Desperately needing squash

Yesterday we went to the wonderful plant-school, Gustavshill,  that is just down the road. They have been closed for the winter, but are now opened again and full of seeds and tulips. I bought seeds over the internet earlier but after the really strange gardening program, Heavens Gardens,  I watched on friday night, I desperately wanted squash! Ola choose some lovely tomatoes and we decided that sunflowers would be nice too. 

Then we have the two mini greenhouses. So the seeds can have a start indoors. 

This one is a Rootrainer and apparently it makes better and more compact root systems. For me it has the added bonus that the cells open like a book so you easily can get the little plant out. 

This one looks like some sort of laboratory equipment for making test-tube babies, but no, it is also a mini greenhouse, this one has a pop up effect when the little plants are ready.

Austrian yarn

A few weeks ago Ola was sent to Vienna for work, to see the headquarters. So...

First; I want to see to Vienna too! 

Second; I hate when he leaves, I always get confronted with his mortality. 

Thirdly; Bring me back some Austrian yarn!

And he did! With Ravelry's help I got some addresses to yarn stores close to the city-centre. I didn't know anything about the stores just were they were and that they sold yarn. The one he got to was a small cozy place with an owner who spoke very little English, but somehow he understood that this was yarn made in Salzburg. It is called Seide and is a gorgeously soft blend of silk and merino, smoochy but with a shine. I am waiting for the very right pattern before I start in on this. 

And also you have to love a yarn with hugging sheep on the label!

Olas Cardigan

Ages ago I promised Ola (my husband) that I was going to knit a sweater for him. I had bought Erica Knights book Mens Knits, and he chose a pattern (with a little help) and yarn was ordered. This was in August 2009. The yarn turned out to be beautiful but horrible to knit with, every tension variation showed and I had to knit it very tight to get it even, so tight the yarn burned my finger. So the knitting subsided, and I kind of hid it in the bottom of the knitting drawer. Well, after christmas I thought that enough is enough and I vowed to have it done by his birthday in the end of February. Therefore I have knitted in hiding for two months, when he was at work and late in the night. And in spite of two headache attacks and the fact that he was sick and stayed home just a few days before the Day, when I had half a sleeve and all the sewing up left, I made it! It was finished in time, ok without buttons and unblocked but still enough to proudly wrap. 

This was my first time sewing in sleeves. It went well I thought, Im proud about the result and will promptly do only raglan sleeves in the future.

Since it had no buttons, Ola got to have a say in the button buying. We found a very nice little fabric store here on the islands and found these lovely greyish black ones with little specs of light in them. 

It seemed a bit small but stretched out nicely when I blocked it.

Ola snuggling up with his new cardi.

Snow yarn in the mail

This weekend we were supposed to go to a big (well, big for Sweden) sewing and yarn fair, but the wether, the snow, and the traffic reports put a stop to that. Five cars had crashed before eight that morning in the Stockholm area, and we decided we did not want to be a part of that. I also decided that if this was how it was going to be, I was definitely buying some yarn online to feel a bit better! I did and today it arrived, the "because of the snow, post yarn", glorious Frost sock yarns. I love getting things in the mail, you can say I have a bit of a post addiction.  

I am so very happy with the colours, all beautiful, but the blu-red is getting to be a favourite. Its some of the most beautiful colours I have ever seen, at least in the "not hand painted" category. I can already see the fantastic socks that are going to be created in the future.

Frost is very nice to knit with, a bit thin, but reliable and even.

I also bought a very nice pattern for "Swedish Fish Socks" from Spillyjane Knits.

Disobedience in the country

After living my whole life in quite a big city and then in an actual big city it is so reassuring out here in the country, reading the local papers column about disturbances and police matters during the latest month, and finding things like:

• Person arrested for shoplifting 37 kronor worth of candy.
• Stray dog caught and cared for, turned in to the police.
• A report of a person driving with badly scraped windows.
• Firedeparment investigates a smoked filled house, which turns out to be a badly cleaned fireplace chimney.
• The police stops a car for suspected drunk driving, the driver turns out to be sober. 
• A report of a drunk person lying in a snowdrift, when the police arrives, the drunk person is no longer there. (it probably got cold)

And! Unusual find turned in to the police:

Two turtles found and turned in to the Ekerö police department. A person living in .... found them lying in a snowdrift in the area, the person brought them inside the house to defrost and warm up. They slowly regained the ability to move around and were then brought to the police, who started an investigation to find out if someone was missing the turtles, without result.

-There is a lot of question marks around these turtles, but it feels like they have just been dumped. Says the investigating police person. 

The turtles were later given by the police to Skansen (the zoo).

Chameleon blogging

This blog rearranging and shifting has left me surprisingly uprooted and sad. I spent the whole day trying to get the background and the colours right before I realised that this was the problem. Im probably going to rearrange the look of Dollybob over the next few days, or weeks, before Im comfortable with the new situation. So for now, as it was with "Sticka utan fika", and as I am boldly going were I haven't been before; chameleon blog!

By the way...

All the snow on the yard and the pink house numbers!

Upgrade

This blog has now had the great honour of being upgraded to my official main blog! I found that my other two! blogs did not completely satisfy my blogging needs. They are both great in there own ways, "Frida Working..." is mainly for my artistic work as a jewellery artist and I feel I have to maintain a certain standard and that makes me feel apprehensive about writing about all the snow or my pink house numbers, "Sticka utan fika" is a collaboration with my good friend Lina and totally about knitting in swedish, with leaves a lot of things out. There is as you can see a kind of blogging gap there for me. So I resurrected this old test blog with its splendid androgynous name for more Frida based, all around friendly blogging! So how about the other blogs, yes, "Frida Working..." will be a bit changed, it will be more of a show and tell about what I am working on in the jewellery art field, showing current work, and "Sticka utan fika" will remain as it is.

So everyone, subscribe now because you have to read this blog too!