Sewing while in hibernation

It's been quiet here for a while, but it's not because I haven't done anything! However, it's been a while since I finished a project (and that project I still haven't had a chance to photograph...). I'm currently working on a late 40s inspired wool dress. This fabric is lovely, lots of drape, light and with a beautiful luster, and I love working with it. So why has it taken so long to finish? Basically, it's been February. Simple as that. Years ago I was always so surprised at how tired I was at the end of winter. Then I started narrowing it down to late January-early March, and have been moaning for a few years about lack of daylight accumulating during winter until February hits and I'm almost a zombie.

Pictures taken on my way to work. Love that it's daylight when I leave the house in the morning!



Then this year something occured to me: during winter nature calms down. The ground rests beneth the snow, the top soil frozen. Ice covers the river. Animals hibernate or move away, those few who are still mobile up here try to use as little energy as possible. Ever gone out into the forest on a really cold winterday and experienced the quiet? It's something that's felt in the marrow rather than seen or heard. I like to think nature takes a break, resting after a glorious fall, gathering strength for a lively spring.

Instead of hunting energy and planning for productivity, maybe one can just rest in the calm of winter? Slow life down a bit, let things take time, not chase anything (sewing finish-lines, fun experiences, blogposts etc) but just be in the moment. Let the mind follow winter's cue and semi-hibernate. Doing fun things brings more energy, but when you don't have the energy to do any fun stuff to begin with, then it's all just draining. Then it's ok to take an evening at home and not do anything more spectacular than the dishes. Or take a whole weekend like that. Just resting in the stillness of winter.

However, now we're a week into March, and as on cue my energy is creeping back, waking up from hibernation. During February I've slowly been making a third version of my late 40s dress, inspired by The Swing Dress, but drafted from my block pattern. Third time might be the charm! I'm trying to give it time, do things in a speed I'm comfortable with and be happy with it. Not so easy when I know I'd be done weeks ago had it been any other time of the year, but I try to keep in mind that it's not summer, it's winter and I'm in hibernation. Any creativity that happens is for fun and relaxation. It'll be spring soon, and then the garments will come flying out of the sewing machine =)

Today is another spectacular late-winter day, plenty of snow on the ground and a strong sun from a clear pale-blue sky. I'll take a walk on my lunch (as always) and revel in the light, dream about future projects and not be stressed about that I won't do them right now. I'll get to them eventually.

Love, Erika

Soft winterdays

Today it's grey and cold, a very unpleasant combination. I figured I would cheer myself up with some pictures I took two weeks ago. It was cold, sunny and just gorgeous. A week prior the temerature had risen to above zero (very unusual for the time of year), then it just dropped to -15 again, and stayed there. So the frost grew on every single little branch of the trees, and covered every brick on the buildings. When the snow came it caught on the frost and... then the sun came.
It was beautiful.

On my way to work at 7.40, the sky began to lighten along the horizon. 

The view from my officewindow a little while later. 

 The pink horizon glimting thorugh the branches.

Love how the sun hit one tree full on, making it glow light pink in contrast to the shady white of its neighbourghs.

During my lunchwalk... 

Sky and snow-covered river

Sewing? Oh, yes, I've done a bit of that last weekend, but none during the workdays. Too many evening-meetings =( I'm happy to say the sweatpants are finished and I'm halfway ready with a blouse. Hopefully I'll feel a bit more energetic tomorrow, and I'll be home during daylight-hours, so pictures will be taken.

Have a great weekend!

Love, Erika

At midnight

I love it when the nights gets longer and brighter. So of course midsummer night's eve is one of my favorite holidays. This year was the perfect celebration - just me and the mr, lots of delicious food, a good movie, and a midnight stroll.

By Nydala lake, on our way to search for a quiet place to sit down and enjoy the night.

The air was cold, but the water was still warm from the hot sun. A night like this it's easy to understand the old wive's tales of fairies dancing on the meadows during summer nights.

We found an empty pier/raft. This photo is taken straight to north, at around midnight. What to say? Love the light...

Mist danced over the water, with a magical effect.

