Dressing a Viking

So.. I'm going to be very busy the next couple of weeks. I'm going to Ribe in 4 weeks. So I need to really get working on Kees tunic.

Yes, it's the dark brown fabric down there, that's going to be his new tunic.

Yesterday evening at my Stitch and Bitch meeting, I was not knitting, I was knotting. Needlebinding my socks. Danny helped me with the heel part. I've got a heelstrap now, need to work the yellow yarn till the end, which will be the ankle part and next week, she helps me with the heel, which will be green again. There are some faults in it, but they are my first and I love these socks ;-)

Also on my to-stitch-list is a head cover. My hair is short and dyed in a non-vikingcolour (it's a eggplant kind of a purple)

I'm sewing the hems by hand and I want to embroider some nice edge decoration on it. (Isn't Donna the cutest, all curled up and pretending to be sleeping? :D)

And, last but not least, I have this basket full of linen and wool fabric. I'm planning on making myself a new underdress and a overdress, a brown fish-bone wollen coat with a dark grey woolen lining, and a gugle, a hood with shoulder parts.

So.. I've got lots to do, the next 4 weeks :)

Yarn!

Sarah asked on her blog if we could guess when her Ravelry invite would be dropped in her mailbox. I made an educated guess and look: I won! So she sent me some very beautiful, bright coloured yarn. As she described it:


"Self-striping, in, um, vibrant colors. Wouldn’t that look good on your feet? That’s about 460 yards of superwash merino - nylon, more than enough for a pair of socks."


I love it:

So now I have to get me a nice pattern for this yarn.


And then last week or so, Annemarie wrote an email to our SnB-Yahoo group. She had free stuff and if we wanted anything, we had to let her know. I was game for her off-white and so she came to our SnB-Meeting yesterday evening and look what she got me:



A bag full of lovely off-white yarn, more than enough to knit me a sweater..
I also need a pattern for this.

Any suggestions, anyone? :D

To knit or not to knit...

My Kaffe Fasset duo is going solo for the moment.

In the pattern row of sock 1 is a stitch missing and I cand find where it's hiding. So I'll be tinking the whole part back to the beginning and start the pattern part over. 5 rounds has to be re-knit. So I placed the sock on 5 dpns and I'm going on a rescue mission to find the missing stitch.

Meanwhile in the Mirror Socks department, sock 1 has reached the heel and all is going well.


And Danny and I casted on the Rogue Hoody yesterday at our SnB-Meeting:


But I should not be knitting at all today, I really need to get some work done on my Journal/workbook I have to keep for my Creative Hand Crafts course.

But for now I'm on a mission.. a rescue mission..
Tadadatadaaaaaaaa! Marretje to the rescuteeeee!!! :D

Fibre craft fair and gifts

Danny and I went to the fibre craft fair in Den Bosch yesterday. We had a great time, bought some nice things and spent some time knitting at the Stitch 'n Bitch table.


I bought a yarn rack, something I wanted for a long time.

The cones with the yarn on it is linen thread and I bought that in Oerlinghausen. I'm planning to tablet weave or card weave with that.

I also bought a fabric cutter, some knitting needle protectors and a book:

Oh, and uhm... yes that _is_ Noro on the top left. Danny and I are going to knit some arm warmers from that. Danny bought also 2 balls; same colour as mine are. :D


When I got home I found 2 packages. One from my Fat Quarter swap partner:

Thank you so much Eve!


And one from my Punk Rock Gift Exchange semi-secret partner:

Thank you Metal and Knit!


As I have a week off from work I have enough to do and enjoy.
So here are my plans for tomorrow:

First I will go to my school (info from link is in Dutch only) for my arts and crafts lessons. We are working with clay at the moment and I made a vase.. some sort of.. Anyway, it looks like a vase, lets put it that way. ;-))

After my lessons I go to visit my mum and dad, finally giving them their socks I knit them and in the evening you will find me at Café De Jaren, to meet my knitsibs (I love that word, Brenda Dayne uses it in her podcast) from my Stitch and Bitch group.


so, I write:
TTFN, CUsoon
:D

The vikings came to Oerlinghausen

Last weekend was the viking event in Oerlinghausen. I did convince Ayla to stay at home, she was well taken care of bij the downstairs neighbour and my friend Katja. And Donna thought it was nicer to stay behind together too. So, Danny, Kees and me went by car which Dannys brother was kind enough to lent to us (thank you!) to Germany.

When we arrived it was dark, so outside there was not much to be seen, except a beautiful sky filled with stars. I live in a big city and don't get to see much stars because of all the electric lights, so when I do see a star lit sky, I really get that 'vacation feeling' in my stomach :D

We slept in the backery and although you did not suspect it from the outsight, we had electricity, but no beds. Luckely Danny brought me an air filled sleeping mat, so I did not have to sleep on the bare floor.

After we 'set up camp' we went to "the cellar" where we met some of the other vikings. That's where I learned to speak German fluently. What helped were 3 glasses of Tullamore which found ther way into my body. This evening the first liter of whisky mysteriously vaporated
into thin air...

The next morning Danny and I had to relocate the car so we went into viking cloths to the parking lot to drive it to the allocated designation. There were some tourists looking a bit strange when we got into the car. On the way back to the museum, we walked through the forest which was beautiful.

This is the museums new Longhouse. It looks very nice and the roof is just stunning. The weather was great on both days: sunny, warm.. almost like summer.Here you can see what I did all weekend:

Stitch 'n Bitch the Viking way. The lady is red is Runa Steinarsdóttir, Rona Kreekel in the 21st century. Danny was Stitching and Bitching too, you can see a picture from the three of us on her site. I think my vikingname will be Aldkin Weis, which means "orphin child of the fairies" but I'm not sure yet. I like the name but I have to find out more about it.

On saterday evening we had a nice diner and yet another liter of Tullamore Dew vaporised.. It must be the German air :D

I had a very nice time and alas.. it was the last event of the season we will attent. So now its time to gather around the hearth and sew some new cloths. And the tent. All by hand, to make it as authentic as possible.