Well hello there 2014, when did you get here?

I have so much knitting to update here - but if I keep waiting to get myself organised January will pass without an update too. 

So for today - a long overdue post that's not about knitting, amazing right? I certainly have become a knitter obsessed, and when I catch you up on Decembers knitting later, I'm sure you'll agree.

Last week I had a visit to Stockholm again, and visited Skansen for an afternoon. It was wet, and I already had a cold, so it wasn't the ideal day to be out drawing animals, but I wanted to call in and say  Hi, as it had been a while, and managed to just get a few sketches done between rain showers and cold winds. Just simple pencil sketches - with my gloves on! 

The otters were so excited to see me, they are usually so hard to spot, but they came swimming across and jumping around a the glass when I arrived. Five minutes later their keeper arrived with a bucket of fish, I guess it wasn't me they were excited to see after all. 

Otters feeding time

 It was amazing to see how much the Elk foal had grown, its nearly as tall as it's mother, and she stands about 6 foot to her shoulders. That's a lot of growing in six months! Clearly built for this climate, happily snoozing in the middle of a wet, muddy paddock.

Sleeping Elk

The Reindeer foal had grown a lot too, but didn't come out of the food shed the entire time I was there, so a quick little sketch of a snoozing reindeer, all tucked up for warmth. 

Snoozing Reindeer

I've never drawn the horses at Skansen before, I believe these are Ardennes - a short stocky horse with very large eyes, which seems they can't be drawn without looking like they belong on a 12 year girls bedroom wall with a glitter frame. 

Swedish Ardennes

I can't let a post go without a hint of knitting though - so while in Stockholm I did have a yarn shopping afternoon, so much goodness!

Gratuitous yarn shot - on hotel bed with bad lighting

Happy Knit year! 

Skansen tropicarium or 'When Lemurs attack'

Just before leaving Stockholm I revisited Skansen's tropical section. I've been once before about 18 mths ago, and it's taken me till now to get over the last visit. Let me explain. I love Lemurs, they are the funniest things to watch, especially on a cloudy day when the sun suddenly pokes through, and every Lemur stops, sits cross legged and faces the sun with their eyes closed. It's like the weirdest yoga class you've ever seen.

So when I first read about the tropicarium, and that as part of it you walk through the Lemur enclosure, I was so excited. It's quite a large enclosure with a winding path with stairs upto the next level to exit, and there are a lot of Lemurs in there.

All looking so innocent

Excuse the blurry selfie, but this was me, full of excitement when I first entered the enclosure. The Lemurs seemed quite happy to completely ignore my presence, and I pulled out my sketch book to draw, and things went down hill, quickly. Despite the warning signs everywhere about not feeding them, clearly people do, and reaching into my bag, and some rattling paper set off a signal to every Lemur in that enclosure that I had food, and they wanted it. I found myself in the ludicrous position of running back and forth and literally in circles trying to outrun a pack of Lemurs! They were an organised gang, some took up place blocking the exit door! All I could think of was they would run up my legs, scratch or bite - but that I absolutely didn't want to hurt any of them stopping that, so the only solution my brain presented was 'run in circles why I think about it'.

I did get out, no Lemurs were harmed, but I was a shaking mess! Of course it's now a hilarious story, but I was terrified at the time.

So fast forward 18mths and I decide to head back, mostly to draw the Sloths. On my last visit they were hanging around looking like this:

On this visit, they were all asleep, curled up in balls.

'Jub Jub' was still there, in exactly the same spot.

As for the Lemurs, I'd convinced myself that you didn't have to walk through the enclosure, but turns out you do (if you want to see the rest of the exhibits). So I but my big girl pants on and walked through. By halfway all bravery had gone, and I found myself attempting to use a 5year old child as a shield. Thankfully neither of us were attacked, but I don't think I'll be going back again.

 

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Last bit of Autumn

The leaves are falling here in Stockholm now, but I thought I would share my last Autumn colour pics. We took a walk a couple of weekends ago around Djurgarden and back to Sergels Torg. The trees and light were too good to miss that afternoon.

I'm afraid the cold of winter is just around the corner!

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Museum visiting in Stockholm

There are some 87 museums in Stockholm, so there's always another to investigate. Each time I visit I try and see one or two that are new to me, but I must admit I'm getting to the point on the list where I either think I'm not interested (day out at the Tobacco and Match museum anyone?) or the more difficult to reach by public transport with no sense of direction and a cartoon map.

This time it's been a pleasant surprise though, I've visited two that I had previously thought too boring - The Museum of Ethnography and The Historiska Museet, or the Museum of Antiquities.

The Museum of Ethnography is described in the brochure as 'a meeting place of cultures for everyone interested in the wider world'. As a lover of the old fashioned style museum I loved the current exhibition of 'bringing the world home' which is a broad selection of objects from the museums archives, displayed in old fashioned glass museum cases, aisles and aisles of oddities behind glass - just what I love in a museum. As a twist they have displayed everything in groups as it is stored, which is by material rather than origin. In order to give the illusion of never ending cabinets they have installed mirrors at the end of the rows, which worked a little too well, as I found myself stepping aside to give way to, well um myself!

