Serious sheep-based shopping in sunny Stockholm

I was away in Stockholm most of last week for a convention which I stretched out into a weekend. The convention was fine and the weekend was fun and there were lots of boats, but it was faaar hotter than the weather forecast.

I'd packed for 12-20°C and it ended up being 28°C. Which meant that instead of my nice little skirt-and-warmish-top / trousers-and-t-shirt combinations, I had to work the skirt-and-tee angle and boy oh boy but I had NOT considered that option and ended up looking like a mismatched clown most of the time. We're talking formal-black-linen-skirt-with-blue-striped-pirate-t-shirt-and-strappy-silver-platforms clown. I'm not great at working it at the best of times, but this....

Ah well, fortunately there are yarn shops run by nice older ladies with sufficiently broken English that it's all smiles but no need for conversation. We have Malabrigo. Yeah. I'm embarrassed to say that I'd been staking out my Stockholm yarn purchases and was all set to go to Nysta and KnitLab and buy all sorts, especially my first-ever Malabrigo. I'd actually started dreaming about the Great Malabrigo Purchase. But it turns out that Nysta and KnitLab have both closed and so I found myself wandering the streets, bereft and lonesome, which is when I walked past the Anntorps Väv window and hope bloomed in my little heart again. I trotted back first thing the next morning and had a great old time. I could have bought half the shop, especially where this stuff, Östergötlands Ullspinneri Pälsull, was concerned:

That's my sister-in-law's colour and this yarn will end up being her Christmas present - just have to decide what to turn it into. There were some great yellows and oranges too. And a few skeins of Malabrigo. I bought 100g of black lace-weight (with a project in mind) and can't wait to get started on it. I also bought this monster chunky wool-and-soy, although that was in another shop that I passed:

Also fortunately, when I changed to my non-convention hotel, I got a tiny noisy room that looked right onto the hotel bar. I'd booked tiny, so that wasn't a problem, but I'd also booked (and wanted) quiet so, for once, I asked to change. And they gave me a gorgeous double on the fifth floor with a balcony and let me stay there both nights. Not the best photo, but it was very luxe and very lovely.

And then I got home and washed my windows and oiled my wooden worktop and watered my plants and all was well with the world.

I just should get over it...

... and rename this blog "the lovely lizzies". They are lovely though.




Speaking of lovely, isn't this cat pretty?

Unfortunately, he's also very SAD (possibly because he's called Lulu, which doesn't sound like a very macho name to me).
So he spends all day and half the frrrrrigging night crying and meauwling and generally expressing his profound sorrow. I don't know where it's come from. For the last two years, I've known him for his remarkable climbing abilities and pretty little monkey face but for the last couple of months it's been the CRYING and the YOWLING and the DEEP SIGHS. Pretty much every single day. And almost every single night. Gah. At last it's given me and one of the Mr. Rupert Bears an opportunity to do some bonding of a "is that goddamn cat keeping you awake as well?" variety.

Shame-free shelving

I've had a great weekend: a nice lazy Saturday and then two days of beavering away (today's a public holiday) with lots to show for it. Things to say about the smoky downpipe in the loo, the leak (eek) in the bath, tiling at the sink, a slightly disappointing mirror situation, knitting and, above all, my hall cupboard.

When I arrived, my hall cupboard looked something like this: two rails for hanging clothes and a two-thirds finished space up top for stuffing suitcases and the like.


In January 2008, I christened my new Christmas drill and put up shelves. The Shelves of Shame, to be precise. They were shameful for two reasons. First, I mis-measured, so one of the brackets at the back was about half a centimetre out. This was particularly shameful because I actually went so far as to chisel a half-centimetre sliver out of the skirting board to account for this difference, but at no point did it occur to me to triple-check my measurements. Very stoopid. The other thing was that I got the shelves cut to the right width at the shop, not realising that the cupboard gets narrower towards the back and that I'd need to leave space for the bracket system, so lots of half-assed slicing of little strips ensued. With a desperately blunt old hacksaw. Yeah, embarrassing.

Add to that the totally knackered old paint job and the dusty holes and gaps left behind by the workmen and the random electricity and gas paraphernalia and it was a pretty grubby place.


I liked the blue paint, but it was in a terrible state and this was a good excuse to use up some of the many random tubs of white paint and primer I have lying around taking up space. I made the mistake I make every time and completely forgot that I needed to do the door as well until I was halfway through and didn't want to be adding sawdust and grit to the mix.

This was the scene last night, with shelves everywhere and an old tin of primer used up on of the blue (most of it anyway - I ran out with a couple of square feet to do at the bottom corner):



Today, it's been painting city. Actually, I haven't been outside for two and a half days now I come to think of it.... Fortunately, the outside comes inside, even at night.

Lovely lizzies

They were in a fairly poor state when I bought them, but my busy lizzies are recovering their forces and are well on their way for the summer. My kitchen window faces south-west, but it looks directly onto the windowless side of a high apartment building. Fortunately, the apartment block is built slightly back from the street, so there's a gap that lets a slice of direct sunshine come through late in the morning and lights up my kitchen. It also brings out the colours and glitter of my little lizzies. I've already taken dozens of photos and the whole of the summer has yet to come...



My sitting room and bedroom face north-west and only get direct sunlight in the summer. After several years in flats that faced due south, I miss having the sun in my flat in the winter (although it's a relief to have a nice, cool flat in the height of summer). That said, it makes it all the more special when the sun works its way round and shines in during the summer months.

Where do I start?

That was a long, long break, but I needed it. Work's been crazy and not-work has been crazy too but things are finally settling down (I hope). I also had a week away at the sea, taking sailing lessons, at the start of this month. I'm really glad I did it - definitely A.Good.Thing. and it blew away lots of lingering winter cobwebs.


