Happy Halloween!

To all of my friends and family back in the US, I wish you a

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

This year is my daughter's first Halloween and in honor of her we decided to carve our pumpkins last night.  Mine is on the left and my husband's is on the right.  I decided to copy my baby girl's smile for my design inspiration and hubby is channeling Dracula ;).

  I am happy to be living somewhere where we have access to pumpkins for the festivities! 

Halloween is starting to catch on a bit in Norway as they have costumes and decorations at a few of the shops around town. 

I hope everyone wherever you celebrate the holiday tonight gets more candy than you can ever eat and has a fun time on this celebration night!

10/26 Friday Progress Photos Girl with a Pearl Page Finish!

Happy Friday everyone!  Welcome to my new followers and special Happy Birthday wishes to one of my followers ;). 

I have some great progress to show you this week.  Here is where I was at the beginning of last week on Girl with a Pearl Earring...



And here is where I am today with MY FIRST PAGE FINISH EVER!!

Before now I haven't worked on any designs that were in page formats but so far I like it because it breaks the design down into manageable pieces and goals.  I really can't believe how much I finished this week.

Here is a little bit of a closer view where you can see some more detail.

At first it was hard for me to stop using the floss at the end of the page limit if I still had more left on my needle, especially if it was a single confetti stitch.  Normally I would just work as much of a color as I could over the whole design but I must say I do like the result of having in this case 1/9th of the design completely finished!  Here is an image of the finished page next to my completely highlighted chart page.



I feel that with highlighting the stitches on the chart after I complete them and by using the gridding method I have made only TWO mistakes in this whole section which by my usual ratio is pretty good.

Now I need to set this project aside so I can finish up an old one that is so close to being finished and start making some Christmas stockings for this year.  I hope I will have some progress on those to show you next week.  When they are finished then I think I will come back to this project and maybe do the difficult page below that is completely covered in stitching without any open space like page 5 had...but we shall see.

I hope everyone has a great weekend and that you can enjoy the beautiful fall or winter weather wherever you are in the world! 

I took this pic yesterday of the beautiful leaves on my street here in Norway.

Glazed and Amused Pottery Painting in Oslo

Last August I organized a small group trip to the local paint your own pottery place in Oslo Glazed & Amused.  I used to go to a studio almost every week for awhile with one of my best friends in the whole world...so I was so excited when I found out that Oslo had a studio like this!

The studio is in a pretty easy to find location in Oslo's Grünerløkka neighborhood which is the student/working class/artsy neighborhood in town.  The owner Thea was very nice and welcoming!   Even though she does not speak very much English, our group still managed to communicate through hand signs pretty well.

Here are some shots of the studio from the interior.

                                                                        

Here is what I ended up making!  The colors are a little different after it was fired but I think you get the idea ;)

It's a trivet with my favorite design of an Owl :)  The experience was really fun and of course it was a bit more expensive than it would be in the US but this is a great activity that one could do on a cold winter day/evening in Oslo!

Progress Photos 10/19 Girl With a Pearl Earring

This week I focused on my current project "Girl with a Pearl Earring."

Here is where I was as of last week...

This week I had one tiny snafu when I used the wrong color in part of my stitching.  Here is where I was when I realized that I used a yellowish color instead of the blue.  But in my defense the chart symbols for both colors are the same they just have a diagonal line in a box going in DIFFERENT directions...oh well c'est la vie!

 

Once I fixed that problem here is where I ended this week at stitch wise.

I am getting closer to finishing this page!  I finished the Pearl Earring, the girl's collar and most of her blouse.  Now I just have to finish up part of her scarf that cascades down on the right side of the page and then her blue head scarf to finish Page 5!  One thing I have realized though is that I can only stitch the brownish black floss on black fabric during daylight hours because otherwise I can't see where I stitched...

I really feel like this project is at the stage where the momentum is pulling me along to work on it more...but I think I am going to have to take a break to start other projects.  I have one project that really is this close to being done that I would like to complete, and then I need to start my family's Christmas stockings to hang up on our fireplace this year.  I am super excited because this is the first time I have ever lived in a home with a fireplace (and we are lucky to have two fireplaces in our apartment)!

