Back to Daylight

It's Saturday morning and I have been home from my Norway adventure since Monday evening. Came home to normality of life as it is here in the Crowfoot household: the washing basket piled almost ceiling high with either dirty clothes or those that the kids couldn't be bothered to put away in their wardrobes; carpets badly in need of some vacuum attention; an empty fridge and a pile of unopened post. Needless to say it didn't take long for the novelty of being home to subside!

The first delivery of Crochet Club yarn arrived here on Tuesday followed by the more yesterday. I cleared space in the studio and have managed to fit in all but 4 of the 27 boxes full of the lovely Rowan Cotton Glace. Im a bit of a neat greek when it comes to the studio so will have to just accept that for the next 2 months I will be negotiating cardboard boxes and seeing hundreds of packs of cotton out of the corner of my eye as I work. Moving the yarn to the studio was a tough job and it took me about 4 hours to check it all through and move accordingly. There is more to come before Christmas so I will need to clear a little more space. Its a tough job making room for nearly 10,000 balls of yarn, but always exciting when it starts to arrive.

We will keep the applications system for next year's crochet club open until the end of December. We have ordered more yarn than we currently have applications for, but we always see a surge in enquiries in January and February, so if things go as they have done in the past we may not be able to guarantee places for applicants after Christmas. For more info and images click here.

We are hoping that parcels will be sent out so that they arrive with members mid February. However we are currently waiting to hear on a confirmed delivery date for the bead order. This was placed in October, but Steve at Debbie Abrahams beads has advised us that there may be a slight delay on the order due to the bead factory closing for annual holiday. Don't panic just yet - Steve has enough beads in stock for us to get the worldwide orders out in time and hopefully by the time these have been packaged up and left us, we will have stock in for the remaining packs. If there are any confirmed changes to dates I will let you know.

I have kept under the radar quite a bit this week and not really launched myself into anything too taxing. Spending more than a week in near darkness 24/7 seems to have thrown my body clock out! I keep wanting to slope off to bed at about 8pm. I can't say I've achieved my normal amount of work this week and having a constant long list of things to do this has me very slightly panicked, however, I have had a bit of a rest and have added a few more segments to my 'wingspan' shawl that I started last week. I had forgotten how nice it is to sit in front of the TV and knit, crochet takes up so much of my time these days. Last night I sat and knitted the beaded iPad cover design that I have been commissioned to do by Steve at Debbie Abrahams beads for the next bead club that starts in the new year. It's a beaded fair isle design in bright shades of Cotton Glace and will be the spring project so keep a look out!

There are 2 things that I've been especially excited about over the past few days: Rowan have added to their lovely Kid Silk Haze family and launched a version with sequins in it. It's called Kid Silk Glamour and whilst the colour palette is not amazing it does look really nice and of course especially good for Christmas events and prezzies.

The second thing that has got me really really excited is the launch of a monthly crochet magazine from those lovely people at Future Publishing - they're the guys who produce the lovely Mollie Makes and The Knitter magazine - so chances are it will be a really fabulous magazine. I have designed a simple crochet collar for the first issue and am really chuffed to have been invited to write a monthly piece for the magazine. You can subscribe to Simply Crochet now and can get the first 3 copies at the bargain price of £5.

Next week has a lot in store with the Crochet Club taking priority. Erica will be working through the first set of pattern layouts in early December so Nicky and I need to get things sorted ready for her. The design is more or less complete and I am really pleased with it. Can you believe that it is around about now that I need to start thinking about design themes for the 2014 project? Any ideas gratefully received!

Yeah! My copy of 'The Simple Things' magazine has just dropped with a thud onto the door mat - the timing couldn't have been better as Mr C has also just presented me with a nice mug of hot coffee so I am off to enjoy a quick flick through before my day gets going properly. Summer is horse riding at lunch time and then off to see Breaking Dawn at the cinema later on, so no doubt I will be required for taxi duties in between my knitting sessions on the sofa - not too much of a chore really is it!!! Have family coming for dinner tomorrow - planning Chicken Lasagna (everyone's favourite) and no doubt Summer will want to make a cake. I just love the weekend!!

