We were in Stockholm, visiting our oldest son. One day we had lunch in a small restaurant in Søder, three old ladies were sitting at the table next to us, two of them were talking about painting, and I couldn't help listening. One of them mentioned Josef Frank, "Oh, I wish I could paint like Josef Frank, but nobody does any more......." I had never heard the name, googled it and found an amazing series of watercolours.
Later that day Torgeir bought me a late birthday present, a book with many of his paintings. This book is now on display in our living room, and are of great inspiration to me.
It must be possible to transfer the colours into knitting, I told myself one day.......
.......and started to do so :-)
A pair of pear wrist warmers are now done,
and the whole adventure is told in my YouTube vlog/podcast
In the podcast I also read from a book I've inherited from my mother, and I share a cute little video of a busy spider :-)
Burning nettles are growing in our garden. Weeds, most people call them. Not I, not here with us. I let them grow and use them all through the three seasons till winter arrives again. The other day I picked young leaves and made soup, filming the whole process, sharing it in the most precious episode on my YouTube channel. As always I speak Norwegian, but the part where I make soup is completely without words, music only, and can be "read" by everyone.
Some years ago I wrote a legend I call "When God gave the nettle the name burning nettle", where I let the fresh nettle complain to God. It is early spring, the little nettle let his leaves sprout but as soon as he does, the woman is there picking them. The nettle gets angry, very angry and wants to burn the woman. But God is giving him a lesson, letting him know how important his leaves are for the woman, for her children and her husband. In the end God changes the nettles name as a punishment. I read the legend in Norwegian, but here you have the essence :-)
A few year ago I bought a skein of yarn made of nettle fibers. I bought it out of interest, but had no idea how to use the yarn. Then, one day, I got an idea. Why not make a kind of soap shrub, a little bag to keep the soup and hang it in the shower cabinet!
I have made many nettle bags since then. They are perfect as small gifts. Here is one I made this week, a gift for my sister in law for her birthday.
I've made a couple of other birthday gifts as well this week. Cotton pads and wash bags for two of my nieces. Left over yarn, green living, sustainability :-)
And I have fin iced a pair of socks I've been working on. 2 Color Socks by the Argentinian knit designer Joji Licatelli. The pattern can be bought on Ravelry.
Summer in April is not something we experience every year here where I live. But these days we are having such a lovely weather. The colours in the garden are exploding, there will hopefully be more garden posts here in the days to come, and the birds are super busy.
Terje and I skipped church today (yes, I know we shouldn't.......) and spent all day in the garden instead.
While we had our morning coffee (Jane, you know all about our non-calory coffees.......) a male house sparrow was busy building his nest. It was amazing to watch how fast he worked with his beak.
For many years the house sparrows were the most common song birds here. They they seemed to have left us for several years, but now they are fully back. I love them. Gray and somewhat plain as they might look, they really are among my favourites. And a children's song about a little house sparrow boy is the song I sang most for Leander when he was a baby, and now sing for Milian.
Thank you for asking about my blog. Thank you for telling me that you miss it. Thank you for letting me know that you like to read Britt-Arnhilds House in the Woods. I miss it just as much as you do.......or probably more. My days still have 24 hours, but I am 61 now and my energy level is not what it was (has it ever been?), and I have found no way to squeeze every thing that I want to do into these precious hours.
But I am here, and will pop in from time to time.......may be even on a daily basis soon. Meanwhile I love to hear from you.
We are at the cabin, enjoying a quiet weekend. Back home we still have winter, with a lot of snow in the garden. On our way out here we stopped for some cross country skiing.......absolutely gorgeous with +12 degrees Celsius, blue sky, bright sun but still enough snow for skiing up in the mountains.
Then we arrived here and were greeted by spring. Bulbs colouring the cabin garden, birds chirping everywhere, and lovely paths to hike.
Today's afternoon hike took us down to the sea, the old village church and the beautiful, renovated vicarage.
A group of starlings followed us.......or was it us following them? One of many signs of spring.
I am an April girl and I love every day now.......not only the sunny ones. April means new life. April means hope. April is green. April is my birthday month.
As promised I will try to tell you, in English, what I am talking about in the latest YouTube episode. I am sitting in a hotel room in Oslo, and unfortunately most of my photos are in a harddisk which I left at home. So this unravelled Trondheim mitten will have to do :-)
The Norwegian introduction you already know, from a previous post.......
.......welcome to the blue week of lent, and welcome back to my knitting loft ....... I am learning more and more on how to make videos, and slowly I am getting the hold of it. One new thing is that I make chapters in my videos, for different themes ....... chapter Britt Arnhilds skrytealbum, my show and tell album, where I will show you old and knew projects I have made ....... chapter Regnbuestrikk, rainbow knitting ....... chapter Året rundt i Akeleiehagen, all through the year in the Columbine Garden, Akeleiehagen is the name of our garden ....... chapter Bøker på menyen, Books on the menu, where I read from books and talk about one or more knitting books
.......there might be other chapters as well, later, extreme knitting, cabin life, travels and more
.......and then the first chapter starts:
Britt Arnhilds show and tell. - a blue sweater, one of two, which I made for our boys when they were small, and a woven vest. Designed and made by me in the late 80ies - a hat and a "muffe" (I do not know the English name, something where you can warm your hands) I made for Ingrid, our oldest daughter, when she was about 5. Also my own design, but inspired by the knitting book I show you later in the episode - a knitting bag, knitted by Dagmar in Austria. She knitted it for my 50th birthday. Dagmar lives on a dairy farm in Austria, and I spent some time there when I was writing my book about Lent - in the bag I have the Trondheim Mittens. I had planned to have them all done for this episode, but discovered I had done something wrong in the counting and had to unravel a lot! - now a secret. I have started to knit myself a cardigan, with a row of roses, inspired my the roses on Sofia Kammeborn´s Longing for Gotland sock pattern. The secret is that I have not knitted a garment for myself for more than 20 years. I am a big woman and have convinced myself that I am too big to wear anything hand knitted. Now I have decided to change this, not my weight, but how I look upon myself, and I am working on this cardigan. YEAH!!!!! It feels good :-)
.......Rainbow knit. I continue to knit on the rainbow shawl, now the blue colours. And while I knit I continue to talk about knitting the first garment for myself in such a long time. Sharing the secret was kind of hard, made me sweat, and I had to lift my hair up from my neck ;-) Now the secret is out, and I am knitting the rose cardigan. Back to the shawl. There are about 350 stitches on the needles now, and it is still growing: .......I have made a group and a thread on Ravelry for those who want to take part in the rainbow KAL (contact me if you are interested to learn more about it)
.......showing the rainbow socks, talking about the difference between indigo and violet .......the prize for the KAL will be my book of Lent (which is in Norwegian only)
.......Året rundt i Akeleiehagen.......for Norwegian and English speaking listeners equal :-)
.......Books on the Menu, which is impossible to translate
I hope this is of help for you. If you like my videos, please subscribe to my account.
Yesterday was such a nice, spring like day, and I was out in the garden photographing the snowdrops,
dreaming of all the garden stuff I wanted to do this weekend.
Today we are back to snow, snow and more snow, and I am inside knitting. Sure, I miss gardening, but at the same time, I am thrilled for all the knitting time I get :-)
in the latest post in "maskerade" I try to kind of translate my latest podcast episode. Here is a link to maskerade
All texts and photos by Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland
About me
About me
I am living in a red house surrounded by a blue garden near Trondheim, Norway. I love everydays and post about my steps through life. Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods is open to everybody. Welcome over!
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