Anniversary...

Today I went up Stoltzekleiven for the 10th time, AND I have shaved off half the time I used the first time to the top... I'm really proud of myself today (at least a little bit). All this has happened from april 21 and until today... A friend of mine and I have a plan.... We're going to have a mini anniversary every 10th time, just enough to keep us going. If you wonder what or where Stoltzekleiven is you can look at one of my older entries from 22 april 2012.

I keep forgetting.... The box!

I needed a box for my gift... I kept forgetting that until it was too late and I had to wrap it in paper... Well here's the box -and how to make it!

 

 

You can make this box in any shape you want, but I will recommend that you start with a square or rectangular box to learn how to do it. I have made triangular boxes, boxes shaped like letters etc...

 

You will need:

 

 

• Some thin cardboard for the box
• Nice, thin giftpaper to cover the outside and inside of the box with (not cellophane)
• A stick of glue (the strong type)
• Some chlothpegs
• Scissors
• Ruler (preferably 30cm or longer)
• Pencil
• Some medium thick paper (at least 80g/square meter) to make the pattern for your box

Size: I chose to make one that will be 10cm wide x15cm long and 5cm high.

Pattern: Here you can use any kind of solid paper.
Start by drawing a rectangle (10 x15 cm) in the middle of the paper, and make sure the corners are 90* exactly!! This will be the bottom of your box.

• Next you need to draw the sides, attached to the bottom. Make the sides 3 cm tall. Your drawing should now look like a "cross", see picture below.

Top at the left, bottom at the right side, at the bottom the strip that will make the inside that the lid wil rest on.

• Draw a new line 0.5cm from the top, parallell to the top of each of the sides. This is where the lining will stop.
• For the top of the box, make an equal pattern, but the sides will only be 2 cm tall.
• Draw a rectangular strip of cardboard that's 4 cm wide and 49,5cm long. This should fit inside the bottom half of the box when finished.
• Cut out the pattern and transfer it to the cardboard. Cut out the pieces from the cardboard.
• The thicker the cardboard you use the more important is this step! Take a long, straight ruler and place it from "one corner" to the next (NOT diagonally). Take your scissors and use the tip of it to "scratch" the surface of the cardboard. Do this on all four sides.
• Bend the sides along the scratched lines (bend away from the scratched side!!), so the short sides meet to form a corner.

Lining for the bottom and the lid: Cut the giftingpaper (here: silvercoloured) so that it covers the pattern, but only to the first of the parallell lines on the sides. Glue the paper to the "inside" of the box, using the glue stick.



Here you can see the silvercoloured paper for the lining glued to the green cardboard.

This picture also shows you how to draw the outer paper for the box, top and bottom half.

Outside of the box:  Cut the paper for the outside to fit the cardboard but add 1 cm to the edges  all the way around except the short sides of the largest rectangles. See previous picture!Use adhesive tape to secure the corners of the box, on both top and bottom half before proceeding to the next step.


Tape the corners using as little tape as possible ;0)

Apply glue to the backside of the giftingpaper for the top, all over the surface! Put the cardboard-top on the paper and smoothe the paper onto the cardboard. Pinch the corners and glue the tags from the small rectangel onto the large rectangle to keep the corners in shape. Glue the giftingpaper of the longest side over the tags.

 Wrap the edge of the giftingpaper over the edge of the cardboard all the way around. 
Make the bottom half in the same way.

The strip of cardboard you cut to fit on the inside of the box: Cut the giftingpaper large enough to cover the strip both on the front and backside.

Glue the cardboard to the backside of the giftingpaper and cover both sides of it with the paper. When the glue has dried bend the corners so it will fit snugly into the bottom half of the box. Remember to leave a few mm so the edges will overlap in one corner. It should look something like this ;0) It actually looke a little bit bigger than the box, but I assure you it fits inside the box.



Apply glue to the OUTSIDE of the strip of cardboard and put it inside the bottom half of the box. press the sides together so it makes a nice edge inside the box. Like this:

When you have finished the top and the bottom half of the box it should look something like this:

When the glue has dried (about 15 minutes) You can use the box as it is or you can decorate  it to suit your taste or what you want to put inside it. Before you put a lot of effort into decorating it further, make sure to try to fit the top and bottom together ;0)

Try to make one or two before you decide to change the design, just to learn the ropes of it. You can make almost any shape of box that you desire. Only remember that the larger the box is, the heavier your cardboard will need to be as well. GOOD LUCK! If you have trouble, please let me know and I'll try to help you!





Point of no return....

Long time noe see...
I've been quite busy since my last entry in this blog. Walking? Definitively! Been up Stoltzekleiven several times And been for a walk to Blåmanen and Rundemanen.. As a result of this my little companion, Poppy, got injured and "mom" was quite hysterical.
We vere heading for a nice, long sundaywalk from Fløien and everything was fine. First the weather changed as soon as we peered out from the entrance at the funicular. Thunder, -are we about to turn around and head for home? Nope! We're going!
Going from Fløien to "Brushytten"  is quite steep and I only had to stop shortly twice to stretch my back a little. Progress, Yeayy! After a waffel (Poppy ate 2/3 of it) and some rest we went on towards Blåmanen.

