kareina

Around 01:30 in the morning on Friday I got ready for bed, took off clothes, crawled into bed, looked out our bedroom window, which faces westward, and saw the Northern Lights! This is the first time I have ever seen them from a window in our house (and we have seen in them in our yard only once before, last winter). I woke up lord_kjar with my exclamation of delight, and he woke up enough to put on his glasses and look out the window, but not enough to join me in getting dressed and heading outside to see them properly. Poor boy (and all of the rest of you who weren't here), he missed out on a truly beautiful display.

I walked out onto our field and stood there on what is left of the icy white crust that used to be snow, casting shadows from the moon light and watched the lights dance in a wide band that filled the sky from a bit south of directly over my head to as far north as I could see, and stretching from the eastern to western horizons. It was stunning and magical, and I am certain I slept better (once I finally went back in, after their brilliance had faded to only thin wispy cloud-like hints at what had been) for having stayed up to watch them.

Saturday morning we decided to head into town. I wanted to buy some embroidery floss that goes with the tablet woven trim I am sewing to my new Viking style coat/kaftan, I wanted a zipper for the corset/like man-muscle thing we are making to change the shape of my curves for a Viking themed Lajv we will be playing in this summer--I will be playing a man's role, so want to look a bit less feminine in my tunic and trousers, and we have been needing more hand-soap, and the type we use isn't for sale in the grocery stores--one needs to go to an actual drug store. That added up to enough things to make it worth heading to town.

We decided to stop first at the second hand store to see if we could get lucky on the embroidery floss and zipper there. No luck on the floss--we did pick up some cotton embroidery floss there which will be fine for other projects, but they didn't happen to have any in wool. However, they had lots of zippers, so we picked up a handful, cheap. We also bought a large copper (tin lined) round box big enough to put in all of a left over cake without cutting it, a 6-volume leather bound hard cover set of 1001 nights (in Swedish, of course), a tiny hard cover book of the Book of Kells (in English), an extra embroidery hoop, a nice little bone awl suitable for making lacing holes, and some large bits of foam, all for not much money.

Then we went to the yarn shop, but it was closed because the owner was off at a sales convention. So we went to the other shop in town which carries yarn, and it turns out to always be closed Saturdays. So we checked the fabric. They don't carry embroidery floss.

So we gave up on that quest item, bought the soap at the drug store, and decided to go to the tip shop. There we found a large wooden clamp that was too cool to leave behind. I couldn't figure out how to describe it, so I asked google, and after several tries I found one of that sort for sale on line, they look like this (assuming the link lasts for any length of time). I also found a couple of blue glass mixing bowls that I couldn't live without. The larger of the two is bigger than my previous favourite glass mixing bowl, and has a nicer (deeper) shape, and the smaller one is just enough smaller than that previous favourite glass mixing bowl as to be perfect for mixing up small amounts of things (like one batch of home made noodles). I am very happy with the new bowls, they are a pleasure to use, and the beautiful dark blue colour is a huge bonus.

I am certain there was more I was going to write when I sat down, but I have used up my time--I need to get ready to head to Swedish Folk Dancing. Hope everyone else had a good weekend.