This is why I love living in northern Sweden, why I can bear the dark winters. Sure, there are other places where summer it warmer, where the sun is stronger. Where the summer nights are warm and pitch black, and where the sun sets in half an hour. It's nice, it's pretty, but it's not home. For me, nothing beats the midnight light.

The water was clear and still.

Hope you've all had the chance to enjoy the longest night of the year! Don't worry though, there are still plenty of long nights ahed of us this summer... =)

Love / Erika

Summer is far away and I like it

This should have been a post about outfits. Or stockings (just got three new pairs of WKD Retro seamed stockings, in nude). Or the fun party this weekend. Instead, let me marvel about summer and winter. Lately bloggers have been longing for spring and summer (link, link, link), the usual turn of season-longing that gets us all towards the end of a season. However, this time I'm not feeling it. Don't get me wrong, I love summer; light, thin dresses and open-toed shoes, but right now I don't miss it. How could I, when Umeå looks like this:

These pictures were taken a week ago, it's less rimfrost now but still beautiful.

This is the best part of the year for me. The days are getting longer (the sun is setting after three! yay!), it's snowy and it's not horribly cold.

A perfect winter wonderland. I never tire of it.

I'm sure summer will be great, and when it comes I'll revel in the midnight-light (end of this post) and the wonderful greenery. But right now, I'm happy where I am. In a winter wonderland. Hoping winter will last at least two more months.

/Erika

The holidays - a short goodbye to the past year

The Holidays swished by so fast, yet I feel quite rested and refreshed. It sometimes amazes me how much seeing my family gives me new energy - even though I this time held a grueling tempo in Stockholm over Christmas.

Christmas eve (the big celebration day in Sweden) I was at mom's place. For the first time in three years we had a Christmas tree! I know, two years without a tree isn't the end of the world, but I really, really love it... Christmas just isn't a proper Christmas without a tree to decorate. I have to admit though, I'm not the most artsy tree-decorater, I tend to just throw things over the tree and adjust it a bit so everything is a bit spread out =)

I couldn't resist this photo of Elsa, just look at that cute little fluff-ball! =) Her fur is a bit long for the moment, it's been so cold that mom wanted Elsa to have a bit of extra warmth. I'm sure it works, but she does end up looking like... a lamb? a walking fur muff? a toy-animal? a fluff-ball.

Christmas-fika at my grandmother's, with amazing coffeebread!

I brought home some amazing things from Stockholm, both presents and results of my own shopping. It's a rare and wonderful feeling when everything you get it's something you either had wished for or something you didn't even know you wanted, but that just fits. I am so grateful and happy that my family knows me so well, even though I live far away from them!

These loafers I bought as a gift to myself, and to my feet =) To me, they're just beautiful! With perfect cushioning in the entire sole, and made to be worn with orthopaedic insoles. I'm so looking forward to spring! Wearing these instead of the ortho-sneakers I've been stuck with the past year... Yay!

Christmas gifts in my family leans towards "the more the merrier" (while the total value remains the same). I think it's cozy with a mountin of presents beneth the tree, and like for it to take a while with opening the presents. It doesn't have to be expensive stuff, it's more along the line of "if I give someone two identical pairs of socks I'll still make two presents out of them!". Ripping paper is fun... Here's some of the things my wonderful family got for me:

Sewing supplies; bobbins, a storage-box for bobbins and needles for lace-making.

For entertainment; Season 3 of Mad Men and a novel by my favorite urban fantasy-writer. If you're at all into that genre, I very much recommend reading something by Patricia Briggs. Her stories are gripping, her characters have depth and her handling of the fantastic elements is remarkable.

Being away is great, but there's no place like home, right? So I'll end this goodbye to 2010 with a picture from a winterwhite Umeå. Happy New Year!

