Decorating our house in Normandy

I'm back home in Duluth after a wonderful year of traveling and posting on my travel blog, I am settling in back at home again. I've done some knitting this year, but this post is going to be about the decorating I did in our house in Normandy. While we were there in May and June this year we converted our empty attic space into a bedroom. I posted lots of pictures of that project on my travel blog. (link on right)

I decided it made more sense to post these pictures here, because this is really more about my decorating hobby than about travel.

This is how we left the attic:

 

We did find some light fixtures that were the right color and inexpensive, so we installed two hanging lamps with plastic shades. The name of our company that owns the property is RS Property in France, thus the R and the S. Also we had two pieces of plywood cut to fit the tops of the little end tables, so now they will support lamps and other things.  Those lamps are too small, but they came with the house, so we had to put them somewhere.

We bought that little stool at a Conforama, where we've bought other items for the house.  We assembled it. Conforama is a lot like IKEA, but a smaller store. I can't quite reach the skylights to open and close them, so the stool is helpful for that.

 

 

 

 

 

The futon can be folded down into a double bed. It also came with the house, but with an ordinary mattress, so we didn't realize it was a convertible sofa until we finished this room.  This space makes a nice spot to sit and read when it's not nice enough or light enough to be outside.

Nothing in this corner yet.  I measured the window and may make a curtain for it to take over next time we go.

 

The bathroom on this floor.  The pictures hanging there are ones that came with the house.  I just moved them into this room.

 

If you saw the attic renovation pictures on the other blog, you saw this window, which was removed from the attic.  I painted it and we put it over the mantel in our bedroom. As I think you can see the fireplace has been blocked off. Someone must have had a wood-burning stove in it at one time.  And it is off center in the section of wall that protrudes.  It was very weird-looking.  I thought about it for a long time and finally decided to try painting it like this to sort of accent the asymmetry instead of trying to hide it or ignore it. I haven't decided what to do with the rest of the walls.  They all have a textured paper on them, that is very hard to paint.

 

Another note about the fireplace: One day Jim was working in this room. His desk is here, though it doesn't show in the photos.  He started hearing a lot of scratching in the fireplace and realized a bird was trapped in there.  It became clear the bird was not going to find its way out without help, so  we closed the doors, opened the window and then cautiously opened the panel at the bottom of the fireplace.  It wouldn't open more than a couple inches, but I knew that would be enough.  The bird ducked under and flew out the window before we barely had a chance to see what it was.  It was a Choucas. A grey/black bird that nests in chimneys.

 

One more photo showing the bed and window.  Jim's desk is just on the right here. Those canvas and wood clothes storage units also came with the house.  Some day we would like to replace them, but for now they serve the purpose. The bird prints were in the other bedroom, but they seemed to go in here, so we moved them. You can't tell in the photo, but the mats are teal-colored.

 

Because this is a Rosemaling blog, I'll include another photo of the panel I painted to hide the very ugly fireplace in the living room. We finally got it hung.

And this photo shows the front window and door. I bought those drapes from Country Curtains and took them over with me in my luggage. I think they suit the room. I couldn't find anything with such a traditional or old-fashioned print in France.  Not that there is a lot of selection near us in rural Normandy.  But everything I saw was either solid color or very modern.

The house has another bedroom and bathroom, but they are just functional and not decorated, so no photos of those spaces just now.

 

Technorati Tags: Normandy house,decorating,painting,repurposing a window

A test and some rosemaling

          I just wrote a post for this blog to be posted on April 29. At least I hope it will be.  It is the last one for the Knitting and Crochet Blog Week.  I will be out of town that week, so decided to do all my posts for the week ahead of time and schedule them to be posted that week.  I have never done this scheduling thing before.  The first post I uploaded and then scheduled on the blogspot site, but then I discovered that Windows Live Writer has a scheduling feature.  This is the program I use to write my posts, mainly because it is easy and when I hit "publish" the post and all related pictures get published all at once.  I don't have to do the pictures separately. But I have never used this feature and want to see if it really works, so I am now making a test post. 

          Since this week of blogging is related to knitting and crochet, I thought my test post ought to relate to rosemaling. There aren't many rosemaling blogs out there.  As opposed to hundreds or thousands? of knitting and craft blogs. There are at least two good reasons for this. A) there are more knitters and crafters than there are rosemalers. (needs citation) and B) Knitters and crafters tend to be younger and more tech-savvy than rosemalers.

           In my google search this blog came up on the 3rd page. Most of the results are either professional sites of professional rosemalers and teachers, organizations or just a mention of rosemaling on a blog that covers a variety of topics. One rosemaler who blogs about a variety of topics has left comments on this blog. Her blog is at Forestwoodfolk.

          I'm not sure the world of rosemaling needs more rosemaling blogs, though.  Are there enough rosemalers out there looking for inspiration and or tips through blogs? probably not.  Be sure to let me know if you think otherwise.

          What is rosemaling?   Well, here is one description.  I have to agree with this pretty much.  I wrote it, so I should. If you want to see some examples check the Gallery on that site.  Most of those pictures are done by amateurs, though there are a few done by teachers, who are professionals. All the photos are mine.

