1967-68 patterns

A while ago I had to borrow some knitting needles from my mom. She used to keep her yarn, needles and patterns in a big basket, and she still has the basket, although she can't knit anymore. So while I was looking for the right number of knitting needles, I came across two wonderful little books.

Perhaps the word book is a bit too much to call them, but they were certainly full of gorgeous patterns.

She had bought the books back in 1967-68 when my bigsister was little. She paid 2,85 Danish kroners for each of them, which seems like a ridiculous amount of money today.

A great deal of the patterns are actually much similar to the ones we see today - both the knitted and the crocheted ones.

The pink and the blue dresses are so sweet. But perhaps the length had to be adjusted a bit, in order to call them dresses.

And what about this sweet dress? If the colours of the yarn are different, then I can easily see it being worn by a little girl in 2009.

This crocheted sailor suit is however not up to date, but I had to show it to you, because my sister had one of these - I had one too, but mine was made out of fabric (and used to belong to my bigsister).

If you take a closer look at the picture above you can see that the woman is sitting on a stool made out of wickerwork. I had one of those stools as a child and I loved it. I used it for so many things while playing. It was called an Elephant Foot....

My mom and I looked through the books and my mom pointed out all of the things she had made for my sister.

I have borrowed the books for a while. Maybe I will make something from them - there are loads of beautiful things....

February admiration

February admiration, originally uploaded by lille-ursus.

I keep on loving these mosaics. They are such a great source of admiration - there are so many people out there with "magic hands", and a sense for beautiful pictures....

2 of the pictures are especially wonderful. They have been taken by my lovely niece Ida, who got a camera for her 18th birthday. I think she has an eye for discovering the right motif, and she finds interesting angels too.

Ida's pictures are number 6 and 7 in my mosaic - the table with the tiny flags and the brach with the drop of water.

I think it's so exiting to see how people look upon everyday life and the world in general through a camera....and even more funny when you know the person.

He was a shark!

A shark- eating a man - was what Emil finally decided to be for Fastelavn....so he and I worked for many hours all Sunday - cutting, sewing, glueing and painting. Actually I didn't go to bed before 5.30 in the morning, becuse I needed to sew the last stitches on the costume by hand. But all the time was worth the effort. Emil was very satisfied with the way the shark turned out, and I really enjoyed that we made it together.

I haven't taken some proper photos of Emil in the costume yet - the ones you see in this post are of him, when he left for school in the morning. I will try to take some which show the detalis a bit better. (But I hope you get the idea of a pair of legs in the mouth of the shark - the rest of the body has been "eaten" by it!)

I did however laugh a lot when Christian took off with a shark in the frontseat.....oh my, that looked hilarious!

For Fastelavn children go around in the neighbourhood wearing their customes, knock on doors and sing a certain song. They are supposed to get money, candy or other goodies for singing to you.

We had losts of vistors singing at our doorstep - Luke Skywalker, witches, scouts, flamengo dancers, ghosts, gifts and many more. I always think that it's funny to see how the children have dressed up.

Emil had a wonderful day, but it was a bit hot being a shark...

Knitting peacocks...or something!

Pattern knitting hasn't been a word in my knitting vocabulary so far, and I actually didn't think that it would become so at all. I have always been more into knitting patterns with different colours than with different stitches.

But then I saw ANDEFØDDER at Anne's blog a long time ago.....it made me think, that pattern knitting wasn't that bad at all - well, it was even good-looking! However, I didn't have the guts to try it out at that point.

As time passed on, I saw more and more beautilful pattern knitting on ravelry and on numerous blogs. Eva Annette made a gorgeous shawl which took my breath away, and so did Anne...

I also remember the most wonderful pale pink blouse, which my mother knitted for me when I was 6 years old. I loved that blouse with all it's many holes perfectly arranged in neat rows....and I even had socks looking a lot like that blouse, when I was younger. These items from my childhood, have come back into my memory parallel with my new interest in pattern knitting.

Many more people have contributed their part of inspiration, and quietly - but slowly - my new pattern-knitting-spirit was getting built up....

I was aware that it wouldn't be great, if I tried that particular kind of knitting out too soon, because then I knew, that it would take ages before I would give it a go again!!

BUT finally it was time to try it out. I had ordered a pattern and some yarn for this wonderful little dress at GARN-ITURE.

I began by reading the pattern very carefully and then I started....cast on, cast on, cast on.

For two days now I have been pattern knitting!!! And it looks like a pattern - it even has a name: Påfuglemønster (peacock pattern if translated word by word from Danish - in English Feather and Fan)

So now I have one new term to put in my imaginary knitting vocabulary - PÅFUGLEMØNSTER!!

Fastelavn - so soon??

For at least 15 years, I have been totally prepared on Fastelavn at this time of year.

