Well, it's been some pretty busy months for me - don't know about the rest of you out there in the blog-iverse, but the last month I _think_ I remembered, was March.. In the meantime there's been the annual meeting in the Quilt Association - and my birthday - I've joined a quiz team (we meet at this pub every Thursday and battle up to 20 other teams), and have suddenly realized that in about 8 weeks I need to pack my bags (we're going to France!!!). Jeeze.. Tempus Fugit, right?

Some time ago (I think it was in January) AfricanKelli showed some nametags that she'd ordered from a company in Australia. Well, I couldn't resist - and about 2.5-3 months later these little darlings fell into our mailbox. Cute?


Well, during the annual meeting I bought a pattern/kit for a small giftbag with butterflies - and, surprice surprice! I ended up winning a pattern/kit for another one (this one with strawberries)! So a couple of weeks ago I decided to start working on them, and the results have been on display in BF's bookshelf for a little while now. So fast, easy and fun to make.. I've gotta make more of them!


The rest of the stuff that managed to "follow" me home from the meeting (yes, followed - and things that follow you home, you get to keep, right?) have been hiding in a bag ever since - longing for the day when they will find a very good meaning to their lives. Or something like that. Honestly, I've been too busy with work and allergies to more or less think of other things than managing work and getting enough sleep..

I have - however - been working on the Truly Scrumptious! I chose to do a little something different then Natalie had done in her pattern, but I think it looks pretty good. All those squares kinda scared me a little.. plus, doing it like this actually was alot of fun. Yep, I'm just a little bit weird. :p

Anywho - without any further introduction, please welcome block 1, 2, 3 AND 4 of the gorgeous Truly Scrumptious!


First out is Gigi - with her dog.


Then comes Ava and her bébés..

Followed by Miss Evangeline..


And then Miss T Tipsy.

Gorgeous girls, don't you think? Now, the fifth girl - Izzy - is currently awaiting some batting , and then she'll be ready for some stitching. I really like working on these girls - eventhough BF once exclaimed "what? there are nine of them?" - well, actually, honey, there are ten.. But! I guess he'll figure that out sooner or later. ;)


Last year - for my birthday - my grandparents gave me a box of Japanese fabrics. Well, I made a couple of things of them - two bags actually - and cut the rest of the fabric into strips and made an attempt at making my first strip/stripy quilt. Well, when the top was done, and sandwich'ed, I put it away - until last weekend. The past week I've bled from the fingertips whilst quilting it - by hand, of course, I need all the practice I can get - and earlier today I put the binding on it! *proud*

Now, I'm going to run it through the washing machine to get all the dust and other nasty things out of it - but I'm really not sure what I should call it.. is it a wall quilt, a baby quilt or a table cloth? Hmm.. maybe leave it for a little while - perhaps it'll tell me.

I guess I'll save the purchases - no, wait, the adoptions - from the meeting and pictures for another post - I think this one's big enough now. ;) Hopefully, things will calm down a little at work, so that I have a little more energy when I get home - right now I am not what you'd consider either social or fun..

All work and no play..

Makes me a little stressed...!

This month has gone by so quickly I'm not even sure of what I have done. I know that the first weekend of April I went to Olavsgaard for the annual meeting in NQF (I went with Quiltoholic and met my mom), so not much done that weekend. The weekend after our parents (both mine and BF's) came to celebrate my birthday in advance - so besides baking cakes there wasn't much time for other things that weekend either. Then the weekend after we spent outside in the sun (this year's first icecream outside in the sun!). And now, suddenly, it's the last weekend in April, and I have a TON of things I need to do. I'm writing a list of things I need to do either this weekend or some time during next week, and I think that tonight might be a late one for me..

I have to finish sewing three swap-patches for the swap arranged by Hobbyboden (a forum I'm a member of) - this shouldn't have to take too long, but a couple of hours, yes... I'm planning to mail them tomorrow, to make sure that they arrive in good time for the 1st of May. I haven't received any myself - I've got two coming I guess - but maybe that's a minor punishment for not exactly being on time with my own patches.. I hope not.. I really didn't plan to put these ones on hold for almost the entire month, it's just been too much to juggle lately.

I have to go through my warderobe and empty it a little.. I have too many cute and funny t-shirts I don't use anymore, but I don't want to throw them away. So I figured I could cut out the print, stabilize it and save it for a project later (maybe make a scrap quilt for a baby or just something to "use up"). That way I won't exactly throw them away, but keep them and do something better with them then keeping them in a drawer (a very full drawer, btw, I haven't been able to close it all winter..).

