Summer Slippers

Hard to live without! :)

Great Tools …

are half the work, my dad has always said! And I will say it also applies to us women, so I’ve bought a new iron:
Although I never wish for practical things (besides small practical things from the jeweller), I simply had to own this and since it was discounted to half price this week, I rushed to the shop and invested about 65 dollars.

It has THREE metres fabric cord (when have you last owned something with a fabric cord?), it has FOUR steam settings, steam shot and vertical steam, it has a spray function, double anti-lime function … and it is PINK! The perfect iron! I tried it yesterday on one of my new Chinese silk kimonos, and everybody knows that silk is not much fun ironing, but it is almost a pleasure ironing with my new pink dream.

Sorry, for sounding like a commercial, but I’m so excited!
Well I have to run … gotta iron. Wishing you all a lovely weekend. :)

In Love with a Dress

I am in love with a dress, in fact so much that I HAVE to own it in all three colours (powder, red and black):
I can wear the light powder coloured this Summer, but also all Winter with a coloured cardigan. The red one will be a favourite for all the Christmas parties, and of course I have a pair, or several, red shoes. The black one will be my “little black dress”, as all the magazines say you have to own, many years ahead.

The dresses are from the new H&M catalogue and cost approx. 40 dollars, so I can afford all three – especially considering I have my clothes for ages! I like to say that I want to be out of fashion, because I have my own style. I love the fifties and most of my style is taken from that era, and also a little from the late forties. I always wear dresses or skirts, and only own two pairs of jeans, which normally are used in the garden or while cleaning in the weekends. I buy my clothes second hand, at sales and from H&M, so I’m not expensive to run. The fun thing is that I always get a lot of compliments, so I must be good at matching my items. In fact I haven’t bought any new clothes for the last five years, but this Spring H&M had a lot of my style, so finally mum got new clothes. A.o. this lovely dress, which I also own in three different colours:

And a few items from the Autumn catalogue will also be added to my wardrobe. Brands doesn’t interest me at all, I prefer several nice dresses to choose from than one very expensive. And I also want to save for my next vintage car. :)

Staycation

I'm home from my vacation.
In fact I've been since Sunday, but the weather has been way to good to sit in front of the computer. Instead I've been sitting in my lovely vintage garden swing and knitted, yep, knitted!
I've been a bit dizzy of the heat and haven't had energy for anything else than relaxing in the shadow. 25 degrees celsius and cloudy weather is fine with me, but I will not complain about our rare Danish Summer weather.

I finished my bolero-shawl in less than two weeks during my vacation, and I am VERY proud of myself. I will try to remember to shoot af photo of it, but it is exactly alike this, just mixed grey tones:
It is really nice and I'm very fond of it.

I've bought yearn for another cardigan, dark red, which I miss in my collection - it was my SIL who lured, ahem. ;)

Well, back on track - "staycation", what is that for a thing? It is a contraction of the words "stay" and "vacation", meaning you spend your vacation at home. Definately a financial crisis trend, which we have practised for years without knowing there was a smart word for it.

11 years ago I got my the greatest gift of my life - a Summer cottage at the Isle of Moen. And since vi are so priviliged to own a cottage at one of the best beaches in Denmark, we decided we simply had to use it. So I decided that every second year we should spend our vacations at our cottage, because only going abroad every second year is fine with me.

If you want to read the story about how I got my nice little cottage, click here.
I hope your vacations have been fabulous too! :)

PAUSE

I wish you all a lovely Summer holiday!

Brave!

I’ve become brave – I’ve started crocheting!
Yes I know, this might not seem something special for many of you, but to me it is.

My SIL had crocheted some really nice cakes (yes, cakes) for her daughter, and she taught me to crochet them too (a true achievement). That is, I’ve always known the most used stitches, but I cannot figure out a pattern and patience is not one of my virtues. I don’t have much time neither, which you might have guessed due to the low update frequency here on my blog. But I discovered that I relaxed when I took a few "laps" after work. Since DH was so nervous about our house being drowned in crocheted cakes I had to find something else to make and went to the local yarn-pusher. I told her I'm a crocheting-novice and asked for a really easy pattern, she suggested this top (which I crochet in white):

I have many times asked myself if that shell-pattern was such a good idea, but I'm almost done - and I'm VERY proud of myself.

But it doesn't end here. Next project is to learn to knit. I've already bought yarn for this cardigan:
I know, it doesn't look especially pretty in the picture, neither the dishcloth-shape nor the bad-stomach-brown colour, but I saw it on a dress form in a shop and made a sudden braking. I simply had to own it. The shopowner had knitted it in a mixed grey yarn that was a little shiny - so lovely.

And I've also invested in yarn for this lovely shawl a few days ago - with the bad Summer we have here in Denmark I'm sure to use it a lot: I think it is so lovely and simple. I have bought furry yarn in mixed grey, since it matches all the colours in my wardrobe (and that is many!) and also looks good both Summer and Winter. Now it seems like I'm crazy about grey, but I'm not.

... and this is not going to be a knitting blog either.

Shopping - with a Clear Conscience

I have shopped ... with a clear conscience. Last week I got a magazine from the Danish Red Cross and saw this cool purse:
At first I thought that about 62 dollars was a little too much for a purse made of recycled paper, but rereading the text - then I suddenly considered it a really good buy:

"Handmade purse from Ecoist.
The purse is made from recycled Red Cross magazines. Every purse is unique and the purses are braided by poor women, who produces them at home or in small production units in e.g. Mexico and Peru. The purses are made at fair trade principles, and for every purse sold, two trees are planted.
Size: 190 x 100 x 450 mm
Danish Red Cross receives DKK 50 for every sold purse"

You can buy it at www.drk.dk/webshop. I don't know if it can be bought outside Denmark.

I'm looking very much forward to receiving my purse.