Finally something to show off....

The angel was supposed to be at the bottom of this entry...but since I haven't figured out yet in what row the pictures upload, it is on top. It stands 18cm/7in tall,knitted in Cortina from Gjestal ,and it is not felted yet, I would like to make a few more. My mother-in-law has one that I used as a guide, but yesterday I bought one of the Xmas-magazines, and there it was... A pair of fingerless mittens, yarn KOIGU!!! Great! it was part of a trade with Cassie , she got a book she wanted, I got this Koigu, and Elizabeth Zimmermans Knitters Almanac(which is a funny book, I laugh and read and want to knit- it is just great). I think I came out of the trade a lot better than Cassie... Anyway, I knitted these in Cassie's
Loksins! pattern, and they came out really well, I think. There is enough yarn left for a scarf or neckerchief- it seems too good to be used for socks! The pattern is easy to knit, well written, and very pretty.
Remember a few days ago, I said I'd been making a pattern? I've seen a few blankets knit after lace doilies (Hemlock ring blanket, also found here ), and thought I wouldn't do what "everyone" else is doing. But the patterns I had, didn't work out that good, so I decided to give it a try myself...This is how far I got. 2 balls (100gr) of Gjestal Babyull. It was fun, but rather tedious. And I really wanted a round one...I guess designing is a lot about math... I would like to make this bigger, but I have to buy some more yarn first. It is about 60x60cm (22.5x22.5in) And then the Kitten Mohair yarn...it knits into a scarf , it is done, but needs blocking. I used 100gr of yarn on 4.5mm needles. Fun and easy to knit. I had a couple more photos I should have uploaded, but Blogger didn't want anymore today...



We've had a WET weekend. The pictures yesterday was taken on Sunday morning. The river is normally not so big, but it was pouring down, so we had rivers everywhere! It is still a grey day, had a bit of hail when I was feeding the sheep.

Some of you have been asking what kind of sheep we have. We have two kinds: spælsau and gammelnorsk utegangersau. The photo in the heading is spælsau, and the photo on the side is uteganger (often called villsau). We keep the spælsau inside the barn during winter, and feed them. Villsauen is going outdoors all year, but they are tamed, so if I call and have some grains, they will come. I also feed them extra during winter with hay. Some are more sceptical than others, of course, but they are nice animals, Very cute and curious, and great mothers. We have had some problems both with the fox and the ravens taking lambs. I deliver the sheep to a slaughterhouse, the wool is also delivered, the advantages is that I can deliver everything, the disadvantage is that we can do very little to get better prizes.

Utegangersauene have been butchered at home so far, but I'll try to deliver some this year. The wool is not used, it seems to be too coarse. And of course coloured... They are not too happy about the spælsauwool either... Maybe I have to learn how to spin? It is really interesting to browse the internet and see what people do, both spinning and dyeing, and in general processing the whole thing. Hmmm.

It is time to shear the sheep, but only the spælsau. Villsauen was sheared in June, they usually let go of their wool around that time. If I want to use the wool, I might have to shear them too twice a year.

Time to get another cup of tea, pick up the mail, and get something to eat. And then: back to the knitting.
Have a great day!

Water...

You make me smile...

Britt-Arnhild awarded me with this award- and I've been smiling ever since! Thank you, Britt-Arnhild!!! Your blog always make me smile! I would like to pass this award on to some special people, whose blogs I read with great joy.
Craftmouse
Ok!What next?
Pink Purl
Strikkepinner og andre pinner


I did plan on posting some knitting too! But my pictures won't upload...so I'll save it for later. Today I'm baking bread and a teacake. I have started a new scarf, in KittenMohair, a yarn I don't like, but bought because it was on sale...smart, eh? I've knitted more mittens, and I tried to make a pattern for a babyblanket in lace...which convinced me that I'm not cut out for that stuff...Lace is fun, knitting is fun, browsing the internet for new patterns is fun, making a pattern is no fun...
We've had several days of great fallweather, sunny days, and clear nights.
I'll be back...
Have a great day:-)

Tagged!

So I've been tagged...Bjørg tagged me for another "7 random things..."but I've already done it twice, in August and in May (and how do I link to that particular blogentry??? I'm such an ignorant when it comes to computerknowledge.) Then Anne tagged me for a bookmeme. I'm very fond of books, I read -almost...- all the time, when I don't knit, that is.... I've been reading all my life, so did my parents and my sisters.

Well, here we go:



1: Hardcover or paperback, and why?

I prefer hardcover. They look a lot better,and they wear a lot better... but I tend to buy a lot of paperbacks since they are cheaper...



2: If I were to own a book shop, I would call it...

Lesekroken (the reading corner)



3: My favourite quote from a book (mention the title)

Sorry, nothing comes to mind! Oh, I've got one! " Du ock jag, Alfred! Ja, du ock jag, Emil" ("You and me, Alfred! Yes, you and me, Emil" from the books about Emil i Lønneberget by Astrid Lindgren.)



4: The author (alive or deceased) I would love to have lunch with would be...

Sigrid Undset, a Norwegian author, now deceased, but I think she would be interesting. She has written some amazing books. I also think Chaim Potok would have been a good choice- or possibly those two together!



5:If I was going to a deserted island and could bring only one book, except for the SAS survival guide, it would be...

The Bible. Or maybe Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac- lots of laughs and some nice patterns:-)

6: I would love someone to invent a bookish gadget that...

...made it possible to read and knit at the same time-maybe all books should be bound in spirals? And be at least twice as big as they usually are? And there should be something that turned the pages. Maybe that's why they invented CD-books...

