It's been a while

Since I've been writing here... It was not planned, but it felt great with a short break from blogging.
So far this Summer has been a rainy one. I'm not lying if I tell you it has been raining for almost two weeks witout a break. But today the sun is shining and it looks like she's here to stay for a couple of days :) Here's a little of what we've been up to these last weeks :)



Knitting



Demolishing, building and painting - we've knocked down the wall underneat the stairs, made a floor were the stairs down to the cellar was and now we have a much bigger hall. And I have a wall filled with book shelves which I call my library :)



Harvesting - Borage flowers, sugar peas, chives, radish and lettuce



Cloudberry picking

Watching our squirrel kids grow. We haven't seen them for days now, and I'm a bit worried that a cat that has been sneaking around here has scared them away :(

Running throug high grass chasing butterflies

Celebrated 7 :) Can you imagine he is 7 already...

Shawls update

With the rain pouring down since Friday, I've had plenty of time to knit on my shawls.




I finished the 4th clue of The Summer Solstice Mystery Shawl last night. I haven't made any extra repeats of either clue 3 or 4 as I have been afraid of running out of yarn. I think we can make the shawl longer in clue 5 so I might do that.



So hard to capture the right colour of this one... It is a bit greener in real life. I am going to knit extended version of the TTL Mystery Shawl. I was so lucky to win the 2nd prize in Candy Skeins giveaway a while ago, and the price was two skeins of yarn one being the same colourway as I am knitting this shawl in :)

Vegetable garden

We have had a few days with warmth so the vegetable garden has grown so much that you almost have seen it from day to day :)
The kids had to pull up a couple of radishes to see if they have grown big enough - they still need to grow a few days more.

Radish.

The Sugar snaps have started to bloom.

Lettuce - need to grow bigger.

Carrots and potatoes.

Potatoes.

Tomatoes, strawberries, leeks, potatoes, sugar snaps peas, hyssop, chives, borage, carrots, red currants, raspberries, rhubarb, coriander, thyme, radish, lettuce and nasturtiums  :)

We have squirrel kids :)

Wordless Wednesday  ::  Outdoor Wednesday

A brief taste of summer

Two days filled with sun and above 20 C :)
We've been out for hours soaking up the sun, getting freckles, lots of popsicles, knitting, watching the vegetables grow in the garden, feeding the ducks in the park, more popsicles, playing in the park, sun smelling laundry and cinnamon rolls.

I've finished the 3rd clue of Wendy's Summer Solstice Mystery Shawl.
Today with the sun gone and the rain back, I've picked up my TTL Mystery Shawl. I've only knitted 2 of the clues, so I have a bit left...

Did you see my couch made of pallets in the first photo?
The kids love it! There is so much cool stuff you can make out of old pallets and cable drums.
The table in the first photo with my knitting on, is an old cable drum :) It feels great to re-use things and I'd love to have a kitchen table like this one.

Summer Solstice Mystery Shawl

Anyone else knitting Wendy's Summer Solstice Mystery Shawl?
I finished clue 2 yesterday and looking forward to the next that comes soon.
I'm knitting mine in Little Traveller by The Sanguine Grypho. Love the colours! The shawl is supposed to be knit on 3,75 mm, but I don't have a circular needle in that size, so I use 3,5 mm. So hopefully it wont be too small... 
It's not the best photo as the needle is a bit too short, so I can't stretch it much. But I really like the combination of lace and nupps :)

Bogbean :: Bukkeblad

Our plank path over the bog is surrounded by Bogbeans - beautiful!
This little flower seem to multiply more and more each year. 

Firts a tiny pink/purple bud

That become tiny white flowerbuds

Before they opens up into these fluffy white flowers.

FO :: Chouwa Socks

My mom had a skein of Sandnes Garn Mini Palett and I offered myself to knit a pair of socks for my sister :) 

Pattern: Chouwa by Judy Sumner Published in Knitted Socks East and West
Yarn: 67 g Sandnes Garn Mini Palett #0964  

Needles: 2,5 mm

I'm here, just being busy

Enjoying the sun

Tending the vegetable garden

Painting pallets.

I've knitted a few rows every now and then too, so I'll stop by to show you a pair of socks soon :)

Weekending

Weekending, my favorite part of the week. A time to relax, live, love, just to be.
Joining with Amanda.

- Finally some summer feeling, 20 C, lots of icecream, suncream, bare feet and the smell of sunny skin
- Taco
- Some more planting in the kitchen garden
- Hysteria
- Evening hike
- Mosquitoes bites
- A few rows of knitting

On the needles and between the pages

 

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

 

The weeks seems to fly by here. The kids have just one week left at school before summer leave :) Looking forward to be able to sleep a little longer than 6 in the morning ;)

 

Knitting: I have finished clue #2 on the TTL Mystery Shawl. The beautiful turquoise colour is hard to capture in photos...  So far it's an easy and fun pattern to knit. Looking forward to see what the next clue looks like. The pink is the summer top I started on last week. I had to rip it and start over with smaller needles as it got to loose. It felt ok as I hadn't knitted more than I have now ;)

Reading: Taking a break from the Dark Hunters World and have started the first book in a new series by Jan Guillou - Brobyggerne (Bridgebuilders). I have just read a few pages, but I hope it is great.