Love, Erika

A hat, a dance, a fair and lots of snow

Did it again, didn't I? *sigh* Took an unplanned and unintentional blogging-vacation...
So what have I've been up to these past weeks? Honestly, not so much, hence the sparse posting. To begin with, I spent one week searching for a paper note. One week! It was a small note that had the vital information about the hat my brother had chosen and I was going to get for him for his birthday. After I got that note, I've moved and... So in the course of The Great Hunt of the Note I turned appartement, drawers, shelfs, bags and moving boxes inside-out. And no success. In pure desparation I winged it, thinking "How hard can it be?". I knew the brand, had a memory of the charachteristics of the model and guessed the size, and I was right!

Joakim, very out-of-charachter, agreed to model the hat for me and even let me post the pic here! Doesn't he look just like a 30s reporter? Keen for news, pen and paper all ready, glasses and hat in place =)

I was in Stockholm for a weekend, teaching dance at a medieval event. Lots of fun! Met some great people, learned a couple of new dances myself and had the rare oppurtunity to dance to live music in the evening. The musicians were amazing!

A snap-shot from a class.

I came home to a very cold Umeå, before it had been covered in snow, now it was almost buried. I love sitting by the table at noon, looking out at frost and snow. Even the windows becomes pretty! =)
2nd of Advent it was The Christmas fair of Gammlia, always a good fair to get in the mood of Christmas. Extra good this year, with all the snow! (We always get lots of snow, but sometimes it melts just around the beginning of December to come back later with the true cold).


The camera didn't approve of the cold, though, so only these two photos from that day. Look a bit closer at the snow on the trees, it's almost hanging beneth the branches!


All from the winter up here!
Report on the creative side of my life: the darkness and work has left me with little energy for sewing these past weeks. This quiet weekend has rekindled it, though! I've taken a break with the coat, figuring it's not going to be done for Christmas anyway and I need to sew something I can finish quicker, just to feel that I have finished something. What better than a Christmas dress in a lovely red eco double-knit? =)

I hope that you're all having a lovely 3rd of Advent! (Can you belive it's already 3rd of Advent?!)

Love, Erika

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

Snow sculptures and lindy

Past Saturday was a busy and fun day. We had a small lindy hop-show in a mall at town. It was "pay-weekend" (first weekend after pay-day, which is the 25th for most Swedes), so there was a lot of people out shopping, hence a fairly good crowd that stopped to watch us dance. Fun! Since it was indoors and we were dancing I'm afraid I don't have any pictures to share with you =(

I recentley realised I haven't really said much about the outdoors here in Umeå lately. The reason is simple: it's been dark, cold and snowy. Snow is great, but not when it's falling or when I'm riding my bike to work... I love winter, but this winter has been a bit too winter-y. Now we're starting in on the best part of winter, though. To kick off the "spring-winter": some pictures from the snowsculpture contest downtown past Saturday! It's an annual competition, where ordinary people participate. We were very happy it wasn't a week earlier, as the temperature then was -28C, and past Saturday it was only -8C and snowing. Basically spring ; )
Ok, the pictures:

It's an ogre! With a mountin on it's back! Oh, and me in front of it of course.

My sister Kajsa and the creature on the cute frog-snow-mobile.
Loved these shoes! Please excuse the old-lady style outfit, it's tricky to protect a hair-do from falling snow.
Isn't it amazing what they can do with snow? This one was called something along the line of "people in the world". I could see right through the globe!
The back of it, with Kajsa imitating the sculpture =)
The last one was a baby in a womb. That's the umbilical cord that run's up from the sleeping baby (not a very good shot, I'm afraid).
So much for Saturday at town! At the evening we had a Lindy Hop Live, with a great band playing, a good crowd of dancers and a very nice evening it was.
Here's Karolin, modeling her stylish outfit for the evening. Loved her skirt! Her mom made it about 20 years ago and now she has given it to Karolin. The pattern is a bit blurry in the small picture, but take it up and you'll se the fine checkers-print.
Kajsa was so cute for the evening. She isn't really very vintage, and since she has such a youthful look she sometimes looks a bit like someone dressing up in their granny's clothes when she's all vintage. I like this style on her, it's cute, colorful and suits her, I think. Modern and young with a just a vintage twist.
And the two of us, happy after a nice evening with lot's of dancing and almost as much cookies and tea =)
Love,
Erika