I did struggle in this exhibition to match up the cabinets with the English translation sheet, so just gave up and enjoyed the looking with no great information on what I was looking at.

This fellow wins best oddity I've found to draw in a while, the skin of a baby hippopotamus which must have been folded for transport.

The displays on climate, and how cultures adapt to extreme climates were something different, and there was an extensive Aboriginal display. It was good to see that it was fair representation on the modern Aboriginal culture, explaining the issues of the stolen generation and land rights. There was an area of displays and film related to Swedish explorers in Australia who took skeletons and recently deceased from funeral sites as museum items, and film documenting the apology and ceremonies related to the return of these in recent history.

There were displays on historical expeditions, to Papua New Guinea and the Congo (and cultural damage there by well meaning missionaries of their day).

All up, lots of interesting objects to draw, and rather sadly the opportunity to see how history has repeated itself over and over; white men travel to foreign lands and try to 'improve' the locals by stealing their children and raising them as white, introducing alcohol, tobacco and violence to traditional cultures - apologising after 200 years and leaving these cultures in a mess of identity, dependency and violence. Australia, Papua New Guinea, the Congo, North America, Canada, and Northern Scandanavia.

The Historiska Museum has it's 'Gold Room' as pride of place, with an extensive collection of antique gold, silver and jewel currency and jewellery. For me the more interesting sections were the textiles hall, with ancient embroideries, many were church vestments. The amount of work put into these was amazing. I sketched some of the animal shapes to perhaps embroider myself later as the designs were really interesting.

There were halls full of old church icons, alters, and iconastas - which made me wonder if every old church in Sweden was gutted at some point? There was so much of it. It was great to see them, but I did feel a little sad about how much of it had been removed from where it belonged? I would have liked to drawn some of these but there were no seats available and my back was not cooperating with standing and holding a sketchbook to draw.

I ran out of time to take in everything, and while doing a speed view through the remaining exhibitions on my way out, this fellow caught my interest. At about four feet high, carved from wood with rope decoration, holding a skeleton which appeared to be various real bones with a wooden carved skull. I had to stop and read, and then draw;

"Associated with the cannibal dancing society: skeleton made from various animals such as seal paws and a carved human skull. When covered in vegetable pastry it looked like a human corpse. Used in ceremony when someone was obsessed with the cannibal spirit to regain their human nature"

I'll definitely look forward to another visit when I'm looking for a drawing refuge on a rainy day.

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Autumn goodness

I'm spending most of the month of October in Stockholm, and the city is beautiful at this time of year. The first two weeks of the month the weather was perfect for Autumn - cool but clear with warm sunshine, then a snap of crisp air as soon as the sun lowers. I took advantage of one of the sunnier days to visit Skansen.

Found a lovely spot of afternoon warmth for a bit of knitting. I'm working on 'Birch' by Rowan, but using a lace weight wool I purchased a while back in Stockholm, and Addi lace circulars. This took me a long time to get started, but it's moving along now.

The bear cubs were still out playing, they've grown so much since they were born! It's been such a priveledge to be able to visit frequently enough to watch their progress. I think hibernation must be just around the corner though.
It was a little too cold, or rather I wasn't inspired enough to draw despite the cold on the day, but had a bit of a sketch when I got back to the hotel room.

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WIP - most of them imaginary!

Things have been a little slow on the creative front of late, my rotator cuff injury is still hanging around and limiting my crafting hobbies severely. Humph, life without crafting is boring, and I'm discovering expensive, having spent many days of my last four weeks in Stockholm shopping instead of drawing or knitting!

My only drawing from 4 weeks in Stockholm! The growing Elk foal, Skansen.

I have started this Mohair Bias Loop (pattern by Churchmouse Yarns and Teas), in fact I've started it 5 times, but I've got a really good feeling about attempt number 6! Lucky number 6. I have discovered my tension with kidsilk is dreadful, not consistent at all. I finally reduced the number of stitches by 20% to get it back to the correct length (rather than reducing needle size, which A. I didn't have as a circular, and B. I want this open and not overly warm). Having finally settled on this size being correct, it's only taken a couple of nights to get halfway, so should finish this pretty quickly - I want it to take on holidays soon so there's a definite deadline.

Mohair Bias Loop in Rowan Kidsilk Haze Glamour

The tension issue has made me a bit nervous, last year I bought some lovely green mohair for a jumper for myself, the first adult jumper I would knit in 20 years! I was keen to get onto it for this winter, but now very worried about what sort of size or shape it may end up! I may have to knit up a few more scarves in mohair and work on this erratic tension.