          And now here are just a few photos of my work that I haven't published here before.

 

 

 

 

These are done on paper with acrylic paints, my preferred media. 

 

Okay that's it for this test post.  I will schedule it to appear in two days or on April 18th, 2012.

Technorati Tags: rosemaling

Rosemaling fit for a King?

Specifically the King of Norway.  I've been asked to paint a panel to by hung at  Norway Hall in downtown Duluth. They are sprucing up for the King's visit. So I have been painting this for the King Of Norway. He is expected to visit Duluth on October 17th.

 

So here is my panel.  It is one of 4 being done in different styles by 4 rosemalers in our local rosemaling society, The Twin Ports Rosemaling Society. 

 

I think the colors are truer in this one, but the glare is worse. I wish I knew how to get rid of the glare when photographing rosemaling.

And here are a couple early photos that I took before it was finished.

My rosemaling teacher was originally chosen to do this panel in the Telemark style, but she is facing cataract surgery and called me a few weeks ago and asked me to do it.  I was honored.  Mine is certainly not as nice as what she would have done, but I hope it will brighten up the Norway hall.

Some more rosemaling

Here are a few sketches I did last spring in class.

These two are basically the same design, but with different colors.

And then the mangletre that I painted in the class I took last week.

 

 

I really had no idea that I was painting in the same colors as the sketch I had done in class 3 months ago.  I have a place to hang this at home next to the cupboard where I keep my iron.  Do you know what a mangletre is?  It's Norwegian.

 

 

 

Setesdal pullover and some doodling with paint

I'm going to try to update this blog once a month.  So here goes for February.

KNITTING

I started a Norwegian style pullover early in January.   My knitting group at my local yarn store decided to all do Norwegian sweaters starting in January.  Since this fits right in with my resolution for 2010, I thought this was a good time to start a Setesdal style sweater.  I've wanted to do one of these for a long time, but was waiting until I felt my 2-color knitting was up to the task.

Here is what I have of it so far. It's going pretty quickly.  I'm sticking to the very simple, basic Norwegian shaping, which is very little.  More modern Norwegian and Dale designed sweaters are much more complicated than this, but I decided to see how this would go with very little structure. I'm not adding steek stitches, but will cut at the sides for the armholes and at the neck for the neck opening. It will have a placket.

This is the body and lower part of the sleeve.  I'm ready to start the patterning at the top of the sleeve.  I pulled designs from Setesdal Sweaters, by Annemor Sundbo, and made up my own pattern from there.  The traditional Setesdal sweaters, which are named after the valley of Setes in Norway, were worn by men and had embroidered wool fabric cuffs and plackets.  I'm not going to do the wool fabric.  I want this to be a comfortable everyday sweater to wear in the Duluth winters.  There is some more information on my Ravelry page.

 

ROSEMALING

I signed up for another class in Rosemaling. It meets one day a week for 8 weeks. It started yesterday.  I didn't have a project to work on, so spent the time doodling on paper.  Here is what I did.

And here:

I was just trying to get back into the feel of handling the brushes and thinking about my designs.  I practiced with a round brush, a filbert and a liner.

Alpaca raglan sweater and a new plate

I've been both knitting and rosemaling this month.  Someone asked me to paint a plate for his wife for Christmas.  I agreed with some reservations, but the plate is finished and I'm glad I did it. It didn't take as long as I thought it would and it got me back into rosemaling again, before I put the paints away for the holidays.  It was good to get that table cleared off finally this morning.

So first, here is the current state of the Alpaca sweater. 

I bought several skeins of Alpaca in April 2008. The seller had a lovely scarf done in grey, tan and natural.  I wanted to use those colors, but for some reason I bought black, two shades of grey, 2 shades of brown and the tan and natural. Then the next year I bought some more, because I didn't think I had enough to do a complete sweater and it was too much for a scarf and hat.  (These are undyed. They are the color of the animal.)

I did a gauge swatch last year thinking I might use it for the Ivy League vest, but decided not to. When I started again this fall, I did another gauge swatch, and this time tried a color pattern I found in a book by Alice Starmore.  I liked that, so started the sweater out that way.  The part that is below the armholes is the pattern from her book with a wider area of natural.  But at that point I realized I didn't have enough of those colors to finish the sweater and would have to incorporate at least one more color. So I added in the brownish-grey. At this point I used the construction method of the Dale of Norway Sapporo raglan sweater that I did a few years ago. I liked how easily that one went together and it is comfortable.  It's a bit tricky getting the first rows and the decreases going right, so it's easier if the pattern is simple-thus the plain stripes. Now I am hoping I'll have enough of the light tan/beige to finish the yoke. If I do it will be just plain from here on. If I have to add in another color--well I'll cross that bridge when I get there-if I have to.

And second, here is the plate I just painted.  It's 18", so one of the biggest I've done.  I needed to talk to my teacher about pricing and discovered Friday that she was teaching that day, so I went in to the class. I've missed several classes over the years I've taken from her and she has always said I could make them up any time, so I knew it would be okay to show up for the last class of the year. 

