Solstice

Yesterday was the day we danes celebrates solstice - that is, if we celebrate it at all. We do not have as extensive traditions as our swedish brothers and sisters, who revels in herring and schnapps when celebrating; our celebration is usually a modest bonfire and an excuse to sing some of the danish old-timers. And according to lore, the witch on the bonfire will fly to Bloksbjerg, and take all evil with her. Our solstice is also called Saint Hans, our rendition of John the Baptiser. So there is a merry mix of heathen and christian lore here, but it all sums up to a wish of eradicating evil. And as with most of those traditional things, it apparently doesn't matter if it is done in a promotion of violence. Aehm?

But the rain was pouring down, and it really looked that this would be one of those solstice celebrations that drowned in the rain. Alas, at 6 pm it suddently stopped raining, and there was a promise of a dry evening.

The bonfire closest to our place is one in Frederiksberg Have. It is a rather large thing with entertainment for kids and adults, but as we didn't get there before 8pm, we unfortunately (no, not really) missed most of the opera highlights and brassband tunes, both usually sent out through amplifiers of a questionable quality.

Federiksberg Have (Garden of Frederiksberg) is a lovely oasis in the city. And on our way to the bonfire we passed some of my favorites. The tree, where kids hang up their pacifiers when they need them no more



and the Heron-man



who has tamed some of the wild herons to come eat from his hand, though all zoologists says that this cannot be done. (The Zoo is just beside Frederiksberg Have, and the many herons that were supposed to be in the Zoo have long time ago chosen to live in the garden instead - thankfully, the same has not been possible for the lions or the tigers).

The bonfire itself is always situated in the lake, at the foot of Frederiksberg Slot (castle), with the entertainers placed in between



As it had been a very wet day, not many people were attending before the final moments. But the witch was sitting there awaiting, at the top of the bonfire in the middle of the lake



A boat was roving out, to get her going, but as everything was soaking wet, they took some time



Finally they got the fire going, and flames were licking up her behind. After a while the fire took over, and soon she was nowhere to be seen. She had flown on to Bloksbjerg on her broom.



As Bloksbjerg is in fact Brocken, the highest mountain in Harzen, Germany, I suppose she celebrates the rest of the night at a safe distance.

(Well, nice little country we have here: If we think we see evil, we just burn it! In modern days, mostly figuratively speaking, though. But nevertheless not really an open approach to diversity...I'll get off the soap-box now ;-))

After we had seen the witch off, it was time to go home. A day of playing handball, horse riding and watching bonfire can be a handfull when you're 7, but at 10pm this girlie still looked ready for trouble, with the umbrella-sword an all:



Oh, you wanted to see some knitting? Got a teeny progress pic for you



I know, too little knitting has been going on lately! But I still love this yarn from Garnharvan, so I am sure this WIP will in fact get finished!

It's raining again...

The danish summer is back to normal again - lots of rain, a few warm spells, and then some more rain. Yesterday afternoon was spent at a garden party; the host barbecueing under a large umbrella, while the guests were seated indoors. Well, living in this country, one gets used to such a set-up. But we did make some delicious blueberry muffins, including doll-sized ones.



Today was mostly spent indoors for my part. Arranging a seminar held on a usually beautiful spont on the waterfront, with great wievs over parts of the harbour canals. Today the wiev was a gloomy one, though, and it looked like an almost deserted city.



So, what's a girl to do? Well, my fall-back plan is always something involving colour, and as I had just a few days ago gotten an Amy Butler skirt pattern from GetKnitted, I was daydreaming a bit on the way home about which fabric to use for it. And it struck me, that some new shoes were in order to fit the bill. Shoe-shopping is almost as good as yarn-shopping or fabric-shopping, I believe ;-)



And I didn't have any shoes in that particular turqoise shade...

Yes, I know, my choise of fabric for the skirt was not too creative. Hope to finish it this week. Along with a lot of other stuff.

Summer creativity buzz

Summer continues here in the small country of milk and honey ;-)

Realising that kiddo has in fact grown since last summer, I have started producing some summer clothes for her. Usually I buy 99 % of her clothing, and produce very little of it myself. I decided that it should be different this summer.

This fun Westfalen-fabric



has been cut out, and is all ready to be sewn together for a dress. And as if I didn't have enough cotton material in stash already, I have bought some of the wonderful Echino/Etsuko Ladybug fabric for another dress for Marie. I have searched the internets for a really long time to find it available in the red colourway, and I was suddently lucky that Kris had some available. Maybe I overbought a bit, but it is a lovely fabric - in fact I am totally smitten with all those georgeous Echino fabrics! If I was to make something for myself, it should have been in the aqua colourway, but Marie loves reds and pinks. And the danish word for ladybug translates to "marie-hen", so she has as special relationship with ladybugs ;-)

The fabric arrived this week, and sweet Kris had included some extras



much to Marie's pleasure, as she loves when I sew something for her with accents of Amy Butler fabrics.

Hopefully I will find moments to sew those two dresses this week, as it looks like some of the fine weather is here to stay for a while. If I can decide, we are fine with temperatures around 25C. The suffocating 30C and high humidity we have had for the last week is a bit too much to be enjoyable, and it is also a bit out of character for a danish summer. Can you say "global warming"?

Summer is here

...finally. In fact, it is already a bit too hot for too much activity. When horseriding this morning





Marie had to slow down. The poor pony was too warm and sweaty to do a trot.


The lovely weather made me want to finish some summery knitting. And I really need a new top in a teal/petrol colour. Digging out an old WIP in Blue Heron Cotton/Rayon Seed it dawned on me, why iy has lingered so long in the WIP pile: I really find it difficult to knit that yarn in a fast pace, because it is rather nupply. And the lacy pattern I had envisioned didn't really show well. So off the needles it came



and instead I cast on something easy-peasy in the lovely Linea from Garnharvan, that I mentioned a while back.




Sitting in the shade, knitting - life is great! And soon our house renovation will be so much over, that it will be possible to put the smallish garden in order again.



But maybe we should just let it be wild. It is in fact rather cosy here.

Sustenance

A sustainability approach to project based management...with a lot of freshly ground black pepper ;-)

Some things never changes

Longing to get started on a summer top in the lovely petrol linen/cotton yarn from Garnhärvan that I picked up at the post office yesterday:



It is in fact no way near as blue as in this photo. It is a beautiful petrol.

I am planning to use it for the Louet Euroflax Lily pattern (by the talented designer JoLene Treace) which I have here around somewhere - right now it has gone missing, so it will probably take a while to get started. Bummer!

Trying not to be too selfish, I also got some more of the lovely yarn for a summer top for Marie:



(No knitting needles were harmed in this setting).

Probably me not being able to find the Lily pattern right now is in fact a good thing. I am still studying like crazy for an exam this coming week. I will have to get my colour fix today from this



Looking at the corner with my knitting basket I realized, that some things never changes here around:



In this ever changing world, at least my favorite colours stays the same;-)