little hello

Since the last time we spoke, we have:

Painted two hallways in lovely shades of green:

Hung the curtains in the dining room and made sourdough pancakes for breakfast:

Put some potatoes in the soil to grow, and whilst said potato have been growing, I have been reading:

And I started a colourwork jumper for a little friend: 

What have you been up to? 

- Elise

Monthly Quote: December

I'm late I'm late I'm late, and so sorry. Better late than never, though!

I now work in a place where I'm on the computer for a lot of the day, and that limits my need for computer based activites to checking Ravelry and Netflixing... sorry! But I really want to carry on with the monthly quotes, they've  helped shape the way I approach each month, and it sets the tone nicely. This month I've decided that listening to my body is the most important, and to not let the things I can't do anything about upset me so much. I'm a queen of worrying and being upset about things that are really out of my hands. So - forwards and onwards on the path of letting that stuff go is a motto this month.

  Alasdair and I are still painting, still working hard to get the house liveable. The next room after the dining room/library, is the kitchen! It's probably the room I'm most excited about of all the rooms in the house. The ceiling in this room was also just wood like the walls you see in the photo, but it had been treated with some sort of varnish which made it look really blotchy, dirty and not nice at all. There's patina, and then there's patina...The top photo is of the ceiling mostly unpainted, but it doesn't actually show how bad it looked in real life. Anyway, we decided fairly early on that this room needs a total paint-job, from top to bottom, and now that the base coat and first coat of paint is on the ceiling, we don't regret this decision at all. It's so motivating to work on now that we see how nice it's getting in there.The ceiling seems to be breathing again, and the room's atmosphere has been transformed - from a dungeon-like room, to an airy space which feels inviting. It really helped putting in a large window, too, the previous window was very small. 

I'm not really painting that much, or at all yet, but I'm tidying, cleaning and hoovering in between, to keep things neat around us while we work. I also have the task of reading to Alasdair while he paints. I'm the entertainer - and right now we're reading Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. It keeps him entertained while doing the hard work, and I feel useful for it. Win-win situation! 

This weekend I'm planning on doing my first little bit of painting in over a month - I'm both excited and nervous about how my arms will cope, but I've decided to really check how I feel on Saturday, and if I'm in doubt about whether it'll hurt or not, I'll wait a bit longer. There's no rush. My arms are doing a lot better, and I can knit and embroider a bit these days, but I'm not sure how painting'll be, but time will show. 

Enough about this, and on to the quote of the month, if you've stuck with me so far... 

"I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself."

- Michel de Montaigne 

 

As always, go visit Vibeke and Ruth for more inspirational quotes, they were the ones who inspired me to join in! 

 

Have a good December everyone! 

- Elise

Monthly Quote: November

October was a month where my patience was (yet again) put to the test, as I struggled and still struggle to cope with sore arms and wrists, making me unable to knit. It was also a month where a lot of things happened, and not only frustrating things. We started to work inside our house, painting the first few walls of our dining room/library, and seeing that the colour we picked out worked out beautifully. I also published my very first pattern, The Little Bumps Cowl, and the joy of realising a dream like that (almost) makes me forget my aches and pains.

So, the dining room/library has gone from looking like this:

To this:

And we couldn't be more happy about it. We are eagerly awaiting the skirting boards as well as the window frames to finish the room off. Earlier today we planned our kitchen using the IKEA kitchen planner. It's all very exciting, and I'll share more pictures as soon as I can.


But - for most of October I've been unable to participate in any of the renovating. Painting the outside of the house, as well as the ceiling in the room above, the base coat and the first coat of yellow on the walls did my arms in. It probably didn't help that I spent every evening, after a good many hours of renovating, knitting frantically to get all my Christmas knitting done in time. I should've known this would happen. It's happened before, the summer two years ago, and I had to go through a period of no knitting for what seemed like an absolute age!

I hate that my arms are, apparently, so weak. I hate that I get jealous and think horrible things about people who can knit and knit and knit for however long they want without even the tiniest twinge of an ache in their arms (I've never been able to do that, I've always had to check myself from time to time, because there's a history of tennis elbow in my family). I hate that I let this upset me so much, when I know that it will most likely get all good again, with time and rest. Most of the time I think I'm just terrified that it'll become a permanent thing, something that I'll just have to 'learn to live with'. It makes me incredibly sad to imagine a future where I can't do all the needlework I want to do, because my arms refuse to cooperate. I stress myself out thinking about all the things I'd love to knit and want to finish for my friends and relatives. Then I try not to worry about it, it's not a big deal, and I'll get it done eventually. But this time, it just doesn't seem to help, I'm too scared and sad.

The past few days I've knitted one row on a hat a day, to see how my arms would cope. Yesterday I did two rows in one go, and I think I may have upset my right arm again. And so the story goes...

I'm absolutely loving the look of this hat, and can't wait to get it finished. It's Cúram from Knitworthy 2, by Ysolda Teague. The yarn I'm using is Sandnes Garn's Alpakka Ull, which consists of 65 % alpaca and 35 % wool - it's delicious and soft to knit with. I'm knitting it without the fold, for a more simple look, but it's still a really interesting knit. It'll take forever to get it done, though, but so be it...

