Weekending :: Enough with the snow now, please!

It's been a long weekend here as the Easter holidays start Wednesday afternoon before Maundy Thursday, and end on Tuesday morning after Easter Monday. This makes for a nice long Easter weekend in Norway!
And as you might know, Easter here in Norway is all about skiing, hiking, soaking up sun and read/watch crime mysteries.
Well, there haven't been any skiing and no sun, but a lot of snow and plenty of time for reading my mystery books...
This last week we have been out shoveling snow almost every day.
We have over a meter of snow no...Fun for the kids as they can dig snowcaves, but I, who had hopes for an early spring, just *sighs*...
Today we had to shovel the roofs because it's going to rain next week.
The kids was not hard to ask as they normally are not allowed to walk on the roofs ;) 
Despite all the snow we have had a great weekend after all with
Eastereggs filled with candy (trying to ignore the kids high on sugar...)
Cake
Hubby and I finally got the time to catch up on season two of Game of Thrones, so now we are ready to start watching the third season
Easter Bunny rolls for breakfast
Knitting
Påskeliljer
A lot of wet mittens, hats and outdoor clothes due to playing in the snow
And as usual, Endre is awake early when he knows he doesn't have to go to school... He's been up 6 am every morning. Just in time to watch Scooby Doo ;)

How's your weekend been?
Joining Amanda for Weekending.

Wordless Wednesday :: Outdoor Waffles

Waffles without eggs - recipe here

Wordless Wednesday

On the needles :: Ashton, Marius and stripy socks

Keep Calm Craft On :: WIP Wednesday :: Yarn Along

Reading: In Norway we read a lot of mystery/crime books during Easter, so I put away The House at Riverton and found a couple of mystery books in my shelf :) Kadaverdoktoren (Madeleine Karno, #1)
by Lene Kaaberbøl and The Sweetnes at the Bottom of the Pie (Flavia de Luce #1) by Alan Bradley. Loving both so far :)

Knitting: My plans to finish the onesie before I started something new didn't happend.. I desided to knit the onesie with a round yoke instead of set in sleeves, but had to borrow a pattern from my mom to do it. So in the meantime I casted on Ashton and started a pair of stripy socks.

What are you reading and knitting?

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? #3

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is a meme hosted by Book Journey.
Each week we spotlight the books we are reading, planning on reading or just finished reading.

I've put aside the books I was reading last week and picked up a couple of mystery/crime books to read this week. A quite peculiar national trait in Norway is solving crimes during Easter. Publishers churn out series of books known as "Easter-Thrillers" or Påskekrimmen. Even the milk cartons change to have murder stories on their sides ;)

This is the first adult novel Lene Kaaberbøl has written alone, and I am looking forward to it as I really liked here young adult fantasy series The Shamer Chronicles. She has also written a series of mystery/crime books together with Agnete Friis which I have to check out someday.

"A priest watches over the body of a young woman, without noticing that tiny mites crawl out of her nostrils. The year is 1894, the place a large provincial town in France, and Albert Karno, better known as carrion doctor, to determine the cause of death. But the woman's family refuses to autopsy the body.

Aided by his 20-year-old daughter Madeleine, and his close friend and collaborator Clerk, Albert Karno trying to understand death to help the living. Together the three follow a deadly tracks through a disturbing and dramatic history, future scientific advances set up against forces that are as old as man - or even older. For where is the human ends and the animal begins?"

I have so high  expectations for The Sweetnes at the Bottom of the Pie (Flavia de Luce #1) by Alan Bradley,  that I hope I won't be dissapointed...

" Flavia de Luce 11 is an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. In the summer of 1950, a series of inexplicable events strikes her home, Buckshaw, a decaying English mansion. A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath. For Flavia, both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw.

I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn't. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.

To Flavia the investigation is the stuff of science: full of possibilities, contradictions, and connections. Soon her father, a man raising his three daughters alone, is jailed for murder. He tells Flavia an astounding story of a schoolboy friendship turned ugly, a stolen priceless object, and a Latin teacher who flung himself to his death from the school tower thirty years before. Flavia ties tie two distant deaths together, examines new suspects, and follows the search to the King of England himself."

