Connecting the dots…

Running Tonight

The pavement and the streets were glazed with recent rain that had just started to freeze, and the first kilometer was more about skating and keeping my balance than it was about running. After that it got better and I had quite a nice run, though it was not a fast one.

I started running again a few weeks ago after the very snowy period we had here in Denmark and all the illness we had in the family. And if you’re thinking about getting out there running, I really just want to bring some encouragement to the table, because it may be cold and dark, and I may be tired in the evening, but I am genuinely enjoying my runs! I use the running app Endomondo for my iPhone to track my routes, which also adds motivation by enabling me to compare and share my runs. Also, during my last run, Mads discovered the peptalk function in Endomondo, and receiving messages like “Run faster you lazy bastard”, and “You go girl” in my headphones during my run just cracked me up.

Anyway, most of the snow is gone, but it’s still winter here with the temperatures that follow. Last weekend, we all went for a walk in Køge Marina. Mads and I recently learned that we’re first in line for a space there that fits our boat, which is brilliant because it means we’ll have our boat (wrote about it here) much closer to home when summer and sailing season arrives.

Don’t you just long for summer now? I do. We are seeing more of the sun, though, so I guess we’ll do with that for now.

Winter Sewing

I could tell you long stories about my pneumonia that went on all through Christmas and New Years, or how I can’t seem to quite get rid of my cold and get back on top – but I won’t. (Just did, didn’t I – that’s because I’m still just slightly bitter about it…)

Instead I’ll show you what I’ve been sewing since we finished my new sewing room. Which I entirely love, by the way. Every time I’m in there, one of the girls comes along and wants to sit next to me at the wonderfully long table, doing something creative. Sort buttons, draw drawings, or play with boxes of sewing equipment. I have no doubt I will be spending many hours in there with the girls, enjoying some nice times and cups of tea.

The first one is a fleece sweater that I made once before – #11 from Ottobre Design 04/2007. Ronja outgrew it and passed it on to Frida, so I wanted to make a new one for her. This below is the first one I made almost 3 years ago – don’t think I ever posted it on the blog, so here it is:

And this is the new one that I finished this past weekend. I used polar fleece from Stof & Stil, which is really thick and soft – more so than the ordinary fleece which I used for the first one.

I chose the green colour, and then I appliqued a tree on the back to just give it a bit of a girly twist. Ronja seems to love it, and it is heavenly soft and warm, so I think it’ll be just as loved as the first one.

Then I made a couple of night gowns for Frida. The first one was made in a desperate attempt to make use of my Christmas vacation even if I was sick all the time. I wouldn’t recommend that kind of sewing, though – I had to undo quite a few seams, after joining the pieces wrong. Anyway – it turned out ok.

And this is the other one – much less troublesome. The pattern for both night gowns is Onion 20021.

My new woven label from MinaNamnBand.se is attached on the back:

All I Want For Christmas

Christmas Eve came and went. The pixies have been up since December 1st, and the girls have each counted down by opening a small present every day. In case you don’t all know, in Denmark we celebrate Christmas on the evening of the 24th, which was yesterday. In spite of the vast amounts of snow that doesn’t make crossing the country (or the continent) any easier, the whole family managed to get here - our mothers, my older brother with his family, my younger brother, and Mads’ sister. Mads had prepared the bestest Christmas dinner, and everybody ate way more than they could, which is exactly the way it should be. We lit the candles on the Christmas tree, danced around the tree singing Christmas songs, and presents were distributed generously to the great (over-)excitement of the three children. I think we had a wonderful evening.

Today we went for a walk – not a long one because it is sooooo cold here at the moment. We have been down to minus 18 degrees Celsius which is around 0 degrees Fahrenheit, and though it’s not quite that cold now, it’s still freezing outside.

Now everyone left, we almost have the house back to normal, and Mads and I are enjoying a quiet evening. And I want to show you my new SEWING ROOM. At least that’s what I call it. It’s been work in progress for a little while:

So, check out my new hide out!