The costumes had been decided by our children, the necessary materials had been bought and the outfits had been ready - or nearly ready.

This year however, I can't seem to get started on making Emil's costume and he himself has a bit of a hard time figuring out what to be.

We have talked about an evelope, a bee, a shark with a leg out of it's mouth (not as scary as it sounds - more funny), and a tomato.

I have a feeling that he will go for the tomato, so I'm looking for my tomato pattern, which I have seen in one of my sewing magazines.

Or maybe he will come up with something completely different...I just wish, that it was all ready and done!

My bigsister

Today I send lots of thoughts and birthday wishes to my bigsister...She is turning 45 and soon she will be on her way to Fyn, on a well deserved weekend holiday.

She is my dearest friend and I know that I can count on her, every single time. She has a wonderful sense of humour and we have had so many laughs together.

I admire her so much for the way she deals with life.....

I know that I have been rather annoying when I was a child (and probably also as a grown up). There are 7 years between us, so I guess that a 7 year old little sister isn't that fun to a 14 year old bigsister!!

I certainly remember an incident or two where I must have been extremely irritating!!

Happy birthday dear Lotte!

K is for Calligraphy

Rarely have I seen a more beautiful handwriting than the one I saw the other day.

At K is for Calligraphy on etsy I bought some sweet envelope seals, to put on the back of the letters I write.

The spotted seals arrived in a fine envelope with my name written in the most delicate, black handwriting.

When I opened it I found these lovely seals and another little bag with Valentine seals. That was a nice surprise.

And the fact that the owner of K is for Calligraphy took the time to handwrite with such delicate letters, is an extra gift to me. I couldn't help looking at the envelope several times that day....actually I don't even know, if I have the heart to throw it in the bin!

1 + 1 = 2

Lately I have recieved 2 awards - 1 from Lisbeth at Jaassi

And this one from Astrid at Conneting the Dots

It's rather funny that they are completely the same, but that just make me even more happy and honored to get the awards.

Whenever I have had the pleasure of having an award, I think that it's so generous of the blogger, who has given it to me, to have thought about my blog. I get honored that my words and pictures mean something....

I know that I'm supposed to pass the awards on to bloggers and blogs which I think deserve it, but actually I think that all the blogs I read frequently deserve to get the words which come along with the awards:

"Denne bloggen investerer i og tror på NÆRHET- nærhet i rom, tid og forholderne er usedvanlig sjarmerende og søte, og formålet er å finne og å være venner. De er ikke opptatt av utmerkelser og selvhevdelse. Vårt håp er at når båndene på disse utmerkelser er kuttet, vil enda flere vennskap ha forplantet seg. Vær vennlig å gi litt ekstra oppmerksomhet til disse!"

Pear tree branches

Every winter I take some branches from the old peartree in our garden. Even though they are bumpy and crooked I still love them - well, actually that is part of the reason why I need to enjoy them inside.

When they have had some days in our warm livingroom, they begin to reveal their little white tresures. And fine green leaves pop open as if it was a sunny day in spring. (It's almost sad to cheat them!)

These lovely flowers and leaves are the very best part of having the pear branches in my pale pink jug.

I always try to remind the rest of my little family, to go have a closer look at them in the window-sill. My children and my husband tend to feel the spring-is-just-around-the-corner-feeling as well (or else they are extremely good at faking it!).

However, I think it's important to notice the small pleasures in life, and to me this is one of them...

I just hope that my children will remember - and appriciate - to look at lots, and lots of pear tree branches in the future :0)

I have touched a silver medal!

The very last of Emil's table tennis tournaments was today. Early this morning he and Christian left our house, all prepared to participate in numerous matches along with the rest of the children from our local table tennis club.

As usual Emil was exited and a bit nervous about the matches, but he always tend to losen up when the 1st balls have been ping ponged! Then he has 6 more games to play and get the nervousness out of his body.

I was at home doing a bit of painting with Anne-Sophie, and I couldn't help thinking about Emil once in a while. At one o'clock the phone rang, and I knew that it was Emil.

By hearing his voice on the phone, I could tell that he was happy. " I won a silver medal, mom " he proudly said. I could hear that his face was smiling....and so was mine.

I'm really delighted for him - we all are. This is his 2nd medal this year. He has one of bronze as well. But to me it's of equal importance, that he becomes so proud and happy about his own achievements. A game where you play all by yourself is sometimes harder to lose, than the ones you play in a team.

Soon the table tennis season will be over, but that will not be the end of ping pong in our house...perhaps anyone has heard of soundless ping pong balls????

For the eyes and the mouth

Soon the winter holidays are over and everyday life returns. Time have passed by far too quickly, but we have had some wonderful days together.

The last few days have been so beautiful with sun and cold weather, so today we thought that we had better check out, wheter we could go iceskating on the fiord nearby.