What more.. Oh yes, I promised both my ratties and my friend Heidi's rat boys that I'd make new hammocks for them. :) They need new ones - my ratties' favorite hammocks barely holds one of them now, and barely hangs by a thread or two.. The hammock is basically completely worn out, washed out and chewed up!

I sometimes wish we had a room where we could keep like computors and all our crafty things. Both BF and I like to keep our hands busy, and so we have quite a few books, stacks of materials, inspiration things, and, well, stuff in general, and right now all of this have been spread out around our little flat (about 56-60 m2, so not that big) - mostly in the living room and in the kitchen. I miss having a proper basement, but our space down there is very moisty and not particulary handy for storing things besides cardboard boxes and empty suitcases.. I never go down there either - I'm afraid I might get an allergic reaction to all the moist and mouldy stuff that's down there. I heard they're looking for the baddest room in Norway right now, for this interior design program, and we've been toying with the idea of sending in a picture of our basement (but, hey, I don't think they can do much with a 100 year old moist basement?). I sometimes wish we could move to a place that was a little bit bigger (like having an extra room for our computors/crafty stuff) and a proper storage room/basement) but I don't think that'll happen until we decide to buy our own place (which brings forth conflicts regarding where we'd like to live) or if there's ever kids involved (here we agree, none of us wants our potential kids to grow up in Oslo - we're both from small towns and I think that's what we'd want for our kids too). But it would've been nice to have something that was "ours" - which we could fix up, paint and, well, feel actually belongs to us (as a difference to renting, which we do now).

I don't think there'll be any pictures in this post (sorry...) but there has been a little touch of progress in the creative department. ;) I've finished block three on Truly Scrump. and have prepared the fourth (I really like this one, can't wait to see it finished, but I'm not rushing). I've also completed all the blocks for the block of the month-thing I'm doing with my mom and a couple of her friends (the "Annie's Calendar Quilt"), so now I need to find fabrics/colors for the borders (I'm thinking either green or brown, matching some of the colors used in the stitcheries).

I mended BF's winter coat the other day! (It took about 5 minutes, but, hey, it's something.) ;)

Next in line for the projects to be completed before the summer vacation is a small bag to carry a water bottle in. Quiltoholic bought a pattern at Olavsgaard/the NQF meeting from Japan, and it's so incredible cute! And practical. ;) We're going to France for 11 days, so if any of you have any good ideas of what we should see or do when in Paris or Nice, let me know. :) I've already plotted in a couple of things that we'd like to see, and we're trying to decide wether to go to the Mouline Rouge or not (we really want to, but it's soooo expensive - almost as much as our plane tickets..) for a dinner/show.

What else is new.. Well, I've joined a quiz-team! :) Every Thursday night for the past three weeks I've met a group of great and fun people in a bar up at Sogn (a part of Oslo with literally tons of students). Now the group has been together for years (I think..) but they needed another member and I was asked (by one of the guys I kinda know) if I wanted to join them one evening. After that night I guess I was adopted (while saying goodnight I got a "See you next week" from the boys so I guess I made a good impression). :) Next Thursday is actually a National Holiday here in Norway, but there will still be a quiz. I checked the total results so far this year yesterday, and my team is in 6th place this year. Not bad, really - I think there are about 20 teams all in all (but not all of them join in the game every week). Yesterday we ended up on a shared 3rd place again for this weeks match (as we did last week, the week before we came in second).

I went to see my doctor on Wednesday, got another dose of B12-vitamin, and took some tests. Will be interesting to see the results - she'll call me when they get in. So far the only one who's called me today, was a phone salesman. *duh* I'm getting so sick of them..

I have to finish my "to do"-list - and see what I can get done tonight and this weekend. Next week - hopefully - will give me some time to get some work done _at work_ - instead of spending all my time in meetings (like the two last weeks). Overtime and meetings.. once in a while, yea sure, that's ok, but every day for several weeks? Seriously, I have better things to do - like actually working on my projects (I call them mine, they're my babies, but actually there are up to 100 persons in this company working on them).

Oh well, back to the list.