When the sea took both their father and their uncle, the three boys in the small fishing village on the west coast had to travel to Bergen to try to support their family. The three young apprentices turns out to be exceptionally gifted technically and through Bergen's benefactors the brothers graduated rail and bridge builders at the University of Dresden. The plan is that they will return to Norway to help the most magnificent Norwegian engineering project ever - the construction of the railway between Oslo and Bergen. But love turns everything. One brother runs away, betrayed and ashamed, into German East Africa. The other brother fled also because of love, he ends up in London. Only Lauritz, the eldest, is returning to Norway. In gratitude for the education he joined the railway construction on Hardangervidda. In the new century the future of optimism was big. The breakthrough technique would make all wars to be extinct. Little did man know that the world faced the bloodiest and most dramatic century ever.

♥ Happy Birthday Eirin ♥

I know I say this every time one of the kids have their Birthday, but I really don't know where the time goes... 10 years already. It seems like it was just a few days ago I held her for the first time...
With a mix of your father's stubbornness and your mother's temperament, we have our moments ;)
But you are caring and kind, knows what you want, good to help out and your smile is never far away. You love to create things, but I have yet to convince you that knitting is the thing ;) 
Hopefully the summer will be filled with happy days, lots of hiking and good memories!
We love you so much  ♥

Weekending

- It's finally starting to somewhat look like spring here, with flowers starting to pop up and the trees getting green. But it really could have been a little warmer. 10C and a cold, cold wind from north makes us have to wear a second layer of clothes...
- Managed to trick Hubby with me to the local garden center ;)
And yes, some plants went home with us, including some raspberry bushes
- Lots of time spent in the kitchen baking
- Finishing clue #2 on the TTL Mystery Shawl :)
- Casting on a new project
- Eating curry and watching Burke and Hare with hubby
- Finally have my kitchen garden ready and have started
to plant out some of the plants. Will make a post about that later ;)
- ♥ Celebrating Eirin's 10th Birthday with lots of cake, icecream,
happy faces and friends and family ♥

FO :: Wingspan

Wingspan is done. And Eirin got herself a new shawl/scarf.
I had hoped to have enough yarn to knit more than 8 triangles so the shawl would be long enough to wrap around my neck, but it was not.... But it fits Eirin perfect and hopefully she will wear it next winter. She do thinks it itches a bit though...

Pattern: Wingspan
Yarn: 100 g Ripples Crafts Hand Dyed Yarns Sock #Assynt Jewels
Needles: 3,5 mm

Friday Flickr Favourites

1. Lakeshore4, 2. birdie, 3. TSTL. Golden Storm, 4. Sock Progress, 

5. strawberry and cream biscuits, 6. Gangabobs, 7. i stayed, 8. Sea Otters_MG_2240, 

9. /, 10. holding love, 11. bunty, 12. Dandelion, 

13. I spun some yarn!, 14. Untitled, 15. Swallowtail, 16. Simple pleasures

On the needles and between the pages

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

Finally sun and warm weather (+17C) came to our part of the world. So that's why there haven't been any blogpost here - I've been soaking up sun and we've been building a plat in the garden,(photo below). There's still some left to do, so I'll take a better photo when we're done. As you can see in the photo, we still have some snow left in the mountains, but the forest is finally starting to get a hint of green! The boards you see laying on the ground is my mess,  as I try to figure out how my vegetable garden should look like ;)

But now on to knitting and reading.

Knitting: First of all, Thank you so much for all your nice comments on my Octopus Mittens!! I said that I was going to cast on the TTL Mystery Shawl. Well, that didn't happend for the same reasons as I haven't blogged ;) So I'm just going to wait until clue 2 comes on Friday and then I'll knit both clues. Still knitting on my Wingspan - and I hope I have enough yarn to make it as long as I want it...

As we spent most of the morning out i the sun, I needed something new to knit on. I found some pink cotton in my stash and asked Eirin if she would wear this top. She said yes, and I casted on. Time will tell if she will actually wear it though....

Reading: Oh, I'm so lost in the world of Dark Hunters right now... This is book 4, Kiss of the Night.

"Wulf is an ancient Viking warrior with a useful but extremely aggravating power—amnesia. No one who meets him in person can remember him 5 minutes later. It makes it easy to have one-night stands, but hard to have a meaningful relationship, and without true love he can never regain his soul.

When he finally meets Cassandra, the one woman who can remember him, she turns out to be the princess of the cursed race he's sworn to hunt—and forbidden to him. The two of them must face ancient curses, prophecies, and the direct meddling of the Greek gods to find true happiness at last."

FO Octopus Mittens

Love, love, love these mittens!!
The pattern, the colours and the soft feel of the yarn!

The cuff is double and if I am to knit this pattern again (which I think I will as I would love to have a pair in pink & brown), I might knit the whole mitten double to make them really thick and warm.

Pattern: Octopus Mittens by Emily Peters
Yarn: Orange - 25 g Ripples Crafts Hand Dyed Yarns Sock Colorway Muirburn & Blue - 30 g Sandnes Garn Sisu Colorway 6733

Needles: 3 mm

As some of you know the first mitten got a little too small for me. So I was going to give them to Eirin. But I have knitted this second mitten with a looser tension...
So the mitten on the left fits me perfect and the one on the right is too narrow and a little too short *sigh* Blocking did't help either.
And there's no way I'll knit a third mitten to see if they will match in size, so I guess Eirin and I might have to share them ;)