Happy Friday!

Oslo Ski Museum

 Last week I visited the Holmenkollen Ski Jump and Museum with our guest.  Norwegians invented the sport of Ski Jumping and one of their famous sayings is that every Norwegian is born with skis on their feet.  That is a little painful on the Mothers if you ask me ;)

I have always been interested in following the sport of Ski Jumping ever since I got to visit the Finnish training center in Lahti, Finland so when we moved to Oslo I jumped at the chance to check out their new Ski Jump located just Northwest of town.  I have been to the Ski Jump many times but this was my first time getting to enjoy the museum that is located at the mid section of the jump.

Here are some pictures I took with a crafty point of view.

I really loved the detail and hand painting/carving on these old skis.  Here is some info on Skiing History from the museum.

I always LOVE to see a Bunad the traditional Norwegian National costume so I had to get this mannequin wearing one!

                                               

Here is a model of the original ski jump on the current site...boy how things have changed.

Here are some beautiful Norwegian paintings at the museum.

I love this idyllic work that includes the traditional Wedding Crown on the girl in the center of the painting.

Here is a blown-glass winter palace on display.

This little guy was the mascot named Sondre from the 1994 Paralympic Games held in Lillehammer the same year that they hosted the Olympics.

And this is the view that all of the athletes get to see when they take off down the ramp from the top.  I was just happy to make it up this high since I have a bit of a fear of heights.



I was not dressed for the weather that day...another Norwegian saying is "There is no bad weather only bad clothing."  So I finally purchased a beautiful and VERY WARM Norwegian-made wool sweater!  I will post pictures and more about that later.  Happy Thursday!

Progress Photos

This Friday Progress photo is late for the second week in a row...but I really, really enjoyed spending time with my good friend who was here visiting!  We said our goodbyes at the airport this morning and now I am back to real life so to speak so I have a chance to show you my new progress.

This week I worked on Girl With A Pearl Earring off and on but here is where I was when the week started.

And here is where I am at now!  I finished all of the Girl's flesh even though it does not look very flesh colored since this is the part of her skin that is mostly in shadow. 

And in this closer view you can see that I am this close to finishing the infamous Pearl Earring!

I hope that next week I will be very close if not done with this page of the design, but we shall see.  Also look forward to some crafty pics I took while on a recent visit to the Oslo Ski Museum last week.

Happy Stitching!

The Ghosts of Columbus Day Past in Kisantu

A few years ago when I lived in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) I got to go on a trip to the Kisantu Botanical Gardens a few hours outside of town.  The trip was set up to take advantage of the Columbus Day Holiday.  So yesterday on Columbus Day this year I was reminded of this trip and thought I would share some of my photos.

Here is a map of the DRC and how this park is part of their Institute for Conservation of Nature.

Here was the very still Crocodile that I thought was fake until he blinked. 

The African "walking tree."

The gardens were nice especially for Africa but gardens aren't really my thing.   It worked out that we were able to stop at the Cathedral built by the Belgians many years ago and stumbled upon one of the most beautiful places I have ever been that was very well hidden.

Here is the outside of the Cathedral with the angry rain clouds hovering above.  The story of how we were able to go inside and take a look is because one of the members in our party gave some of the workmen some cigarettes and then bam we had instant access even though they were in the middle of reconstruction work.

This is a statue outside, it made me sad that the cross is broken...

Here is the restoration job where you can see the workers perched in their jumpsuits literally working without a net.

I love all of the detailed brick work and was really amazed to see something this detailed and beautiful in the middle of nowhere.

All of the statues were placed near the altar below in various states of disrepair.  I think that with the blurred images the statues look as if they are coming to life.

Here is a detail of the statues.  Note the missing arm on the angel on the right.

And there are a lot of cobwebs and a missing hand on the statue on the right again below.

Here is a view of one of the many roadside vegetable stands on the way from Kinshasa to Kisantu.  Skol is one of the local brands of beer bottled in Congo and there is the ad located behind the vegetables.

Happy belated Columbus Day!