God jul!

May not have this kind of snowy Christmas this year, but it looks nicer than the foggy thing outside my window at the moment:)
It is little Christmas eve, as we call it here in Norway. Growing up, this was the earliest we decorated the tree. As a grown up, it is the day of relaxing. Off from work, start of a vacation, and this year - my own choice of celebrating:)

I am looking forward to Christmas eve with the rest of the family, and then eight days of doing exactly what I want. Sleeping in, sewing, watching my favourite movies, spending time with friends. Can't wait. It has not been an easy year, and next year will not be easy either. So I need to hoarde some energy this Christmas.

I wish you all the Christmas celebration of your wish:)

Poor birdies

I went on a quiltstore run during work hours today.... Sometimes during winter you just get desperate to be out in the daylight! And desperate to see fabric! On my way back I went by some bushes filled with birdies. I don't know if they were too cold to move much, or that being city birds, they can deal with people passing them by - but they even sat quietly until I got my camera up and zoomed in!
Almost a christmas card worthy, that one:)

I know they do it to keep warm, but I love how they puff themselves up:) In Norway, even in the cold winter, people are real good at feeding the birds, so they do quite well. I really enjoy watching the big flocks gathering in the bushes. And the noise they make! Winter can be so cold and dead, it is nice to see some creatures surviving here, except us.... :)

Oh, and if you wonder: No, I do NOT like winter!!!

Permission to leave!

I hereby give winter permission to leave! We have had permanent snow on the ground since November. That is a long winter, even for us Norwegians.
However, new sounds are cropping up. The drip from the roofs, the birds chirping. It's like it suddenly jumps in, all that sound. One day it is quiet, the next day there are sounds.... We went walking by the beach on Sunday. It is wonderful to see the snow melting away. It makes for new patterns.
The ice on the fjord is breaking up. The seagulls are sunning themselves on the rocks.

The fjord looks like a puzzle yet to be finished. But this time, don't finish the ice puzzle, please. Just break up and leave us with open sea! Should only take a month or so.... Sigh.

Hideaway!

How lucky am I? :) I received this gorgeous bunch of fabrics from my dear friend in Colorado. What a great gift to get while I am waiting for my physio's go-ahead to craft again. Something to dream over while waiting. What to do with it... hmh... Oh, I got plans!
The fabric is called Hideaway, from Moda, and it has all these wonderful forestscenes, flowers, birds and cucko clocks. The colours are so bright and cheery, it just made me smile the minute I saw it. You got to love fabric that does that!

Maybe it is the name of it, but I started thinking about this old little house I sometimes go by when visiting my aunt and uncle in the deep forests. I don't know what it says about me, being obsessed (slightly) by a run down little house.

I have no idea about the story behind it, but it fascinates me. I passed it earlier this winter, looking sad and lonely with the untouched snow in the front yard.

Last summer, it had a totally different vibe, but still haunting. Unfortunately there is a fence around the house, and I don't feel comfortable going closer, but I really, really want to....

Looking at this picture, though... makes me wonder if we will ever have summer again.... This has been a long, cold and snowy winter. I hereby give winter permission to leave!

Nature's art

Sometimes I don't know how the pictures turn out until I get them up on the screen. This one was just amazing! I was fascinated by how the waves from the lake had ended up making a wall of ice in front of the little tree, making a sort of a protective wall for it.
Then I saw the picture on screen, and saw that I had gotten the fractured ice on the lake in the picture, too! I just love the blue colours, though. Even the snow is bluish. There are colours in a white winter, too.

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....

Winterstorm

I went on a pre-Christmas visit to my aunt and uncle, who lives in the middle of a forest. To get there, you have to drive through acres and acres of fields. In the summer, it is full of colour and lights. Now?

It brings to mind those pictures of snow deserts up north. I had the hardest time driving back home, as it snowed and blowed. A few places the roads were clear, like here, because it got blown away by the wind. Other places I had a hard time driving, as the roads were piled up with snow. Again, because of the wind.

I am just amazed at the difference the seasons make in a place. So vitale and lively in the summer, but so desolute now. No one to see, no one outside. All the creatures, big and small, inside in the warmth.
I wish I could add a soundbyte to the pictures. The haunting sound of the wind blowing over empty places.

