Made by Nemo

Friday, August 06, 2021

Back to work - week home alone

My first week back to work was to be spent home alone. Me working from home, while hubby and the kids went to the in-law's for the last week of hubby's vacation. The week was cut a bit short, as hubby started to feel unwell yesterday, and booked a COVID-test for today back home (e.g. here). So they're on their way home this afternoon, while I'm juggling work and my last hours home alone.

I had so many plans for this week, many plans were cancelled or put on hold while others were completed.

I finished a bag veskekurven (a norwegian pattern, from RyumQuilt) for our neighbour, together with two matching sweet pea pods (pattern from Lazy Girl Design) made in fabric I inherited from her. I'm going to fill the bag with yarn. She knits socks and hats and blankets for the local NICU (newborn intensive care unit) and I think I have a couple skeins she can have.

I've also finished two baking cloths (to cover the dough while it's rising) that I stitched earlier this summer (the blue one went on vacation with me, and was finished the week we came home). The pattern is from Northern Quilts, and is one that I have made several times. I love using mine, both when baking and to keep the wheat tortillas warm when we have tacos for dinner.

Besides these finished objects, I've worked on completing a stitchery I stitched waaaaay back (2012?), which is now almost ready for quilting, and I've been working on my Nebula BOM designed by Jaybird Quilts. I bought the pattern and fabric from a norwegian quiltshop called Lappemor. I managed to finish both of block 7 and 8, and the fabric for block 9 is ready to be cut up and sewed together. For someone who doesn't usually make blocks, but sticks to stitcheries and simple piecing (or EPP), this has been both challenging and eye-opening. I keep being surpriced by the fact that I'm able to do this, even with minor mistakes - like swapping the colours or turning the fabric the wrong way here and there.. I'll just call them individual design changes, or something like that - and there are plenty of points that are not matching up precicely, but hey, I'm happy with it! And I'm noting it all down as learning.

In knitting related updates, I'm working on the first sleeve of my Flax Light Sweater, designed by TinCanKnits, in the colourway Moody Spring dyed by Lille rille design. I've also learned two new techniques in knitting, trying my best to knit the Honey Clutch from PetiteKnit.

I started an epp-project after seeing a picture on InstaGram before the summer vacation started - and now I'm not quite sure what to do with it... I hate to just leave it in the state that it is in, but I'm not sure where to go from here, or what I want the end result to become. I've also been working on my 100 hexies 100 days project (from InstaGram) and can now confirm that all 100 hexies have been sewn together. Now, I'm not entirely sure what that project is going to end up being either.. I'm contemplating wether to remove a couple of the blocks or leave them in there... It might be easier to get a symmetrical (and useful) finished objekt if I remove them, but then again the project would no longer consist of all 100 hexies - which was kind of the point when I started it.. Decisions, decisions..

Thursday, August 05, 2021

Summer 2021 - in pictures

2021 came with another "stay at home" advice for the summer vacation - meaning, well, I know you know what it means, but anyway.. meaning spend your vacation in your own country. Even though the rise in vaccinated people and somewhat open boarders ment that you could travel - but you might or might not have to go into quaranteen when you returned. So we stayed in Norway.

I've just finished my three weeks summer vacation, and am back to working from home whilst hubby and the kids still have another week off (they're visiting the in-laws). It's a little strange how fast time flies by. I mean, three weeks are still three weeks, even when they feel like one..

My first week, the kids and I spent in Trysil, visiting my mom. Not many pictures from the visit, unfortunetly, but the days were spent, knitting, sewing, reading and jumping on a huge trampoline! (The kids did all the jumping, not me.)

Hubby came up the last weekend, and then we started our adventure for the summer : visiting Trondheim!

I feel like I more or less grew up in Trondheim, spending many vacations there visiting our grandparents (when they lived there) with my sister. So going back there felt good! Hubby had visited a couple of times before - but this was the kids' first visit. We had many plans, some were followed - others, well, there will be other times and other visits. :-)

First things first, there are a couple hours of driving from Trysil to Trondheim, or Malvik - which is where the house we borrowed was located (we swapped houses with another family, who wanted to visit Oslo - which is another story for another day). That's why we deciced to take a couple of stops on the way north. The longest stop was spent in Røros, where we visited the church, saw and climbed th mountains of debree from the old mines - and had a nice lunch in one of the bakeries downtown.

The view from the mountains of debree is spectacular!

Our first day in Trondheim, we visited Nidarosdomen, a magnificent visit indeed! I love the stained glass windows.

No sight of the monk some claim to have seen inside, but we did find this handsome chap on one of the pillars inside.

Our second day was spent near Meråker, in an outdoor climbing park called Rypetoppen. Hubby and Peder went on a tour of the largest trails Peder was allowed to climb (red), while Aurora and I stayed on the green ones. (P, A and hubby took a blue trail too, which I documented with pictures and video.) I managed to slip on one of the first obstackles, and bruised my ankel pretty badly. It still hurts and looks bad even now, two weeks later. But we had a fun day! We stayed until the park closed, and on our way back to Malvik, we were stopped twice by heimevernet and the police, checking to see if we'd been across the border to Sweden. (Rypetoppen is pretty close to the swedish border, and with the COVID, you'd have to be tested when crossing the borders and possibly quaranteened.) Lucky for us, we hadn't crossed the borders, so we could drive back to Malvik and enjoy a very late but good dinner.

It doesn't show very good in the picture, but the kids and hubby are several meters up in the air.

We had to make a stop further north of Trondheim too, I mean, when there's a town called Hell... how can you NOT stop for pictures? Here's my soon-to-be-teenager (just kidding, two years left) channeling his inner dark metal spirit.

A girl working at the local gas station told me that they had an american tourist came in one day, asking if they had a stamp (which they did) and asked them to put the stamp in his passport. I'm not sure if gas station stamps are allowed in passports, but it is still pretty cool.

We had lunch in the sky one day - high up in this tower (74 meters above the ground)! The windows at the top is where a two-story restaurant is located - with the top floor slowly rotating, so that you get to enjoy a 360 degree view of Trondheim during your meal.

The church we visited earlier the same week, Nidarosdomen, is visible in the upper left half of the picture, identified by the pointy green tower.

We visited Rockheim too, a music museum and hall of fame for musicians in Norway. A and I stumbled across a room dedicated to Knutsen og Ludviksen, where we sat down and enjoyed some fun music and videoes.

Coming back home and the leaves are starting to fall, covering pathways and ground and grass. I'm not ready for this, I'm not ready for summer to be over and fall to come..

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Friday, August 06, 2021

Thursday, August 05, 2021

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Friday, July 16, 2021

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