) that we planted last autumn coming into flower.... the crocus were amazing...

The latest willow sculpture is 7 feet tall and stunning....this weekend I will be back at Falkland for a willow weaving project, creating a 10m long tunnel.....we were soaking the willow in the garden ponds for use this weekend.

The weather was glorious, the work industrious and the company great. Another fun day out with the National Trust Conservation volunteers.

Chewbacca! My first sewing machine Softie.

The sewing machine has made it's second item in as many weeks after sitting in its box, untouched and unloved for 2 years. Now I am finding that it's a lot of fun, or maybe I've just been making some fun projects.

This weekend I was making a Chewbacca softie. My friend is a huge Star Wars fan and she has a baby on the way so when I saw this pattern over at Draw Pilgrim I couldn't resist. I had to get my friend Laurence to order it for me as I was in the midst of a PayPal incident and couldn't use it - thanks Laurence!

I ordered the brown needlecord from PlushAddict here in the UK, but it is Robert Kaufman cotton corduroy. I couldn't fault PlushAddict. It was the first time I had ever used them, the fabric was ordered at 2pm on Thursday and arrived on Friday morning. I think I may have to order some more camel coloured needlecord.

Here's the first incarnation of Chewie awaiting his stuffing. I used felt to make the facial features as I wanted it to be very safe for a baby. But the first incarnation had some arm issues (i.e. I had failed to sew enough of a seam) so I decided that I needed to make a second Chewie for the baby.

Here's No. 1 finished and No. 2 underway.

No. 1 on his own.

No. 2 finished with his ammunition belt in place. I made the belt using felt (the pattern suggests black ribbon with silver tape stuck on, but I didn't have any ribbon or silver tape) and stitched on small squares of grey felt.

I think it is just as well that I had enough fabric to make 2 as I think I might find it quite hard to give Chewie away.

I have found a few other Chewies online. Behind the Hedgerow made a furry one and Parrish Platz has the wookie, Princess Leia and R2D2....

Edinburgh Yarn Festival 2013

Took a little trip to Edinburgh on Saturday after Twist Fibre Craft Knitting Group to go to the first Edinburgh Yarn Festival. We spent a very happy hour or so browsing the stalls at Out of the Blue and making a few little purchases here and there. 

Out of the Blue is an art space in a converted drill hall (a space where soldiers used to to practice and perform military drill, often built by public subscription to support local volunteer forces that were first initiated in the UK in the 1850s.)

The modern version of this Drill Hall, Out of the Blue has "from its inception Out of the Blue’s mission has been to provide opportunities for artists and other people who face barriers to creativity, to meet, work, participate, enjoy themselves, learn and develop skills and knowledge." (Out of the Blue website). With lots of little studios and a great cafe this is a place where creativity can thrive. And on Saturday, at the Edinburgh Wool Festival, it was certainly thriving, and thronging.....over 1400 woollie fans visited the event and were rewarded with a beautiful selection of yarns, fibres, patterns and buttons, alongside a range of classes - oh and cake!

I had one thing I was going to allow myself to buy, which was some black yarn to knit another Little Things hat.  I managed to find the perfect yarn from Lioness Arts  in a ball of her fingering weight, hand-dyed Merino Singles in Silhouette. It has a lovely blue black sheen to it and will go perfectly with most of my coats. But I also visited the Shilasdair stall and bought 2 skeins of their 4-ply yarn, hand-dyed at the end of the world.....this may well turn into hats for Christmas gifts.  I chose foxglove and spring forest - beautiful hues, with lovely variation.

Here's my original Little Things hat, knitted using Shilasdair in Blaeberry (Scottish blueberries).  The yarn is spun in Selkirk in the Scottish borders and is made up of 10% cashmere, 10% baby camel, 40% angora and 40% merino lambswool is so soft and cosy - making for perfect hats!

After our woollie wanderings we wandered off to Leith, the port area of Edinburgh that has become one of the places to go out and eat, with lots of great restaurants. We went to the Rose Leaf, which from the outside looks like a typical pub, but on the inside, particularly on Saturday afternoons it becomes the epitome of a girly pub.....with most of the tables being taken up by groups of girls out for afternoon tea, but afternoon tea with a twist. Afternoon tea full of cakes and cocktails....with the cocktails being served in teapots and the cocktails drunk from tea cups.

Notwithstanding afternoon tea, the pub serves some pretty amazing food, a wide range of teas, sourced by Anteaques in Edinburgh (which I discovered today is owned by the friend of a friend) and some great visiting beers. Propped on our stools at the bar, we all chose the pulled pork, served on swedish flatbreads with amazing handcut chips and we weren't disappointed. I think I can safely say that we were all deliciously full after our meal. (thanks Laurence for the photo!)

So if you're ever in Edinburgh and fancy somewhere cool and quirky but with the feeling of a traditional pub (and all the beers to go with it) then pop down to the Rose Leaf for a little bit of individuality.

75th Wedding Anniversary

Today would have been my grandparents 75th wedding anniversary and as I promised in my earlier post about the dress and its origins, here is a picture of me wearing my grandmother's wedding dress before showing it off at a wedding dress through the ages fund-raising event.

