Why you should grow strawberries

I think strawberries are some of the most rewarding crops you could grow in your garden.
Mostly because of all the pesticides. Norwegian strawberries are sprayed about 13 times before they are harvested and it is allowed to spray them as late as three days before harvesting.

Diseases are a problem, but mostly when there's a lot of rain. I have found two things to do to avoid this:

1. Don't plant your strawberries in a field, but in between flowers and vegetables. For example in a row in front of a flower bed.

2. Have some in containers you can place under roof in their most busy growing & harvesting time.

And here's my top 3 most rewarding crops in the garden:
1. Strawberries
2. Potatoes
3. Leaf salad

P.S. I thought about finding an image from Etsy with a strawberry design. But very soon I realized that I wouldn't find any. There are now successful way strawberries can be incorporated in a piece of good design, is there? Why is it so difficult to make something look good with strawberries on?

New bib

I've listed a new bib in my shops. The cartoon dog named Bob is now also available in pink/red and can be found in my Epla shop and my Etsy shop.

Have a lovely day!

Fucking happy-love-signs

I'm sorry, I just had to share this today. It's one of those days.
Sometimes it feels like I'm the only one who can't stand happy-love-signs and happy-love-songs.
But if you feel like me, at least from time to time, -this one's for you!

It's really not very kind of me, because I've stolen this print from MursBlanc and, well, sort of redesigned it in Photoshop. -A quite normal, coffee table morning task...

I guess I have to apologize and show you some of the wonderful and beautiful (though I personally feel that the message stinks at the moment) prints in this shop. See below:

In reality, it looks like this...

Remember, you find these great prints at the MursBlanc Etsy shop. Ordering one takes about 2 minutes... (I guess that's if you have an Etsy account.)

Another birthday gift

Doesn't it just melt your heart when a small girl wants you to sew her some dolls clothes for her birthday?
I've spent the evening sewing clothes for the rabbit plush I made for my niece a couple of years ago. I've made a quilt, trousers, a halterneck top and a dress. I also made her a printed drawstring bag for the clothes. It's my enchanted garden print I made two years ago. I made a new silk screen with it for the summer.
It's printed on recycled linen, the ribbon is from Lin & Papir.

Shop news! Formula lanyard.

I'm proud to present my new lanyard design! It's hand written by a genuine math teacher.

-Thank you to my great colleague, Truls Lind!

I think it's the perfect gift for the science geek in your life, your math teacher or perhaps someone who keeps forgetting the formulas?

Practical and fun.

And I had to include one of my favorite paintings (which actually in this case, is printed on a magnet),

the Risk -rectangle magnet from The Mincing Mockingbird on Etsy.

If you spend the next week at work or happily on holiday, whatever,

-have a happy one!

I'll be packing down my stuff and trying to get rid of some of it,

before I'm moving into my new house on Friday.

Birthday present

My daughter is invited to no less than three birthday parties this weekend. So I've printed some tee's for presents. My impression is that children get so much
s t u f f  for their birthdays, so I thought I'd make them a slow and eco friendly gift.
I think The Cartoon Dog named Bob looks good in red and pink too. I think I will list some of these tee's up in my shops tomorrow.

By the way, -have you noticed that I've pimped my blog a bit? I wanted to give it a more hand-drawn look. I find it really difficult to get the layout and everything like I want. Why is it so narrow? Why doesn't the images spread more nicely on the whole width of the screen?
What do you think?

Friday Favorites from Epla week 25

1. Pillow, Marianne Moe
2. Rain skirt, Smask!
3. Pillow, Galleri Prestahuset
4. Bowl, Leirbrent
5. Ear studs, Dahl Design
6. Brooch, almaPalma
7. Pouch, zndesign

Bibs for Rundt & Rundt Redesign

These are some bibs for Rundt & Rundt Redesign in Kabelvåg.

(Some similar bibs can be found in my Epla shop.)

Sylvia Henriksen runs the shop. I think she has the coolest logo ever.

This is her blog and here's her Facebook page.

Etsy Friday Faves

Here's one of the treasuries I made on Etsy today. Showing some new favorites with the theme:

Music Festival Collection.

Have a look at all the wonderful treasuries on Etsy, here.

If you want to see my treasuries (some of them being slightly self biographical) you can find them here.

It has become quite a list the last year. I think I'm a bit proud of all the collections I've put together...

Vinn søte stoffer hos Lin & Papir!

Denne uka er det sommerfest hos Lin & Papir!
Det blir lagt ut oppskrifter og du kan vinne søte, blomstrete, sommerlige stoffer. Under er en fugl sydd av de fine stoffene fra Westfalenstoffe. Det er 25% rabatt på disse stoffene denne uka.
Og stoffene er økologiske, så klart!

Where the roses bloom...

Finally, here it is, Summer with lovely warm evenings, summer rain and flowers.

It's time to fill the house with flowers from the garden again.

This is one of my old fashioned roses, Hurdalsrose. I love it! It smells wonderful and grows to the size of a small tree.

I think I need one beside one of the sitting places in my new garden.

It's just three weeks left now. Then it's time to move furniture and dig holes for all the plants I intend to bring from my old garden. Luckily, my son is back from his studies and is in need of pocket money. There'll be some digging to do for him this summer...

My Grandmother was a painter

My Grandmother's name was Esther. She went to art school and planned to go to Paris and study more.

Then, she met this handsome vicar, Charles. And the rest of the story is a story of a life on a countryside rectory. A life filled with children, baking, housekeeping, embroidery and painting. And herbs and flowers. -Lots of flowers and flower arrangements.

When I think of my Grandmother, I think of organza scarfs, menthol candy, embroidery, sage tea, tiger balm, cookies in cute boxes, oriental poppies, sweet peas, roses, strawberries and tomatoes. I was very impressed by the fact that she killed wasps with her fingers without getting stings.

This is her purse. It still has a pocket mirror and I use it for my embroidery stash.

Flea market finds -vintage linen

I found some lovely, vintage linen at a flea market last weekend.

I'm always in doubt if I should print it or not...
I find the damask weave so beautiful and a part of me just wants to keep it like it is. The other part of me says that there is lots of old linen napkins and teatowels out there and that it adds a little more interest to print it with a red hen. (And my linen closet is full of lovely old linen that I'm keeping like it is instead of printing it, like I had planned when I bought it.)

I'd really like to know what you think about printing on old linen?

You can find a teatowel with a red hen in my Etsy shop, and teatowels and napkins in my Epla shop.