Let's hope for better knitting times in November! In the meantime, I'm bathing my arms in Epsom salts, and eating lots of turmeric in the hope of getting rid of my inflamation, and fingers crossed they'll get better soon. (This has been an uncommonly negative post, and I apologise for it,  things aren't really as bad as I make them sound. At least I can function normally and do normal things with both my arms. They've gotten SO much better since I stopped knitting, and I'm sure only a few more weeks will cure them almost completely). 

So, for November I've chosen a quote to remind me to see the good and positive in every day as it comes, and for that I turn to Walt Whitman:

"Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you." 

Have a wonderful week, everyone - I'm starting a new job tomorrow, wish me luck! 

x, Elise

 

Monthly Quote: October

It's almost becoming a tradition that I am one day late in posting the quote of the month, but I'm choosing not to let that put a stopper to the fun.

These past few weeks (September, really) have flown by so fast, and I'm sad I haven't been sharing more on this blog of what I've been up to. I hope to remedy this as the days grow shorter and the time spent indoors gets longer. Alasdair and I are busy bees, trying to bring life back into our new old house. So far we've finished the last wall on the outside that needed fixing up - we've put in new windows and new panelling, with a huge amount of help from my dad. He's really our go-to helper for all things related to the house. Since the daylight hours are shorter now, we've taken the work inside, just in time for the autumn storms and rains to test the quality of the work we've done on the outside. We're crossing our fingers and toes that we won't have to worry about anything on the exterior of the house for many years.

On the 1st of October we did the first bit of painting in one of the rooms; the library dining room, to be specific. The old panelling on the walls have tasted their first ever coat of paint, a base coat of white, to make the subsequent painting smooth and easy, and the ceiling was repainted tonight with its refreshing coat of paint today, as it had been painted before (a long time ago). We're hoping it'll only need this one coat of paint, but we'll make our decision once we've seen how it dries tomorrow morning.

While doing up the house, I'm working full-time as a sub in a nursery AND trying to get into pattern writing. It's a bit of a hectic time for me, and I'm not getting as much done with any of the things I'm doing as I would have liked. But I'm still practicing patience with my self, and trying to just do a little bit everyday and be happy about the things I do get done, instead of worrying about all the things I haven't been able to do in a day.

So - this month will see the release of the my very first knitting pattern! I'm frantically knitting a second sample of my Little Bumps Cowl, and pestering my mum to test knit a little sample for me, just so I can get some idea of the quality and clarity of my written instructions. I hope I'll be able to upload the pattern to my Ravelry shop by mid-October, and I so hope you'll all like it!

This photo is of a very thoughtful, and somewhat tired, me - wearing my own design. Not quite sure what to do with my hands when modeling knitwear...




It is every bit as soft and warm as it looks, I promise! And it wraps perfectly around the neck twice, which is just what one needs on a chill autumn day.

And now, to the quote I've chosen for the month of October, by yet another woman I greatly admire:

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."

- George Eliot

As always, visit Vibeke and Ruthie for more inspirational quotes and other loveliness. 

Have a very delicious October, everyone, and I'll be back with more on the house and the knitwear, I promise! 

- Elise

Monthly Quote: August

First of all, my apologies for being a day late in posting my quote for this month (and also, July?! Where did you go?? And what about all the blog posts I had planned to fill you with? Oh well.) I have a very good reason for being late, actually. I don't know if you recall a somewhat enigmatic sentence in one of my previous blog posts? I mentioned something about "exciting future plans" that were "yet to be revealed"? Well, the time has come for me to share our exciting news with you, blog readers:

Alasdair and I are moving to the countryside! We have been given an amazing opportunity by my dear parents. They own an old farm house (in addition to their own beautiful house) that used to be the accommodation for farm labourers once upon a time. The house has been empty for many years now, but recently my mother and father have been thinking about renovating it. Instead, they asked me and Alasdair if WE would like to do it up, and live there, so we can try out living a more self-sufficient lifestyle. We've been dreaming about living in the countryside, having some sheep and goats, some chickens and a big vegetable garden, for many years, so we hopped to it immediately, of course. It'll be lots of work, since the house needs a considerable amount of TLC before we can move in, but it is so exciting! I feel so grateful and happy about this, I don't know what to do with myself. I channel all this positive energy into working on the house, which brings me to this month and the true purpose of this post, to share an inspirational and lovely quote with you. I was so busy tearing down the old panelling on the last outer wall on our "new" old house, that I simply forgot to post anything yesterday. I hope you can forgive me, and that you'll enjoy the quote and pictures I've decided to share with you for August.

“Where does it all lead? What will become of us? These were our young questions, and young answers were revealed. It leads to each other. We become ourselves.” 

 - Patti Smith, Just Kids

 

 

If you want more regular updates and photos of our renovation (which will take a significant chunk of our time), please check out my instagram account, I'm @elise_albrektsen there. But,  I will of course share  progress pictures, and some before/after-pictures, on this blog, too. 

Have a wonderful week, dear readers! 

x, Elise 

Edited to add: The yellow house in the top photo is not the house we will be renovating, but just a lovely little house I spotted. : )