It's raining

 After almost two months with no rain, and multiple heatwaves, it finally started raining where we are this week.  Our garden was desperately in need of it - the lawn was very dead, and even several of the bigger shrubs were starting to crisp and brown.  DH managed to keep pots alive and the roses, by hauling up to 50 cans of water every few days while I was in Norway (there is a hosepipe ban so we can't use the hose).  So very pleased to finally be getting rain although I expect it will be quite a while before the reservoirs fill up sufficiently to use hoses again.

A bit of a milestone this week, DH's elderly mother has at long last moved into a flat near to DH's sister.  It's been a rocky road for a few years as both the in-laws became increasingly infirm and unable to live independently, frequent medical appointments, and having to have carers in, and his father ultimately having to go into a home, then several failed attempts to get a flat - although DH's sister took the brunt of most of the arrangements.  So now their house will be able to get sorted and put on the market, to help pay for the care home fees and the flat rent.  This has resulted in a lot of their clutter ending up at our house, and having to get sorted and taken to the dump, or to the charity shops.  I've been doing a lot of decluttering this week and de-construction of glory holes and longstanding piles, because we have a younger relative coming to visit in a few weeks and I don't want her to think we live like we do, lol.  It's amazing how long things can stay put - you put them aside 'temporarily' to deal with later, and two years later they are still in their little pile and have become part of the wallpaper.  Our basement is now tidier and cleaner than it has been for years.  The accretion of various projects and craft supplies around my chair in the living room has been cleared out and I even hoovered my sewing room!  

I said last week I had finished my Norwegian hat, here it is. The true colour is somewhere between the two photos in value.

I came across a free tutorial sewalong by a studio called Molly and Mama to make a Pentagon Bowl using English paper piecing, so I had a go at that using some of my Tilda fabrics.  Basically you sew two covered pentagons back to back, leaving the cardstock inside them, after assembling each layer into a bowl shape.  So it's fairly sturdy.

I also sewed myself a waist bag for travelling, using a free tutorial by Miko Craft. I wanted something very lightweight so I used a single layer of ripstop nylon, with no stabiliser.  The whole thing rolls up and fits into a stuff sack the size of an egg.  So I can carry it in my daypack in case I need it - if I am sightseeing all day without jacket pockets because it's too warm, then I need somewhere to put items I am using constantly like hat, sunglasses, camera, maps etc.  I did take photos but then accidentally deleted them, sorry.

When I was in Norway, I saw several examples of the traditional craft of bandweaving the colourful narrow braids used on their traditional costumes. They are woven on a backstrap loom using a small heddle.  You could buy a beginners weaving kit for £50 at some of the shops in Trondheim and Tromso, but I looked at it and thought I could probably 3D print the components.  Sure enough, someone on Makerworld has created a file for various sized heddles and shuttles.  So I printed off a heddle and shuttle this week to have a go at weaving a simple band.  I've started threading the heddle but am not yet ready to weave yet. I also found a file on Makerworld for a plate of sushi so I printed off a few plates of that for my Japanese dollshouse.

I've been trying to do some handstitching every day, working on my Norway cross stitch and my cross-stitch monogram.  I saw an interesting video today called "The real purpose of making art that no-one sees" by Margarete Miller which addresses the issue of makers constantly being told "you could sell that!", or "What are you going to do with it?" or "Don't you have enough X yet?" etc.  Our cultural bias is that something is only valuable if it can be sold, or if it has a beneficial use/purpose.  I've been doing a lot more crafts since I retired, which has increased my struggle with this tension between making and purpose.  I enjoy making things.  It's good for my mental health to make things.  I now have the time (and money) to make the things I've been wanting to make for years.  However, most of the things I make are not things I need - and at a time of life when I am trying to declutter. They may be things that nobody needs. The UK mindset is that handicrafts have little value so it's very difficult to sell creations for anything like what they cost to make - and I want to be making things, not running an online shop.  Only certain types of items are suitable for donation - to be used or to be sold by a charity for funds. I don't know the answer.  I do know that I feel deterred now from making things that I used to really want to make - like large dollshouses, large quilts, knitted jumpers (don't wear them), bobbin lace (no purpose to it) and so on.  Especially after the huge amount of time we have spent on decluttering the in-laws house, and our own house.

I am gradually going through my Norway photos, and have deleted maybe 400 so far.  It's difficult to make decisions when you have 40 photos of the fjord but they are all beautiful in their own way, and they are digital so there is no longer the cost of printing.  I've also printed out some details of my itinerary, to make up a little travel journal as a record of the holiday.

