When I last posted two and a half weeks ago I had every intention of returning to more regular blog updates. While that obviously didn’t happen, I have been keeping busy. Not much of it directly pertains to Paper Tiger as a business, but I thought I might share some of it here all the same (Paper Tiger was a personal blog and a place to share my thoughts and creative work before it was ever a business, after all).

Firstly, this is as close as I’ve gotten to a photo of my fully finished Vasa from the Vasalong:

I’m holding out for a proper modeled photo (taken by someone else, preferably not on an iPod/iPhone) before I share all of the details, including my mods, etc. but the short version of the story is that I love it in the linen (yarn is Quince & Co. Sparrow, in the colors Juniper and Little Fern), I love the sleeve border I added, and this one has quite a bit of positive ease, far more than I recommended in the pattern (which was at least 4″ – I haven’t actually measured this thing yet, but I know it’s more than that). I promise I’ll wrap all that up soon! (The ravelry project page can be found here.)

As for why it’s taken me so long to get around to photographing and writing about my Vasa, as well as other projects I have going on, the reasons are many. The biggest reason, however, is that the summer school does actually keep me fairly busy, and when I’m not in class or hanging around the library working, I’m resting, cooking, exploring Oslo, or traveling. The International Summer School at UiO is something I have wanted to do for a very long time – nigh on a decade – and now that I’m actually here doing it I want to enjoy it and get as much out of the experience as I can. That makes PT work lower priority and it’s naturally fallen a little bit by the wayside. This has also been a time of reflection for me. I’m in the middle of something of a long transitional period, and coming to the summer school has been a deliberate part of that. It’s a transition away from creative work as my full-time daily work (though I will never give it up entirely) and back towards the world of education. It’s something I plan to write about more on this blog, because I have a lot of feelings about it all and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it, but I’ll save that for another day.

In the meantime, to give you an idea of what I have been doing…

Most days look a lot like this:

But some days look like this:

On top of Aurlandsfjellet in Sogn og Fjordane fylke. That’s the lopapeysa I bought on my trip to Iceland in March I’m wearing.

Or this:

Voss, in western Norway, in the rain & fog

I’ve been on one ISS-organized excursion (around the Oslofjord) and one road trip unrelated to the summer school to visit friends in Voss, which was this past weekend. The drive to western Norway is one I’ve done before, and it’s staggeringly beautiful. It was nice to stay in Voss as well, and we took a brief trip to the Folkemuseum there (I only have a few photos from it, but I think that still warrants its own blog post). I won’t be going on any trips this coming weekend, as I’ve only been in Oslo one weekend out of three since I arrived, and I’d like to do some weekend exploring (hitting up farmer’s markets, second-hand markets, and parks and the like that I wouldn’t normally get to on a weekday).

I’ve also been thinking a lot about the concept of home, my nomadic tendencies, and why I’m drawn to Norway in the first place. The visual ties to the Pacific Northwest are pretty obvious in many parts of the country. I found myself thinking about drives out to Tolt Yarn and Wool in Carnation, Washington, as we drove through Hallingdal on the way back to Oslo on Sunday. I never realized Hallingdal looked so much like the Snoqualmie Valley.

Driving through Hallingdal on road 7

In any case, I’m having an amazing time in Norway. We have a long weekend (no class Thursday or Friday) this weekend, so I’m planning to hit up some of the museums I haven’t had a chance to get to yet and hopefully catch up on some work as well. As always, you’ll find more photos on my instagram account (I’m @cakeandvikings) and you can follow me there if you’d like to keep up with what I’m up to on a more regular basis!