While waiting for the jacket to come...

Fashion Challenge - day 6
(I know, I didn't post a photo yesterday, but I didn't leave the flat at all and the day was lazy, so I wore a tracksuit pants and white tank top all day...A girl needs a break from all that fashion, you know... ^^)I got tired of the stiff serious poses! *^v^*
- Tomato top knitted by me, Knitting Daily pattern
- cotton skirt sewn by me ages ago
- red knee-high socks and shoes
- Creative MuVo (in my hand) with a Norwegian language course on it! *^v^*


Linguistic question: how can you say in Norwegian: "Let's eat at my place/at your place." There is a phrase in my course that sounds like "hus mi/hus di" but I'm not sure if that's the correct way of saying it. (I assumed it because hus=house, please help!). ^^


Tomorrow I will show you my finished Drops Jacket (oh, I cannot wait!), and maybe tomorrow I'll post some art journal pages I've been working on for the last several days (and my new art supplies box I bought today! ^^).

One more thing: in case you want to watch something really cool, see the Black Sheep movie! It's great! Knitters will love it, it's all about the sheep! And zombies. I mean, sheep zombies!... *^v^* Really! ^^

Walking, and talking, and painting, and knitting

I got a blister on my left heel, blast!... But I should have known better than to wear uncomfortable shoes for a long walk! Even if it's just a walk around my residential district. I walked almost 3 km this morning and I've come to an important conclusion: I absolutely hate jogging, I love love love walking! *^v^* I can walk for a long time and distance, with the language course on my MuVo (Hej, hur star det till? *^v^*) and tomorrow I'm planning on a longer walk with my camera. And the big plus of my walks is that I get to know the surroundings and this morning I've found a good baker with fresh bread rolls! ^^

BTW, Hege, thank you for visiting my blog, yours is a great learning aid for me! And I was gobsmacked when I read your Norwegian dialect greeting!... Such a difference, but that's what the dialects are for, right? ^^ There are dialects in Poland, too, in the mountain regions, in the Silesia region, in the Great Lake Mazury region, where I wouldn't be able to understand a word! *^v^*


I've been knitting and journaling last weekend, here are the results:
I finished two spreads in my journal, the first one is the realization of the Live, Laugh, Love subject at Inspire Me Thursday - I wanted the strong colours and strong black definition on them (I should have used acrylics, not watercolours, hm...)

The second one is my submission to the prompt on D'Blogala's Art Journal Friday

"Journal some motivational thoughts to yourself. It's easy once you get going...tell yourself to love yourself, respect yourself, to create until pigs fly...you get the gist. You can use your favorite colors, maybe doodle a little, use some positive images. Make it a POSITIVE page. A source of all that is good. Use this page as something to look at when you're feeling down. You can always keep adding to it. You can use quotes from others that you find inspirational...Just little affirmations for yourself."

So, this is my affirmation, containing two symbols of my sport activities: bubbles of water from the swimming pool and a shoe from my walks. ^^


Now, knitting!
I've just joined the Silver Belle KAL that is starting this September, hosted by two ladies, Liz and Stacey. *^v^*
I know that I may have finished my Belle before the KAL even starts but I want to see all the other versions. ^^
(the Alien green background is my balcony table. ^^)
I've passed the middle point of the sleeves last night ( I'm knitting them both simultaneously) and I'll probably skip the last two increases because the sleeve is already the right circumference for my upper hand size. I'm getting spiritually ready for the cast on for the yoke part, yikes! *^v^*

I love the middle section of the sleeve - a beautiful surface of little cute roses! (at least that's what I see here! ^^).
And here is a whole sleeve with great stitch definition - Sally's version. I wish my cables were so defined, but I think it's the yarn's fault (or maybe my knitting's too loose, or maybe washing and blocking could do the trick? We'll see.). I was a bit worried about the sizing but here is
Sally's sleeve sewn with peplum and her sizing concerns revealed. It seems I have nothing to worry about! *^v^*

God dag!

Hvordan har du det? Jeg har det bra. *^v^*

I decided to revive an old initiative of Kimberly's and put myself back into a proper shape, because I definitely put on some weight this Summer. (okay, Robert made me... I hate sports!...)
I'm starting to attend a swimming pool regularly and walk. Last night I swam 1 km and this morning I walked about 2,5 km, listening to my Norwegian course (so people passing me by could hear some strange sentences repeated one by one while I was marching along the street, yikes! *^v^*). I'm also going back to drinking juices and eating lots of fruit and vegetables.


Helene, you're a star! *^v^* Have you seen that link, guys? It's a long list of all the terms used in knitting and crocheting patterns from Dropsdesign, in English, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish! (and German, Spanish and French, if you prefer those). It's a gem for crafters! ^^


I was sitting on the door sill of my balcony yesterday afternoon, on a pillow, seeing only the tree tops above the balcony rail and hearing some street noises but mostly the birds, brushes and water for dissolving the paints were placed on the table beside me, sun was shining into my white journal pages and followed the pencil strokes. Blissful! *^v^*
I wish I cleaned my balcony at the beginning of Spring, when I had so many warm months ahead of me to enjoy spending time there! Well, there will be another Spring after all, right? ^^ And September and October days can also be sunny and warm!

This and that

Look at the crazy woman - she just learned how to say "I understand a little Norwegian." and she attempts to read a Norwegian blog in original!... *^v^*
Well, in fact I just read bilingual Hege's blog last night and tried to compare English and Norwegian sentences in order to see if I can distinguish words and match them. And I believe I could! Some of them, of course. I know which words mean "yarn" and "to knit", and these are essentials, right? *^v^* (and several more, I think I shall start my own theme dictionary, like craft vocabulary, food vocabulary, ect).

