Knitted wannabe vikings

Danny and me in Mulligans last night at the Halloweenparty.
I stole borrowed this picture from kees' flickr. He has more pictures, so have a look. :D

Die Wikinger kommen!

This weekend we - kees, Danny, Janneke and me - went to the open-air museum in Oerlinghausen, Germany.

We had Viking Stitch and Bitch...

There was a party with food...

and drinks.

And we had the morning after..

More pictures on my flickr

That time of the year again...

Work...


and play.

Hair

With Donna gone to the Summerland, creating a 50% deduction on my cat population, one might think that also applies to the shredded hairs in my house.

One is so very wrong. kees brought me a reindeer skin that was shredding hair on his carpet. I have a wooden floor, so its easier to remove the hairs from that. It's a very nice skin, and Danny and me sure could use it in our vikingtent-to-be.

When I unpacked it and laid it on the floor I called Ayla to investigate. You can see she approves of the skin, so it wil stay on the livingroom floor. I'll just have the same amount of hairs as if Donna was still with me.. and Pepijn, Loesje, Banjer and Isis too..


Miss Ayla

posing for the camera.

Lot's to tell

Last week I woke up way too early ( around 8 a.m. on a non-working day) because of a tremendous amount of noise in my street. Jackhammers, drills and loud music. My neighbours from across the streeet had a big surprise coming: Their stairs to the ground floor were gone:

I asked her what was going on and it seems that the whole front of the building is going to be "pimped." They are closing it up, so dogs (and humans!) won't pee or poo in front of the doors anymore, no more kids smoking pot on the stairs, but just a nice, safe entrance to their homes. I liked it. It was going to take a month or two she said. They had to leave their house via the back with some emergency stairs.

This morning (an other non-working day for me) I had a deja-vu: again, loud noices, an engine from a big truck running below my bedroom window, and yet again loud music. But it looks like my neighbour is getting some nice new stairs:

I wonder what's next. One thing is for sure: there will be loud music. People working outside, building or breaking streets, houses, buildings and so on seem to need loud music in order to perform...

Last sunday, I went with Danny and her BF to Swalmen in Limburg to visit a ceramics market. I have some more picture on MyFlickr, but I wanted to show you the most curious dog I've ever seen:

It's a rasta-dog, with dreadlocks! Honestly, and he/she feels very greasy, like a sheep skin. To bad you can't spin these dreads, because he/she looked beautiful.

I also spotted 2 ravens which reminded me of Huginn & Muninn, Odins birds.



In the afternoon we went to the vikingmarket in Eindhoven and look what I spotted there:

Huginn & Muninn. These 2 families attend a lot of viking events together, but yet stay apart. I thought is was very nice, and the banners are beautifully made.

I also met a viking who was dying yarn with madder (Rubia tinctorum L). You can see the plant behing the dying pot.

He told me a lot about dying and gave me some viking lemonade to taste afterward. He made it from apple vinager, honey and water. Something to try at home ;-)

Earlier this year I spotted my anual visiters, visiting my littler feedinghouse on my balcony:

These little mice come every year to eat and we've come to some kind of understanding: they stay outside and when the feedinghouse is empty, I clean up and they stay away. My cats have a blast when they come. Donna even bumps her nose on the window, eager to try to catch one of these nice little animals. I do love them.

But, the food is meant for little birds: tits, sparrows, robins and sometimes a wren. And I realy would like to have a little birds nest on my balcony, so when I spotted this on the ceramics market, I bought it:

And this morning I drilled a hole in the wall, put in a screw and my little tit pot hangs. Lets hope I have little babybirds next spring.

I did buy more on both markets, but I need to resize those pictures first. Now I really need to get ready to go outside and go to the postoffice. I promised Zaturn I'll post her Ribe-yarn today, and I have many more tasks on my Things-To-Do-Today list...

C-yah!

Yarn - and other goodies - from Ribe

Lets have a look at my new collection items.
I bought this yarn in Ribe's Broderi & Garn shop, in Ribe.

First:

Sandnes Garn Fritidsgarn. A Bulky 12 ply yarn. colors go from dark green, to lighter green to light brownish.

Then ik have this:

Løve Garn Highland. A worsted 10 ply yarn in a blue-purple colorway.

The spectaculare new item is - if I may say so myself - these lovely balls:

Look inside:

Kauni Effektgarn 8/2. Fingering 4 ply in the colorway EF (purple, red purple, blue, moss green)
YUMMI!

On the vikingmarket I bought some viking singles, hand dyed with wild madder (Rubia tinctorum L):

I've started needlebinding a new pair of socks in a new stitch Danny taught me.
The white fluffy stuf beneath it is a batt of sheepwool, ready to be spun. It's from an ancient sheep breed, but I forgot the name. I'm sure Kees or Danny knows.

And I've got 3 more cones of Lingarn. A linen thread for embroidery or tablet- or cardweaving.