I have also been carrying around this lovely ball of greenness for the last four weeks (ambitiously thinking I would finish the mohair loop, and a shawl during the four week trip). Having finally decided on a pattern for it, I'm itching to get started. I bought the yarn at 'Svenska Hemslöjdsföreningarnas Riksförbund' - The National Association of Handicrafts in Sweden. There was some confusion when I bought it as I asked what ply and length the skein was, the sales assistant was perplexed, it seems its a yarn for weaving, but I really like the colour and texture. This skein has done some miles already, I bought it on a previous trip, took it home to the UK, then took it back at the beginning of August, then home mid August, then back for another two weeks, and now back in the UK. We will have to plant a forest to repair our carbon footprint when these years of travel finish! 

(I wound this by hand, very proud of how neat it is!)

I've chosen 'Birch' by Rowan, after seeing a completed shawl in 'Wincent Garner' in Stockholm, when buying the kidsilk haze glamour there for the bias loop. I never would have picked it from the rubbish photo Rowan used on the pattern - really what are you supposed to get from this image? The perfect shawl to wear camping in your pyjamas perhaps?

image from knit rowan.com

  

I had gone round in circles trying to find a pattern, I blame Ravelry that I've become obsessed with trying lace knitting, especially shawls, and started buying lace weight skeins of loveliness. However hours of searching for patterns would result in lots I wanted to knit, but almost none I would consider wearing, at least not in public. Lets face it, people tag you as nanna for knitting in public, wearing a shawl would be the end! From the thousands of them being knitted up on Ravelry though I gather they must be more commonly worn in parts of the US (or perhaps they all wear them at home?). I did try a few on in Stockholm though, wrapping them more like scarves, and now can see that there are some that can be worn in more modern styles.

Ultimately I do want to work my way upto Celestarium, by the very talented, Audry Nicklin (over at Bear-ears.com, photo courtesy of Audry's website). 

I don't care how nerdy it may be, a knitted representation of the night sky from the pole? Awesome, bring it on. Since first seeing the pattern I have been on the search for just the right yarn, in the same amount of time Audry has written a pattern mapping the Southern Stars, and is about to release her first knitting book. One of us is much more productive in the knitting front! 

One final note of shawly nerdom, this one has made it into my Ravelry queue too, I may have to gift to a friend who I think would wear it way prouder than I. For some reason I can't resist the idea of knitting it though.

'Bigger on the inside' by Kate Atherley, photo by Amy Singer (available on Ravelry) 

With some yarns or patterns, resistance is futile. 

Skansen Drawing

I've been doing too much travelling to stop and write a post of late, which is a very lucky state to be in, but not the best way to keep a blog moving! And I foolishly uploaded photos for a couple of posts at home, and then found myself away, with drafts in Blogger I couldn't finish because it doesn't work on the ipad. Seriously, why haven't they fixed that, the ipad's been around for a while now. So I have a few posts to do to catch up on my activities in Stockholm for three weeks. 

I'll start with a sketchbook catch up. I bought a new sketchbook on my last Helsinki visit at a great art store I've visited a few times, they have a fantastic range of stuff and good prices, but never terribly friendly. Not sure if its because I'm an English speaker and they don't get many, perhaps it's less rudeness and more their nervousness of dealing in English, or perhaps they're just art store snobs like the lady at my favourite art store in Adelaide, who would constantly judge my purchases - snooty tone 'you don't need to buy this quality, learners should just use this'. Sorry, rant over, anyway they had a sale on, so I went in for a few pencils and left with this book, some pastels, and more than a few pencils! 

I already have one of these Fabriano journals, but in A5, this one is closer to 25cm square. The paper has a lovely texture to it, and I like the tone. I do wish the coloured pages were more interspersed though. 

I made quite a few trips to Skansen, the weather being excellent, and there being baby Bears, Elk and Reindeer to draw. I purchased a yearly pass, after discovering the price is equivalent to only just over three visits, I must have made at least six visits this year alone before discovering this. I was so excited to hold my little membership card, such a strange nomadic unattached life we are leading, to be suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of belonging to something. 

Elk and foal, the foal was either asleep or running in circles, no posing for me

The Bear cubs and mother were delightful to watch, although somewhat tricky to see. After a couple of visits though I found the best chance was after 5.30pm. The days were quite warm, and I guess more so if you're wearing a big fur coat, so they must have a nice cool spot to sleep away the day, sometimes in the afternoon they would wander out and snooze in a pile under the tree.

Once the temperature went down a bit though, it was playtime, and that was entertaining to watch. Lots of rough and tumble, play fighting and investigating. I so wanted to catch some of it in sketches, it's hard though as you don't get a second glance at the pose because they've moved on.

Mamma Bear, on the lookout

Elk, she really wasn't enjoying the warm summer day

Study of Elk ear positions - watercolour pencil sketches

On another afternoon the Bears had lots of enrichment activities in their enclosure. The little ones trying to get to the bottom of the bucket were hilarious, upside down head first in, falling off the log, again so fun to watch but difficult to sketch the action well.

snoozing in the shade on a summer afternoon

Cuddles with Mum

So cute the way they all sleep intertwined, one would wake up or just wriggle, kicking the next one and the whole pile would squirm around and settle back to sleep.

Seals lazing in the afternoon sun