Busy weekend

This has been a really busy weekend for me - and not much time for either sewing or relaxing. Oh well, better luck next weekend, I guess. :)

On Friday my BF and I went to a pub called Garage here in Oslo (a really tiny place, but with a stage in the basement). A friend of my BF plays in a couple of bands, and one of them were having a release party that night. So of course we had to go and give our support. ;) The guys were really good - and so were the two bands warming up for them. It didn't really make my wish to learn how to play the guitar or the bass any less, so maybe I'll have to do something about it one day..

This weekend - as you've probably read on several other blogs from Norway - the NQF (Norwegian Quilt Association) held it's annual meeting, and on Saturday Quiltoholic and I decided to go and meet up with my mom and a couple of her friends. We had a really great day - lots of shopping (both real shopping and shopping with our minds.. much cheaper I must say ;p) and I think we got so many ideas our heads more or less hurt by the end of the day (my legs were definetly hurting). I'm going to make a new post about Saturday when all the impressions have calmed down a little. I feel very tired at the moment, having been to work all day, and not really having much quiet time this weekend.

In addition to having a really active social life at the moment, the swap I joined on this forum has reached the middle mark (or something..) as I have now received 4 of the 8 blocks I'm going to received (the 9th I'm making my self). I originally asked for blocks in brown or blue, but added that a little purple would be nice too (and I see now that only the first block is brown, the rest are actually purple.. a challenge, and I have to change my idea now I think.. never good to plan too far ahead, when one doesn't really know what might come). But don't get me wrong, the blocks are gorgeous - just not what I first expected. :)


Here they are, all 4 of them. The brown one was made by Brasl, the one with the heart by Kuriosa, the striped one came from Madir, and the last one from Rutha.

I can't wait to see the last four. :)

Welcome!

A friend of us - Heidi - and her husband finally got to meet their little prince last Wednesday, when Sverre Oskar was borned. :D

Of course we have to bring gifts - this time in the form of some lovely overalls in brown, a body in soft wool (this is, afterall, Norway) and a bib that I've made (in very cool colours, as BF said when he saw it). I hope they will like it (we're just waiting for our turn to come to visit). :)

Today was one of the great mail-days! I got four new colours of silken threads from Jordbærstedet - two reds/pink and two browns - and I got the parcel pictured below from a webshop in the US selling retro fabrics.

Don't you just love these prints?


BF selected the four matching ones, saying those were the coolest - and I just had to add the brown birds, the frogs and the fabric with the faces (reminds me of The Beatles) to the order.

And now to figure out what they'd like to be when they "grow up"..

In other news.. or news and news.. I was supposed to be in Lørenskog right now, for a handsewing-meeting-thing, but due to a heavy and mean headache (just passing two days straight now) I decided to stay at home and try to relax. Not easy, but with BF doing a raid online (playing World of Warcraft) I'm trying to relax and not run around doing everything I see needs attention before the visit this weekend. Oh well.. back to the couch trying not to do anything again..

Just a quick update..

As the title says - just a quick update.

Managed to finish the angel from Jordbærstedet today - and have just sent in my picture for the competition. I won the last time, so I don't expect to win again (ever) but it's fun to participate anyway. You never know.. ;)

And.. I cut my hair today. In the end, it turned out quite short - very strange for me, having had long hair for quite some years now, but so far I'm pleased.

As typical as always, Blogger doesn't want to upload any of my pictures - again.. So I guess you'll have to wait. Typical..

Friday tomorrow - and weekend again. :) It'll be nice to have a couple of days relaxing and unwinding.

Easily influenced?

Sometimes I think I am..

Yesterday I spent some time online on Amazon looking at books, and ended up ordering The Winding Ways Quilt (from the Elm Creek Quilts series - this one isn't published yet, but I pre-ordered it), Yakuza Moon (I've been wanting to read this one since I read an article about the book last summer) and Daughters of Lancaster County (just because it seemed like a nice story - plus three books in one? nice..).

Then.. today I made a "mistake" stopping by AfrikanKellie and reading her latest blog entry, and I ended up going to The Book Depository ordering Simple Gifts to Stitch - because I just loved! the scarf Kellie made - and the last two books in a trilogy I'm currently reading (got the first one in my Christmas calendar - Twilight - and have now ordered New Moon and Eclipse).

*phew*

That'll keep me busy for a while. ;)

Pictures!

Well, as I said in the previous post, here are some of the pictures from the last few weeks. For those of you who are looking for pictures of all the projects I mentioned, you won't find them all, as I have not taken pictures of all of them - yet. :) But they will come.


This is my BF, giving you a demonstration of what we've been doing mostly all last weekend - playing Guitar Hero III on our Nintendo Wii. Very very fun and entertaining. :D


Some pictures from New Years Eve - this is a "starshot" - a kind of handheld fireworks which only gives a rather large sparkle then a boom. :) I think this picture ended up kinda cool.


I'm trying to improve my skill of taking firework-pictures, and although I got one or two really good ones in 2006, 2007 proved to be more skillful.


Again fireworks. :)

I've managed to put my "Love is.." up on the wall - very very pleased, I must add. :)


And so has my MIL - BF's mother. Very different from my "Love is..", but also very pretty.


I took some pictures of Christmas decorations while in Trysil - this is an angel sitting on top of the heater at my parents' house. I think it's very beautiful - and regret that I didn't buy some when I found them in a store in LA last summer.. oh well, maybe next time.


Just for fun, we placed the ratties on these large santas to see of we might be able to snap our own Christmas cards for next year..


But Gizmo was more interested in the presents - this present is actually for the ratties! Clever girl. :D


The weekend before last winter arrived in Oslo - and stayed almost for an entire week, before raining away. Sorry about the bad picture, but lazy me didn't quite feel like going outside to take the picture at 3 in the morning.. so I just took it through the kitchen window instead.



And lastly, a picture of me goofing in the hallway, trying to take a picture of myself without looking.. weird.. *haha*

Tempus fugit..

Well, as the headline says, time flies.. and so it surely has done for me. I see that my last post was published December 22. - which is about three insane weeks ago - and I've been telling myself every day for the past week "sit down and write something on your blog". Unfortunetly, I'm easily distracted in periods, and I've more or less forgotten about it (not even feeling bad about it).

So.. a quick update here, and then - hopefully - another entry tonight, with some pictures. :) (I took about a ton of pictures during the vacation, and some after we came home.)

Christmas was spent with my side of the family - my sister drove us (BF and me) up to Trysil on the day before Christmas Eve (lille julaften, as we call it). We spent the day of Christmas Eve as normally - watching the same shows on TV as all other years, it's tradition. ;) And later that night, after my parents stopped by the graveyard and left candles on the graves of some of my ancestors (great-grandparents and grand-uncle, plus another one) we had a good dinner of traditional Norwegian Christmas food. After dinner, and deserts, and after my mom and I finished the dishes (it's also tradition, for us anyway) we opened our presents. Another tradition in Norway - opening the Christmas presents on Christmas Eve rather then Christmas Day. Two days after Christmas my sister, BF and I drove back to Oslo, and we had a couple of nice, relaxing days before going down to BF's family for the New Year weekend. His brothers and a couple of friends had arranged a LAN (computor-thing) all week, and we spent some time with them, playing video- and computorgames (we managed to get hooked on Guitar Hero III, and had to get that when we came back to Oslo again). On New Year's Eve BF's mother made a more traditional American dinner, with turky, stuffing and such (very very tasty!), we watched a couple of movies, and then went out to see the fireworks. I have some pretty good pictures from this year (better then the ones from last year), and I'll post some in the next post. The day after it was back to Oslo - and preparations for going back to work again the next day.

*phew*

On the more crafty-side of the last few weeks, I've managed to finish "The Night Before Christmas"-pattern from Cinderberry Stitches (need the sleeve to hang them up, though, but since I didn't have room for them on the walls, I didn't really stress with that), I'm almost done with another of the stitchings from the same designer (I looooove her designs...) missing just a few hearts and such before finding suitable fabrics for border and binding, I have finished the stitchings on a Christmas tree-pattern I got at the first meeting with Lørenskog Quilteklubb (where Siw from Quiltegaarden attended with her shop), need borders and binding though.. The fourth package from Jordbærstedet has arrived -and I'm well on my way to finish it. :) Put the borders on yesterday, and decided to move away from all the plans I had made for it, and just settle for a simple yet suitable border - and rather do some more work on the quilting.

And.. after the meeting last Wednesday, where a group from Lørenskog Quilteklubb gathered to do some sewing, Anne Ida (Quiltoholic) and I decided to make bags for our cups/mugs, and have these done by the next meeting. Now, Anne Ida apparently had some time off and inspiration this weekend, 'cos I see that she's already finished her bag! Talk about being fast. ;) So last night I prepared a small stitchery and managed to stitch it - just need the borders and batting, and hopefully it'll be done by next Wednesday. :)

But, the pictures will have to wait until tonight, when I get home from work. :)

Merry Christmas!