The other goodies are these:

10 leather tablets for tabletwaeving/cardweaving, a wet stone so I can sharpen my knife and 12 authentic pins.

I'm am very happy with this:

A bag made out of birch. I love it. Nou I can carry around some stuff without hanging it all on my belt. Viking age or no Viking age. I'd like to know the time every now and then, and I need my 21st century money to get my 10th century goodies. And my camera, so I can show you what I've been doing.

Well I'm of to knit a few hours before I go to work this afternoon. I need to finish my Hoody before I can start knitting the Kauni ;-)

Seeya!

Back from Ribe

So, all of a sudden it's Tuesday and I have to go to work in a few hours.

Ribe was great, I took a lot of pictures, some of them are already on MyFlickr, but here is Kees wearing his new clothes, made by me:

Kees has uploaded his pictures too, so go see HisFlickr.

And here is Danny. I'm sure we'll see the picture she's taking of her new yarn on her blog soon.


I do have some a lot of new yarn too, pictures will come soon. Now I have to get ready for work, come back to the 21st century and earn some money because I spent a lot last weekend. :D

One day left..

... before we drive to Denmark tomorrow. We is Danny, Kees and Janneke.

We'll be here:

and back on Monday may 5th.

Kees' tunic is almost finished and my headcover can be done in the car on our 8-10 hour drive.
Today is for packing, shop for the last minute things you absolutely need and preparing Ayla's medicine box so all my friend and excellent cat-caretaker Katja has to do is take the pills out of it's container, crush them, mix with some salmon paté and Ayla will eat it.

So. I'm back on monday, with lots of pictures. :D

Almost done

On the left the old, on the right the new

All I need to do now is sew the hems and finsh of the seams to prevent them from fraying.
I'l do that by hand, to give it some kind of authentic touch. *grin*
I'm afraid the 'almost' is a bit of an understatement. I don't sew that fast :D

Dressing a Viking

So.. I'm going to be very busy the next couple of weeks. I'm going to Ribe in 4 weeks. So I need to really get working on Kees tunic.

Yes, it's the dark brown fabric down there, that's going to be his new tunic.

Yesterday evening at my Stitch and Bitch meeting, I was not knitting, I was knotting. Needlebinding my socks. Danny helped me with the heel part. I've got a heelstrap now, need to work the yellow yarn till the end, which will be the ankle part and next week, she helps me with the heel, which will be green again. There are some faults in it, but they are my first and I love these socks ;-)

Also on my to-stitch-list is a head cover. My hair is short and dyed in a non-vikingcolour (it's a eggplant kind of a purple)

I'm sewing the hems by hand and I want to embroider some nice edge decoration on it. (Isn't Donna the cutest, all curled up and pretending to be sleeping? :D)

And, last but not least, I have this basket full of linen and wool fabric. I'm planning on making myself a new underdress and a overdress, a brown fish-bone wollen coat with a dark grey woolen lining, and a gugle, a hood with shoulder parts.

So.. I've got lots to do, the next 4 weeks :)

Sorting, Actress and Hoody

So. I will not talk about the Midwinterfest because there wasn't one. We found that out after driving 350 km to Oerlinghausen. Someone obviously forgot to email us there wasn't going to be a Midwinterfest...

I am writing about my day today. I've been sorting out all the papers I have about my education as a volunteer tour guide at the zoo . I've been trained to be a tour guide for our local zoo for 18 months now and it's about time I'll sort all my stuff on that subject. This is what that looks like:

And yes, that is "queen" Ayla, sitting in front of the curtain looking down on the people (i.e. me) working hard. :D

Between sorting and entertaining Ayla, I managed to get some knitting done. The hoody is growing slowly, but steadily:

Cut!

The first cut is the hardest...

All I have to do is start cutting....

But that is what scares me the most.. what if I do it wrong??

Then Kees won't have new clothes on the Oerlinghausen Mittwinterfest.

And I promised his new outfit would be ready by then. "Then" is next Saterday...

So I'll start cutting, wish me luck :D

That's All Folks!

I went to the Noordermarkt this morning with my friend Danny.
We needed some linen and wool for new Viking-outfits, for both Kees and me.

When I got home this afternoon, Donna was at the front door to great me as always but... no Ayla. So I was scared to death her heart had given out. The not-so-nice-neighbourhood-kids have been harrassing the surroundings of my home with fireworks since 8 AM this morning and Ayla has a heart-disease so I feared the worst.

But when I walked in my bathroom there she was:

All the way up in my towel-basket. She's on my lap now and purring, I believe all is going to be ok, as always. I'm going out tonight. That's new for both my cats and me, as I'm scared to death of fireworks. But I want to go to Mulligans and celebrate the new year with my friends.

