This'n that

It has been some busy days last week. All kids have been home from school because of the fall break. I have been working. And my parents came last thursday to spend the week-end with us!
It is allways nice to have visitors, and my children love to have their grandparents to visit. Our son has also been at home. He got his drivers license a few weeks ago, and are now happily driving when he is allowed to and the car is free for him to use! No, he has not got his own car, he has to buy himself a car when he can afford to buy one and pay for the gaz, insurance and all taxes that is required! And that will take some time, I guess! He went back to school yesterday. My parents drove him up to the school, which is a boarding school more than 400 km away from home!
In an earlier post I wrote about my trip with "Hurtigruten". I have a little more to tell. No no, this will not be as long as the other post was! I hope!
Before we left, I thought by my self, on this trip there will not be any shopping, and definately no fabricshopping! Hmhmmm, what is this?????? Ehm, it looks like fabrics, or ......... Yes, it is fabrics, and I found them in a shop in Honningsvåg! I was only looking for embroidery floss, and came out from the shop with the floss, yes, and fabrics! And I have no fabrics at home!!! Haha!
The box you see in the photo is bouhgt in Kirkenes. It is made by russians (I was told) and is made of the bark from birches. Isn't it cute? It thought I should use it for small handsewing projects.
When you are cruising like this, you need something to do. Yes, you can sit and watch (read sleep), like many did! But I need some more, so this is what I was doing while sitting in the lounge looking out at the nature!
I never got bored! My husband went to his classes after an early breakfast. I slept a little longer, had a late breakfast, and then found a chair in the lounge. We met for lunch, he went back to his classes and I went back to the lounge, or we went off the ship to have a walk etc.
It is so funny, when you are working on a quilt in public, different people are stopping by and talk to you. I had two older english ladies who where very interested in my quilt. One of them was embroidering a beautiful tablecloth, and the other one was working with hexagons, english paperpiecing. She told me she got lots of bags with unfinished projects from other old people, wanting her to finish them for them! Clever lady!
A danish lady stopped by, wanted to have a look, and told me she was making quilts, mostly by hand! And she told about a quiltshow held in Aalborg, Denmark this fall, which was great! I was planning to go to that show, but was not able to find time!
And there were another lady from the US, she told that she had been teaching how to make quilted jackets and vests all over Minnesota!
And, I'm not done yet......there was a german man sitting next to me, he was reading and I was sewing. I guess he was in his fifties or sixties. I felt he was looking at me and what I was doing. At the end of the day he finally said, I love your quilt and your embroidery! Wow, I thought, I've never heard that from a man! And then he told me that he loved to do embroidery himself! He was mostly doing cross-stitches, tiny tiny ones! Isn't this fun?As you can see, I was sewing, reading, listening to music, knitting..... I really enjoyed my vacation!
Each day they had a new saying on the informationboard on the ship. Now an then I will share them with you, and you will have one today!

Friends are like stars,

you cannot always see them,

but you know they are there!

Yes, now I'm done!!

Travelling with "Hurtigruta"

WARNING! This is going to be a loooooooooong post, so please be patient!! :D
This time I will tell you about my trip with "Hurtigruten", M/S Polarlys. Norway has a long coastline, if you stretch it out, it would go twice around the earth! "Hurtigruten" is not sailing this long, but some of it! Hurtigruten" is running in regular service between Bergen in south to Kirkenes up north. The ships have 35 port of call on the way up north. It has an 113 year old history of bringing mail, travellers, freight etc. to small places and cities along the route. It is possible to do this as a cruise. It is called "the worlds most beautiful journey"! The newer ships have calm and beautiful lounges where you can sit and enjoy the amazing scenery passing by. You may also sit outside on deck if the weather is good. And the food is wonderful!
Every fall, in september, the Norwegian Medical Assosiation, arrange classes for physicians on "Hurtigruten". It is possible for partners to join, so I was lucky to go with my husband. For me this is like a vacation. I don't need to do anything, just eat, sleep, relax and enjoy the beautiful and amazing nature in our country! I hope you will too!
We flew up to Tromsø on friday 21. sept, where we boarded the ship. This view is from the port toward the bridge and "Ishavskatedralen", which is a well known church. Tromsø has also sent an application to the IOC, hoping to arrange the Winter Olympics in 2014. Good luck to Tromsø and the Arctic Games!
Ready to start sailing...... Several times during the journey, you meet other of the ships like this, M/S Nordkapp......Saturday morning we arrived in Honningsvåg, where there were busses waiting to bring us out to Nordkapp-platået. (The plateau of North Cape)North Cape.....The view from the plateau is amazing.....Goodbye, Honningsvåg.....Heading for Kjøllefjord, which is the next stop..... On the way to Kjøllefjord, we were passing some special rocks..... The cliff you see underneath is called "Finnkjerka" (The Finn Church), said to be the most graceful sea cliff in Norway! It is also said that the Samis used to worship here.
Sorry for this lousy photo, my camera was not strong enough to make it clear....

