Such a long time

I have been working like a busy bee crafting since long before Christmas. Not shown a lot of it, since several of them have still not transferred ownership. However, next week will hopefully see a few of them out of my house!


Here's the smallest ones. I finally broke down and made purses... It was fun. There might be more of these in the future:)

The quilt will be shown next week. Just in case she reads my blog:)

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How I spent November and December

All gifts have now been received, so I can finally share how I spent the last two months. Apart from my job, that is.


A penguin Christmas hanging for my niece.


Two Bridgewater shawls, one for my mom and another one for my SIL.

My goddaughter was born on the second day of Christmas, which here in Norway means 26th of December. This year she turned 18! When do they stop getting older? Sigh. So yesterday I was there for the family celebration. Lovely, as always:) she got her first sewing machine this Christmas. Can't wait to see here creations:)

I had found a lovely Norwegian knitting, Jorid Linvik, and went wild with her mittens.


The text is the snow-song from Winnie the Pooh, in Norwegian.


Angel for an angel:)


I made these for her mom. The moose is the same as we have on out traffic signs, watch out for crossing moose:)

I also made this Leftie scarf for the 18 year old. Yarn bought at Fancy Tiger crafts in Denver. Fun store. Madeleinetosh. Gorgeous yarn.


Colors a little wrong.


This is closer.

So, now it is just three delayed gifts left. No, I am wrong.... Six. Goodness.... I really should start earlier. Or give myself a year off making gifts...

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Getting close

Suffering from a slight case of lethargy at the moment. Hoping it will not completely take over. In any case, I started my new Christmas tree last night. Not quite decorated yet, but the lights themselves makes it look good. I don't have a good place for a real tree, so I try to find other ways. Pinterest is a good source for ideas:)


I also managed, finally, to finish up this pillow. It's a Christmas gift, so it needs to get done:)


Now for the last few ones. Wish there were time enough. Another week would have been good:)

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Secret time of the year

It's the secret time of the year. It is hard to post any finishes, as most of the recipients  read my blog. But this one I can share. It is another 'Bridgewater', second one. It is for my mom.


She saw mine last year, and told me she wanted one. In white. So here it is.


I used my new blocking pins, it was sooo much easier than using a lot of needles:)


It goes into my Christmas gift bag, the secret bag with the rest of the gifts. The bag is from the exhibition we visited in Denver: Becoming Van Gogh. As every good Whovian, I could not miss that one!


And as a quilter, I could not miss this bag. (a gift from a good friend:)) The picture is of a quilt, inspired by Bedroom in Arles, Vincent Van Gogh. Six quilters made one strip each. Wish I could have seen this original. However, the exhibition was incredible.

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The quiet space of Christmas

In Norway, the days between Christmas eve and New Years eve are viewed as a quiet time. Stores are closed between 24 and 27, among others:) Growing up, I weren't even allowed to knit or sew those first days in Christmas, as it was holy days and we should 'not work'. Thankfully, I don't have to adhere to those rules any more:)

I intend to spend these free, quiet days crafting as much as I can! At the moment I am having a LOTR marathon while appliqueing on my Civil War Bride quilt, interspersed with some light knitting.

Since everybody has unwrapped their gifts by now, I can finally show what I have been working on these last few weeks.
Yup, another pair of skull socks. I mixed a few patterns for this. The receiver hasn't received them yet, but has seen pictures of them. They pass.

For my good friend in the US, I knitted another shawl, this is corral red. Hopes she likes it.

Three ladies all ordered table runners this Christmas. Is there an epidemic? Not easy ones, either, as two of them are in colours I find difficult to work with. But this one is for my niece, who wanted something 'romantic' and shabby chic.

Simple pattern of squares. The quilting made it all go togheter, I think.

My sister-in-law wanted something for spring, lilac, grey, silver, green and so on. Sigh. Again, hard colours for me to use. I found it hard to find a pattern that would even show up with these fabrics, but I tried. For some reason I did not take a picture of this finished! I quilted star patterns on the open spaces, just to make it show at all.

Colours are a little off on this one, but you can see a star:) This one is very long, as she has an old table that can be taken out to seat 20 people....
A friend wanted a table runner in dark blue and purple, to fit on a black table.... Ok... So I decided to make my own interpretation of that:) Turns out she likes it:) Can not ask for more than that.

Tomorrow, hopefully, I will rearrange my living room and start laying out the Dear Jane for it to be basted. A full day spent on my knees bent over the quilt - I can feel my back aching already, not to mention my fingertips. But it has to be done before I can start quilting it! Another goal this Christmas break is to rearrange all my fabric to find new ways of putting them together. Enough to do, but fun work.