Like I said, Donna is not impressed by all the loud noices and was opening my bags for me. Remember last time when D. and me went fabric-shopping? Danny found an awesome sweater for only 10 euro's. I found one for me today! And Donna likes it too :D



We also found fabric. For Kees a natural and dark brown (it looks a bit grey, but it's a beautyful dark brown) for a new pair of viking pants and a top:


For me the same dark brown and and a lighter natural linen for an over- and underdress and a nice brown woolen fishbone pattern for a coat (on the left)


As for the knitting:
The hoody is going slowly but steadily, My second mirror sock is not going to be finished in this year, but will be soon. Also The Felted Foursome, which is hibernating a bit at the moment and the Kaffe Fasset duo will be done somewhere in January. My friend Ingrid is expecting a baby girl in March and the poor kid is going to get a pink-Disney-princess babyroom.. I will knit her a "tough cookie" outfit.. with maybe a skully or something *lol*

Well... that's all folks!
Have a safe and happy party tonight and I wish you all a Book- & Fibertastic 2008!

The vikings came to Oerlinghausen

Last weekend was the viking event in Oerlinghausen. I did convince Ayla to stay at home, she was well taken care of bij the downstairs neighbour and my friend Katja. And Donna thought it was nicer to stay behind together too. So, Danny, Kees and me went by car which Dannys brother was kind enough to lent to us (thank you!) to Germany.

When we arrived it was dark, so outside there was not much to be seen, except a beautiful sky filled with stars. I live in a big city and don't get to see much stars because of all the electric lights, so when I do see a star lit sky, I really get that 'vacation feeling' in my stomach :D

We slept in the backery and although you did not suspect it from the outsight, we had electricity, but no beds. Luckely Danny brought me an air filled sleeping mat, so I did not have to sleep on the bare floor.

After we 'set up camp' we went to "the cellar" where we met some of the other vikings. That's where I learned to speak German fluently. What helped were 3 glasses of Tullamore which found ther way into my body. This evening the first liter of whisky mysteriously vaporated
into thin air...

The next morning Danny and I had to relocate the car so we went into viking cloths to the parking lot to drive it to the allocated designation. There were some tourists looking a bit strange when we got into the car. On the way back to the museum, we walked through the forest which was beautiful.

This is the museums new Longhouse. It looks very nice and the roof is just stunning. The weather was great on both days: sunny, warm.. almost like summer.Here you can see what I did all weekend:

Stitch 'n Bitch the Viking way. The lady is red is Runa Steinarsdóttir, Rona Kreekel in the 21st century. Danny was Stitching and Bitching too, you can see a picture from the three of us on her site. I think my vikingname will be Aldkin Weis, which means "orphin child of the fairies" but I'm not sure yet. I like the name but I have to find out more about it.

On saterday evening we had a nice diner and yet another liter of Tullamore Dew vaporised.. It must be the German air :D

I had a very nice time and alas.. it was the last event of the season we will attent. So now its time to gather around the hearth and sew some new cloths. And the tent. All by hand, to make it as authentic as possible.

Die wikinger kommen!

Danny, Kees and me will be in Oerlinghausen this weekend.

I only have to convince Ayla she really, seriously, absolutely cannot come with us..

Vikings!

Danny and I participated in the Viking week at Archeon last weekend. Unfortunatly Kees had to cancel beacause of a very nasty bug that - as Danny so eloquently put it: "had made him develop an intimate relationship with his bathroom and she (the bathroom) had abandonment issues."

We enjoyed ourselfs very much anyway. Like Danny said on her blog: "We shopped lots and made our first joint purchase: an iron cooking pot.


We want to finish our tent by next Whitsun so we won’t have to sleep at the dorm anymore. Plus we’ll be able to use it as a booth for our pottery and embroidery."

If you have visited Danny's blog you will notice I used her words in my blog. Some of them, the rest are mine. Well the thing is.. why would I make up my own crappy sentences if I can (re-)use the very eloquent ones from my friend? I won't, so I copied/pasted some of her words. All of the pictures are mine.

Just like these socks-to-be. I started nålebinding these last weekend.

I will try to make some pictures from my shoppings. I bought wool, silk, needles and a spindle as well as a new basket.

Here we sit at "our" table, on which we crafted, explained our work to the visitors and where we made and had lunch.


On Saterday evening we had a very nice party with free food and beer and there was music. Danny brought a bottle of yummie Talisker, which was suddenly empty at some point of the evening/night...


On sunday afternoon the fight demo was a bit of a dull scene, due to the free beer that was taken in by the men the night before in large amounts. The warriors looked also very dull all day.. Vikings and alcohol, an interesting combination.


But it was a great weekend, my next viking event will be in Oerlinghausen on september 21st - 23rd.

UPDATE:

Pictures from my shopping:

A wooden spindle and some needles



Shoes! I've got shoes...
and they gave me blisters....
But.. I do like my new shoes. Whan can I say? I'm a woman :D

I also bought a basket, but that will pop up on a picture soon enough.