Waning Daylight

 The other day, my mother asked me how much daylight we still had each day.  I said I thought we still had sunlight between 7 am and 7pm every day, but now that I am paying attention, I know that I had already totally lost track of the progression of things.  The sun didn't quite make it over the eastern mountain peaks to light the other side of Isfjørden until 9 am today, at which moment my boss called me over to the window to look at the lovely scene, and I watched the reverse happen tonight at about 5:30 pm. As it gets darker, waking up early for work becomes harder, of course; but the consolation is in being one of the few to see the slow, extended sunrise.  Lately, on clear days, they look like this:

Some days, of course, aren't as brilliant, but many are.  At Bakehuset, we are blessed with several massive windows overlooking the ISS building and it's brilliant beyond.  The machine where we clean our sheet trays is super old and noisy; Petter warned me when I started working to put ear protection on or it would sound like the grinding was inside my head.  But the machine is also right next to the window, so sometimes when the world is especially beautiful outside, I put on the earmuffs and feed some trays through the machine and stare at the mountains and feel lucky, even despite that wretched, mechanical whine.

Outside of work, there is also lots of time for contemplating the beautiful.  One of my favorite ways is just by sitting at the table in our cozy little house, working on tiny sewing projects and glancing out at the changing light.  As far as the sewing goes, I have a few more ambitious things planned, but for those I need to gather supplies and work out some realistic goals.  I started by purchasing just basic needles and the only thread I could find in town (polyester, amazingly, instead of cotton... no idea why, but I got red because why not), along with an iron and an extremely mini ironing board.  Maybe I should take a photo of that for one of these posts, it's really funny!  Anyway, after the success if my innesko recycling effort, I decided to do another simple sewing experiment with some repurposed fabric to make some napkins for our sweet little kitchen table.  Fancy, shmancy white linen napkins, nonetheless!

Posing with a bowl of apple fennel cabbage salad... yum!

Inside the hem.  These are very handmade, no secrets here.

The fabric came from a white linen summer skirt that I found at the ever-awesome Bruktikken.  I was on the fence about whether this project was going to count as truly worthy repurposing, or would fall short of that into the cutting-up-useful-items-to-make-smaller-items category of the less-than-earth-friendly.  But two things finally swayed my choice: some slight stains on the skirt meant that while it wasn't unwearable, it certainly wasn't going to be anyone's dream find, and the fact that it was a summer skirt lying at the bottom of a bin of clothing in Longyearbyen, Svalbard on the eve of mørktid... well.  It will be many months before anyone finds an appropriate venue for wearing a white linen skirt up here, and by then it may have been so scuffled and jumbled among the other clothes in the bins that it won't be much of a looker.  So.  Linen napkins for us!  (I am hoping to find a use for the bit of leftover fabric I have from the lining of the skirt-- it's only some cheap chintzy stuff, but it might be useful for making a mock-up of something or using as a liner layer for something else.)

These napkins were really easy to sew up, of course-- linen presses so nicely, so I just cut out squares (fun fact: I used the copy of Annemarie Sundbø's Norsk Vottar og Vontar I still have out from the library to trace for my square), pressed double-folded hems and sewed them down with a running stitch of red thread to give a little character.  And also because I bought red thread, like I said.  No hiding that stuff on a white field...  The final size of the napkins is pretty small for a table napkin-- it doesn't really cover your lap, so it wouldn't pass in a fancy restaurant after all.  But they are big enough to be functional, and they look rather sweet.  They make me think of tea-time actually, which might be why I suddenly wanted to make scones one Sunday morning.  

Lemon scones with blackberry jam.

Just about a week ago, things really started getting colder out here.  The river of glacial meltwater that runs through town is dwindling and starting to freeze:

Even so, last week it still looked like this around here: 

But this week, we got our first real snow, and just like that, everything is white:

White beach.

Brushing off snow after a walk through the big, fat flakes.

A fat little sandpiper...

The sandpipers are still flitting about the shore, despite the crust of ice on the sand above the tidal line.  Tyler keeps reminding them they better think about flying soon.  They are eating and eating like crazy, getting ready to fly their chubby little selves back to the fastlandet.  We spied some late-lingering barnacle geese through the snowfall the other evening, so there are still a few birds to make the journey south.  My hunkering down, therefore, continues in earnest.  Tomorrow I will be going to the Bruktikken again, this time on a mission to rustle up some fleece layers for my legs, maybe some socks or a hat or ski mask, man-sized anything for Tyler, etc.  So far, I am going remarkably well compiling a functional winter outfit without actually buying any Gear.  I wonder how far I can make it... all the way???  Fingers crossed!  The next thing on my knitting needles is a pair of thick, wool liners for inside the boots I also got for free from the Bruktikken... so more on that soon!