daily felt

Today we drove to the other side of the valley where we live, down our hill up the other hill. In winter the sun does not touch our side from November till beginning of March. We do have a stunning view of sunny slopes  however

On top of the mountain there is a big flat expanse with stunning views and on the drive back down we saw something that is quite common here but never ceases to amaze me...frozen waterfalls..

The Etsy community is one where I feel very much at home, EST especially. I have found many like minded friends there with whom I trade, chat and exchange ideas.

A few weeks ago one of these friends made something that stole my heart immediately, a beautiful bonnet.

I wrote her and asked would she make me one too of felted fabric I was to make and send her. Well she was tickled pink by the idea and I at once made a felted panel and sent it off to her.

Today it arrived! I am so happy with it! It fits perfectly and is so well made. Thank you a milion times sweet P8 for making me this fantastic bonnet Not only did she send me a bonnet, within the package was also enclosed a so called 'kraplap' decorated with the remainder of my fabric cut into leaves.

I am such a lucky girl with such creative friends!

I am of course a very proud mom as are all moms Comes with the territory of being a mom.

I am proud because our boys have managed to adapt to their new life in a very short period of time and are now after a mere 11 months of Norwegian schooling at the same level using the same books as their class mates. Their english is even way above standard, keep in mind they did not have a single class of english in Holland. They have learned it from playing computer games and watching english spoken tv. Which goes to show computer games and tv watching are not a bad thing at all all be it in moderation of course.

The kids receive a fairly free upbringing, everything is open for discussion, as long as good arguments are used and they are always taught to question whatever I tell them. I am quite known for my tall tales....

At times this gets them into trouble at school as they do not demurely sit and accept whatever is told them, very contrary to local ways. It also means they can have very original thoughts.

This morning after having brought us coffe and a piece of bread they asked us what they could do, hoping of course we would relent and let them turn on the computer. No such luck. We told them to go build a bridge using paper hollow tubes they had to go make fiirst. After a bit they came to show us  lots of tubes, but not the right kind for bridge building. Short and not enough overlap, up they went again and we heard nothing more of them for quite a long time. So we assumed they had followed our instructions and were paper tube making, far from it! They had used the original tubes to make a marble run on the wall of their room. Follow instructions...you must be kidding! Very proud I am of the original thinking displayed here

Temperatures are up to a balmy -5 cecius and it has been snowing for quite a bit.  Over the weekend a huge bucketload of snow came down on us and just as we wanted to go out shoveling at the top of our drive a big tractor appeared. Within where three gleefully grinning boys. Our youngest son with his friend and his dad. Frank had been staying over the night there and decided to drive him home with the big tractor he uses as a snow plow, in 3 minutes he did what would take us at least 45 minutes by hand, grinning all the way. 

Since then more snow has been falling, the fluffiest,lightest,downiest snow I have ever seen!

While it was snowing I have been knitting like a maniac and finished my jumper. I will be wearing it for the rest of the winter.....

1. TwoTreesBelgium 2. AureliaLT

3.Jealousydesign 4.LoveandKnit

5.potglasshande 6.silkstory

Find all the other moodboards here

For the 5th week in stretch temperatured have not risen above -20 celcius. No birds flitting about, the cats refuse to go out, my eyelids freeze if I stay out too long, and yesterday we had the first slight mishap due to the cold. In the basement the washing machine is housed, next to it is a little heater so the waterpump will not freeze. By no design of mine I had placed it such that the pipe leading away from the washing machine kept frost free too. Then Martien placed it a little bit differently to keep the wine warm and instantly the pipe froze. So no washing for a few hours, luckily placing the heater back unfroze the pipe very fast too

The trees are covered by ice and are gone all brittle, outside is absolute total silence....the hut the boys built this summer stands awaiting warmer times..

Fortunately there is always fresh warm bread

I like knitted things, and positively love yarn of all kind!  Patterns however....I have a very hard time following. But I am persistent and was quite sure that somewhere in the vast offerings on ravelry someone would have both a jumper and a pattern I could follow. Finally I have found it! Tooti wrote just what I need, Start with 100 stitches, increase every third row with 8 and figure out the rest yourself....Just what works for me!

It has been a 4* deepfreeze here now for three weeks on end if not longer, temperatures not going above -20 celcius most days and now even down to -26 celcius. Our car has an engine heater, the house good heating and the waterpipes seem to hold up just fine but ever so slowly the frost is starting to creep into the house.

The lock on the inside of the door has a layer of ice covering it as does the little window in the door. On the threshold of the door little mounds of ice have formed where cold air sneaks in, and the bathroom window has a slolid layer of ice on the lower part.

This inspired me to make the weekly EST challenge, which has as theme "Let your inner child in" For me this means diving into fairytales and one of my all time favorites is the one of the little boy Kai whom is captured by the ice queen and has his heart transformed into ice by being pierced by a shard of ice. He is heroically rescued by his sister.

So I went looking for Kai and when I found him he gave me the cape he had received from the ice queen so many years passed. She sliced from a glacier a thin sliver with a shard of ice one the one side you see where the shard sliced a shiny surface and on the other side you seen the many colors of blue ice compressed together over the centuries.

So cold it keeps out everything even the even colder cold of the weather we are having here now...

I constantly give myself gifts these days, after more than a year of abstinence from buying clothes or shoes suddenly I findmyself unable to resist some of the things I have been ogling for months. This time it is a pair of firefly pants by the amazing duo called Vaisto. They make elfin like clothing that appeals very much to my inner child....which resides very close to the surface in my case

So I bought it, and it being from Finland flew here in a flash. The sweet Hanni added a head band which she considered too far out for the shop. I totally love it! Not because it is far out but because it is fun and keeps my ever growing hair (which in the picture has exploded somewhat) out of my face. Thank you for both fantastic creations.

A while ago I received from my wonderful friend Mitsy a surprise gift, in this gift she had included some felting supplies I myself would not have bought. Some lovely prefelt and chiffon scarves, what to do with those? 

I put them in my drawer at the top so I would often see them and keep on brewing ideas in my head. Sunday suddenly I knew of at least one thing to make. A butterfly scarf,  some summer cheer in cold winter

An other great thing about having landed in a very creative group of people collected together is that it sparks the imagination.

P8 posted about a truly superb bonnet she had made and at once I knew I had to have one. But made with my own felted fabric of course. I carded all kinds of greens,greys and browns together to form a nice background and on top of this placed snippets of threads,tidbits of prefelt and voila a cool bonnet fabric that P8 will use to make me one. I will pay her by means of a scarf. How cool is the internet!