Forest bound

I love pine trees, pine needles, pine cones, pine bark.

...And the mittens keep growing fingers. I'm very fond of this mossy green dye. It's made from birch leaves.

Of lakes and forests

This is one of my last chances to post dreamy photos of lakes in forests, so let's grab the opportunity. In two weeks time, my summer vacation is over and I will move away from the forest for a while to become a resident of the little big city of Gothenburg - on the west coast. I don't mind the sea, but there's nothing like a swim on a still lake surrounded by a pine forest. Just sayin'.

Colour circles

I absolutely love it, the colour chart of vegetable dyes that my mum made back in the days. And apart from being just beautiful, it's also a great piece of documentation. It can be quite hard to get around to doing that sort of thing, but sooo rewarding. And useful. My mitten project wouldn't be what it is without these samples...

And then another color chart appeared in the sky. I'm very fond of how neatly organized it is, the rainbow.

A new collection

Not that I want to say that it will soon be winter or anything, but I have started knitting mittens again. I'm still using the original wool, even of most of the colours are now used up - except red, orange and the darkish pink. And some indigo I think.

But it won't end there. Some six months ago, I had a phone call from an old lady who had seen me talking mittens on the local news... Who offered me to buy all of her old vegetable dyed wool. Needless to say, I did. There were all sorts of wonderful dyes - moss, bilberry and rose for example. And due to some odd twist of faith, the street just outside her house was called Bergslagsgatan! (Meaning "mining district street" - there are actually one in each town in this part of Sweden.)

And along with some lovely new colours, I will also add... fingers! No offense to the fingerless mittens, but it just gets a little bit more classy, don't you think?

Last but not least, I recently started a Bergslagsgatan page on Facebook. Go there and like it!

Summer expeditions