Almost at the top of Blåmanen, you can see part of Bergen and the mountain "Ulriken" -the highest of the 7 mountains around Bergen.

Shortly from the top of the mountain I tell one of my friends "I wonder if I should put Poppy in my backpack for a while, she looks a little tired". They tell me we're only a short walk from the peek of the mountain so I decided to wait until we reach the top. Then disaster strikes! I'm stepping on a row of stones with Poppy just in front of me. I'm putting my leg forward stepping on the next stone when something spooks Poppy and she moves her little leg to the left under the stone I'm stepping on to. The stone tilts as I step on it and it smacks right down on her foot. SQUEEEEEK!!!!!! I could feel the chill running up and down my spine as I tried to get a grip on the dog so I could take a look at the damage, I COULD SEE BLOOD! Oh My God!!! My friend told me later "I never thought there could be so much sound in such a little dog!" I just tore off her wind- and waterproof jacket to get a better look at the damage, she wouldn't thread on her foot, was it broken? crushed?, torn off? -every possible disaster washed through my head at this point.
I put her in my backpack and we headed for civilsation again. We decided it would be better  to continue the walk as this would probably be shorter than heading back the way we came up. After a while I stopped to check on the patient - my poor little sweetie! No, she wouldn't put much weight on the foot yet.....

This picture is taken at the same spot as the previous, but here you can see more of the mountain Ulriken.

Coming back to Fløien about an hour later I took her out of the backpack to check on her again, this time she tries to put some weight on her foot. Phew! Red alert goes down to orange level... Still I felt the need for a vet. Sunday = no vet for this kind of injury... Monday morning is soooo far away. First thing after work on monday I pick up Poppy at home and brings her  to our regular vet who could tell me that I've been very, VERY lucky! Most probably, no broken bones! She probably "just" got pinched by the stone... Got some painkillers for her to speed up recovery. So hopefully, we are ready for Løvstakken may 26th.

Finally at the top, just had time for one snapshot heading for town....The view is citycentre,  Askøy and Sotra.

Walking up one mountain and down another...

May 1th I went for a walk again, this time it was  at "Damsgårdsfjellet" (344 moh). First of all: I've discovered that I really love to go for long walks in the mountains.  I'm enjoying the nature, breathing more easily, getting away from the city and all the noise there and last but not least being able to think.
Now I have walked four of the seven mountains surrounding my city. Proud of myself? Oh, yes I am! This time we followed a small trail (suited for goats only) to the top. It was pretty steep. After a rest at the top we desided to take another route back to the civilisation, down Holafjellet. This is in the opposite direction of the 7-mountains walk.
I still haven't gotten to the point of making the box for my present, but I'll get there as soon as I'm not so busy. For the time being I'm struggeling to do everything I need to do instead of what I want to do.

Miracles still happens!

Yesterday I was up for the biggest test ever! If I could pull this one off, anything is possible!!
After posting a status on facebook in early march, about a particularly wet and rainy walk around "Store lungegårdsvann" we had a lot of fun with the comments. The comments resulted in one of my friends planning this little walk for a group of friends. I would never in a million years believed someone who told me  that I voluntarily would walk up the stairs of Stolzekleiven also known as the Worlds steepest run!  It's not a long walk, only 910 meters long but it has a height difference of 313,5 metres and it has 801 steps. The amount of lactic acid building up in your muscles is terrible. 
The old, official record for this run is 8 minutes 9 seconds. I used 1 hour and 10 minutes, but you have never seen a prouder face than mine when I got to the top! Best reward I got was the rest of the group cheering for me the last part up to the "Sandvikspilen".  The group counted 20 people when we started, and every single one of us got to the top! So, now I can proudly tell everyone that I 've "been there, done that!"

Me showing the photographer true joy over being ALMOST at the top, only 60 meters left to walk;0)

Now I'll go back to my tablecloth and sew som more, only 5 days to go before I need it finished.

The second mountain...

Th second mountain.... Lyderhorn (397 meters above sealevel)
This mountain has been said to have been an important gatheringpoint for witches on Walpurgis, at Midsummer and at Christmas. Lyderhorn is the most western mountain of the seven mountains surronding the city of Bergen. It's said to be relatively easy to climb. Unfortunately my back wasn't "on my team" for this trip, so I couldn't finish, I only came up to the Kvarven fort from WWII... There will be another shot at climbing this mountain later this summer :0)
This weekend I was supposed to be doing some embroidery on the tablecloth intended as a present for Sofie's confirmation. It's huge, for a dinnertable -with Hardanger embroidery covering the whole center of it. I started this embroidery on another journey about two years ago, on the train to Oslo when I was visiting a friend. At that time there were lots of Japanese tourists on the train and they stopped in the aisle to look at what I was doing. At this time I wanted to make the tablecloth for myself, but I found out it was of the wrong size for my dining table. Certainly I should have checked the measurements for my table, but I forgot to do that.  Anyway, the invitation for the confirmation showed up in my mailbox and I thought this could be the perfect chance to finish this work. But, I'm always out walking, up and down mountainsides or around different lakes and ponds. I still have a lot to do before the tablecloth is finished! So I'll have to let my fingers do the walking this time...