Thank you, Helene, and yes, please, keep on correcting me, guys!!! I may learn a lot that way! *^v^* I think at this stage I'll stay with the word "lite". *^v^*

(it's good this isn't an audio blog, you would have so much fun listening to my Norwegian and Swedish pronunciations... *"o"*)

Look what I bought today while grocery shopping in the close-by supermarket - a small Polish-Swedish thesaurus with some grammar and helpful everyday sentences. ^^ There weren't any Norwegian learning aids though, I'll have to visit a linguistic bookstore soon.

Oceansheep, about the similarities between Norwegian and Danish - funny you should say that because when last night I said a sentence in Norwegian to Robert, he said that it sounded exactly like Yvonne Jensen talking to Kjeld... But maybe it was just me... ^^ (btw, "Olsen-banden" was a great hit in Poland and we are big admirers of this tv series! *^v^*).

Okay, this is becoming a linguistic blog, and we have some knitting to report after all! *'-'*

Purple Belle's sleeves are growing everyday, which cannot be said about the MS3... I'm so eager to wear the Belle already that I don't touch any other knitting project. ^^ But it will be finished, I love what I see on my friend's blogs: see Myriam's and Kimberly's ones! Stunning!
What I'm not sure of are all those increases on the sleeves... It seems that the sleeve is going to be quite wide at the top, well... I must count it and measure it properly and decided whether I should add less stitches after all. I don't want a sack for potatoes! ^^

Doing shopping this morning I also bought two purple things - a September issue of Burda sewing magazine, where they highly promote purple as a new black for this Autumn, and two purple pillows for our bed, yikes! *^v^*

One project I found especially interesting - the cape, for which I already have w fabric in my stash! ^^ Although I'm thinking about over dyeing it with some violet, what do you think?

And why, oh why, there are millions of great sweaters out there when I have only 2 hands and 24 hours per day?!... I've recently found tons of inspiring sweaters from several funky designers, find them in my flickr set.

Have a great Friday!

Unnskyld, forstår du norsk?

Ja, jeg forstår lite norsk.

*^v^*

Can you tell I'm making a linguistic progress? ^^

I love the fact that Swedish and Norwegian are so similar (up to this point, at least), and that I can compare them and learn simultaneously, although Norwegian pronunciation is more difficult, not that intuitive. BTW, Pimsleur is teaching me Bokmal. ^^

My next linguistic question is: is it good to learn a language from lyrics of a favorite band? (Otyg, Hedningarna and Garmarna in this case! *^v^* I must find some Norwegian bands, too, maybe Dimmu Borgir? ^^)

Therese, I'll be glad to help you with Polish! I'll genuinely admire you if you start learning Polish because I think it is a difficult language, in many aspects (pronunciation, grammar, ect). But I'll try my best to help in any way possible, Madame Krzywinska! *^v^*


Straight From The Cauldron strikes back! ^^
Today is a simple bread recipe:

Ingredients:
- 1 kg of plain wheat flour
- 0,5 kg of wholemeal rye flour
- a pinch of salt
- 100 g of fresh yeast
- 1/2 glass of warm water
- 1 tsp of sugar

First put the yeast into a glass of warm (not boiling!) water (filled in half), add a tsp of sugar and a Tsp of plain flour, stir well. Leave for a couple of minutes to start working but keep an eye on them because they can grow out of the glass! *^v^*

Place all the flour into a big bowl, add yeast solution and a pinch of salt, and knead well (I mean, really well!) *^v^* You may need to add some water as you go.

Form a sphere of a dough and leave it in a bowl to grow for about 30 minutes, under a piece of cloth.

Take a grown dough out of the bowl onto a flat surface and knead once more thoroughly. Divide it into two loaves, place it on a baking tray not very close to each other and leave them for another 20 minutes to grow again. Switch on the oven (temperature 180 degree Celsjus).

When the oven is hot and the loaves have grown substantially, place them into the oven and bake for about 30 minutes. You may cover the loaves with a piece of tin foil to avoid burnt crust.

After about 20 minutes check the bread with a long thin wooden toothpick - if the toothpick is dry, the bread is baked and can be removed from the oven. Leave the loaves for about half an hour to rest.

Smacznego! *^v^*

Knitting problem resolved!

Wow, it's so good to look outside the window through a clean glass!... (although my cat already sneezed at it in some places, well...). My balcony has been emptied of all the clutter, some of it went to the bin, some of it - to the basement storage (I'll have to deal with this place one day, OMGs!...), some of it stayed (like two old cupboards full of flower pots, an old table, historical tent poles and a tent, historical wooden bed, two shields of Robert's, my dyeing pot (which I'll be using soon, so stay tuned! ^^), wooden folding table and two flower baskets from IKEA (I'm planning to hang them one day...) and a stack of blue storage boxes full of stuff I cannot keep inside my flat anymore because there's no space for it!).

Now, I can sit there and knit or read a book, or put my laundry on a line. ^^ In about a month's time, we are going to have it closed with a row of windows at the front of the building, it will be safer, warmer, cleaner, quieter in the flat, and it'll give us a small storage room, always precious when you live on 42 square metres! *^v^*

Carol and Lillysmuul, thank you for the stitch links, that's exactly what I needed, Purple Belle's sleeves are officially in progress again! *^v^*

Helene and Helene, I am totally confused now, let's see just learn what it says in my Pimsleur Norwegian language course! ^^

Oceansheep, please don't tempt me with Danish, I might have a go at that language, too, one day. *^v^*

In fact, I checked my bloglines, and among others, I have 8 Norwegian blogs, 2 Swedish blogs and 5 Finnish blogs. And no, it doesn't mean I'm going to try to learn Finnish because it's a totally different language type from what I've tried up to this point and I find it difficult even when I look at it. ^^

Thank you for the nameday wishes, it really was a special day! *^v^*