Back from Norway

 I got back Thursday night, so today was the third day of putting stuff away, laundry, ironing, hacking back the garden and catching up on paperwork.  I have downloaded 3,000 photos from my phone but haven't gone through them yet.  I'm sure there are a lot of duplicates to whittle out and also a lot of failures - my eye would be seeing beautiful coastline through the grey overcast day and my smartphone was seeing dark silhouettes against a brighter sky.  Plus the inevitable photos of my feet, my finger, my boarding pass etc. to get rid of.  It is nice to be home again, see DH, talk to DS, visit my craft room, and gloat over my Norway loot.  Also nice to wear clothes that weren't in my suitcase.  The best thing is I have missed the latest UK heatwave - it was up to 35C for several days while I was away, meanwhile I was enjoying 13C-15C and overcast drizzle which I am more than happy with.  It was a great trip, albeit very expensive, and I can definitely see myself going back again.

I managed to visit around a dozen knitting shops, but was relatively restrained in what I bought due to being realistic about my knitting speed and lack of space in my case.  I got two books about the lovely Selbu designs for mittens, and some Rauma wool to knit a pair from each.  The white book is in English, the black booklet is in Norwegian so I'll have to use Google Translate.  I also got a kit for a third pair of Selbu mittens in Hilesvag wool featuring the typical Norwegian star/Selbu Rose pattern.  My last purchase was a kit for a cute pair of socks with Norwegian houses on them.

Garnhuset yarn shop in Trondheim, just one of the many enormous yarn shops I came across during the holiday. (the crowd is lining up for a Pokemon release at the next store along).

I didn't get much fabric, although quilting is definitely a thing in Norway. I went to a couple of sewing/quilting shops in Trondheim.  Quiltegarden was a beautifully laid out and well curated shop with lovely displays.  But it was all recognisable brands like Moda, Laundry Basket, ByAnnie bag patterns, and of course Tilda.  But Tilda not any cheaper as her fabric is all printed abroad then imported back into Norway. I asked the owner if there was any Norwegian fabric but she said no, they have a few designers but they don't produce fabric, too expensive.  Prices in the shop were similar to the UK at c £20-22 per metre. 

 However I did find some light canvas fabric printed with Norwegian motifs at the other shop in Trondheim, Abbys Textiler.  I found the cute spool tin at a knitting shop, and the cross-stitch motif runner and placemat was on sale at a home interiors shop in Oslo.

I added a zip to the placemat and turned it into a simple pouch. It was nice to be back at the sewing machine.

And of course I got some tourist tat: a teatowel, little tray, a mug, some fridge magnets, postcards and a fleece lined cute tourist hat that I was glad to have in Roros, when it was unexpectedly 5C with added windchill.

I found this postcard in a knitting shop.

And I saw so many beautiful textiles on display in tourist shops, museums, recreated interiors in open air museums, etc.  Norwegian sweaters on sale were typically machine knit unless they were in a yarn store, and very expensive: starting from £250 and going up to over £600.

Sami Hats in a museum display

The bunad is the traditional Norwegian folk costume based on historical rural clothing, worn by men and women and still very popular today. It features rich hand-embroidery, high-quality wool or linen, and custom silver or gold jewelry. The Husfliden shops in many Norwegian cities specialise in creating these works of art, and also sell the materials for them. I wasn't there at a festival time so I didn't see anyone in the wild wearing a bunad apart from museum staff, but I saw several on display in Husfliden or in museums.

I mentioned that I had started knitting the Norwegian Star Beanie by Sandra Jager on the trip, this is how far I had got by the time I came home, and I just finished it this morning so it is currently blocking.  There is something wrong with the third chart for the crown decreases, like many others listed on the projects page I just had to wing it.

I also took along a magazine kit from CrossStitcher magazine because it made me think of colourful Norwegian houses, but I didn't get a lot done on it.

It's good to be back!