Different

When I rearranged my furniture last year, I did not take into account that the space for the Christmastree got moved to a place where I only will see it when I am on my way out of the apartment. What is the point of a tree, then? So after seeing different wonderful ideas on Pinterest (highly recommended, by the way!) - I am trying something different this year:) This one contains all my favourite ornaments, and I can look at it all the time. I might look for new lights next year, I would like for it to have more lights.
Since most of the people I have made Christmas gift for are frequenting this blog, I can't share all the things I have completed! But this one has already been opened by the receiver, so I can share it:) It is a beautiful colour, a light green colour.

I am almost done with all of the gifts. Just a little more knitting and a few more stitches. And it is still a week left! Feels almost luxurious.

All I want for Christmas...

is warmer weather. It has been cold!!!! Icy cold! Car-wont-start-even-in-the-garage-cold!
Anyway..... can't do much about the cold. Christmas eve and gift giving is over. We celebrate Christmas eve. I have never understood that need to celebrate it Christmas morning. The story says he was born at night, with stars out and so on. Why would you celebrate the day after?

Now I can show some of the gifts I made and gave away at least. The rest will have to come later. My niece, the one who wanted a quilt with pictures, embroidery, buttons, sequins, lace and everything else, please! - had seen some of my Bareroots pictures I had made for other people, and told me she wanted something like that. With quotes. Please.
So I took one from Bareroots,

and another patterns I bought years ago,

and then made an original because I haven't found anyone else stitching it. This last one is a quote from Christopher Robin to Winnie the Pooh, and I thought about my niece the minute I read it. She struggled with school for years, suffered from depression and thought herself stupid. Until she finally got a diagnose and the right medication at an age of 21, started nursing school and received top grades since. She still think of herself as stupid. How hard it is for us to get rid of those negative thoughts we have about ourselves. I hope some of these words will help her in her daily struggle.

And then I knitted a couple of pairs of these. God jul - Merry Christmas.

Light is coming!

It might not seem it at the moment, but tonight is wintersolstice (23:38 tonight) and the days will gradually become longer and longer. Oh, how I long for it to be still light when I get home from work!
In the meantime - full moon (I can feel my teeff lengthen.....)

Christmas lights downtown Oslo

and on the castle.

If Christmas wasn't a holiday in December, we Norwegian would have found something else to celebrate with lights galore, because this month is one of the darkest of the year even for us in the eastern part of Norway. We still have daylight a few hours a day, up north they haven't seen the sun for months!

This country is for specially interested - at times....

Red light... district?

Having a star in your window is the first step to Christmas in Norway. It is supposed to depict the star that the three wise men followed to Bethlehem. For four weeks we celebrate Advent, the waiting period, by having the star in the window and by lighting purple candles each Sunday until Christmas eve.
I got a new star this year. Beautiful dark red. What I did not take into account is that the redness of the star bleeds into the rest of the room. I feel I am living in a red light district.... not quite appropriate for a countdown to Christmas, I can't help feel....

Still.... I like it:)

Førjulstanker....

How to translate that one... pre-christmas thoughts? For once something sounds more poetic in my own language. Huh - who would have thought.

I realise I haven't been good at blogging lately. The only reason I can give is that life hasn't been very easy lately, and from what little I can predict it doesn't look like that is going to change in the nearest future.

But now it is advent, preparation for Christmas season. I love this time of year, all the lights and the expecctations. Christmas for me is all of December, until after Christmas eve. After that, I am done:)
So I have taken out my advent candles (I will be lighting three candles tomorrow).
My advent star is hanging in the window, 'guiding the way' until Christmas eve.
And my little Christmas tree:) I got this in Singapore a few years ago. The stone in the middle looks beautiful in the candle light.

Today I hung my stars in the windows. When it gets dark before 4 pm, lights are a crucial and lifegiving part of the Christmas season. This was taken at 3:30 pm - there are few hours of daylight at this time of year. But you can't beat the colours this season brings us.

It is a perfect time for crafts. I am trying out a new one this year. We call it gimping, I think the Americans call it hairpin something? I am to make four of these and then try to crochete it together. We shall see... I will show you the result, if I am able to make it work.

So the next few weeks will be seeing me finishing a load! of christmas gifts, visiting my aunt and uncle in Sweden again, I hope. They have a new dog! A puppy! And celebrating the season with family. The future will have to worry by itself for a little while. If I can keep the vargs at bay in the middle of the night...:)