Christmas has moved into our yellow house by the station. Entering December means entering a month of expectations and cosiness, and a month that has a different pace to it. 

The Advent wreath is lit every Sunday afternoon, starting with one candle, and then lighting one more each Sunday. We usually sit around it with tea or hot chocolate, and have some nice family time.

Ronja’s Advent calendar is a pixie that’s hanging on the door to the living room. The pixie itself is from a Danish design company, called Maileg, and I altered it a little bit, by adding little brass rings to each pocket. I found that I could never make any of her presents fit into the tiny pockets, so I tied them to the rings instead. Which is ok actually, because I really like the way it looks this way. I try to make the presents look pretty – in my opinion half the joy of opening these presents, which are not very pricy at all, lie in the expectation, and the excitement of unwrapping – so the look, the feel, and the sound is important.

For Frida, as I mentioned earlier, I made a smaller Advent calendar with a present for each Advent Sunday. Her presents are kept in a small basket at the piano. They have little numbers on them, and Ronja helps her find the present with the right number.

We light the Advent candle every day to help us count down the days until the 24^th.

As you know I started working Monday. These past few workdays have left me feeling very tired in the evening, while at the same time uplifted, because I love to be learning. My new colleagues have been so nice to me, and everyone is really helpful and forthcoming, so I have every reason to be optimistic about the future. During next week, I’ll be spending two days on training in Newcastle, which I think will be pretty exciting. Mads is just getting used to his new role. Today he took Frida to “legestue” - I don’t know what the English word is, but it’s a place, you can go to with your child, if he or she is not in daycare. There are other children for Frida to play with, and other parents for Mads to talk to, and the way he has described it to me, it was great for Frida as well as himself. It’s a little bit strange, that he and Frida will be doing so much together that I have no part in, but that’s something I will have to get used to.

I’m writing this in the train on my way home, and it’s snowing outside. It does take me a while to get to work, so I guess blogging, reading, and listening to music will be nice ways to spend my time on the train. I don’t have web access on the train, so I’ll have to hold the posting until I get home. Maybe I should get myself a mobile broadband connection…

 Getting ready for December 1st in this house means doing a lot of things. I have been making an Advent wreath (well actually, that was for today), a decoration for the Advent candle, a gift calendar for Ronja - Frida isn’t quite old enough for one with 24 gifts yet, so I made her an Advent calendar, with a small gift for each Advent Sunday. Also this weekend, Ronja attended a princess gala birthday party at a friend’s house - and I accidentally promised her a new dress for the big event. That ate up a few afternoons…

And of course, what’s also special about this year’s December 1st is that it’ll be my first day at work since Frida was born. Still trying to wrap my mind around that one - and I’m pretty sure that Mads feels the same way! He’s going to be taking care of Frida at home for the rest of the time until her surgery to close her cleft palate, which will take place when she’s around 1½ years old. We don’t have the excact date, but he’ll be SAHD (Stay At Home Dad) for probably 5-6 months. Exciting!

However, I have been stretching your patience - I know. Sorry about that! Since Ronja is in bed by now, Mads just played the role of the goddess of fortune - and a very pretty one too, if I may say - and he drew the following lucky names out of the hat:

Winner of the pattern #10015 is Tara at Learning from Chavah

Winner of the pattern #20039 is Jenny

Congratulations to the winners! And to those of you that didn’t win, thank you so much for all your sweet comments - please come back for the next give-away. I’m putting the next two patterns (a kids pattern and an adult pattern) up within the next week. I’ll also need to tell you about all the other stuff - the princess dress, the Advent calendar, the Advent wreath, Ronja’s recent snow experience, our trip to Gisselfeld Christmas market, Frida’s recent breakthrough - gee, I’m behind!

Guys - now December 1st is not coming up anymore - it’s here. I’m off to find my bed! 

These patterns are in Danish, and to avoid any misunderstanding, Danes are just as welcome to this draw as those of you who are English-speaking. However, they do come with translated sewing instructions, which I will mail to you if you win. As they are quite new, I haven’t yet been able to try them out, but I will say that Onion patterns are great for beginners as well as experienced seamstresses. They are quite simple in the layout (nothing Ottobre-ish about the pattern sheets), have easy-to-follow instructions, and are perfect for embellishments of your own choice.

Pattern #10015 includes dress, tights, and jump suit in sizes 6 - 18 months. This pattern is directly cutable - no need for tracing!

Pattern #20039 includes tunic, dress, and berber pants in sizes 2-8 years.

All you have to do to be in the draw is leave a comment on this post. There will be two winners - one for each pattern. In order for the patterns to find the right owners, please let me know if only one of the patterns is relevant to you - then I will only include you in that draw.

The give-away ends Friday 28th at 23:00 p.m. GMT+1 - I will contact you by e-mail, if you are the lucky winner. Probably not right away, though, as I will be attending an End of the Year Party at that time. 

So what am I doing back here? I’m sitting on the couch, covered with a warm duvet. Frida and I took over Mads’ flu that put him out of business for a few days, and now I just hope that she and I will be well for tomorrow when there’s a big Christmas party at Mads’ work.