Diamonds on the ground

Whenever I see the sun shining on the snow and you get that incredible glitter, a sentence will immediately pop up in my head: "But I never bend down to pick diamonds anymore." I remember reading something about it many years ago. How fortunate I found the story today, after having been out in splendidly bright and cold winter day... brr...
"When I was a child, and when the sun was shining, I would go skiing over carpets of diamonds. I was always sure that if I bent down slowly and carefully enough, I would be able to grab one of them. But I never managed that, it was always gone before my hand reached it.

In the forest stood queens and trolls, small kids in groups and large kings and princesses. And all of them were covered in soft, white shapeless gowns. I never touched those. I still walk in the same forests, but now I sometimes will use my ski pole to make sure that the snow will not break a big tree branch or break the top of a small tree.

The white diamond carpet is still there – as it will always be when the sun shines on the snow. But I never bend down to pick diamonds anymore. It is enough to know they are there."

(My translation, my mistakes:)

Trolls and ghosts

My theory is that local fairytales are based on the locale. In Norway, a lot of our fairytales are based on nature and weather - huge mountains are petrfied trolls, scary woodponds with no bottoms are the home of the watersprites and the storm are the spirits howling. And you believe it, if you see it:)
Tonight I stood on my balcony and saw the huge birchtree covered in frost as the frostfog came in, just as the sun was going down. And eventhough the neighbours are a few yards away, you could believe you were the only living creature for miles... except for the ghosts and the spirits....

.. could that single light over there be a lost soul looking for its home? A marshlight - the soul of an unbaptised child lighting your way towards death's door?

And I wonder why I still am afraid of the dark?!?! Hah!

Haunting it is, but beautiful too. Even in the middle of a city.

Frosty snow

Guess what? We have winter, we have snow and I have a new camera:) Tested it out today. I find it increasingly annoying to be driving along a road, suddenly seeing a perfect object and then have absolutely no chance of stopping!
Doesn't matter if it is a highway or a country road, winter makes it hard to just suddenly stop and park alongside the road. Two curves before this, I saw this beautiful vistas of frost covered trees bending halfway down over an old wooden fence. Sigh... I had to do with these.

Not so bad.

Camera working verrrry well...:)

Returning to the End

Seeing the World's End during summer, I wanted to go back and see how it looked in the winter.
We have been having a cold spell, making for wonderful crisp light, but hard to outside in. It makes it hard to breathe and your eyes burn.
But worth it, don't you think? I got there just in time for sunset and that special rosy colour it makes during winter.
Eventhough the rocks are smooth from centuries of wind and sea, snow always finds a way of sticking to it,

making wonderful icy sculptures.

And the everchanging lights.

The statue of the fisherman's family feels more suited to this kind of weather, feeling the icy wind buffeting you around,

staring into yet another sunset, all alone.

Christmas, christmas

This is also a part of Christmas here up north:) though not always. I just returned from celebrating Christmaseve with the family, and ended up having to drive through snow to get home. You get used to driving in snow here, though it is a nuisance at times. However, I do love the colours that comes from snowdrives in streetlights.
Why decorate a tree inside when you get snow and lights outside?

Now I can share some of the gifts I made this year. This is a variation of a pattern from Bente Malm. Instead of a big tablecloth I made it into a table runner instead. This was for my nephew and his girlfriend. Big one to suit a big table:)

Winterroses, as we call them, are pretty new to Norway, and we only get them at Christmas. I do like them.

For my sister-in-law, I made kitchen curtain for her kitchen - two small windows, one for each.

I look forward to seeing them on the window:)

Have a continous good Christmas, all you out there!

White-out in blue

I am not a fan of snow, as cold weather follows in its foot steps, naturally. I am always cold during winter, and I do SO hate that. However, I can't ignore the fact that the colours are sometimes amazing and otherworldly, that the shapes the snow forms over everything makes it look like clouds have fallen down to earth, and that it is easy to believe in fairytales when you go skiing in moonlighted forests at night. Never have I wanted so much to be able to paint as when I see the winternight colours by the full moon light.

And.... it is during winter you can actually look at the sun directly and see its colours. Just look at this!I went home to visit last weekend, and saw my childhood home surrounded by the purple and blue evening colours. And remembered how we used to play outside in the snow until we were cold, wet and could not see a hand in front of us and was guided in to a warm fireplace by the lights pouring out from the windows.