Book Challenge Month Three

This month I decided my theme would be Nordic Humour and I went to the local library and asked the friendly librarian what she recommended and I went home with three authors and six books.

For the Norwegian author I went with Knut Nærum, I think he is hilarious, he is the author I read some Easter Crime books of here.
This book is called PEER, and is a sort of child friendly, shorter and more updated version of Peer Gynt by Ibsen with songs since the author thought the original lacked that.
Unfortunately I only knew a couple of the songs in this book, but the opening made the whole book worth reading. The opening is from Beauty and the Beast, the song the villagers sing about Belle only here they are singing about Peer. I won't lie I started singing out loud in this sequence and it was well written and flowed nicely like a song should, not at all like badly written songs by relatives for a special party. The book in it self was short and written like the play but I did enjoy it. I read it on a Sunday while Mister M struggled to stay awake reading whatever he was reading and eventually I was reading accompanied by Mister M's snoring. A quite enjoyable day.

Speaking of Mister M, he likes this Finnish author and he has read most of his books although in Finnish so I can't borrow them from him so I thought I could borrow the ones from the local library, and (not the one about the hare because Mister M can't remember if the hare fares badly and I don't want to read about a dead hare), somehow I managed to borrow two books Mister M has never read.
Arto Paasilinna, who I for some reason call Pasinen.... Or Pasonen.

Adam og Eva was a good book, I liked this one more than the other. Adam is divorced with a load of kids and is struggling with his battery business, he owns a lot of back taxes and in the middle of this he is inventing a new kind of battery. He meets the drunken lawyer Eva who helps him financially while he finishes his battery, but not everyone wants him to succeed. The oil-business is not too happy and sends an assassin to kill him.

The pace of this book was fast and the twists was fun and the characters unusual, I loved the book until it's final chapter, then I hated it, but I do think it ended how it should have.

Herre min hatt, was not quite so enjoyable in my opinion, it felt a bit half finished, like it should have another 50 pages or so. 

This book is about God, he is tired and wants a vacation, so he asks Gabriel and St.Peter to find a replacement for a year or so and Birger Ryynänen is chosen. He is a crane driver and often prays in his little crane high above the city, if he is not reading something.

There are a lot of fun twists here too even if I am not quite happy with how heaven is pictured or how heaven is managed. But I do like the idea of heaven being situated in Finland in an old big wood church in Kerimäki. 

Then I read two books (I have not yet read the third) from Jonas Jonasson, a Swede.
And these books were rather fun! I am not sure I have a favourite out of the two, they are both good, but in Analfabeten som kunne regne one of the main characters is female, the other females in the other books were not main characters I think. This book starts in South Africa and ends in Sweden with a girl who can read and can write and count and a man who does not exist and his brother who does and his angry girlfriend and a nuclear bomb which also does not exist but also does....
Well I can't explain it, just read it...

Morder-Anders og hans venner (samt en og annen uvenn)

I think this book is the book I might have snorted out loud when reading, I like reading about shady characters and some cartoon violence and twisting and turning and unlikely events.

Morder-Anders is as his name implies a murderer but he is not a murderer by trade, he is a torpedo and hits people in their knee if he gets paid for it, but things are not going so well because he can't differentiate between right and left... And then he meets a receptionist and a priest who does not believe in God and together they join forces....

I wish I found an Icelandic book, but the librarian could not find one from the top of her curly head and I did have plenty of books so I thought I could not finish all of them in time, which I didn't, I still have one book left, Hundreåringen som klatret ut gjennom vinduet og forsvant.

I have now read 16 17 of 52 books.

I hurriedly read the last of the humour books and I just finished in time to take it back to the library.

I liked it, and funnily enough Paasilinna was mentioned in this book, that the events were almost taken from one of his books which I found rather amusing. Other than that I can say that I probably would have liked this better if I had read it before the other two. I have a tendency of getting "sick" of a writer's style after a while and even if it was funny and good written I think I would have liked it more if I had read it before the others. But I still think it is better than the "analfabet" one.

This book is about a hundred year old man  who gets up and leaves through the window of his own birthday party and disappears. Then he meets people and things happen. Here we also get two timelines and hear about the man's life and it is rather entertaining. I haven't seen the movie, but I might. I would recommend all of these books to read if you want a funny fast reading unbelievable novel.

Bunday Funday

Bunnies may have been sleeping all day listening to the rain while we've been out and about but once we came home they were busy jumping about and shaking their tails.

Even though I have been flailing around I have made many more Maybelle flowers, the total is now 95.

Colourfull Maybelle show and tell

I am steadily making more flowers and my flowers have doubled, think I can triple them before I focus on something else? As I said I will work on this project during May so not much time left then.

