Busy Summer

After spending three month working in Frankfurt, I returned home to prepare myself for my herbalist exam.
It will take place on the 13th and 14th of September. For my final project, I decided to dye wool with wildflowers, a very nice and satisfying experience, full of surprises...

In the photo above you can see one of my experiment in dying wool with Corn Poppy flowers...

And I prepared a herbary with 60 pressed flowers. This is the Yellow Sweet Clover (Melilotus officinalis):

And here one of my results with dying wool with Common Horsetail (Equisetum arvense):

The wool on the left is Alpaca, whereas the other ones are simple sock wool (sheep wool).

I'm looking forward to dying wool with garden plants and mushrooms next time...

Wristwarmers "Sildre"

When I saw these mittens at Thorhild's blog Cloudberry Knit, I knew instantly that I wanted to knit them.  Thorhild was so nice to tell me where she had bought the pattern - and so did I.

In the middle section of the mittens, I used a slightly different stitch, but the rest was knitted following the pattern. I used a 4ply sock yarn which resulted in relatively thick mitts; so I will knit them again with maybe a 3ply sock yarn.

Apart from this, I am very pleased with the result. I  l o v e  to knit and "invent" mittens and wristwarmers! Next thing I have in mind is to knit some wristwarmers with pearls...As the weather is still very bad and we feel like winter instead of spring, wristwarmers are very welcome. And as they are such a charming accessoire, I think about doing some in cotton which then can be used during the other seasons as well.

Caring for Copper

Copper is a wonderful metal and has a warm glow. So it converts every kitchen in a cosy place, especially when you have a wooden fire in your stove...

The only disadvantage of copper is that you have to polish it from time to time. This is best made with so-called "Vienna polishing chalk" which is totally harmless to the environment and gives a beautiful shine not only to copper, but also to other metals. I use it frequently in my kitchen and I am always pleased by the result.

Anthroposophists bring copper into connection with the planet Venus. Herbs, too, should be cut with knifes with a copper blade, not with an iron blade.  "Sine ferrum" was the advice of the old masters. Apart from this, it is a joy to cook and prepare meal in copper pots.

Recent Knitting Projects

In November, we spent some days in Seattle and I bought a wonderful yarn there, from Manos del Uruguay, a wool-silk-blend. I made a scarf in linen stitch from that wool:

Then, at Garnstudio, I discovered a felted bag which I wanted to knit immediately, but when it came to felt the bag, I decided  n o t  to do that, because I loved the size and wanted to keep it as it is. And I made a felted "Edelweiss" instead of hte crocheted flower to decorate the bag. I bought the yarn in Oslo:

Last, but not least, I knitted some wrist warmers which I still have to sew together. I made the lace separately:

Which projects did you knit/crochet ultimately? 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

As every year, I am a little bit late for my Christmas posting. So many things to do, to plan, to prepare...
But now, everything is done and slowly we can start to enjoy Christmas time.

I wish everyone who reads this peace, joy and happiness. Merry Christmas!

A visit to Oslo

As almost every year, we visited Oslo for a few days in December. There is a wonderful Christmas market at the Folke Museum. Real "nisser" greeted us at the entrance.

Then we went to the cottage where diligent women baked "Hardanger Lefser":

 

The only light in the cottage came from the open fire and a candle in the window...

We  heard a concert with the famous musician Arve Moen Bergset. I took a picture of his Hardanger fiddle:







And on we went to a very special folklore dance event:

The lady who was also the leader of the children's dancing group, played this instrument, a so-called "nøkkelharpe".

The temperature was -10 degrees C and she played with bare hands.

We spent more than three hours at the Folke Museum, but I could have spent there twice as long...or even longer...so much to see...so much to taste...so much to memorize...



Instead of riding the bus, we walked all the way back to the city center. And looked forward to having a coffee and cake at Halvorsens Conditori, as the day before:

But this time, the Conditori was closed. So we have to wait until next year...Farewell, Oslo!

 



Lunchbox - Nistepakke

When I was young and going to school, I always had a "Pausenbrot" ("breaktime snack") with me which my mother thoroughly prepared. But when I started to live on my own and went to University, I was often too lazy to prepare my own food and bought a sandwich  here or there or ate at the University's dining facility.
When I began to work in the office, I ate at the canteen, day in, day out.

Sometimes I brought with me some juice or I made an instant coffee, but nothing more. When we got a "barista corner" in our cafeteria, I was very pleased at first and from then on, bought my "Latte macchiato" or my "Chai Latte" or hot chocolate there.

In 2006, during a stay in Norway, I learned that many of the adult Norwegians still prepare their food for lunch and bring it to the office every day. They call it "matpakke" or "nistepakke" (I love that word).

This was a turning point for me. From then on, I tried to bring my own food to work, not every day, but with increasing frequency.

And I realized that this has some advantages for me: I dont spend much money on my lunch and it tastes much better than the food in the canteen. Moreover, it is sustainable (another word I love) and I feel more independent ( a feeling like when you wear your own, knitted socks;-)).

Meanwhile, I got some stainless steel containers, which I like a lot more than the plastic ones. Especially the round container is very practical, because warm meal stays warm and cold meal stays cold in there.

Today I had with me a thermos bottle with milk coffee, whole grain bread with cheese, a sliced apple, some tomatoes, some paprika slices and plain yoghurt with some blueberries, walnuts and maple syrup -  just wonderful.

Pasta Workshop

For a while now, I have been thinking about a real pasta machine (not only for Tagliatelle, but for Penne and Rigatoni and such). But at the same time, I recently have been reducing my kitchen staff to the absolute necessary. So I decided  n o t  to buy another item and form instead the pasta by hand.

I decided to make Trofie and Garganelli. The Trofie pasta I made with special flower from Italy ("Semola di grano duro rimacinata") and water only (and some Olive oil).

And because of the fine weather, I did all the work on the terrace in the garden.

The Garganelli dough I made with flour and eggs and I formed them with the help of that grooved, wooden board you can see in the first image.

They look similar to Rigatoni and are the same size, too. So it really isn't necessary to buy a professsional pasta machine...only  d o n 't  ask me how long it takes to form the pasta by hand...But if you do that once a week, the skill level will rise, I suppose.

After all the work, I decided to have a cup of tea and enjoy my garden.

Harvest

The tomatoes are ripe; we had fresh beans and potatoes, too and  s o m e peas...but the quantity wouldn't have been enough for self-sufficiency...

Nevertheless, we had fun with all that harvesting and afterwards, we got an excellent
meal and fresh vitamins from our own garden.

Spring





At least, my planted bulbs are showing their flowers. This year, spring came very late to us. Although we are in April now, the garden looks like February/March.

I planted a little Easter Basket and put it at the front door:

I,too, decorated the tiny Japanese maple tree with some eggs. But on Easter Sunday, we got snow again and so the eggs had little caps of snow on their top:

Today, it's raining and so I concentrate on working inside the house.