The event was held in a local church where dresses from 1881 to 2011 were being modelled. The dress from 1881 was being worn by the great-great grand-daughter of the bride, whilst I like others was wearing my grandmothers and others were wearing their mother's dress. The dress from 1882 was so tiny that a 12 year old had to model it. It was really interesting to see how dresses have changed over the years, from colour to style. There was even a trouser suit from the 1970s.

This is me in my grandmother's wedding dress, veil and all. It's not the best photo because I had to use the self-timer to take it - sorry!

This is the top of the head-dress. The veil was attached to a silver tiara style head-dress and was decorated with silver Belgian embroidery.....truly beautiful.

Now the dress is back in it's original box, but really could do with some love and attention, or conservation....it has a hole under the arm and the veil is so delicate that the net rips very easily. 

Scrappy iPad Cover

I got out my sewing machine for the first time ever this weekend, inspired by the Scrappy iPad cover over on My Poppet, my pile of woolly scraps and my new mini iPad.

My mum gave me the sewing machine as a house warming present and it's sad to say that this was the first time it has seen use.

Here's the pile of squares before I started - some upcycled jumpers, some knit to felt lopi squares and some handmade felt. Next time I will not use the lopi or the handmade felt, they don't hold together so well.

The pieces laid out ready to be stitched together, using the zig-zag stitch. With the edges straightened the rows of squares were stitched together to create one piece which was folded in half and stitched together.

The finished cover with the button and closing flap attached.

The finished cover and lining. It did take me a while to work out how to insert the lining so I read a few tutorials online and finally worked out how to turn it all inside out and the right way round. 

http://mypoppet.com.au/2011/05/how-to-scrappy-felt-ipad-cover.html

Family Wanderings - my parents postcards from 1960s Norway

This post is really for all my Norwegian friends. My parents travelled to western Norway to go hiking in the early 1960s (1960 and 1962) and they have some marvellous stories to tell, from Bergen and beyond. They enjoyed it so much that they returned to Norway for their honeymoon in 1964 spending time in Oslo and on Oslo Fjord.

When I was home recently, in the box of family memorabilia I found postcards that they had bought on their travels along with the postcard my dad sent my grandfather from their honeymoon. This is their postcard from Stavern, a small town with about 3000 people that was home to a Norwegian naval base, where tourism plays a key role with the population swelling to 30,000 or more in the summer. If you look closely at the large white building on the waterfront, the Hotel Wassilioff, they drew a circle around their room (top left). 

The hotel is still there, if you look for Stavern on Google Maps you will see the Hotel Wassilioff still marked. It looks like a lovely hotel from the website.

My parents earlier trip to Norway took them to Bergen and hiking nearby. Here are some of the postcards that they bought on that trip. The first 2 postcards are of Bergen and the final one of the Flam Railway, one of the most scenic rail routes in the world.

Bergen 1960s

Bergen Waterfront 1960s

Overlooking the Flam Railway

Mittens Finished

I have finished the mittens by adding an i-cord so that they can't get lost and they have been delivered to their intended recipient. I have to thank Gail for knitting the i-cord for me....I think that little T liked them.

Pattern: Ravelry: Goldfish Mittens by Amy Christoffer

Family History, Scottish History, 1930s wedding...

I was home this past weekend and had some fun with my parents reminiscing about the past. This all came about because one of my aunts (well my dad's cousin's wife) is organising  a Wedding Dress through the Ages show to raise money for their local church and my mum happened to mention that she had her mother's wedding dress in the attic.

Next thing I know I have promised to model it for the show (if I fit in it of course) and so there I was on Saturday afternoon in a 1938 wedding dress.

My grandparents on their wedding day, 17th March 1938.

My grandmother bought the dress in a famous department store on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow, called Pettigrew and Stephens, the store opened in 1888 and by 1914 it was the largest department store in Scotland. The company was bought by House of Fraser in 1955.

Image: Archgeek

The building was designed by Honeyman & Keppie, with it's dome designed by one of their associate architects, who was to become one of Scotland's most famous architects, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. It really does look like a stunning building but like so much of our history the building was demolished in 1969.

Here's the, original box my grandma's wedding dress is in. I love that the telegram address is "Everything Glasgow".

It's a slinky number made of stretchy fabric with beautiful metallic patterning, a belt that goes around just below the bust and a long long train made of net, with silver embroidery all around the edges and attached to a silver headband.

The dress now has short sleeves, we think my grandmother had it adapted after her wedding so she could wear it again.

If I get a decent picture of me wearing the dress then I will try to post it here - on what would have been my grandparents 75th wedding anniversary.

Goldfish Mittens

I've managed a little knitting of late.....it's been the sort of weather for curling up at home....

I have loved this pattern by Amy Christoffers via Ravelry for a while and finally got round to knitting it - Goldfish Mittens. They're made with 4 ply and 3mm needles. I had the orange in my stash but had to buy the yellow. There should hopefully be enough yarn left to knit another pair.

The cuff was a little confusing at first but easy once you understood the pattern. Of course there is no quality control in my mittens, so the second one was, as usual, slightly larger.....

A friend forgot to bring her knitting to knitting group the other week so kindly knitted up an i-cord for these mittens - in the yellow - which I still need to attach. I'll post another photo once I have.