But I do adore the colours, it is a feast for the eyes! I am hoping Søstrene Grene adds a perfect colour to crochet the flowers into squares... At the moment I am crocheting one skein to see how many flowers that will yield so I will get a feel to how big this project will be, so far I have seven flowers in middle pink but there is still plenty yarn left. 

The Wedding Blanket Squares Thirteen

Veronica's Rose by Melissa Green.

Somehow my square in row 9 is not completely in line, in the right corner I think I may have stitched into a wrong loop and thus not gotten a perfectly straight line, but other than that I really liked this square too. It was fairly easy, but not too easy, I had to think and redo some of my rows and so it was more interesting than some. But with this cal there is the perfect match between a breeze,  putting your thinking cap on at times and brain twistingly hard which meant I could do the easier ones while with company and the harder ones when I wanted a challenge. And some were indeed a challenge. I think we might soon come to the point were I gave up on a square for the time being to crochet some of the easier ones, I think that was when I ran out of the medium purple and did more dark colours for a time.

Even with adament blocking that dent did not come out. Although the centre was a bit harder the rest of the square was a breeze so I think I did this in about four hours same as most squares.

It weighed 33 grams and measured 21x21 cm.

I like how my green row makes the centre feel even more like a flower and I tried to use some of the more rose-coloured colours from what we had and I think it does look a bit like a rose.

I would love to make another Veronica's Rose in pink and purple palette.

*Kio's block.

Interestingly again we have used a lot of the same colours.

Her row number nine is in white so it is easier to see what row I have been talking about and thankfully her row is not completely straight either so I don't feel as bad about mine. ^^

Monday and Maybelle

Since it is still May I thought it fitting to make some more Maybelle flowers which eventually will turn into Maybelle Squares and then perhaps a blanket... I am thinking a sand colour on the squares, but we will see.

I had 17 flowers when I picked it up yesterday, and I now have made 19 more.

I have added some more colours, but I do think I will look around to see if I can find more blues and lilac colours. Perhaps even...gasp...yellow.

All yarn is cotton from Søstrene Grene and I am using a 1.5 hook.

And Mimle got a new toy which she loves, she throws it around all the time, too bad for me because it has a bell inside >.<

Oh, and congratulations to the proud parents and little kawaii-chan, I can't wait to meet you all.

Finished Friday

Mimle helped me today, she thought I was too slow darning in my ends, so she did it herself....

I was busy reading in the sofa when I looked down on my feet and Mimle was munching on something, my heart almost stopped when I saw a large white thread peering out of her mouth. I was fast to hunt her down and take the thread from her. Luckily she didn't ingest much and she even let me have a small piece of thread to safely sew in the end...

But I do love Mimle. Even when she is a little troll.

So here is my sort of finish, it needs a bead in the middle of the flower and then sewing it to the headband. I think it looks good, it is for a birthday girl so I feel lucky Mimle left enough yarn for me to sew in the end.

And the second baby-gift-bundle is finished. Unless I put something else into it that is;)

 I made two more of these bibs and the purple is from a book called "Hekle til babyen" and a pair of baby booties from the same book (which I will review soon) to go with the blanket. :) 

so now the baby can come.

I am not sure how much yarn I have used up, the booties was made in Drops Paris Cotton and I used 45 grams, each of the three bibs weighed around 15 grams and I used Søstrene Grene yarn.

So so far I have used up 90 grams of yarn on baby-things in this bundle. I have already counted the blanket.

The first bundle I made four bibs, but it is only the green which was finished in May and haven't been counted yet. That also weighed 15 grams.

And then there is the flower headband, that weighed 14 grams.

So May so far has been 119 grams, or a little over two skeins of yarn out.

And nothing in. 

(except some red, white and blue for gacha stitches and some yarn for our next project, but that doesn't count!)

The Wedding blanket Square Twelve

Sorry for taking so long with these posts, all these holiday days screwed up my sense of time and I realised it was Wednesday too late these past few weeks, but the posts are up now.

Here are the links in case you missed them:

Eleven.

Ten.

Block twelve Kaleidoscope Blossom by Chris Simon

This was another fun square, I don't think there was any dull square in this cal, although there were some harder ones, this was not one of them. As soon as the flower in the middle was done the rest was a breeze. Not that the flower was hard, it just took a little time. It was very informative that the cal told is that after row four our flower would buckle a lot otherwise I might have redone that so many times I might have given up. It stopped buckling after row five I remember correct.

There were some back loop only stitches which was fun, some V-stitches that with the single dc, chain row made the square mesh-like and helped me to reach the finish line faster.

I really like how after the flower the rows turn less and less solid until the final rows of only dc to make the square the same size as all the others.

This cal has friendly tips on how to make all the square the same size by adding rows but keeping the same stitch count for easier assembling. We didn't really care about number of stitches because we were going to stitch it together with sc along every side. And when two people make something together it is a miracle of the things turn out the same size since everyones tension varies!