It only takes a few minutes to get there by car and about 10 minutes to get there by bike.

The water was frozen but needed another day or 2 to be completely ready.

Sadly, I didn't dare walking on the ice due to my back, and I haven't skated since the accident either. Too bad because I LOVE iceskating - the feeling you get when you glide (more or less elegantly) over the ice, and all you can hear is the skates touching the ice...

It wasn't boring standing on land though, because I was able to enjoy the beatiful sight of water acting in many different ways...

I could have stayed at the fiord all afternoon, but we had decided to bake Fastelavnsboller, so off we went....

Maybe you think that you have seen them before, those Fastelavnsboller?? Well, they are made from the same recipe as last year - only decorated in pink and red this year.

If you want to bake them yourself, then have a go at my mother in law's great recipe.

Updating

I think it is time to do a little updating on recent posts:

• the trousers are done - I ended up sewing it by hand!! Just couldn't get it right even though I had wonderful directions from you guys...The stiches were (kind of) invisible - at least I think so...

• the birthday bag for Liselotte was completed today and given to her.The Flu delayed it quite a few days.

I think she liked it...

• I still haven't located the beautiful, Swedish fabric. But I have definitely not given up!

• Yesterday we saw 10 birds at our new bird feeding place. Yeah!! Maybe the snow we had today will make even more birds come to our take-away seeds?

• my give away present has been sent off and I know that the sweet winner (mortil9) has recieved it. It was rather funny, because while writing her adress on the package, I could see that she didn't live that far away from my town!! What a small world...

• the "missing their heads pixies" are now back to normal (or as normal as they can be with their necks full of glue!) and put in our big, wooden box with the rest of our christmas stuff....Lucky for my husband that they could be fixed ;0)

• PDF files are no longer a mystery to me - I have bought and recieved many since the post. Oh my, how fast a delivery from the other side of the world can be with a PDF file!!

Do you have updates too?? It's actually rather satisfying to have a little look back and see that things do happen....

Bye for now...

"Mom, there is a package for you!!"

Like almost anyone else in this land, our family has been down with the flu these last weeks - actually some have had it more than once (poor Emil!!)

So on a "I'm-feeling-awfully-lousy-from-fever-and-that-kind-of-stuff" day it was such an amazingly wonderful surprise to recieve a beautiful package in the post.

I could tell from the little round picture on the package, that it was from this gorgeous woman - that just made me even more excited about opening it. My son was rather curious too, and I think he would have loved to open it....

In front of me were two lovely, dotty gifts - both wrapped and decorated with a very special touch, which told me (once more) that Juliane is a very creative and caring person. They were almost too fine to open...

Inside of them were some beautiful things: a crocheted mushroom and an oil smelling like roses. Now, I happen to love mushrooms of all kinds - so getting one of Juliane's handmade ones was simply great. And the scent of roses have been my favourite ever since I played in my grandmother's garden (where we used the thornes from roses as tiny swords on our noses!!)

As I wrote to Juliane I have put the mushroom in my livingroom - and I have to wear a tiny bit of the rose oil today.......the rest will be saved for special occassions.

Both things will remind me of Juliane and her generous and heartwarming gifts. Thank you so, so much :0)) Isn't it just wonderful that women like her excists?

P.S. Remember that Juliane opens her shops on etsy and Dawanda very soon (28th of February)

A wonderful niece

At this excact day 18 years ago, I had just come back to Denmark after living in London for 6 months. My bigsister was pregnant and was supposed to have her baby in the beginning of February. I was so worried, that I wouldn't be back from the UK in time for the big occassion. Luckily I made it and Ida was born on the 3th of February. And today that is 18 years ago... I can hardly believe it!

Ida is a beautiful and gorgeous young lady, who knows what she wants - and her smile is as lovely as her heart. She truely is a wonderful person and I'm so proud to know her.

A very happy birthday to you Ida....

Bye for now,

The last week of January included:

From the last week of January, originally uploaded by lille-ursus.

....old and new hyacinth glasses which made me cheerful, delicoius Cream Puffs made by my son last Monday and delightful fabric from Marimekko (which I have dreamt of for a loooong time....now it was on sale!!)

A warm welcome to February ahead of us and hopefully more sunlight outside...I will enjoy seing it through the coloured hyacinth glasses.

Pinocchio

Reading the word Pinocchio, I bet you think of a little wooden fellow with an ever growing nose.....or maybe a special kind of candy we have in Denmark, shaped like peas in different colours and tasting like liquorice.

At least that's what I thought about untill I saw this fabulous piece of design from HAY.

A carpet called Pinocchio....

It's made by lots and lots of small felt balls in various colours, which have been put on a string.

I would absolutely adore having one of those carpets in my living room - I do wonder how hoovering it would be like, though?

Bumpy???