In the last few months, there's been a LOT of knitting. My first ever lace, my first ever hat (a black mistake stitch beanie to match the black mistake stitch scarf - one of my favourite people has a birthday coming up), my first ever bag (in progress), and more to come. I love the colours in the last picture!:



Some new furniture. Slightly rubbish photo but I'm pleased as punch with my little sideboard and the fact that it allows me to free up the mantlepiece and move the radio to a better position in the room:


And new plants a-go-go:
After all that waiting, the tulips came and went in a flash.

And I couldn't get the heat/light/water balance right for this little thing. Beautiful while it lasted, but it didn't last long.


The new geraniums (to replace my trusty old bright pinks, that were zapped by the week of ten-below in January) are doing well and seem happy.


I don't seem to have killed off my first ever orchid yet. I love the white-pink-yellow against my blue bedroom walls.


And this afternoon I spent a happy couple of hours grubbing around on my bedroom floor, planting up petunias for my other windowbox and setting this season's kitchen busy lizzies on their way. Those busy lizzies were one of the best things about my house last summer and autumn - it's almost embarrassing about how much I'm looking forward to watching them grow.

Spring.

Might be time for me to come out of hibernation soon.

Double needles, aka "getting too big for my boots"

After feeling very smug about how nicely my mistake-stitch scarf turned out (the black in the second picture is accurate - don't know where the navy blue in the first comes from), I'm now getting my comeuppance in the form of double-pointed needles. Oooh-là. Not easy. I'm trying to make mittens to accompany the world's most boring scarf (the mistake scarf was knitted as a Christmas present for one of my favourite people). I'll persevere for the moment, but this may well end up being one of those projects that isn't spoken about in polite company.

Happy new year.

Remember this? Hideous, wasn't it? And, from a very long time ago, this? Well, I'm pleased to say that after many hours of working and thinking and planning it's all come together and my kitchen now looks like this:

Yay! I'm totally thrilled. Still a few little things to iron out, like the shelf at the end of the top cabinets and the splashback, but it's worked out better than I could ever have hoped and I really enjoy spending time in there. I'm doing loads more cooking than I used to (not surprising really, but still) and having a washing machine after five and a half years of schlepping up and down endless flights of stairs is BEYOND exciting. Really. I spent a year on the fifth floor with no lift and three years on the sixth with no lift so even though moving to this flat, which is on the first floor, made it much less painful, not having to go to the laundrette is just the best thing.

I found two lovely little stools at an on-street antiques fair just before Christmas. I'd been looking for ones like that for a while and even though I knew I could buy them new at one of the big art shops at Nation, I quite fancied getting old ones like we have at the engraving workshop. They're working out perfectly and are perfect for perching on to read a magazine while I wait for things to cook or to make a change from eating on the couch. They spin down to the right height for my dining table and spin up to the right height for my wooden worktop so they're nice and multi-purpose and exactly what I'd hoped for. Very reasonably priced too, which is lucky because I'm rather skint after all this work. The little one could do with a bit of waxing to bring up the colour of the wood but that's small beans. Very pleased. :)

Here are some random tulips to finish. I was very surprised but quite pleased with how the second photo turned out.


Happy new year to anyone who stumbles by. Hope it's full of good things.

Hanging in there.

Just had quite a difficult few weeks there which left me with neither time nor energy for rambling on about my flat. Anyway, life is getting back on track so I guess I can get this little show back on the road too. But not until I've finished knitting my best friend's Christmas present and been home for the holidays. :)

Pancakes

I just finished a little project and am feeling all buzzy and wanting to tell someone, but it's after midnight so a quick post will have to do. (I also want to share the news before I have to look in the cold light of day and realise that some important part has gone wrong....)

Start with one crappy kitchen floor. The tiles should be a mix of three different kinds (with some plain ol' concrete thrown in for fun), set at different levels, and at least half a dozen should be sporting big cracks.

Mix up a half a sack of Solplan, bought on impulse the day before because the guy offered to deliver the lino and the sack for free that evening and the sack weighs a hefty 25kg. (I've realised that I'm much more decisive when faced with free delivery and a shop that's about to close and stay closed for the next two days, especially when my kitchen is going to be installed the day after that and I risk not having a floor.)

Note how much the Solplan looks like deliciously creamy hot chocolate. Note that lumpy hot chocolate is perfectly acceptable, but that lumpy Solplan is a pain in the ass and will bite you about half an hour down the line.

Start spreading. Spend far too long faffing around smoothing and spreading the Solplan (which is self-levelling) and thinking how pleased you to have taken on this little job yourself and grinding away the little gritty lumps of unmixed powder and spreading and smoothing and....

Realise that it's gone and set in the bucket. Ooooh yeah. I think the fact that I don't have a professional cement mixer and had to stir it all up with the pole that used to support my kitchen worktop didn't help. By the end, there were quite a lot of little lumps that I had to mash out and that slowed me down quite a lot. Result: when I went for the last helping of chocolate milk, it was more like a thick mousse that I had to apply like plaster. Lumpy plaster. And I ain't a plasterer. It isn't perfectly smooth by the door because it was too thick to self-level, but I think, and hope, that I've got away with it. I won't count my chickens yet, but even in the worst case scenario I would just have to take it up tomorrow and do it again and it really wasn't that painful an exercise. And look how lovely and smooooth my floor looks now!

In other news, I painted my kitchen and bathroom ceilings, and Monsieur Y. came round to fix the gas, which is no longer leaking, although the downside is that I can't keep the pilot light on my boiler lit any more. Very mysterious, because he was nowhere near the boiler. Cold shower again tomorrow I s'pose.