Another thing I liked about the squares in this CAL is that some of them really stand out. 

As in stands out above the rest of the stitches.

This square weighed 34 grams and was quite heavy but it was 21 x 21 cm in the end after I added several rows of dc's.

Here is *Kio's square. I think it is funny how hers is sort of a mirror image against mine. I have white in my middle and she has the petals white. 

I have green and blue in the mesh and purple and slightly darker blue in the solid dc rows and she has  light blue and middle dark blue in her mesh and then green and light blue in her solid rows.

And I don't think she knew what colours I chose and I know I didn't know how here colour choices looked on this square.

But I think both looks like water lilies just bobbing about on the water in the sun set after a hot summer day.

17 Mai here we come

Hi, I have a surprise for you, you might have seen what I have been busy crocheting on these past few days? Well me and *Kio have been busy and are just about ready to show off some of our hard work!

So tomorrow is the big day and now that I am all grown up and don't have to walk in the parade with my school I find I enjoy this day a lot more. I never liked masses of people much but I do enjoy watching them walk on TV at home in my sofa with some festive decorations and ice cream on hand. And so for my new found love of our constitution day here are some patterns that you have time to make before the big day. That is unless you have bunads to iron and food to cook, I don't so I will crochet all evening long in the sofa ^^

You still have time to make these little festive treats so here are some of my free favourites.

Crochet flower brooch by Solstrikke

I have seen this around for several years and I still think it looks gorgeous ^^ 

It can be used as a brooch, or a hair piece or a necklace it seems very handy. I like it.

Knitted bow-tie by Drops Garnstudio

I would love to have one of these in my hair, and I am sure Mister M needs one too.

Crochet bow by Drops Garnstudio

This seems super easy and I think I could make a ton of these very easily, the little pearl in the middle really makes the bow pop. I love it.

Knitted tie by Drops Garnstudio

This I am sure Mister M needs. Don't you? I am not sure I could make one by tomorrow as I am not a fast knitter, and I am sure I don't have enough yarn in those colours but next year!

And last but not least, *Kio and I have started an adventure which turns into patterns and here is our very first pattern!

We made a bunting for the festive day and the pattern is free and can be found here in Norwegian and English here.

Happy Bunday!

It is bunday again, and the bunnies are mostly sleeping their days away and creating mischief at night. Last night they found a box and was thoroughly entertained for an hour jumping up and down and eating hay off it. The box was a new litterbox on top of their small HOL. 

We have a bad photo of the fun, although in this photo the buns are asking me what I am doing and not the other way around.

In other news it is a long weekend so even if it is Sunday today we have Monday and Tuesday off!

And Tuesday is our constitution day so *Kio and I are busy making buntings for the big day.

Coming soon 

Mimle is enjoying some cuddletime with me. Mimle is an absolute sweetheart and loves her head rubs ^^ Even if I mess up her hair and she must fix it after. I love spending time with a cuddly bun.

Finished Friday

The summer is here, and with that I have had a headache the past three days which is why there wasn't a Wedding-blanket Wednesday post this week (I have no excuse for last Wednesday, I must have forgot there was a Wednesday last week) So that post will have to come later this weekend I think.

*Kio and I are superbusy but hopefully there will be a small surprise soon.

And speaking of surprises, a co-worker of Mister M is having a baby and she was coming in to the office today with cake, so I prepared a little gift for the baby. A set of four bibs, the green one is the newest and the one I haven't shown, the others I have made a little over time. So now I need to make more bibs, they were so much fun to make.

Baby bibs, Norwegian pattern

I love the colours on these bibs and even if they might know the gender of the baby I pretended I didn't and just had fun with colours. The stash busting acrylic baby blanket is coming along nicely. I have a lot of fun with these colours too, Mister M claims they look like candy and that that yellow especially makes him feel like having a banana. But I think babies need those colourful fun things?

Other than that I have made a bunch of wrist warmers and the pattern is coming closer to getting finished, *Kio and I are looking into yarn at the moment. 

(which means I have not bought any yarn this month still, gacha in stitches have. 14 skeins in total this week, hush, don't tell anyone, it is not cheating)

And the gifts form my giveaway have been put in the post, but since it is a five day holiday at the moment, they will not get sent out of the country before after the constitution day (17th). So it will take a week or two before you get it. ^^ I hope you will like the gifts.

The Wedding Blanket Squares Eleven

Sorry for taking so long, but here is another Wedding Wednesday block.

Block 11 Wish upon a star by Melinda Miller

 This was another easy square, I didn't have any problem with it, but that might be because this Cal has a step by step photo guide as well as telling us how many stitches are in each row and how many of the different stitches are in any row. I think all good patterns should have that, it makes for easy spotting your mistake and fixing it faster.

The dark blue looks rather dark in this photo it wasn't as dark in real life and I adored the light blueish purple with the green. It was a bit of a shame we only got a few skeins of that colour it was a pretty colour...