The entire room, which will be serving as our bedroom as well. The new cabinets are all IKEA kitchen cabinets.

My table – my sewing machines are still under the table, but that is just because I haven’t used the room much yet – we only finished it a bit more than a week ago, and it’s been Christmas, you know.

2.7 meters of oak table top – I got this from Homeworks.dk, and I’m actually quite happy with their service. Most of the places that sell table tops the measurements I needed, are considerably more expensive.

Room for my patterns and sewing magazines.

Full closet for fabric, tools and all kinds of stuff that I need for my sewing.

I really love the room, and I can tell I will be using it a lot for all kinds of stuff – Frida has already spotted the opportunity to come sort her mother’s stuff, while I’m working with something else in there. LOVE it! I couldn’t have asked for a better Christmas present.

So there it is – A Very Merry Christmas to all of you guys out there!

November… Really??

This is what it looks like outside at the moment. The calendar still says November, and it’s hard to believe the amount of snow we have – even for Denmark, this is rather extreme this early in the winter.

Mads isn’t at home tonight, so I have been spending the entire night wrapping presents for the girls’ advent calendars – yep, all 48 presents are now wrapped. Tuesday nights I’m going to get out the pixies and tie the presents to them – the girls are going to love it!

This week has been a busy one, but Mondayevening we were at IKEA, shopping for the bedroom. Hopefully this weekend we will have time to start building. But for now, I think I’m off to bed. Have a great weekend!

Our Bedroom In 3D

In order to fit a bedroom and a nice sewing space into our bedroom, we need to be a little bit creative. I wanted to get an idea of how much space we had to work with, so on Mads’ recommendation, I downloaded Google Sketchup during the weekend. (As you may be aware, Mads draws 3D models professionally, but he left the design of this room up to me, so I took him up on the challenge.) Sunday night I made the below draft of what I want to do with the room. Google Sketchup enables anyone with a bit of patience to draw their projects up in 3D, and it works surprisingly well, although I would recommend going through at least the first 4 video tutorials if you haven’t tried drawing 3D before, which I haven’t. They helped me a lot. However, altogether it only took me a few hours (and a little swearing) to draw up the idea I had, using accurate dimensions.

It won’t be huge, but this could be a really nice sewing space, I think. The wall that is not there, is the one that holds our closets, which will still be the case after the renovation. The door into the room from the hallway is to the right – it’s easier to see in the picture below.

Mads painted the ceiling yesterday, and the walls had first coat tonight, so it won’t be long before I need my design to be ready to go shopping. I think it’s going to look something like this, but if you have good ideas based on what you see, don’t hold back!

Seamstresses – Gather ‘Round!

As I mentioned earlier, Mads and I have worked up the last bits of renovation energy and emptied the bedroom, in order to renovate the very last of the ‘real’ rooms in the house. I won’t even show you what that does to the living room at the moment. The reason for the expression ‘real rooms’ is that we have a small section of the house which is not insulated, and which hosts the laundry room and back hallway – we will get to these eventually I believe, but they don’t have very high priority as they don’t belong to what you may refer to as the main house.

But here’s what I’m getting to: Mads said, that as long as there’s room for the bed in the bedroom, I can pretty much decide what should happen to the rest of the room. (He later gets to insulate and fix up the garage for his motorcycle, so though it’s terribly sweet of him, he does have an agenda…:) ) Are you still following? This means sewing corner! It means fabric space! It means no more dragging out all my sewing stuff to the dining table in the living room each time I want to sew, and it means I will be able to sew a little when I have the time, instead of waiting until it makes sense to spend 20 minutes getting everything out. It’s not a huge bedroom, but it isn’t tiny either, so I’ll work with what I have. I am currently trying to figure out the wall colour, but the rest is where you guys come in!