It's the day before the day before the BIG day, and since we're leaving tomorrow to spend Christmas Eve with my family, we've done some cleaning, tidying and decorating today. Although we don't have alot of decorations to put up, we have about enough to put a little something everywhere around the apartment.

I also opened my SSCS-present today - and my camera managed to flash a little "out of battery"-message before dying on me - so when the batteries have been charged a little more, I'll show you some pictures of our Christmas-stuff. :)

Thank you thank you thank you, Kelli!!! :D I love the bag, and the pillowcase! And I can't wait to read the book! :D *giant hugs*

***

The past couple of week we've experienced some pretty cool weather - considering that this is Oslo, where it rarely snows and gets cold this time of year - but this morning the temperature crawled it's way up to -3 degrees celsius and it snowed about half an inch (this white blanket stayed white for about an hour before getting soggy and black.. yay for pollution and cars.. :( ). I'm glad we're going up to Trysil tomorrow - to clean, white, crispy Winter (with capitol W)!

The vase in the back was painted by my grandmother - isn't it just gorgeous? I'd love to paint as good as her, but I guess I'll have to stick to sewing. :) The Santas are the same as in a previous post - only they've been mixed with a second batch we made (half of them are now wrapped in a present for BF's Norwegian grandmother).

Home-decorated Santas - it's been fun to do some crafts together on the evenings. :) We'll have to repeat that for next year (maybe even for Easter?). :)

On the crafting front I've been working on the "The Night before Christmas"-pattern from Cinderberry Stitches, and I can happily announce that they're only missing the hanging-up-systems (but since we don't have anywhere to hang them just now, I'm leaving them for after Christmas) - besides that I've picked up the whole cloth quilt again tonight, and have been working on it for a couple of hours. It's actually looking quite good, and I think I can say for certain that 2008 will be the last year I'll have to work on it. :) *cheer*

The snowflakes I bought in a store downtown early December - they look good hanging from the lamp - and since I only had four, I found a small angel amongst the decorations that matched pretty good. :)

On TV these days they're showing alot of Christmas movies - all of them making me a little sad and thinking of how good we actually have it, here in little Norway, comparing to many other places. We have a home, family, friends, jobs, a bed to sleep in, someone we love and care about, time to do things we want to, extra time to actually get bored every now and then, the resources to travel to far away places (according to my travel log on FaceBook I've visited over 40 major cities during my 26 years on this planet - and I haven't even included them all yet, this takes time!). There are so many placed I'd like to see, placed I'd like to go back to and things I'd like to do - like going back to Egypt (not just the touristy places but actually do some travel, see things and meet people). I greatly admire people who not just think about these things but actually do something about it, who give so much of themselves to others. I guess sometimes you'd think that you're just one person, a small percentage of the world's population, and that one person cannot do that much, cannot change the world - but I guess that every person, every step counts - no matter how great or small that step might be. It's still a step - and it's worth taking. That's why I want to make 2008 the year where I try to find ways of helping others, and do that - no matter how small they might be. I'll have to think about just what it is that I can do - but what time could be better then Christmas?


It's no secret I like rats - and mice, although rats are my favorite pets - and over the years rattie/mouse decorations have appeared here and there, and this year they're on the top of the cage, giving some Christmas spirit to the lazy little furry critters inside (really, they're quite lazy these days..). Speaking of the rats, I have to make them some new hammocks soon. If they're not chewed on - the washer's been eating on them too. But, I've got fabric and fleece, so just need to find the time.

And now, for some packing.

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas Eve and Day - I'll be back on Wednesday! :D
*snowy hugs*

SSCS - Christmas is here!

*almost*

Well, my SSCS parcel has arrived anyway. :) Which makes it very close to a real Christmas. :)

Friday afternoon a note came with the mail saying there was a parcel at the post office for me. I picked it up on Saturday, brought it home, and have tried not to open it since then. And I will save it - for Saturday. BF is off on a Christmas party that evening, and since I'm spending the evening home alone, decorating for Christmas, annoying the life out of the other people in the building (who very much deserves it after the last few Thursday mornings *aaaargh* long story) by playing Christmas music extremely loud, I think I deserve to open the very exciting parcel from AfricanKelli.

