Skandia Midsommar 2014

Yesterday, we went to Skandia Midsommar Festival at Saint Edward State Park. First off, I love that park, it is beautiful, has lake front beach, trails, large grassy fields, huge playground. Second, I love folky stuff, especially Scandinavian and there were many authentic costumes to oogle over since Skandia is a folk dance group. I have been learning more about traditional Icelandic costumes (you must check out that link!),  and it was great to see the similarities and differences between the Swedish and Norwegian ones. However, there were no Icelandic costumes, so I will take the challenge to make something wearable by next Midsommar to show off. Most likely it will be the peysufot since that is the simplest and has elements I can use in all the other costumes. My goal is to eventually make the 18th Century Faldbuningur, 19th Century Upphlutur, and 19th Century Peysufot. It's very ambitious, and who knows where I will end up in the process, but we will see. I love folky stuff and felt a connection to the Icelandic Costumes.

Here are some photos from the event:

 I liked the Viking booth. Great costumes, props, interactive peg making and grain grinder.

 Viking stone grinder and sifting bowls.

 Kids Maypole: 

 Buckets of flowers to make flower crowns: 

 The maypole before decoration:

 The musical procession:

 Wreath bearers:

 Garland bearers:

 Beautiful (Estonian?) costume:

 Decorating the maypole:

 Audience participation to raise the maypole:

 Dancing

Costume presentation:

These Norwegian ones were my favorite. I liked the intricately embroidered yoke with full skirt attached above the bust line. Optional belt. The grandma in the center had a lot of silver jewelry somewhat similar to the Icelandic style.

 Showing how the felted skirt border (to make the skirt spin while dancing) can also be used as a rain hood.

Little (Norwegian) embroidered dress.

 Troll sightings

Various goods for sale. I liked the cross stitch panels.

 I was tempted to buy these wooden food tools ... and regret not doing so.

Various 'viking' dry goods.

Happy Midsommar!
Here's to a new year inspired by folk embroidery.

Knit Overalls

Elliott's new duds.

I finished these knit overalls today (bind off straps, sew on buttons) but I did the actual knitting a year and a half ago on the plane to St. John Virgin island. Good memories :)

I followed this free pattern using old/'vintage' worsted weight wool and size 7 needles; buttons from my stash.

I need to improve my short row shaping, you can see little puckers (above).

This pattern fits babies very well; here is the crotch gusset to accommodate their diapered derrieres.

Chromatic Birds

As mentioned earlier, I been making wool felt birds and wanted to show off one of the final results: I sewed them in order onto ric rac for something to hang in your kitchen window.

Pretty and simple, but also time consuming....

A close-up:

This is only one of the final results... the other, which I hope to begin soon is for our bed :)

birds

I started with a few birds from an ornament kit we made in Relief Society...

and got a little carried away:

Bonus pic of Adam and Elliott, the mushroom bandit:

Exotic dye results!

My friend Annalisa (of tree skirt and Virgin Islands fame) came to visit a few weeks ago. She was in town to see family and attend a natural dye workshop at Earthues. We had a great time catching up and driving around Seattle. We even went on a tour of Theo's Chocolate Factory, which I now totally recommend to everyone.

Beside having a great time with her, Annalisa's visit was made even sweeter because she passed on some leftover dye from the workshop!

(left: coccineal with citric acid. center: coccineal. left: madder)

Coccineal is a scale bug harvested from cactus and dyes wool deep red-purples. This was second-hand dye and I still got great pink-reds! The orange is from the same dyebath but I added citric acid crystals to change the pH.

Madder, of British Red Coat fame, comes from the red roots of the Madder/Rubia tinctorum plant) and dyes wool a deep red-orange. This second-hand dye was somewhat exhausted but still gave a nice orange-yellow.

I love the results!

from left to right:

coccineal+citric acid; madder; coccineal; coccineal, madder overdye on a a previously failed dye attempt)

I still have a few quarts of indigo dye to use! Very excited because I love indigo.

There was a logwood dyebath, but it was exhausted ("used up") and produced a pale grey on wool yarn...I'll probably re-dye it in indigo.

Seed Stitch Cable Hat

My sister, Briana, had this yarn in her stash (which I inherited) so I decided to use it to knit a hat for our sister, Candice. Candice just started Fall semester, so, I think of this hat as a ‘back to school’ hat :)

I followed this free pattern using Manos del Uruguay wool clasica.

It looked like my yarn was thinner than the yarn suggested and the hat looked longer than I wanted, so I made a few changes: -CO 4 extra stitches, 64 total in rib section -2 additional stitches in the cable section, 14 stitch cable. -cables are 13 rows tall instead of 12; only made two actual cross-overs, the third ‘crossover’ is from decreasing rapidly.

Began decreases in seed stitch as follows: -row 39 (k2tog, p2tog, k1,p1,k1,p1 - repeat) -k1, p1 for 2 rows -p1, k2tog, p1, k2tog for 2 rows -pull yarn through remaining stitches and pull tight.

Lopez Island

Last month, following advice from Adam's sister, we went to Lopez Island for one night to celebrate our 2nd Anniversary. It was a wonderful overnight trip not far from home. Lopez is one of the San Juan Islands and can be accessed by ferry from Anacortes, Wa.

(We ate french fries on the ferry!)

The day before we went, we made a reservation with Lopez Farm Cottages. It turned out perfectly - we got a tiny, one room house with a hot tub outside.

Here is the inside:

I was a little bummed to miss the annual Seattle Cheese Festival, but we serendipitously arrived on Lopez Island for their first ever Lopez Lamb and Wool Festival - even better than cheese!

We saw fleeces and wool for sale, spinning wheels,

weaving looms,

dye demonstrations,

a butchering and lamb roasting demo,

and baby lambs to hold in the parking lot.

We walked a block to eat at Vita's Wildly Delicious deli.

I liked their idea or serving homemade mac and cheese cut like pieces of cake...I thought it was carrot cake at first.

I also loved their patio with creative seating arrangements like this antique ironing board for a table:

After our wildly delicious food we were still hungry...so we ate lamb and Lopez Island beef burgers at the "Pharmacy." Lucky we were at the pharmacy because we also ordered a cookie dough shake and then needed lactaid:

After eating ourselves silly, we checked ourselves in at the Lopez Farm Cottages and didn't see anyone on the grounds the entire time (only about 20 hours).

It was a lovely and relaxing rainy weekend together - a wonderful 2nd Anniverary :)

pregnant side-shot and breakfast in the jacuzzi!

Then we packed up and ate sandwiches on the ferry ride home: