About Stockholm

Grocery Trip

A nice grocery (Rimi) was located a few blocks up the hill behind our hotel in Bergen. They had these nice grocery totes:


And, this nice beer.


Copenhagen is a "crisp refreshing beer brewed with all natural ingredients & cold filtered for purity". And, it's shelf-neighbor "Budweiser".

Visting Oleana

The BEST, best day!

Visiting my DREAM JOB of putting sleeves (or collars, in this case) on Oleana sweaters in the Oleana factory (video here) outside of Bergen, Norway!

There are big machines like this:

But I probably would be better suited to the smaller hand machines.

And, the beer sweater . . .

Sogn Fjord Bunad

During sjonaleister class, we had a little outing to Bergen Husfliden. In the window were several examples of men's and women's bunad dress. Our teacher, Hege-Theresa, gave us a "tour" and talked of the costumes to our class.

Of interest to me was the costume for Sogn Fjord, the larger region where my family emigrated from Norway through Canada to southern Wisconsin.














The small inverted "v's" and loops represent the mountains and water of the Sogn Fjordan region.
















And, there was more good food to look at and eat from Godt Brod baked goods store.

More on the (Sjonaleistar) Beautiful Socks

The inside of the sjonaleistar sock cuff looks like this:














And, knitting the sjonaleistar on size 0000 needles looks like this:














The street on the way to class in Bergen was a "textile street" with these welcoming little flags:

SJONALEISTAR

In Bergen, I attended a course to make this sock:

The sock, SJONALEISTAR (means "beautiful sock"), is a traditional Norwegian knit sock using a twined knitting technique for the cuff, and top. The twining results in the knits and purls looking like a rich braid and makes a dense, unyielding cuff fabric.

The socks were traditionally worn for special occasions (i.e., weddings, feasts and funerals). I particularly
enjoyed the "feasts" as each morning in the hotel, we have breakfast--a feast.

We ate at Wayne's Coffee (Sweden's Starbuck's) with our friend in Uppsala. This is my meal. Pasta with tomato sauce, yummy side of fresh lettuce, tomatoes, onions and cucumbers with some dressing and cheese. Under the pasta is a huge serving of cream cheese and feta. The bread was dark, moist and had more cream cheese/feta to spread on it!














And, then flew to Bergen, Norway.














And, Flybussed to the city.

Yarn Shop

My favorite yarn shop in Sweden is Yll o Tyll.

They have yarn:














A nice place for My Husband to sit:














And, a nice door stop:

Sweden Candy

I love this about Sweden!

Barista

When traveling to Uppsala, I have one cafe destination in mind. Until I eat at Barista, I do not feel like I have arrived! We got a small sandwich to go . . . all very ecological (wooden silverwares) and recycled paper goods.

I asked the young girl about the bulgar salad. She gave me the information on the note for making it. Gurkmeja is tumeric. The salad is bulgar, red onion, cucumber, chick peas, etc. with some arugula.

Mmmmm.

Uppsala, SE

We left Gavle early on a Saturday morning to visit Uppsala. Upon check-in at our hotel, we quickly made our way here, to the loppis:

and bought this (and more!):


The striped shirt is a hand-made work-style shirt that fits perfectly. It had a funky smell, but that is gone with the washing. In the background, a woven house-rug and the brown-brown is a skirt.

Linen

On Sandwich Day, when visiting friends in Bollnas, we took a small trip to a flax/linen factory (here: http://www.vaxbolin.se/). As the factory workers were on their lunch break, we got a small self-guided tour of the machines and fiber. And we did love the barrels of linen!

The factory store was full of goodies--table goods, fabric pieces, YARN, buttons, post cards, etc.!

We spent our first days in Gavle, SE. Upon arrival, it was rainy and cold and a long walk to our hotel from the train. We found a warm coffee and sandwich shop, then more waiting for our hotel. The following days were sunny and had just-right temperatures for walking around. We found this:

And, this:

Sitting Around

While waiting (long, long, longly waiting) for the plane from Chicago to Stockholm, I went to the window at the gate to take this picture (below). I met this woman (http://mariasgarnhandelser.blogspot.com/).


She had some glorious knitting in her lap. I could not resist an inquiry. We talked about knitting and waiting and Ravelry.

Sandwich Day

We have spent the last two weeks tromping around Sweden and in Bergen, NO. One of our stops in Sweden was a nice little sandwich shop (near Bollnas, SE). The sandwiches were heavenly and the company of friends matching the sandwiches (heavenly, also)! The sandwich cafe had a little accompaniment bar with some mystery red sprouts (beet root). They were just pretty!