This is 1/3 of the main pattern, finished. This was the easy part, now I have to do it twice more... Not so fun.

Here you can see the whole pattern, but only the first part is finished. Now I'm working on the last 1/3 of the pattern, sewing all those irritating, little 8th's that take so long  time to finish. I really hope I'm able to finish it in time...

Latest progerss report is that I still have to finish 2 of the squares surrounding the middle square to fill with the 8th's, and only one absolutely busy week to finish it. Not looking too good.
I need a box to put it in too.... I think I'll have to buy one this time. So much to do and so very little time ;0)7

FINALLY!!

I finished it today!!! The hem is made with hand-stitched corners. Here's my last picture of the tablecloth, so you can see it's a large piece of work.... It's going to take some time before I start another :0) Just for your information: In this picture I haven't had the time to wash and iron the tablecloth yet...

This might be an interesting journey!

I've been thinking of publishing this blog for some time. Many years ago I started writing a book about crafts and hobbies, but I never got quite serious about it. Now I'm embarking on a new journey with this in mind, together with you!
The starter of this particular journey was my desire to get som new friends since most of my very good friends had moved to other parts of the country. One consequence of this is that I've met a lot of nice, interesting and good hearted people that I love to spend time with. Along this prosess I've been persuaded by some of them to walk up (and down again :-) ) all the seven mountains that surround my city. Walking all of them in one go is considered the ulitmate manhood test where I live. For the "not so brave" ones there is a possibility to walk just four of them. I will walk them one at the time!
The first mountain was "Rundemanen" (568 meters above sealevel) and I had no idea of what I could expect. But I was told it was ok to bring my little dog, Poppy. Poppy is a chineese crested, so I thought this is a long walk, but it can't be too hard. I started to think I would like something else than a collar for my dog if she's to walk this far. Her neck is so thin and her skin so sensitive, I was afraid she would develop blisters  and that she would injury her neck since she's pulling quite hard on the leash... Yeah I know, I should teach her to walk properly on the leash! (That's another project).
So my first project became a harness for my dog!
Poppy's back is very long, and she's very skinny so nothing I've tried on her fits properly.
So, I went to the store and got my materials, thinking it would be cheaper than buying the ready stuff from the pet store, Oh'boy was I wrong....



Materials for the harness.

I chose to use denim for the outer shell of the harness, and some light cotton fabric for the lining. From the start I had a plan of making it a little "Hello Kitty" harness, but I wasn't quite sure of how that would turn out since Poppy is quite small.  At least I had materials for at least two pieces if the first attempt wasn't good... I also bought some pink and red bias tape to close the edges of the fabric with. For thread I chose the extra strong type for denim, I didn't want the harness to unravel on the top of the mountain







First step cutting the fabric. Previous to this I had made a pattern I thought would fit her quite well.
As you can see I've cut one piece of denim and one of light blue cotton. I've also made a strip to cover the base I used to strengthen the hold for the ring in the back of the harness.
One change I made later was to trim off the excess material in order to use the bias tape.

First attempt... I thought this collar was too bulky so I went looking in my storage cabinet  to search for some nicer fabric to use for the collar...

One hour later: This is a keeper!

The "skirt". I have a fundamental idea that my dog are not supposed to wear "human clothes". What she's wearing should be comfortable for her, and it should have a puropose! But, I couldn't resist the attempt to make this look like a cute little dress for her.

Almost there! Now I just have to close the bias tape and sew the edge to the fabric. I did this on the sewingmachine to get a stronger seam, even though I prefer to sew it by hand.
To finish this I put some broad velcroband on the front and on the strap going under her belly, making sure there was no pointy corners coming out to irritate her skin.

Finished! I'm quite content with the result, but I realized this would be no good for a long walk in the mountains... So, I had to make another, a little bit simpler. This time it would be very easy since I had already made all the mistakes with the first one!

This is "mom's little supermodel" seen in her new creation from the side. It's the first time ever she's been wearing a harness so she's a little bit timid, looking at me for some comfort :-)





The final result we used on the trip was this one without the skirt and collar. She moved beautifully in it and didn't pull on her leash as much as normal. Iwas pleased with her reaction, and the both of us were worne out from the trip.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this as  much as I have enjoyed writing it. If you like this blog I would like to see a comment from you. See you when I'm coming home from the trip to the second mountain.