Weekending :: The start of Easter

Easter break started for the kids and hubby on Friday afternoon
and they will not go back to school and work until April the 2nd.
So we can sleep a little longer, stay up a little later and hopefully spend a lot of time outdoors :)
We went skiing on Saturday.
The sun came out for a few hours, but since then it's been snowing and snowing.
Homemade pizza.
I stayed up late and watched the last episodes in the 5th series of True Blood.
And I must say I am so disappointed - what happend to this series?
I really liked the books, but there is little left from the books in the series...
I felt the need for a new project, so I unwinded some yarn and casted on a shawl.
We ate dinner with my mom and my siblings today.
We brought home a "new" kitchen table and chairs :)
The easter decorations has been brought up from the basement, 
but still sits in the box. I'll get the kids to decorate tomorrow.
I haven't had time to knit today, so I'm going to curl up on the sofa and knit a few rows on the shawl.

How's your weekend been?
Joining Amanda for Weekending.

On the needles :: Marius onesie

Keep Calm Craft On :: WIP Wednesday :: Yarn Along

Thank you for all your nice comments on my mittens yesterday :)

We are having a beautiful sunny, but windy weather and I'd love to be out walking. But I am working my way through my second day with migraine... So instead of walking or knitting, it has been a few hours of sleeping on the couch. Hopefully I will manage to get it out of the system today.  

Knitting: After finishing a few small projects, I've picked up the Marius onesie, (jumpsuit, onepiece or what ever you like to call it) and will try to finish it before I cast on something new. I am about to start the pattern which is the fun part :)

Reading: Started The House at Riverton the other day and so far I love it!

What are you reading and knitting?

FO :: Two pairs of mittens

I've made mittens for Eirin and me :)
The orange is mine. They are the same size, but they are very stretchy.

Pattern: Rillestrikka votter
Yarn: Purple pair - 76 g Østlandsgarn and Mor Aase superwash
          Orange pair - 80 g Mor Aase superwash and Smart
Needles: 3,5 and 4 mm
Size: Teen/Women  36/38 stitches
Modifications: On the orange pair I knitted the cuff in the round
Started: 7 March 2013
Completed: 19 March 2013

Do you see the mistake I made?
I didn't see it until I was seaming it together... But a missing stripe is not the worst though.

The seaming turned out pretty good too :)

It's Monday! What are you reading? #2

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is a meme hosted by Book Journey.

Each week we spotlight the books we are reading, planning on reading or just finished reading.

I forgot to post last Monday, but that's ok as the books would have been the same as the first post...
I have finished both A Clash of Kings and Dissolution. And I loved both!

I've had The House At Riverton  by Kate Morton in my shelf for years. I have set a goal of reading 13 books with 500 or more pages this year, so this just had to be one of them :)
I have just read a few pages so I can't tell you how I like it yet. But as it is a mystery and part historical it just has to be good, right?!

"Summer 1924
On the eve of a glittering society party, by the lake of a grand English country house, a young poet takes his life. The only witnesses, sisters Hannah and Emmeline Hartford, will never speak to each other again.

Winter 1999
Grace Bradley, ninety-eight, one-time housemaid of Riverton Manor, is visited by a young director making a film about the poet's suicide. Ghosts awaken and old memories - long consigned to the dark reaches of Grace's mind - begin to sneak back through the cracks. A shocking secret threatens to emerge, something history has forgotten but Grace never could.
Set as the war-shattered Edwardian summer surrenders to the decadent twenties, The House at Riverton is a thrilling mystery and a compelling love story."

 I found the first book The Siren in The Original Sinners series by Tiffany Reisz at the local grocery store earlier this year (yes, they sell a lot of pocket books in norwegian grocery stores ;)) and since it is not Fifty shades of grey, (which everyone seems to be reading), I found out I should give it a try.
I've read a third of the book and so far it's ok.

"Notorious Nora Sutherlin is famous for her delicious works of erotica, each one more popular with readers than the last. But her latest manuscript is different—more serious, more personal—and she's sure it'll be her breakout book...if it ever sees the light of day.
Zachary Easton holds Nora's fate in his well-manicured hands. The demanding British editor agrees to handle the book on one condition: he wants complete control. Nora must rewrite the entire novel to his exacting standards—in six weeks—or it's no deal.
Nora's grueling writing sessions with Zach are draining…and shockingly arousing. And a dangerous former lover has her wondering which is more torturous—staying away from him...or returning to his bed?
Nora thought she knew everything about being pushed to your limits. But in a world where passion is pain, nothing is ever that simple."

And as Endre still likes me to read him a bedtime story, we have started this. We are reading the norwegian book though ;) It's the second time I read it for him and we both like these small animal stories and the illustrations are great as well :)

Containing stories from well-known authors such as Rudyard Kipling and Aesop as well as traditional tales from around the world including fighting crabs, gigantic frogs and a polar bear's search for home, all kinds of children are sure to find a story that they will enjoy.