Here is *Kio's square. I love the fact that her entire star in the middle is one colour, if I made another one of these I would make the middle in one colour too. My star looks more like a flower I think because of the colours I chose.

This square weighed 28 grams and was 21 x21 cm after blocking and adding of more rows.

Out and adventuring again

My friend *Kio and I decided to go out today and be artsy, so we went to gallery Format  and saw an exhibit called within a matter by several artists. We had seen this article and wanted to see what Elin magically made with her grandmothers yarn, but sadly none of the works featured in the article was in this gallery, well except the white thing that looked like a wedding dress which I thought was pretty cool. There was also some great graphic art on the wall, some neat pottery and some ceramic water fountains that looked a bit like a mens urinal. But best of all it was free. While we were there we went to the art thing next to it too and they had lovely fabric and cat pillows.

Then we went shopping for the next part of our adventure....

For the royal, yup, that is us!

Also I got something more for the giveaway prizes, for those of you who have not given me their address please hurry.

V for Finurlig is on it's way. Watch this space.

*Kio also worked on something for next week.

Later we met with Evi and had coffee and did some shopping and was not in the least bit hampered by our credit cards being empty and not working... 

Tuesday Tunes Summer Wind

It was super hot today and because if that I thought it fitting to show you my favourite song of the moment. C-ute with summer wind. 

I like quirky and this song is quirky fun and with the Hello!Project signature: the silly dance moves, this song is full of them.

Although nothing is worse than the crab move in Renai Hunter by Morning Musume >.<

Enjoy!

Sunday Giveaway winners

In honour of my 555th blogpost I hosted a giveaway and here are the winners!

I used random-com to generate the numbers to see who would win.

Congratulations to everyone!

The winner of the first bundle is Smithereen and she won the purple wool and alpaca yarn and buttons. I have your address, let me know if you want me to make something out of the yarn or not;)

The second winner was Jenn and she won The Cross Stitch bundle.

Please give me your address so that I can send you your gift.  (you can comment here and I won´t publish your address, or send me an email)

The third winner is Brenna and she wins the crochet bundle with yarn and crochet mitts I have made in blue. I have your address too so I will send you your prize soon.

But as Brenna mentioned there were only six participants and I could give out consolation prizes to those that did not win, and I will, on Tuesday I will go out and buy a small Norwegian chocolate, something small and crafty and a skein of yarn from my stash to all that participated. So to Craftsonthego, *Kio and Ruthsdatter please send me your address to and I will send you your gifts this week.

If I have not gotten your addresses within next Sunday I will re-draw the winners of the giveaway and the consolation prizes will be put into my next giveaway. I hope you enjoyed my giveaway and come again.

And since it is bun day, here are some relaxing bunnies who think 20 degrees C is too hot anyway.

And here is my new start, on another stash busting acrylic baby blanket.

Friday Finishes and creative adventuring in a handy dress

After blogging every day for a month I suddenly had trouble thinking about what to say, so I didn't say anything. But now that I have a finish I thought I could talk about that.

My friend *Kio and I are very creative and usually when we spend some time together we start some crazy adventure together with more or less success. This week our adventure resulted in a spur of creativeness and we made a pattern. We are in the middle of making it up and finishing it and making a real pattern and maybe later we can show it to you. When we do it will be found over at our new adventure-land.

This is my finish, all 28 grams of yarn and I do say I like it. Do you? if you would like to make one stay tuned to this space.

In all this creative-ness I have gotten a bit further on some of my more long-term projects, I finished the purple and pink and started on the second purple on the baby bunny blanket. When this baby is done I am hoping that all that Novita Acrylics will be gone. I have found that although acrylics are soft and pretty they are not my preferred yarn so I doubt I will re-stock my acrylics stash anytime soon. But it is good to have another baby-gift ready in case anyone have a kid or two.

Mimle as usual is busy eating. Today we had craftsmen over who worked a little on our porch, they smiled at the buns whilst the buns were a bit shy and hid from the workers and their loud noices and fresh air.

This week we have been busy de-cluttering our house and Mister M's childhood things,  I have been swimming with *Kio and our muscles were not as sore as last time and I spent a day at the library picking out books for this month and sketching my pattern.

 I also had this handy dress to put my yarn in whilst wandering over to talk to the librarian when there were no others there. I wasn't planning on wearing that dress, but when I tried it on I realised it was too small and couldn't take it off so I had to wear it the entire day. Oh well, another thing to donate later and more room for yarn;)

 So very busy indeed, but a very fulfilling week, I hope you will continue with our adventure.

....but I will miss that pocket to stash my yarn in when crochet on the go...

Don't forget my giveaway on Sunday. The chances of you winning are quite high at the moment. All you have to do is to comment on that post. And on Monday I am going out shopping so something more might be added to each prize.