It was helpful to have her advice for finishing the plate and she also helped with some of the outer linework. I really need to practice that more, so I can do it myself.  I'm going to make a New Year's resolution to paint more next year.  The design in this plate is inspired by one by Marlys Hammer, from whom I took a class last year.

This is probably my last post here before the holidays.

 

So Happy Holidays to all!! 

 

See you in 2010!  We are going to have to think when we write the date next year and stop before we put 2 zeros down.  I'll bet most people will be writing 200 and then squeezing a 1 in between the 00's. 

Three more finished projects and a new one.

I think I need to come up with better titles for my posts--next time.

So it's been a busy month. I've been working on a number of things, but I do have some photos of finished knitting projects, so I'll start with those.

Here's a shawl I started in Indiana in July. Jim dropped me off in West Lafayette at my mom's after the family reunion and drove home. I forgot to get my knitting bag out of his car, so had to buy a new project. I bought this at River Knits, the yarn shop in Lafayette. The repetitive nature of this pattern made it a good one for traveling.

Then I picked up this twisted rib and cable pullover that I had started last winter and put aside for most of the summer. I had the back and sleeves done, so did the front and put it together and here it is.

It hasn't been cool enough to wear it yet. We've had a very pleasant and warmer than normal month of September. Today it is cooling off though, so perhaps soon. I did wear the shawl once.

 

And this one is finally almost finished. I am putting on the 5 coats of polyurethane now. I'm using the same stuff we used on our floor earlier in the year. I did the border and then "antiqued" it by wiping a little yellow ochre all over it. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out and am trying to decide where I can use it.

And I am currently working on a new pullover using yarn I bought in St. Paul in April. I got 8 balls of this Sublime on sale at Borealis Yarns. It is so soft. It's merino and silk, I think. I should check that I guess. I just love working with this yarn. This pattern is going very quickly. I now have 7 1/2 diamonds finished, but I took the picture a few days ago when it wasn't so far along. It will have long sleeves.

It's a top-down design (obviously). I found the free pattern on Ravelry. It has a little lace pattern at the side seams and the diamonds down the center. The rest is a 3 X 1 rib. The lace designs break up the monotony of the rib. I do the rib for a bit, then pay attention and do the lace pattern, then more rib, etc. It makes the rows seem to go by quickly. Also this is the first time in a long time that I have worked with yarn this heavy. It's a DK weight, which is a bit heavier than the sport wt, that I did the twisted cable sweater in.  Although I think all of these were done on #6 needles. 

You can find more details about these projects on my Ravelry projects pages.

I have also completed a sock, but since it's only one, it doesn't count as a finished project.

We are headed to Ghana October 20, so I may update my travel blog next with photos from Africa!

Well, that's my September update.

 

Oh wait, I was at our Scandinavian Fest on Saturday. I wore the merging colors vest and got lots of compliments on it, which was nice. But One woman looked at my nametag and recognized me from Ravelry!!  That's the first time that has happened. I know people in real life who are also on Ravelry, but this is the first time anyone at a non-knitting event recognized my name (and possibly the vest) as someone she'd seen on Ravelry.

Two nearly FO's -- One Rosemaling!

I attended a two-day class in rosemaling taught by VGM Irene Lamont of Eau Claire, WI. last Thursday and Friday. I practiced for several days before the class, because I hadn't done any rosemaling since last summer or fall.

 

I have a couple photos of my unfinished floorcloth. I painted it in oils, which is the first time I've ever painted in oils. I have done all my rosemaling in acrylics before this. It was a little hard getting the paint to work on the canvas and it was an adjustment for me getting used to working in oils. I can't say now that I like them better than acrylics, but I can see that for some applications and styles they would work better.  With more practice I could get used to them.

Here is what the floor cloth looks like now. After it is thoroughly dry I'll "antique" it and paint a border.

 

And the other nearly Finished Object is my merging colors Strickwear vest. I have completed the 4 pieces. They just need to be seamed together and then a border knit on the neck and bottom edges. I'm amazed at how the two backs came out the same size even though one is knit on the diagonal. This pattern is well written.

Okay, I have to pack now. We leave Wednesday for our trip to Indiana , Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. These two projects will sit until I get back mid-July.

Two rosemaled plates

Just to mix things up a bit I am adding some photographs of a couple plates I rosemaled. I painted these in classes, without any idea what I would do with them, but after getting them home realized that they were the right colors for my dining room. The red one is more recent. It is my own design.

The blue one below is older, done in the 2nd year that I was doing rosemaling, I think. It was done in a class and using a pattern by Judy Ritger, who does absolutely beautiful work. Mine doesn't come any where near doing her pattern justice. I changed the colors too. My painting is a bit better than this now and I ususally paint my own designs, but these are the two plates that are hanging in my dining room.

There now I have added some rosemaling to this blog, so the title makes more sense now. :-)

When the sweater reaches a point that is interesting again I'll add new pictures of it. for now I am plugging along on it.