FO :: Seat pads

I've been knitting seat pads to felt for the kids on and off between other projects, and had the last one finished this weekend. Just in time to keep them warm while frying sausages in bad weather on Sunday :)

Pattern: None, ca. 63 st and a little over 100 rows.
Yarn: Nissegarn and Classic Wool Merino
Needles: 6 mm

The one knitted in Classic Wool Merino was slightly smaller than the other two after felting since the yarn was a little thinner.

Weekending :: Snowy

It's been a very snowy weekend.
We had a snow storm on Thursday night, so on Friday we woke up to 20-25 cm of fresh snow and snowdrifts.
Endre had a skitrip on school on Friday and it was one that was happy, tired and had snow in every possible place when he got home.
And as the sun peeped out in the afternoon it was time to get dressed and go out to play more in the snow :)
Great to get in and have homemade pizza for supper.
There's been some stripy knitting.
We woke up to another 10 cm of snow on Saturday.
So more shoveling.
I've made crispbread enough to last a week.
The birds been fed.
The skies and snoeshoes has been used alot :)
There's been chicken curry.
A bottle of wine.
Started to watch season two of a Game of Thrones and the first episode of the new series Vikings.
Sunday came with more snow which meant more shoveling...
We made a bonfire and fried sausages and drank hot cocoa.
And as always there has been piles of laundry, dishes, kids arguing, Endre getting up way too early in the morning as he usually does in the weekends.
I think he was awake at 5.10 today... But on school days I have to drag him out of bed at 6.30...
Now I am just going to read some blogs, see if I find some inspiration on Ravelry and just relax as I know I have to shovel more snow tomorrow as big flakes are falling outside right now...

For more outdoor photos visit our blog Ute :: Outdoors :)

How's your weekend been?
Joining Amanda for Weekending.

{this moment}

Joining Amanda for {this moment}

FO :: Kari Traa hat

Kari Traa is a norwegian mogul skier who has her own clothes collection. A few years ago this type of hat was in her collection and a lot of knitters copied it. Now it seems like this hat is popular again, so I had to make one for Eirin :)
I first knitted her another purple hat, but it got to itchy for her, so I will frog it and make mittens instead with the same stripes. She also wanted her hat to be a bit more baggy, so I had to add some stitches.
This pattern is genius as you can use whatever yarn and needles you like.

Pattern: Niko's Kari Traa hat (free pattern)
Yarn:  50 g purple and 4 g grey Mor Aase ull/akryl, 4 g pink Mam'sell
Needles: 3,5 mm
Size: ca. 23 cm high and circumference to fit her head, ca 52 cm
Started: 1 March 2013
Completed: 7 March 2013



You find more hats like this when you do a project search on ravelry :)
The stripe combination is endlessly!

FO's :: Business Casual #3 and #4

Finally they are off the needles!
The last toes were a bit boring to knit up...
Don't get me wrong. I love the pattern. It's just that knitting two pairs in such boring colours made it a bit tedious.

Pattern: Business Casual (free pattern)
Yarn: Fabel. 76 g grey and 84 g brown. The socks are the same size, but uses different amounts of yarn. The grey yarn is much thinner than the brwon, so it might have something to do with that...
Needles: 2,5 mm
Size: Large - 72 st
Modifications: Instead of C2F: Knit 2nd st on lefthand needle through the back loop, knit first st, slip both sts off together
Instead of C2B: K2tog, leave sts on lefthand needle, knit first st again, slip both sts off together
So much easier than fiddling with a cable needle! 
Started: February 22
Completed: March 7

On the needles :: Marius onesies and a hat

Keep Calm Craft On :: WIP Wednesday :: Yarn Along

It's a cold day (-25C when we woke up) here today although the sun is shining.
Perfect to stay inside feeding the fire, bake some bread and knit :)

The socks are almost done, just one more toe to knit. So there will be a fo post tomorrow. I'm starting to feel a bit fed up with these socks. Might have something to do with the boring colours, but I still love the pattern.

I have a new hat for Eirin on the needles. The one I knit on last week is done, it fits, but it itch... So I had to find another yarn. Hopefully this one will please her.
I got some blue Lanett yarn from my mother and desided I would knit a Marius onesies. I guess it will end up in my shop when it's done.

What's on your needles?