Dancing on the deck in a new old skirt

Me and Karolin

What a great weekend I had! It was midsummer here in Sweden, and the sun was very un-traditionally out and shining! We kicked off the weekend on Thursday with a potlock for the instructors and volunteers in Swingum, and of course lindy hop on the sun-deck afterwards. A bit like last year which you can find here and here.

The music came from a vintage non-electrical grammofon.

I wore my newly altered and now wearable skirt (more about that later in this post). Here I'm demonstrating the width of it to Elin.


A summerpicture of Malin.


For the main course we were too hungry to have time for photos, but here's the desserts (both of the cakes were made by me). I did a raspberry-cheesecake and a blueberry pie. The blueberries I picked myself last summer. Can't wait for the season of berry-picking to begin! =)

As for the alteration of the skirt: This is a skirt that has just hung in my closet for ten years. I bought it in France, on a school trip. I loved it, but the length was 1) a bit unpractical for such a wide skirt and 2) not very flattering (as shown below).
Also, I really don't like elastic waists, they always dig in so uncomfortably.

So I shortened it from above, made a waistband and inserted a zipper in the back seam. A point of interest: the skirt actually only have one vertical seam! The 7 meters in the last wide section is in one piece! I'm not even going to guess how long the solid blue fabric at the bottom is... The only tricky part with the sewing was getting a seam allowance wide enough for a zipper out of the overlock-seam in the back, but it worked!


Not the best pose, but here's the new old skirt! All comfy and with a much more practical hem length.


I know I was complaining all winter about how dark it was, and it was just that dark. Here's the reward for enduring the winter darkness and cold; the northern view from my balcony! This is really straight to the north, at 30 minutes past midnight some evening last week. Summer solstice: I adore thee!
Summer in these parts rarely get very warm (it's actually warmer inlands and further north), but I don't really miss it, as long as I get the light at night. I love how it feels; a bit gray, fragile and cool. I remember the summer I spent in California, and that I felt a bit cheated on the real summer. It was hot, it was sunny, but it was pitch-black at night. And I never really felt that it was summer. Strange, isn't it? =)

Has summer arrived in your part of the world? Or maybe even winter, if you're on the other side of the world? What is summer to you?

Love, Erika

A picnic by the lake

Some more photos from last weekend, when my sister Kajsa and my brother Joakim came to visit.


Saturday was all rain, but Sunday was beautiful (although a bit windy).

We brought some tea and cake with us and had a little picnic by the lake.

Of course we played around a bit with Joakim's camera.

For the moment I'm having some camera-problems. As some of you may recall, my camera was stolen during New year's eve. I've been using Kajsa's ever since, but of course that one moved away with her last week. Since Joakim have a brand new camera, he has lent me his old compact (I know, I should buy my own and stop freeloading on everybody else's! At the latest this fall, I swear!).

However, Joakim didn't bring the charger, and now I have no camera until I get to Stockholm and the charger...

So what to post? Besides from using other people's cameras, I've been thinking about doing a couple of posts with a bit of family history. Something my dear readers would find interesting?

Love, Erika

Younger siblings are... a blessing!

My sister Kajsa is unfortunatley moving back to Skåne this week, after having studied here in Umeå for a year. The class she took at Umeå university was only for a year, and now her continued education (which can not be found up here) is luring her back to Southern Sweden. I'm guessing her friends are a factor as well... =) I very much understand and support her moving to study what she really wants to, but oh how I'm going to miss her!

Taking the last opportunity for probably quite a while to see both his sisters at the same time, our brother Joakim came to town this weekend! Since we've been emptying Kajsa's room for the move, I've had both of them staying with me. Very cozy! =)

Friday we went shopping. Umeå has a small hat shop that is amazing, and both Joakim and Kajsa wanted to look for a new hat. Guess if I found the perfect summerhat for me? Of course I did... A bit expensive for me right now though =( We found a perfect hat for Joakim as well, but not for Kajsa. One had a great shape and fit, another a perfect colour.

I and Kajsa found these cute umbrellas, at HM. (picture taken later, though).

We had tea and cake by the river. Café Station has the great service to provide take-away where you borrow with you a basket and a blanket.

The weather was very co-operative, sunny and warm. I took the opportunity to wear my new blouse.

Joakim have a new camera, a very fancy one that takes amazing pictures. Hence the aboundace of photos from the weekend =)

When we came home, I baked banana-cake for the dance on Saturday. Please ignore the "let's-keep-the hair-out-of-the-cake"-hairdo. And the not so flattering glasses... But voila! One of my new aprons! From Ebay/Tradera.

I think that's it for now. More photos from the rest of the weekend later on!

Love, Erika

Is summer around the corner?

We had a heat wave a few weeks ago, but that seems as distant as last year's summer now. The winter was very long, very cold, and very dark. By now it should be warm, but the heat is a bit slow in coming this year. We are all waiting eagerly =)

In anticipating of warmer weather ahed, I fell head over heels for the blouse above when I found it at Ebay/Tradera. I was a bit sceptic at first, since I don't usually wear orange. Then I thought "what does it go with?". A solid dark blue skirt would be lovely with this blouse, and solid dark blue skirts are the true basics in my wardrobe (seriously, why do I always fall for the blue skirt? It's gone so far that I've forbidden myself to buy any more dark blue clothes or fabrics!). So of course, I had to buy the blouse =)

Another purchase for the summer; short sheer lace socks, from H&M I have to admit. They were too cute to just pass!
The past week I've been working for me very unusual hours (leaving the house at 6 in the morning just isn't right ;) ), and I have one more week on this scheduale. After that I'll hopefully be back among the living! But now it's weekend, and I've had a great weekend so far, Friday was dance-night, yesterday Kajsa came over for sewing and movie-night. We saw The Notebook, a movie I've heard a lot about (and everybody seems to have seen) but that had somehow managed to slip me by. I loved it! If there's anyone reading this who hasn't seen it, I very much recomend it!
Now I'm off to the gym, and then tea with Kattis and then more sewing with Kajsa. Hope you're having a great weekend!
Love, Erika