MACRAME PLANT HANGERS

I love knitting and crochet, and I really enjoyed my weaving project, so is anyone surprised that I tried macrame and loved that too?

Honestly, I don't know why i haven't tried macrame before haha. It's such a satisfying craft. So much so that in pretty much the same sitting, I ended up making another project too (which I'll probably share later), and I have so many ideas for other macrame projects I want to try. I mean, I literally went to bed that night and ended up dreaming about macrame. I'm also a little bit sad that I already own a hammock--what an amazing macrame project that could have been! I want to macrame everything.

To make these, I used wooden rings leftover from my fabric teethers, some old t-shirt yarn and tutorials and techniques I found on pinterest. The t-shirt yarn is actually leftovers from an abandoned project years ago. Anyone remember this knitted poof project? Yeah, it ended up as a bit of a ufo, just lying around waiting for me to get the motivation to finish it, before I eventually admitted to myself that it just wasn't happening and that it was time to unravel it. And by then, Graeme had actually bought a very similar poof for Oscar's nursery anyway. But yay for reusing old materials in new projects, and not just going out to get more craft supplies every time a creative whim strikes! That might be my goal for next year actually, to only do projects using stuff I already have. Should be doable with all the craft materials I'm hoarding!

Here they are hanging in their natural habitat. Have you tried any new crafts that you've ended up absolutely loving recently?

DUBLIN PHOTO BOOK

I'm loving my ever-growing collection of photo albums, and this is my latest addition. I have a long to do list of photo books I plan on making, and I finally sat down last yaer and finished up this one from when Graeme and I went on a trip to Dublin back in 2012 (which feels like a lifetime ago!).

Photo books are probably my favorite way of preserving memories, and I love how flipping through this takes me right back to that little trip. All these little memories come flooding back; like struggling to find vegetarian food for Graeme (he was still a vegitarian back then!); getting caught out by snow and seeking shelter by going to watch the Hunger Games at the movies; sitting in a pub in Temple Bar where some girl was singing Sinaed O'Connor covers and thinking, yup, we are definitely in Ireland. :)

Like the Athens album, this one was also printed in a softcover (I ordered them both at the same time), and I'm still not really sure if I like that or not. This is also a relatively short album, and I feel the softcover just kinda makes it feel even less substantial? I dunno. I'll probably order a hardback next time. And I'm probably also totally overthinking this haha. One day, when I have a whole library full of these, I doubt I'll actually care.

Looking through these albums always get me so excited about travel (even though we just came back from a trip haha). Anyone off to anywhere exciting any time soon? We have a few loose plans that I think we need to finalize pronto!

TJUKKLUA - COZY HATS

It's been feeling really summery around here and we've been spending all our time outside in the sunshine, but hey, I decided to knit some super cozy and warm hats! We do live in Norway after all, so I wouldn't be surprised if we got to use them before the summer is over.

I knitted the first one a while ago. Graeme and I have this kinda weird tradition of celebrating our own Valentines day on the 14th of March rather than the 14th of February. The reason for this is basically that my birthday is on Valentine's Day and about a decade ago I was complaining about this. "How about we celebrate Valentine's Day a month later?" he suggested. "Ok!" I said, excited. Since then, Graeme has routinely surprised me with a romantic gift on the 14th of March every year. And I say surprised, because I've obviously forgotten about it every single year, even that first year. This is literally the first year I haven't spent the 14th of March frantically running around some shops trying to find a last minute gift. And wouldn't you know, this was also the first year Graeme forgot!

And I know I just knitted Graeme a hat, but it went down so well I decided to knit him another. I actually knitted it right in front of him, over a weekend we spent at the cabin. "What are you knitting?" he asked. "A sweater." I lied. "Ah ok," he said and continued talking. Not sure how he didn't realize that the hat wasn't sweater shaped in the slightest. Just shows how much he pays attention to my knitting projects! Ha!

I used this pattern from Drople Design, that I bought along with skeins of Hillesvåg Blåne wool. It's a lovely wool, chunky and cozy and soft, and the resulting hat is like a hug for your head. It's super simple and quick to knit, which is always fun break when you're working on a bigger knit project. I've already knitting another one in navy that I think I might just keep for myself, but I can easily see myself making more of these!

CURRENTLY IN MAY

Getting back into your routines after being on holiday for a month is no joke! I'll probably post about our giant American road trip soon, but for now I decided I'd post one of these status reports to ease myself back in. So here's whats going on around here:

enjoying being home again after our trip! I was pretty worried I'd be feeling those post-holiday blues pretty hard when we got home, and I started feeling it a bit when we got to Palm Springs as that was our last stop before we went home. But so far I've actually really been enjoying being in our home, cooking and slowly getting back into routines.

celebrating both Oscar's 2nd birthday and the 17th of May this month, which is the Norwegian constitution day! We have Graeme's family visiting and looking forward to celebrating with everyone and eating as much cake as possible!

working on our garden this month. Our garden is kind of one giant flower bed with a patch of grass, and I've been feeling pretty overwhelmed by it since we moved in. So our main goal is to simplify it a bit, and one of the things we're working on is turning some of those flower beds into a bigger patch of grass. We're also adding a sandbox and hoping this will mean that Oscar has a nice space to play in the garden. We're almost there!

reading Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey and Macbeth by Jo Nesbø. Making headway on my 2018 reading goal, 11 out of 24 read.

eating outside as often as we can, weather permitting. Our garden furniture is out and BBQ season is here!

planning a couple projects that I hope to at least get started on this month. I'm already a bit behind on my 12 projects of 2018, and I've been struggling a bit with inspiration recently. Time to get back on it!