Sunday morning we arrived in Kirkenes. Kirkenes is only a few kilometres from the Russian border, and the border of Finland. Kirkenes was heavily bombded during the 2nd World War. It is said that there were only nearly hundred houses left in the city that were possible to live in. After the war, they had to rebuild cities and villages several places up north in Norway, because the germans burned them down, when they were escpaing from the russians and the allies during the end of the war.
One of my cousins live there with his family, so he picked me up and drove me around a little so that I could see more of Kirkenes. This is the view from "Kjerringstupet" ("Wifecliff"). I am not sure about the history behind this name!
Here you can see the Sør Varanger mine far away to the left in the photo! It is not active today, but they hope to start again some day. Enjoy.....My husband went on a safari on the river up to the Russian border.....Colours.....Later on sunday, we arrived Vardø which is Norway's easternmost town and is situated on Vardøya, with an underwater tunnel link to the mainland. There we had the opportunity to visit Vardøhus fortress from year 1737. I just couldn't resist this tiny little church.....Leaving Vardø, a little lighthouse..... Next day, monday, we arrived Hammerfest, which is the world's northenmost town. Here you see Melkøya, where they bring in gas from Snøhvit-feltet (Snowwhite-field) and transport the gas in pipes to southern Europe and Alaska.Øksfjord, had to share the colours.....We left the ship next morning in Harstad and flew back home again. The last photos are here for you only to enjoy! I am so thankful we didn't have much wind because I am so afraid to get seasick! We had sunshine, we had rain, and only a little wind! I didn't get seasick at all! I hope you have enjoyed the journey!

Home again!

Hi there! I'm back again after a few days on M/S Polarlys! This photo is just a little appetizer from the trip. I will post more photos later. We had a great and relaxing trip, a trip where we saw a lot of nature! As I said, more to come!

Travelling

For the next few days, you will find me here on this boat. My husband is going to a seminar on this ship, and I am so lucky that I can join him! We are flying up north to Tromsø to board the ship.I will not be able to post anything on the trip, but I will take photos to share with later! Have a nice week-end!

What did I buy?

Do you wonder what I bought to treat myself on the trip with the quilting guild? Well, let me give you a little look!

Two big paperbags! The blue one is from Lapp-Elisa Quilts, and the pink one is from
Kathrines Quiltestue. So let us see what's inside these paperbags!At Lapp-Elisa's I bought some books, charmpacks from Moda, a Jelly-roll from Moda named Chelsea boutique, magazines and a quiltingframe.
Hi A, now you can get your frame back! Thank you for letting me take care of yours for all these years! Hihi.....
At Kathrine's I bought fabrics, and fabrics..... and fabr..., no, I mean a couple of cute patterns from Bareroots, needles.......
......and I couldn't resist this pattern and fabrics.......! If you go to her blog there is a photo of this quilt. Enjoy!
I think I did very well, lots of nice "stoff"(that is fabric in norwegian!), I mean stuff!

The Trip

Hi folks, I'm still here! This is going to be a looooong entry!

The last days I have tried to recover both from a cold and a trip with my quilting quild! It was a fun, but very busy trip!

We started saturday morning at 06.00 am from the bus station, and made two more stops on our way, to pick up more ladies before we were complete. 21 ladies and a busdriver! Our first real stop was in Sandefjord where we should take the ferry from Sandefjord to Strømstad, Sweden.

From Strømstad we drove up to Lapp-Elisa. It is so funny to think of, because during this trip we crossed the border four times!

We arrived Lapp-Elisa a few minutes past three. (This is not how her house looks like in september!!)

LAPP-ELISA She had prepared a nice, late lunch for us, and when we were eating she told us a little about herself, why and how she started her shop. It is an internetshop, but she has groups to visit, mostly in the week-ends. The shop is located in an old, renovated pig-barn! No bad smell!

She told us how she is quilting and showed us some of her things.

The lunchtable....

While she was working on a project, she never had a plan, and if she did, she usually fell off the plan!
A lot of interesting books...
Fabrics....
Elisabeth is a very active and funny lady.....

Fabrics to be cut....

Goodies to be payed.....
A couple of the ladies waiting outside for the rest of us to be finished.....
After the shopping we drove to the hotel where we had a nice dinner.

At the dinner table the ladies got some homework to do till next morning..... They had to cut the squares and prepare for paperpiecing. They didnt't have a clue of what this was going to be!
Some of them are doing their homework.....
Next morning, after a good nights sleep and a nice breakfast, we was heading for Norway and Oslo, and crossed the border the fourth time on this trip!

We arrived Oslo to early for our lunch, so we had time to go for a walk in Vigelandsparken which is a famous and beautiful park in the middle of Oslo, full of sculptures. The weather was beautiful. Monolitten....

Sinnataggen.....(angry little boy)
The fountain.....
Waiting for italian lasagne.....
After lunch we headed for KATHRINES QUILTESTUE.....




Sorry I cut Kathrine in half.....





We had a good time in this beautiful shop. Tired and full of impressions, we found our seats in the bus.
You can see some of the ladies working on "thethingthattheydon'tknowwhatisgoingtobe"!

Not everyone was sewing all the time, there was plenty of time to enjoy what you had bought....
And here is "the thing"! Thank you May Britt for letting me use your pincushion tutorial! Most of the ladies managed to finish their pincushion! Clever girls!
Thank you all girls for a nice trip!