Snails in the garden, we do not like them much, do we? I am lucky, I do not have too many not those terrorist snails which eat everything, still, there are more than enough to get rid of, and during the summer months I fight the battle the best I can.
Luckily not all snails are demons, some are cute as buttons and made to be loved to the moon and beyond.
You see, I have a growing family of knitted snails in my garden. small skeins of left over yarn, a pair of needles, 13ish stitches and a few hours, and a new snail is born. So far this snail family has three members, but it is growing fast.
I talk about the snails and also describe in detail how I make them in the most previous episode of Britt Arnhild´s World:
Four years ago, on this day, I posted a knitted pattern in my knitting blog. The knitting blog was in English then, and I wrote the pattern in English, well, read: I tried to write the pattern in English, lol.
Today, four years later, I finally sat down for a few hours to write and post the same pattern in Norwegian.
Quite a lot has happened since then. My knitting blog is in Norwegian now. I have knitted a dozen or two Easter egg bags since four years ago. I am a much more confident knitter and pattern writer.......
The Easter egg bag pattern is based on a couple of egg bags I bought at Turvey Abbey many years ago. The blog post I write four years ago is here. The post I wrote today is here.
If you have been following Britt Arnhilds House in the Woods for some time, you will know that Lent is a lot about colours for me. Seven weeks of lent, seven colours in the rainbow, and so I have given each week is own colour, starting with red. Two years ago I expanded this rainbow calendar to also include knitting. I have talked a lot about this in my YouTube videos the last few years.
With Lent starting on Ash Wednesday, and each week starting on Sundays, we are already into the third week of Lent, which according to the rainbow calendar is yellow. I will come to that, but since I haven't been here for some time, I want to start with the beginning, with red.
This year I want to knit wrist warmers in the different colours of the rainbow. Using my own designs, kind of, I find inspiration in a wonderful book I have with watercolours by the Austrian Swedish painter and designer Josef Frank. In the images in this post you see both the painting which is inspiring me, and also the finished wrist warmers.
What a balm for there soul in is to sit here in my studio, looking at colours, making drawings, knitting.
If you want to see and hear more of my rainbow calendar, you are welcome over to this video, which I posted during red week.
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You can easily find my other active blogs through my new webpage, brittarnhild.no The other blogs, which focus on different themes, are all in Norwegian, but the images are all our shared language, and you can always easily use google translate :-)
On Facebook I hava a page connected to this blog, which I call, obviously Britt Arnhild´s House in the Woods. Feel free to subscribe to it. I am also considering making a group connected to this page, where we all can post, chat, have discussions, sharing and so on. Would that be of interest for you? Well, let's see where this path leads us, shall we?
I do have an account on snapchat as well, mostly for family and a few close friends. Let me know if you are interested in getting the stories I share there, and we might connect :-)
Lucky me to have knitting these days. I knit every day, not all day but not far from, and I have knitting projects around everywhere.
This rainbow cardigan, photographed at our cabin two weeks ago is on of my newest finished objects. Knitted in left over yarn only. Being a knitter for soon to be 60 years, hardly throwing away any left over yarn at all, I love challenging myself to find ways to used it. Knitting the rainbow.
I love the colours, I love the wool, I love the garment and have used it more or less every day since I finished it. Like every morning when I take my daily walk in the garden, feeding the birds, opening the greenhouse door, checking the beds.
We are election a new little baby in the family, a new grandchild for me and Terje. Our son Øystein and his Silje will have a little girl. Leaner is 4 1/2 now, Milian is soon to be 1 1/2, I am thrilled to know that I will soon be able to cuddle a new little baby.
This time there are quite a few knitters around, so all I have made so far (it might be more) is this cute little cardigan, in stripes, the off white is final from Rauma, the pink is a caddied yarn for a local indigo dier.
Like everybody else I have always been told that being a grandparent was something very special and something completely different from being a parent. And I can sign this, sure it is. We are lucky to have our two grandsons living just a 10 minutes drive from us, and the new little girl will be even a bit closer.
My old biskop, bishop Thor, once said: "Of course God is still here in the world, here among us. As long as he keeps the uteruses open, He is here." Yes, He is.