Hello from Norway - land of knitting

 Hello, it's Sunday the 9th of August so I've been here 10 days, halfway now through my trip.  I flew into Bergen, did the Norway in a Nutshell loop to Flam/Gudvangen/Voss (staying two nights in Flam), then caught the ferry from Bergen to Alesund, then the ferry from Alesund to Trondheim which is where I am currently.  It's been a really great trip so far.  Some countries arent what you expect/hope they will be, but Norway is ticking all the boxes.  Even in bad weather (of which there has been much) the scenery is wonderful.  And it's all so clean and well kept, once again a foreign country throwing the UK into a bad light.  On the con side, it is extortionately expensive.  I am just having to go 'la la la' and try not to mentally convert too much - I have paid £20 for a baked potato, and a cup of tea is typically almost £4.  I am trying to keep costs down but it's not easy.  The sights are wonderful, I have had two fjord cruises so far (Flam to Gudvangen, and a day trip to Geiranger - the former in sunshine and the latter in steady rain) and the scenery was just incredible.  So majestic and unspoiled, so remote and beautiful.  Even just cruising up the coast on the ferry is amazing, with the colourful little houses nestled on the coast or up the slopes of forested mountains.  And there is so much history everywhere that I have been so far, lots of well kept period buildings, great open air museums, they seem to really value their history and traditions.  The weather has mostly been wet but so changeable.  Today was typical: it started out chilly and heavily overcast, graduated to light drizzle for most of the morning, then suddenly the clouds cleared and the sun came out and we had about 45 minutes of blue sky and hot sun, then it's gone and the temperature drops with an icy wind, then it suddenly rains quite heavily for 20 minutes or so, then we are back to the drizzle.  I am basically carrying half my wardrobe around with me all day so that I can put on or remove layers of warmth, waterproofing or sun protection as required.  But I dont mind, I grew up in a rainy climate and I have the right clothing with me.

I have been finding knitting and handicraft shops everywhere, knitting is hugely popular here and the shops stock almost entirely wool. One shop worker told me that Norwegians don't want to buy acrylic because it's not warm and it's plastic and not sustainable.  There is a lot of Norwegian made wool as well such as Rauma and other brands. It's not eactly cheap, but considering how expensive most things are in Norway, the wool isnt much more than in the UK.  Between £4-£5.50 for a 50g ball of Rauma for example. There have been branches of Husfliden, the shops of the Norwegian craft association, in all the bigger towns I've been to - they sell and make the traditional Norwegian costumes which are beautifully trimmed and embroidered, but also other Norwegian crafts and products including a good selection of knitting yarn such as Rauma Garn.  In Bergen there were four other knitting shops to visit, plus I took the bus up the coast to visit the Norwegian Textile Industry Museum in Salhus  - a former knitting mill that processed fleece from raw product into fine knit fabrics that they then sewed into items such as men's long underwear and t-shirts.  It also had a shop selling some of their spun yarns. In Alesund, in addition to Husfliden, I found Maskeriet AS which had more unusual yarns and fibres, and also got the bus out to Ultrad in Spjelkavikvegen.  Here I finally caved and bought four balls of Rauma Finull (fingering weight) to cast on for a Norwegian style hat pattern I found on Ravelry, and also a kit to knit a pair of Selbu mittens.  I had asked at most shops if they had any hat patterns with typical Norwegian motifs but apparently this isnt something that they knit - normally they knit traditional patterns on jumpers and mittens.  So I was able to cast on for the hat on my next ferry ride.  Here in Trondheim there was a large knitting shop called UniQ Garn and an even larger one called Garn Huset around the corner.  And by large, I mean the size of a small UK supermarket.  It's just amazing, and stuffed full of wool and other natural fibres such as alpaca and mohair.  I had really wanted to visit Selbu itself to see the small museum of Selbu knitting there, but just couldnt make it work between the museums opening hours and the sparse bus schedule from Trondheim.  So I was pleased to see some Selbu knitting at the Sverresborg Trondelag Folk Museum here in Trondheim today.  There were a few mittens and socks on display in some of the historic houses, and in the shop they had books of Selbu patterns and some Rauma 3-ply yarn.  I bought one of the books because it's a paperback, the other two were coffee table books so too heavy.  There is a Selbu shop there as well but only open on Thursdays unfortunately. There was also a lovely elderly Norwegian lady demonstrating in one of the historic buildings, she is a multi-crafter like me and had brought wonderful examples of everything from traditional wool embroidery, to tatting and band weaving.  She knew a lot about the Selbu tradition and showed me some of the Selbu mittens and a wonderful cardigan that she has knit, I showed her some online pictures of my attempts and we had a nice chat.  There's also a branch of Panduro here, like a European version of Hobbycraft.  And I've seen examples of cross stitch, hardanger embroidery (but not a shop yet for that), crochet seems popular, nalbindning, tatting, wool and silk embroidery and so on - in antique shops, craft shops, on display in historic buildings and museums etc.  I guess with the long dark winters, hobbies are important.

So I'm having a great trip and feel Norway really lives up to the hype.  I'm not going to attempt to upload photos because I already have several hundred on my phone and I need to go through them at home on a big screen, also  it is laborious to reduce file sizes to use on the web on a phone, or at least it is for me.