I firmly believe I will do so. :)

Ooh ooh! Dinnertime! Btw, Kelli's blog keeps my stomach growling.. I've never seen so much goodies on one blog before! *cheers*

For my Secret Santa

Dear whoever you may be (I'll find that out in about a month or so - yup, I'm gonna try to save mine for Christmas eve, which is when we open our presents here in Norway). :)

If you want to post a picture on your blog, please go ahead. :) Just, don't mention who the receiver is (me) or the country.

Christmas in November?

One might start to wonder, when this bunch of guys came in, got together and started to make secret plans. You can just barely hear them mumble through their beards.. Although, I think the second one from the right thinks it's kinda boring.. it looks like he's taking a little nap.


I finally got the bell on my "Velkommen"-stitchery! (And have sent the picture to Jordbærstedet to enter the competition.) *phew* I only needed like one bell, but had to buy a pack of 10.. :/ Anyone out there who needs any? The result is noisy and fun - and I like it. :)


November is coming to an end - and I managed to finish the November-block for the Annie's Calendar Quilt-BOM last night (it's not a real BOM, just something a couple of us decided to do, just for fun). I've made December ready for stitching too, but thought I should wait until December to start working on it. :) So I guess I've got to figure out something else to do for today. Got some plans for some Christmas presents ready (in my head, gotta get it out in fabric and stuff first), and yesterday we bought a small present (very cute! I'll post a picture some time - perhaps a post about presents, but no mentioning of names though, that'll be a spoiler..).


And, last but never least, todays greeting from two very tired rats.. Swiffer and Igor doesn't really like to be terrorised by the camera before 5PM, but I bribed them with a treat. Gizmo is on vacation - a friend of mine has a lonely rat, so Gizmo is staying with her for a little while. She's greatly missed, of course - both by the ratties here, and me and my BF.

Oh well, off to work I go (or to the kitchen.. where my sewing stuff are taking over every inch of available space..).

Hm.. almost to post nr 50.. perhaps I should have a give-away too? Would be fun.. What do you think, you out there in the world of blogs?

Finally!

Yes, finally! After about 8 tries - and one complaint to sweet BF - Blogger wants to upload my pictures again. :) So, here are the pictures I wanted to post in the previous post.



This is a picture of me and one of my collegues - Angela - wearing HUGE orange jackets during the stunt our job had. You see, our job has like 500 awailable positions, and wanted to make a stunt so that people would notice them - and hopefully be able to fill the 500-and-something positions by Christmas. So, one early Tuesday morning, about 50 of us dressed up in these huge jackets and handed out business cards, reflective bands and bags of dried fruits and nuts to people on the central train station. It was fun - and a video of us (well, I'm nowhere to be found in the video, but Angela's there) can be seen on pages like DN

Back to the weekend in Trysil..


On Friday Vigdis came over and brought her stitchery from Jordbærstedet to compare with my mom and me. Although they originally were identical, we all have different tastes in color and stitching, so the results will be fun to see. This is as far as we had come on Friday (about mid-day).


And, would you believe it, all three of us were working on the same stitchery from Cinderberry! Mine is the one with the darkest green, my mom's is the one with the lighter green, and Vigdis' is the smallest one (she shrunk the pattern to about 70% of the original size). And again, the colours are not the same - not even the threads for the stitchery. I'm using all the colours from the pattern, but I know the others are making adjustments. :)


Monday morning I was out for a walk - or, I went to the dentist. Nothing big - just a small correction and a note saying to contact him in about 18 to 24 months. Or, whenever I feel like it - but there's really no need. :) Neat! Anyway, back to the pictures.. This is taken from "our" side of the river (with my back against the mountain and facing south) an shows parts of the south side of town. And a very icy river..


Here we have a picture from the same position, only facing north. Don't you just love the fog? It's really blue back home now - almost like the blue hours up in the mountains around Røros (for those who have ever seen the Christmas calendar shows on childrens TV here in Norway).


The trees and bushes have a layer of frosting now. :)


And our house is getting wrapped in snow too (well, this is just a little snow, and it's early in the winter, but give it a couple of weeks and months and you'll see).


This is the mountain view from where my parents live (I'm standing next to the mailbox).

And here I am, wrapped up in my warm jacket, mittens, scarf and hat - but still a bit cold, as you can see from the roses in my cheeks. :)


Monday (before I went back to Oslo) my mom and I took pictures of all the things we'd been working on this weekend. Lots of progress, I should say. :) Neither of us can really remember the last time we managed to do so much in just one weekend..


