@brittarnhild Some years ago I designed a pattern for a knitted cardigan based in a coleus (plant) in the AirB&B we were staying in in Stockholm. These last days we've seen many coleus as outdoor summer plants in Sweden, and as I had brought my cardigan, which I have called #solistockholm (sun in Stockholm) I could not resist asking Terje to shoot these pictures in the garden of our hotel in Kalmar. I often use nature as inspiration in my knitting, and the coleus leaf was a lot of fun to work with. We are leaving Kalmar today, starting to drive north. But before we go we will do a hike ..read more

@brittarnhild Kalmar Castle, a renaissance castle in the city of Kalmar, Sweden. We have spent the morning there, eating lunch in the castle restaurant, walking around in every room in the castle, enjoying the view outdoors, guided through a Claude Monet exhibition, and .......sitting down to crochet. Haha, of course that's what you do when you visit an old castle, you crochet! In a castle, or everywhere else for that matter. Crochet. Knit. Or both. ::::::::::::::::::::::. In my Norwegian blog I will write a post about the most amazing table which were set in the castles dining room. As alw ..read more

@brittarnhild We have spent a day on the island. Öland today, a pencil shaped island in the Baltic Sea. Our day has been filled with highlights, and it is not possible to write about them all, so I have chosen one; the Sollidens Castle, the summer residence of the royal family of Sweden. The late Swedish queen Victoria had the castle built in the beginning of the last century, and she got the inspiration from the Swedish dr. Axel Munthe and his Villa San Michele on Capri. Terje and I visited Capri and San Michele back in May, and it was not hard at all to see the similarities, tho0ugh Sollide ..read more

@brittarnhild We are in Sweden because of the wedding of good friends. The ceremony will start at 1pm, so after breakfast we have a lot of time for a walk in this beautiful city Nyköping, an hour south of Stockholm. We have been here once before, a year ago, but then only on a very short visit to have lunch with our friends, so the city we explore today is new to us. Our hotel is situated close to the river, and naturally our walk takes us along the river's edge. Which turns out to be beautiful. With an old castle, with flowers everywhere, birds and trees and old buildings. Of course we ar ..read more

@brittarnhild Before leaving Falun this morning, to travel further south, we had a stop in the old mining area, Falun Mine, which operated for a millennium, closing down only back in 1992. The mine is now a museum, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A thousand years of mining. It is impossible to imagine all the men working here, not to mention all the women behind. Mining for copper gives tons of residual products and some time in the 16th century the deep Falu Red colour was developed. The colour is widely used on houses both in Sweden, Finland and Norway, and around Falun and Sunburn (whe ..read more

@brittarnhild Oh, what a day. A visit to Carl Larsson-gården, the artist home where Carl and Karin Larsson used to live. Back in the 80-ies I, together with many others, loved the Carl Larsson paintings, but then kind of forgot about them. Then, a couple of years back, I discovered a lovely book about Karin´s garden, I min trädgård vill jag vara Karin / In my garden I want to be Karin, and learned that Carl was not the only artist living at Lilla Hyttnäs. Karin really was a very talented artist on her own. And a dream was created in my mind to visit their home. Finally, the day was ..read more

@brittarnhild Leaving our home just after breakfast, heading south east, we were a little concerned. The part of Norway and Sweden we were to drive through has had some very heavy rain and the were bad floodings. Would our road be open, we wondered. Lucky for us, the day was sunny and beautiful. We did pass a couple of quite heavy showers, but the roads were okay. We stopped to have coffee along the road, I was thinking of you Ardi when I shot this photo through the front window of our car, and we stopped in the old mining town Røros just long enough for me to be able to buy one of this mug ..read more

@brittarnhild Terje and I are going to Sweden tomorrow, on a 10 (or more) days roadtrip. So many exciting things are planned, and this time I really hope to be able to take you along as we go. May be I can blog in the car, if I find no other options :-) One thing I definitely will do in the car is knitting. I have been busy working on this cardigan the last few days to finish both sleeves and put it all together. Now I can knit for a long time without thinking.......almost. The pattern in my cardigan/kofte is something I have designed myself, inspired by a roadtrip two years ago when we dro ..read more

@brittarnhild Our granddaughter Vida celebrated her 3rd birthday a week ago.  Vida is a devoted doll mummy, and she loves yellow and pink. For her birthday we gave her a pink pram for her dolls. A real pram, just a little bit smaller than the pram her newborn baby sister has. And I crocheted a blanket for her dolls. A blanket in yellow and pink. Vida´s baby sister, Eline, was born one week before Vidas birthday. I could not crochet just one doll blanket. Of course I had to make two. Now Vida has a yellow and pink blanket for her dolls. And she has a yellow and pink blanket for her baby ..read more

@brittarnhild Hello dear readers. How are you? Here in my little corner of the world live is going on as usual. A new grandchild, our forth, since the last time I "saw" you. My parents getting older and older, grandchildren, children and Terje and I doing fine. It has never been my intention to give blogging such a long break, but I was hoping to come up to date with blogging about my travels, and tried to focus on that, completely forgetting to blog about everyday life. I am still not up to date, and will go back to work on that, but I also will try as best I can, to pop in on a day to day s ..read more