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Back to Reality

Home with a bump and back to the reality of emails, phone calls and general sorting out!
Had the joy of a dentist appointment this afternoon and received a rather large crochet club yarn order this morning so my living room is now full of boxes.
Needless to say today was a little more mundane than those of the last week when I was in Norway.

Lynn sent me a lovely image of the 'Hunting the Lights' group so attaching it here seems the appropriate ending to our lovely Norwegian adventure.

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Kirkenes and Homeward Bound

We arrived in Kirkenes after breakfast and left the ship for the final time. We boarded a coach and were taken to a viewing point above the town. There had been snow over night so it was really lovely to be travelling through a fresh snowfall up through the mountains to a great vantage point. It was still only half light, so many of the houses had their welcome lights shining in the windows – I really love this Norwegian tradition of hanging small lights or candles in the windows and am hoping to do the same in our house when I get home – it just looks so lovely and I was busy peering into all the houses on our journey and planning how I might be able to apply the same scheme to our home without it looking a bit naff!

We had another knowledgeable guide in the shape of Thomas – he told us all about the roles of both tin mining and the tourism trade in the area and took us to the Russian border where we took photos and looked at the lovely babushka dolls in the small gift shop. The image below was taken from Norway looking across to Russia.

Coming back towards the town of Kirkenes, Thomas told us about the recent history of the town, explaining that it was taken over by Nazi soldiers during WW2 due to its proximity to Russia. The soldiers virtually destroyed the town during their occupation and the locals hid out in the tin mines. It was the Russians who liberated them towards the end of the War and to whom there is a memorial of thanks within the town.

At lunch time we went to the Gabba restaurant which is situated a couple of kilometres outside of Kirkenes. The restaurant is shaped like a Sami tent, but built in a Russian style of pine and timber. The restaurant is cicular and surrounds a central open fire where the cooking is done. We had home made soup and fresh bread followed by rum laced chocolate cake – one thing this trip hasn’t been kind on is my waistline! Thomas (our guide) also runs the restaurant and owns some lovely reindeer, including a rare white one who we got to see. Apparently seeing a white reindeer is bad luck so I guess we are all in for a tough time – perhaps the bad luck is that we have to go home tomorrow!

Back at the hotel the group continued to knit, whilst others made the most of the reliable wifi connection (which has been more than a bit sporadic on the ship) and updated their emails and messages.

The skies are not clear tonight and it looks like we may have a bit more snow. The likelihood of seeing the Northern Lights again tonight is slim – but we were treated to such an amazing show last night that we don’t really mind. Our wonderful Norwegian Lights trip is all but over and within the next few days we all have to sort out our body clocks and get them used to a bit more daylight. Debra is travelling back to Australia at the end of the week so she will be catapulted into the heat of summer down under and so will be faced with huge amounts of sunshine! Spending the week living in so much darkness has had a soporific effect on many of us and we have even found ourselves discussing bed time from lunch time onwards. In fact we had a good laugh at my proposal that one of my blog posts could have simply been ‘Had breakfast and watched the sun go down!’

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A Welcome Guest For Dinner

Today is our final day on MS Midnatsol. We docked at Hammerfest very early this morning and my aim had been to make it out onto the viewing deck to take a look at the town, which is the northernmost in the world. In truth I took a bit of a blurry eyed look of it from the warmth of my little cabin then sloped back to bed for a few more hours sleep. So I cant say that I’ve stepped foot in the town, but can honestly say I have been there!

The sun has graced us with its presence for most of the day, so it was disappointing to see it disappear in the distance at lunchtime and for it to be more or less completely dark by 3pm. Today was a good day for photos though and we were told that the conditions were favorable for seeing the lights later on!