7: The smell of an old book reminds me of...

...the books in the attic...


8: If I could be the lead character in a book (mention the title) it would be...

Miss Marple. In all of Agatha Christies books... She's a gem!



9: The most overestimated book of all times is...

Gone with the wind. Yes I know you will not agree, but really?



10: I hate it when a book...

...is made into a movie!!! It is almost always a disappointment.

Should I tag someone? I think I'll pass this time, but please feel free to consider yourself tagged if you read this!

In other news the sheep are happy to be home! More about them later. Have a nice day:-)

Fårikålen er sikra! (Now there will be lambstew!)

Do you see the peak? No? What about here? And all those white spots?
Yesss!

THANK YOU to the vet's hubby and DS1(the 15yearold)- they did it. 70 sheep should be back home.
It's going to be a good week:-)

sheep? what sheep?

Blogger is being less than cooperative today- I needed three tries to upload these pictures- maybe a sign that I should do something else soon, and not bother you with all those "no sheep ,plenty nature" photos... Oh, well, I'll share anyway! DD1 and I took a hike on Tuesday, and the weather was just like it is supposed to be: cold, clear crisp air, sunny, and no wind at all. The first photo is a "seter", where the farmers kept sheep and cows during summer, they would cut whatever grass they found and dry it, and then bring it down during winter. They milked the cows and carried the milk down to the farms. It would probably not take them more than 30 min. to walk from the farm to summer pastures.But it is pretty steep...
A clear sign of King Winter not being far away- frosty leaves. DD1 found ice on most of the puddles and had great fun shaping them into animals or faces,and then throwing them on a rock, it sounded like glass breaking!
There is a cliff in the background of this photo- Hornelen- Northern Europes highest seacliff- it is 860m straight into the sea. The witches are believed to dance there on Midsummernights Eve. We can see it from most places in our village, and it is quite impressive.
Finally back home- only 2 more hours to walk-LOL! We saw some sheep, but they were too far away to fetch, it was getting rather late at day, and my knee hurts a lot, so we just had to get back down. It was a great trip, though! Unfortunately we don't have any sheepdogs, it would have come in handy now. The kids want a dog, and Hubby wants one- I'm the reluctant one, because I don't know if a dog would like it here, I just don't seem to have enough interest in one, and they need practise and exersice every day to behave properly. I will have to think it over. A properly trained sheepdog works wonders!!! I've seen them in action, and it is impressive!

Back in my schooldays we always wrote an essay about the holiday or a special day or event, and the ending line of that would be " And they all agreed that it had been a lovely day!"
I think that is what we said too, even though we didn't find any sheep...

Have a nice evening:-)

And there has been knitting!

I don't like knitting socks. And I have done very little sockknitting in my life. That is- until this year...Thanks to blogland, I found out that it was actually possible to knit lace socks. That doesn't count as sockknitting. (FairIsle does. And plain ones, definitely!) So I started knitting lace, and now I don't seem to be able to stop-LOL! Here are the latest Sockamania's , Octobers pattern is cabled, and Loksins! .In the background a pair of fairisle from the book Strikk deg varm. It looks like a nice book, and I have ordered it. For some reason, I joined the Anne knit&read along. I've read Anne of Green Gables a few times before, and now the challenge is to knit something that might be related to Anne and her time. I'm reading out loud to my daughters, and they are really enjoying it. Even my 14-yearold listens! We've read more than half of the first book. Unfortunately, I don't think we have more than the first five books translated into Norwegian... As for the knitting, I decided to start slowly, with a kitchen towel, and there might be a dishcloth too. I also plan on knitting a pair of kneehigh socks, as they might come in handy when running across the mountains looking for those stubborn fourlegged creatures that has been vacationing up there for the last 4 months! (No, I didn't go looking for them on Sunday- it ws raining buckets, and then the fog came!)Christmas...this is the first magazine I've seen this year.
And it had a nice article about Selbuvotten, and some nice patterns, so I cast on for a pair of mittens for a little friend of mine. Pink and black. It's been a long time since I've done any fairisle/ stranded knitting at all, so tension is way off- I need to work on that. Hopefully a good blocking will fix the unevenness.
These are the socks again from Strikk deg varm. They have an unusual heel- afterthoughtheel?- that was quite fun to knit. The pattern is a bit boring, but it might be fun to draw my own pattern using the same number of stitches.
DD1 and I are alone this week. Hubby took the boys with him to work this morning, he'll be at the office in Stavanger, and they will come home by plane on Saturday. DD2 was fetched by my mother-in-law, she'll spend the week there. It is autumn vacation this week. Having only one child at home is rather strange. We'll enjoy ourselves! We just have to get those irritating sheep down first!!!
Have a nice week!

FYI...

...I'm still here...
And I have to say: I have loved reading your comments to my last post, it has been really funny- THANK YOU!!!

The sheep are still in the mountains, we'll try again tomorrow. I've been up twice- first on Thursday a week ago, the weather was great (no pictures- my darling 12-yearold decided she needed the camera for school, and off she went!) and the sheep was all there. And still not willing to come home...
Last Sunday we were 8 going together,me, DS1 and DS2, DS2's friend, his mom(the teacher), a neighbour(the hunter), the vet's husband, and the mayor. We saw the sheep, we spoke to the sheep, we even got the sheep to move. And then the fog came...

Anyway- I'll be back soon- hopefully with some knitting too! Yes, there HAS been knitting!

Wish me luck tomorrow...I think we might need it-LOL!

Have a great Sunday:-)