These shells, believe it or not, are made by glass. By my dear friend Mauro in Venezia. Wonderful pieces of art, aren't they :-)
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An updated the list of my active blogs:
Akeleiehagen - The Blue Garden (click on the picture)
Fløy en liten blåfugl - my birding journal (click on the picture)
maskerade - my knitting journal (click on the picture)
Britt Arnhilds dagboksblader - my online journal (click on the picture)
Nederst i hagen - my greenhouse diary (click on the picture)
Britt Arnhilds naturdagbok - my nature journal (click on the picture)
Hytteliv på Rastarbo - cabin life (click on the picture)
We saw in the news today that children around the world are painting the rainbow, a sign of hope in these difficult times. I am knitting the rainbow for the moment. Also a sign of hope. It started as part of my rainbow calendar during the period of Lent, where I have had the rainbow focus for many years, even since I wrote the book about Lent and its tradition back in 2008.
This year I knit small balls in the colours of the rainbow.
I call them my praying balls.
Prayers in every stitch.
Many of the prayers are thanks, others are fear, sorrow, desperation and a "please help our world Heavenly Father"
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I my YouTube-episodes I explain more about my rainbow knitting.
Lent has started. Yesterday, Ash Wednesday, was the first day of an almost seven weeks period leading up to Easter. According to the rainbow calendar I created when I wrote the book about Lent and its tradition, back in 2008, the first week is red, and I focus on red in my knitting.
A pair of red socks. A red ball.......
.......I explain all about the rainbow calendar in my latest YouTube-episode:
Coming home from Italy I was greeted my the most beautiful autumn colours.......which lasted for a day and then the first storm of the season arrived. I was out in the cathedral part just hours b before the gale wind came. It had started to blow, just enough for the leaves to start letting their grip to their mother tree go.......and I had my cellphone there and could film the very special beauty. The footage is added into my most recent video on YouTube, and even though I continue to speak Norwegian, you can enjoy this video, a lovely video from Venezia with a Russian guy playing on glasses in the background, and also a short footage from a Sami mass I attended after I came home (a link to the video further down)
The autumn colours could have been the inspiration for a knitted shawl I finished yesterday. But they are not.....well, I started the shawl in spring you see, but the name I have given the shawl is inspired by the colours of autumn and especially a larch tree I passed the other day, lerketresjal, or in English, a larch tree shawl.
Terje was out in the garden, in a little red house we have there, a house where we keep things. A shed? I don't know the English word for it, the Norwegian is bod. I was busy weeding when I heard Terje call my name: "Britt-Arnhild, come and have a look!" He was standing with a black bag in his arms, the bag was open and I knew at once what it was - old baby clothes, the special ones which I had missed for years.
My fingers were almost trembling when I started to look through the bag. A few dresses from when I was a baby, more than 60 years ago. Baby clothes from when our kids were babies as well, but they had to wait, I wanted to see, touch, feel the dresses I have been wearing. When I was a baby.
One yellow, two blues. No pink ones, which kind of made me happy, made me smile. The dark salmon red one is a dress I knitted for Ingrid, almost 30 years ago. The yellow and the two blue ones were made for me, two knitted, one crochet, more than 60 years ago.
I still remember knitting the salmon red one. For Ingrid. Summer. We were driving Norway from North Cape to Lindesnes, which is far, very far. We drove all the way with three children. My older brother and his family lived in Hammerfest at that time. The summer was warm and sunny, the kids played out in the vicarage garden and Ingrid wore her salmon red hand knitted dress. I can't understand today how brave and courageous we were, driving thousands and thousands of kilometers with three kids. Marta was not born yet. Ingrid was 2, Øystein 7 and Torgeir 9. The year was 1991.
Isn't it wonderful how a handmade outfit can bring out a storm of memories. Now I will have to ask my mother what memories she has with my old dresses.
The blue dress in the first picture is my favourite.
Some weeks ago Leander, my oldest grandson, almost 4, came to me; " Bestemor, can you knit me a sweater?" "Of course I can, is there a special kun of sweater you want?" "Yes, I want a batman sweater. Can you do that? And bestemor, can you knit a similar one for Victor, my best friend, as well?"
I, grandma, bestemor, beamed for many hours. Then I went downtown to buy yarn, started to knit, knit, knit and knit and here you see the first one ready. The next one is almost down as well.
Leander came on a visit the other day and I showed him the sweater. I will never forget his happy face :-) We both agreed though that I will keep the sweater till both are done and he and Victor can get that at the same time.
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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