We even managed to test out a patter for small purses - idea or shall we say the push came from May Britt.

Can you guess what these are? ;)


We just had to try to make these! I made the brown one - and inside it is a pair of my great grandmothers pair of scissors!


We actually managed to finish our stitcheries from Jordbærstedet - I'm going to take a picture and send it in to participate in the competition this week. Cross my fingers and hope to win (well, actually, everybody deserves to win, but it would have been fun if I did win).

Oh well, now it's back to work again, but the weekend's only three days away (and tomorrow I'm going to visit one of the other bloggers - and maybe even another one). ;)

Back from mini-vacation

Yup, I'm back from a long week-end up in Trysil. It was great! Sleeping long(-er), reading tons of magazines I never read unless I'm home, not having to cook dinner (except from on Sunday - but we don't really mind cooking), and having a bit of real winter-feeling (in comparison to the moist icy cold that's winter in Oslo). My BF really enjoyed it too - drinking tons of tea, doing cross-word puzzles and playing old Super Nintendo-games on his Mac. :)

And.. this was supposed to be the moment where you could see tons of beautiful pictures of Trysil, the stuff we worked on this weekend, and even a picture from a stunt we did at work a couple of weeks ago.. but, alas, Blogger doesn't want to upload any of my pictures.. :(

*sob*

I'll try again a little later..

A little progress..

Well, as I said in one of the previous posts, things have been kinda crazy around here lately - tons of work at work, in the NTF, at home etc etc etc. Not always easy to balance everything, and in the end, the things that get the least attention, is usually my sweet BF and our ratties.. Hopefully things will be a bit calmer now.

It was Halloween!!! :D But we got no trick or treat'ers at our door.. :/ But we had a very cozy time anyway. I made a test-batch of pumpkin-cakes (I skipped the filling, it didn't really sound very good) and they were GREAT! Yummy.. and on Wednesday we ate a good dinner, had way too many pumpkin-cakes and watched "The Nightmare before Christmas" on DVD, in candlelight. :) I'd bought two new candleholders the weekend before, and of course we had to test them on Halloween. ;)


The first one is with a witch on the front and back, and with bats on the sides.


The second one has a haunted house on the front and back, and a tree on the sides. They're very very prett when the candle inside are lit - dancing orange glows and shadows..


I was working on the thing you see parts of in the picture abowe... but something came up.. *duh* I'm a part of this stitchingclub organized by Jordbærstedet, where we get one preprinted stitchery plus fabrics (and silken threads for those who want that) a month, and then we have a certain amount of time to complete what it is we choose to make, and send in a picture - and one of lucky ones sending in a picture wins a prize. Now, in the two previous runs we've had about a month to complete the project, but for some reason, this time we have very much less time.. My mom got her package last Thursday, but for some reason I didn't get mine until this Thursday! And it has to be done (and taken a picure of) by November 17th at 12PM! That leaves me with barely 14 days (13 now.. stressed!!!) to figure out something to make, finish it and send it in (the picture that is..)! *eek*


This is as far as I got with the stitchery this weekend.. I still have to decide on a design around it, make it and finish it.. *argh* But I WILL make it. I want to win a prize too, and I want to finish it - even though I thing it's silly to give such a short time.. I heard that they hadn't even been able to send out all the packages yet, so I'm not the only one with a busy time ahead of me. (Lazy as I am today, I didn't flip the picture before posting.. oh well, I'll post a new picture when the whole thing's done.) ;)


On the other side, these little cutesies will have to wait a while for their November-friend.. These are the BOM my mom, a couple of her friends and I are making. They're from a pattern called "Annie's Calendar Quilt". They're very cute and very funny, and I can't wait to see them all finished - and maybe even all 4 different quilts together at one point - it's fun to use the same patterns as others, and then seeing the differences afterwards. :)

I've been playing with the two charm packs I brought home this summer too - not quite sure of what they'll become, but so far it's been fun, and I've learned lots. :)


Well, this is it from me for now, but if things don't get as crazy as they have been, I will be back soon. :) Right now I'm waiting for Quiltoholic to answer the mail I sent her - as a reply to her very sweet mail. ;)

Until next time, happy stitching! And remember to share some good times with a friend or two - like Gizmo and Swiffer in their little fleecehouse. ;)