I know many of you have wonderful, functional sewing spaces or even whole rooms – and I would love to know what advice you would give me? Think of anything – think drawers, table, light, shelves, containers, etc. What did you get right in your sewing space? What do you wish you had done differently? Do you want to show me your sewing space? I will be thankful for any inspiration or advice!

I have purchased a lot of my fabric through Fabric.com, and I just received a discount code that I thought I’d share – so: Use code “CLEAR30″ at Fabric.com and get an additional 30% off the clearance section! Offer valid through 11/15/10.

Lots Of Tea With Honey

Mads is away for a few days, which means that tonight I’m home alone with the girls and a sore throat. I put the girls to bed a while ago, and Ronja actually lost her first tooth, while we were brushing her teeth – that is quite an event for a 6-year old, and she proclaimed she will be expecting a visit from the tooth fairy. I don’t remember tooth fairies from when I was a child, but I guess I should probably find a coin or something.

Today has been spent on the couch under a blanket, sleeping and drinking lots of tea with honey, and yesterday was rather similar. The next few days I am attending a conference called New Media Days that takes place in Copenhagen once a year. I love going there to expand my knowledge on current development and the future of digital media, and I am so hoping to wake up tomorrow just a little bit better.

It’s been a busy week, this past week. I spent a couple of days in London – it was work related, but we had time off as well. I like London a lot, and I would love to go back there before long. We didn’t overdo sleep, so Friday back at work was a long day.

The origami crane mobile you see on the left, are some that I made Saturday (if you want to learn how, you can find instructions here), when I went to yet another blogger meetup with the inspiring group of crafty, blogging women that I am lucky enough to be part of. Those days are great, and it’s always hard to leave – we spend an entire day talking, laughing, sharing, doing different kinds of crafts, enjoying snacks and great food – and well – joining in conversations about all the things that we have in common, as well as the things we don’t. Thanks, girls! The glass bead at the bottom of the crane mobile was made by Anne, who has taken on glass crafting – she makes some gorgeous stuff.

The week before this one, we went to a check-up with Frida. As some of you recall, she was born with a cleft palate, and had surgery when she was 18 months. We have been visiting a speech therapist to make sure her language would come along as it should, and also to determine whether she would need further surgery or not (elaborated here). Getting all the sounds right has taken a while for Frida, but we are so getting there. This time, visiting the speech therapist was just so much fun for Frida as well as her proud parents. She went through an entire book, describing what she saw in a bunch of pictures, and her pronunciation as well as her attitude towards the task was just a pleasure to witness. The therapist told us she had no reason to believe Frida would need another round of surgery, and I so hope she is right. We can do without.

Felted Goods from Mongolia

I’ve always been impressed with people who have the guts to start up their own business. My sister-in-law Jolanda is so cool – I recommend you take a look at what she did, even if you’re not from the Netherlands where she lives.

During 2009, my brother Jakob and his wife Jolanda who live together in Amsterdam, went to Mongolia for a wedding celebration. They spent some time travelling around the country, and when they returned, Jolanda brought with her a fascination of the delicious felt products that were produced by locals in the country.

She has now started a business called Esgii (‘felt’ in Mongolian) and a very nice looking webshop at Esgii.nl importing felt products from Mongolia, produced by individuals and small businesses, using the principles of fair trade. A large part of the population in Mongolia is still living below the line of poverty, and Jolanda’s initiative means that she and her customers will be contributing to a positive development in Mongolia.

It has taken a ton of work on her part, and the thing that carries her is that she is passionate about the products, the way they are produced, and sets high standards for how she wants to move them along.

She currently sets up stands in different markets around Amsterdam, while taking care of the webshop at the same time, so if you live in or near Amsterdam, I can only tell you to go get those gorgeous things. Take a look at the pictures here and her site, to see what you should be expecting. But for now – mostly for the Dutch visitors.

Here’s to hoping she’ll go international before long – I can definitely find a few things that I am adding to my wish list.