We docked in Honningsvag for quite some time in the middle of the day and many of the locals came on board for lunch with their children. It was really nice to see some young children having fun around the ship and it appears to be a treat for the inhabitants of this town to jump on board for a few hours for a coffee or some lunch. It all went quiet at about 2.30/3pm when the locals left the ship and we prepared to set sail for our journey to Kjollefjord.

On route we passed the Finn-church, known as the most elegant sea cliff in Norway. Illuminated by green, pink and blue lights and accompanied by native sounding music, we passed by the rock formation which Norwegians feel replicates the shape of a church and so consider to be a great attraction. Unfortunately I didn’t have my specs on so did not have a fantastic idea of quite what the attraction was, but spending half an hour up the viewing deck in the freezing cold wind sure reminded me that I am within the Arctic Circle!

Dinner this evening was a Fish buffet. We had been introduced to the giant red crabs (that later appeared on plates) up on the deck earlier on in the evening – they really are huge and I was unsure whether or not to eat them! I made do with prawns, mussels and other fishy things! The buffet was quite spectacular, but it was interrupted by the appearance of a welcome guest - The Northern Lights! Never has a restaurant emptied so quickly! We rushed to Deck 9 where we were treated to a 90 minute light show like nothing we could ever have imagined. 
WOW! Its pretty indescribable – like whispy white cloud, mixed with lazers, spotlights and glitter! AMAZING! Feel so lucky to have seen them in such fine form. 

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A Poem by Ian Kirkbride

Knit one, purl two

that is what we are here to do.

Drop a stitch! We don’t care,

moving round from chair to chair.

Hats and gloves and sweaters too,

we can knit them all for you.

Our week of knitting is now done

on Midnatsol - we sure had fun!

Ian Kirkbride

Co Durham

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Snow, Ice, Fjords and Rain!

It was a bit of a slow start this morning for many of us on board MS Midnatsol as we had quite a bit of excitement last night when we docked in Svolvaer and went to the Ice Bar! We wrapped up warm and set off to the warehouse which houses ice sculptures and serves cloudberry wine. We only had an hour as the ship was not in town for long, but it was just long enough to enjoy the wine and marvel at the wonderful sculptures. To be honest an hour was long enough as it was really really cold inside the building.

Once back on board we stayed up a little longer to have fishcakes and a hot tody (not sure how to spell that) on the viewing deck, whilst the Captain expertly navigated the fjords and took us to see the ‘Trollfjorden’ - a 2km long side arm of the Raftsbund between the Archipelagos of Lofoten and Vesteralen. With it's narrow entrance  and steep sided mountains, the fjord cuts westward from the Raftsundet strait. The fjord is extremely narrow, but in good weather the ship will use it, unfortunately our Captain (wisely) did not want to risk entering the fjord in last night's choppy waters and rain. The name of the fjord is derived from 'Troll' - a figure from Norse mythology (horrible little chaps that live under bridges and cast nasty spells).

After a morning of knitting, followed by a lovely buffet lunch we docked in Tromso where we have moored for 4 hours. Some of the group had booked onto exciting adventures with Huskies and Reindeer, whilst others used the long stop to do some much needed retail therapy! The image below is of the harbour looking across to the Cathedral which is all lit up in blue light - the picture was taken at 2.30pm! 

It seems that there is frequently more than one yarn store in every town. Today we found three of them in Tromso, each with an array and choice of yarn us poor Brits could only dream of having in the UK. The yarns are of brilliant quality with many of them made here in Norway and there is even one called ‘Nordlys’ made by ‘Viking of Norway’. At least if we don’t get to see the lights themselves, we can knit the yarn! We have been knitting in the lounge area of the bar and sit together as a group, however there are many other knitters dotted about the ship – the Norwegians are obviously brought up knitting and crafting so we do not appear to be causing too much of a stir!

Dani has finished her cushion cover and has added a very nifty twisted i-cord along each side. It's a really nice piece, expertly and very speedily knitted. Elizabeth has completed her bag and just has the draw strings to finish off. 

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