Karen and her family were supposed to visit us today, but of course I had to cancel that as well. Bummer. However, 12 hours on a plane isn’t much fun if you’re coming down with the flu, so it’s a good thing they will be back sometime during the next year!

 I promised you guys a picture of Frida wearing the Dolly daisy dress, and this is it.

There was just no way to get her to stand and not chase the camera, so you will have to do with this sitting image of the dress. I can just see her wearing this dress along with the little red shoes from my own childhood - she’ll be adorable.

I have been receiving a few e-mails and comments about the Onion-patterns that I have used quite a bit. I think you will be interested to know, that coming up in my next post, I’ll be announcing a give-away. Maria from ShopOnion.com has been kind enough to donate some patterns for you guys - and no worries, the patterns come with an English translation. So check back soon!

At the moment, Karen who has the wonderful blog My dharma…work in progress is visiting Denmark along with her husband and her beautiful daughter Ella. Karen and I got to know each other through the Ottobre English Sewing Group (which I described earlier here). Wednesday, we met up at Copenhagen ZOO to spend a rainy, chilly afternoon together. Once the girls were past their initial shyness, they seemed to enjoy each other’s company greatly - I love the way that language isn’t really a barrier to children, they chat away and apparently isn’t bothered much by the fact that they speak different languages. I translated a bit here and there, but actually they did pretty good without translation.

When we got to the zoo, it was raining quite a bit, so we started out having lunch, snacks - and coffee for Karen and myself. Meeting someone that you have seen in pictures many times is so funny, and Karen and I had no problems finding something to talk about. After lunching we went to look at the animals, and from time to time, Ronja and Ella held hands, which was so sweet.

Frida was awake during lunch, doing her best to charm Karen with a bunch of big smiles. Other than that she slept pretty much through the whole visit, only waking up when we were about to go home. Copenhagen ZOO is a big place, and we didn’t manage to see all that much of it, due to the weather and the children getting tired. However, we had a wonderful time, and I loved meeting Karen and Ella. It would have been great to have a fabric store or a sewing machine nearby, but that’ll be next time. :) If you wish to read more, go here to read Karen’s blogpost about our day!

Karen and Ella brought two sweet little birds for Ronja and Frida, that Karen made them! The pink bird immediately turned into one of Ronja’s favourite things, and Frida enjoys walking around with her purple bird in the mouth - for some reason…

Over the weekend it has been transformed into a dress for Frida - the “Dolly” dress from the latest issue of Ottobre.

It looks like an easy project, but I have to admit that this one did fight me a bit of the way. I think mainly because I just don’t know the right technique for sewing in an invisible zipper, and I find it really difficult to make it look the way it’s supposed to. This is my second attempt at it - my first one was with the China grass dress for Ronja, and I think in comparison, this one went easier - at least a little. Then there was the elastics for the sleeves - their diameter is so tiny that it was really difficult to work with, and I had to redo one of them.

The dress is quite wide, so if you wish to alter that, you should consider tracing a smaller size for width. I really like it, though - I think that the wide garments look adorable, especially on little girls. One might argue, that using the same fabric for the entire dress doesn’t show off the design of it very well - however, I’m fond of the way that it makes the pattern design kind of subtle, yet important.

Summing up, I loooooove this dress! The shape is beautiful, I love the yoke and the puffy sleeves, and the colours of the fabric change with every kind of light that falls on it. I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up being the dress that Frida wears for Christmas.

By the way, I did a bit of research on the fabric, and I found that it is from Stenzo Kids, and you can get it here - at Banberry Place. Now, a few minutes ago, I discovered some online video tutorials on YouTube - among them one for sewing invisible zippers - it looks very detailed, so I’m off to learn more! (The link goes to the first out of 16 videos on the subject.) Don’t you just love the internet?

So what kills me is this:

Frida actually chose TODAY - of all days - to start walking. Can you believe it???? I go away for one lousy day and then she walks??? Mads took Ronja to gymnastics class this afternoon, and while he and Frida were waiting outside the gym, Frida chose to start walking. BOOOHOOOOO…… *sniff*

But hey! She’s walking - and very enthusiastically too! And I’m her biggest fan - though Mads may try to claim that title as well! As you can guess, the picture doesn’t show Frida’s first step - this was after I returned home. However, this is Ronja’s first step - 3 years ago almost to the date.

November is taking control now. It’s raining a lot, and there’s quite a strong wind blowing as well - claiming the leaves from the trees. At the moment we’re not spending very much time in the garden, though we should probably be preparing for winter. The potted plants need to be cut down and moved inside before we have night frost. I’m not terribly good at getting that done - I love working with the plants when we’re moving towards summer, and I can look forward to a season of blossoming flowers in crocks and pots. Preparing them for winter is different, but I really ought to get it done.

Frida has been sick these past few days, throwing up and not eating at all. It’s pretty much the first time she has been really sick since she was born - she has had a few colds but that’s it, really. Sunday was bad, yesterday was better, and today she had her oatmeal for breakfast - now she’s sleeping.

It’s really dark outside today - and inside as well. A perfect day for lighting candles and drinking tea - I was thinking about sewing a bit, but I actually don’t really know what I want to sew. Can you believe it? I should probably go through my stash - that always seems to inspire me. I think I’ll put on some music.