Shell in Garnstudio Silketweed... with little cables :: about 5 inches of back
---------
"Henley T-shirt for Women" from Knitting Pure & Simple in a rose 8-ply yarn from Heirloom Yarns for my Mom. ----------
Poetry in Stitches cardigan in white Cotton Sport by Idena body :: 100% complete! arms : what arms?? ---------
Gloves from Homespun, Handknit in Rowan DK tweed (I think) :: 75% complete ---------
Country Socks from Folk Socks in Nature Spun sportweight (Snow and Charcoal) :: 90% complete (still)
P.I.P.S.s ::
(projects in planning stages) Finish writing
up the pattern for the Cotton Sport cabled sweater and post
it.
This is a weblog. It's mine. It tends to be about knitting
with occasional ramblings about my experience living in Norway.
(Sometimes it's the other way 'round.) Want to know more? Read the faq's.
Fredag (Friday) 31. Mai, 2002
Want an invisible seam on your sock toes or under the arms of your seamless sweater? Feeling intimidated by the kitchener stitch?
Fear not! I have taken pictures!
Some of you my notice my counter down there suddenly jumped to a larger number, and it's because I reset it. It's a yaccs counter and
it had been disabled... I was wondering why it seemed to say a similar (the same) number for several days, even tho I know you guys are still
showing up! But I'm not cheating, I got the revised number from the site meter statistics.
The "T-shirt" sweater for Mom is zipping right along... or, at least, I'm quickly running out of yarn. I'm using size 5mm needles and worsted weight,
and lots of sitting-in-front-of-the-television-because-it's-raining-cats-and-dogs time. I realize that making
raglan sweaters from the bottom up does give the opportunity to look forward to decreasing, while I got tired of increasing
on this one quite a while before it was time to slip the sleeve stitches to a holder. But I am enamoured of how
the paired increases make a neat little raised line.
In other news, I did a bit of updating on the knitting gallery page today.
Falling back on Norwegian lessons when I can't think of anything else to post about:
Hvordan har du det? (vhor-dan hahr doo deh?) :: How are you? (lit. How have you it?)
Possible responses:
Bare bra, takk! Just fine, thanks!
Jo... Yeah, well, okay, I guess
Just start explaining how bad you feel.
Knitting News: started on something called a "Henley T-shirt for Women" from Knitting Pure & Simple
in a rose 8-ply yarn from Heirloom Yarns for my Mom. This is the first time I've ever knit anything top down
and I like it! More later... we're going to a (real) airplane show this afternoon.
Keep your fingers crossed for good weather.
Oh, my the narrators are speaking in a heavy (I assume to be) Tronder dialect. The wedding is taking place in Trondheim, in the Nidarosdomen.
Here
are pictures of the cathedral being decorated. They're using Märtha lillies...
Leave me a comment if you're watching! The links to the live broadcasts on nrk.no are below.
Ari is sitting and waiting. In Norwegian weddings, the bride and groom sit with their forloverne by their sides, and
after they kneel in front of the priest, they sit down side by side with the "best man and woman" sitting next to each other.
3:42pm : Lots of royalty from European countries are arriving now. The princesses of Sweden (Crown
Princess Victoria and Princess Madeleine) got some really big cheers just then. They're so pretty!
Crown prince Haakon and Crown princess Mette-Marit are about to arrive. My TV shows things a few minutes before the internet.
They're saying nice things about the dress. It had been speculated that it would be "shocking" but they're saying it's lovely.
There's a story about the Queen (not this one, but a previous one) walking around shopping in the city and someone
asked a man on the street "But who guards her?" and he said "Why, we all do!"
4:01 pm : Sniffle. I should probably go ahead and get some tissues.
From around 1:05 pm GMT you can tune in to NRK and join Her Majesty Märtha Louise and Ari Behn at their wedding which
will be taking place from 2 pm GMT to 3pm GMT and continue to watch for hours on end as I plan to do on television...
Update :: Links for the broadcasts fixed. If anybody's planning to tune in online, I would love to know about it! Sigurd's not interested in this sort of thing and I want someone
to sniffle with.
Oh, and Becky and you other Europeans out there can watch on NRK International. ;O)
I'm going to try something new: I posted a few questions (hereafter known as "Personal Yarns", thanks to Melissa's suggestion!) here for you
guys to either answer in the comments or post the answers to in your own weblog. Let me know if you think this is a good way for us to get
to know some things about each other! :O)
Deb suggested leaving the cardigan sleeveless and making another one with arms. There is a gorgeous wool cardigan in black
in that book also....
Meet Woody. I just snapped this picture of him on the birdfeeder. He's so great!
For the record: here is a picture of what that Poetry in Stitches cardigan might look like
without arms. I'm starting to feel like perhaps I don't really want to show my upper arms in public... but I also
realize when it's about 70F and I feel like I'm melting that I'm rather accustomed to Norwegian weather and worry about how
July in the South will feel. Hmmm...
And according to the Aftenposten the wedding menu will be:
Ørret-tartar med friske asparges og porchert vaktelegg Trout Tartare with Fresh Asparagus and Poached Quail Egg
Kalvenoisetter med vårens grønnsaker Veal Noisettes with Spring Vegetables
Lun chèvre og Snøfrisk Warm Goat Cheeses
Vanilje-bavaroise med bringebær og grenadinesaus Vanilla Bavarian Cream with Raspberry and Grenadine Sauce
In other news, there seem to be plans for a American movie based on
the "russ", a tradition unique (?) to Norway in which teenagers in their last year of high school go around for about a month, ending with a
parade on the 17th of May, are set loose to do whatever mischief occurs to them, whether it be painting the sinnataggen blue,
putting dish detergent into the fountains around Oslo, cruising around/crashing in falling apart vans and busses which are usually hand painted red or blue with names and themes .. for example "Ringnesherre" (the Norwegian
title for Lord of the Rings was Ringenesherre and Ringnes is a Norwegian beer) and wearing these overalls (red for general studies, blue for economics/trade and black for vocational studies) that I'm not
sure see the inside of a washing machine for a month. I'm torn between feeling like these young'uns really shouldn't spend a month
being disorderly and wishing I had been a teenager in Norway.
Whew. I ripped out just the V-neck border and redid it, picking up more stitches and knitting fewer rows and
it worked! WHEW! It's blocking now.
In other knitting news, I'm debating whether to just leave the Poetry in Stitches cardigan armless ...if I'll be using it in July in
North Carolina, should it really have arms?
Argh. I finished up the vest today and the neck is too small to get over my head. I think I started the V for the neck too
late but can't imagine pulling out all the arm borders and finishing and ripping back to before the dividing point. Argharghargh.
The girls are doing garden work (removing dandelions and watering) voluntarily! :-)
Here is a labeled picture I managed to
take last year on the 17th of May of the royals waving from the balcony of the castle overlooking Karl Johan gate, the main street in
Oslo. School children from all over Oslo come and march in the "barnetog" (children's train or parade) and get waved
at by the royal family, which I believe is the most delightful tradition of which I've ever heard. There are some closeups
of the same day here.
And I'm almost to the dividing point of the V-neck of the vest I'm making of the last of my Rowan DK soft. I've never made
a V neck. Any tips?
I absolutely love seeing Norwegians in their national costumes. I snapped some pictures yesterday
so I could share them with you all. The bunad varies with geographical region, but it happens nowadays that
people pick the ones they like the best. There is a history
of the bunad at husfliden.no as well as a map of Norway with the corresponding bunads under "Bunads in Norway" which is
at the bottom of the main Husfliden page. Enjoy!
I'll share some more pictures of Syttende Mai and us ... soon! (We're having a very busy weekend.) There's a little
more about the day at Norwaypost.no, including
a translation of "Ja, vi elsker", Norway's national song.
Gratulerer med dagen! Hurra! Hurra! Hurra! We're having a marvelous day (still are) and I took a whole bunch
of pictures of bunads, and I'll get to them as soon as possible. For now, you can see the royals (which we didn't get
to see today) here. Sunburnt and all...
Whoa. I spent most of the day outside digging and then went directly to line-dancing and I'm exhausted. (Utslitt :: exhausted)
The whole of
Norway seems to clean up all at one time, as soon as it gets warm and in time for the 17th of May (Constitution Day)... sweeping
the gravel left on the driveway and neighborhood roadsby the gravel-spreading trucks that make driving in the winter possible. (Well,
that and winter tires). And pulling weeds, planting flowers, washing windows, etc, etc. We're not quite part of the neighborhood around here
for some reason. The road we live on makes a U and we're in the curve, up on a hill... so we didn't participate in Saturday's dugnad or
neighborhood cleanup day. (I swept the road a couple of weeks ago.) But I did do a serious amount of weed removal (3 huge black garbage
bags full) and planted some pretty purple and yellow pansies (stemor :: step-mother and the flower viola). Theresa (age 12)
helped me rake the entire yard a couple of weekends ago without complaining and with only a small sum of money changing hands. ;o)
Knitting-wise, I'm working on the 7 things exchange organized by Shetha at the knitblogs group. So, I can't talk about
that. We've gone to the model airplane club several times this week (April, by the way, broke all sorts of records for warm weather in Norway) and
I've gotten past the heel on the "Country socks" and have knitted a few more squares for the ongoing stash-reducing crochet-a-whole-bunch-of-squares-together
lappeteppe (patch blanket). Of course, it defeats the purpose (porpoise) to buy more yarn for this project, but I do
it anyway. Oh, and I taught the daughter of one of S.'s model airplane buddies to do a knit into the front and back of a stitch
increase on Saturday.
Today is my sweetie's birthday. If you'd like to tell him "Gratulerer med dagen!", you can send email or leave a comment and I will forward it to him (across the room to the other computer).
New :: This blog snob thing, that I first noticed over at Echo's Oatmeal. It creates a randomly generated ad for weblogs that are signed up. Oh, heck, why should I feel guilty about shameless self-promotion?!? The 11,326 page views Bagatell has gotten has gone straight & completely to my head. Thank you all for visiting!!!
Well, I, for one, am sick to death of these blogspot ads, so I went and got myself a domain name: www.spellingtuesday.com. I haven't made the move yet, but will soon, and since this page is being forwarded to there, you can go ahead and change your links and stuff ... :O)
Today is May Day. Everything in Norway is closed, schools are out, businesses are shut down, but it's raining, so maybe the farmers can't collectively spread very ill-smelling fertilizer on their fields today in protest as they have in years past. I had no awareness of May Day before coming to Norway... is it something that is acknowledged where you are?
Despite having 691k of unread knitlist digests in my Inbox, I find it fascinating to be able to search the KnitU archives without being a member. Hey look! Meg Swansen! ;o)
In other news, there seem to be plans for a 
