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Cathinka Hoff Strønstad🇳🇴

@hardangerrebel

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Embroidery artist.
Embroidery with a touch of zen. Live life slow. Relax, take a deep breath and start stitching 🥰

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It’s been a long time since I posted here. A loooong hiatus from being creative and posting regularly. But it’s never too late to pick it up again, is there? So here we go.

I’m doing beaded embroidery at the moment. The plan is to make a small, round handbag 😁 Wish me luck, I think I might need it 😅 by @hardangerrebel

…how fast everything goes on Instagram and other social media? Timelapse reels, sped up reels, people talking super fast (and loud) to get everything they want to say to fit into the allowed 1.5 minutes. It is rather stressful. What can we do to avoid being stressed by it? I try not to be sucked into the endless feed of reels. Some days I have more success than others 😂 But I do love Instagram and the interaction with all my followers and all my follows. I just wish we all could slow down a little bit ❤️ by @hardangerrebel

Easter holiday/Spring break is over! I so look forward to starting a new project, my fingers are positively itching 😁 And I think it is about time I change it up a little because we need some variety in our lives, don’t we? How about some doing some Schwalm? It has been ages since I did any, I hope I can remember how 😂 by @hardangerrebel

by @hardangerrebel

When I spoke up about my political views in my last post, someone commented that she was disappointed. And then several someones took it upon themselves to send her hateful DMs. This is not acceptable. You can not read anything hateful into her comment! She was disappointed because she, like many of you, enjoy my page because it has been a haven free of politics. I expected to lose followers over my post, it was a conscious choice from my side. I haven’t actually lost followers which I hope is a sign that this place is followed by kind and forgiving people with love in their hearts. This will still be a place for embroidery though I might speak up from time to time if I feel that something needs saying. Take care, be good and spread love, not hate. by @hardangerrebel

Free Palestine!
I thought for the longest time that this place needed to be free of politics, a safe haven for anyone who loves embroidery no matter where they come from and no matter what their religion, culture or political views might be. I was wrong. I am a very political person and not speaking up now would be cowardly of me. So here goes: I’m an atheist. I belive in equal rights for everyone, including LGBTQIA+ persons. Trans men are men, trans women are women. Women should have bodily autonomy. All humans have equal value, no matter their ethnicity, skin colour or wherever they happen to be born in the world. I support Ukraine. I support Palestine but not Hamas. I support Jews around the world, but not Zionists. I’m a Social Democrat from Norway, a firm believer in humanity’s ability to do better and to build better lives for everyone. If this is not to your liking, feel free to unfollow. by @hardangerrebel

I tried a few fillings for the small squares, thinking to make a couple of intricate ones, but they just didn’t fit the overall aesthetic of the piece. So I choose two fillings that match each other in density and simplicity and which I just happen to love a lot. Which is good because if I love doing them and looking at them, I might just be able to work the gazillions of little squares before my neurodivergent brain zigs sideways towards something entirely different 🤣
It will take time depending on the weather. If it rains I get to embroider more, if the sun shines you’ll find me outside, painting the cottage butter yellow ❤️
This project is from @vettycreations fantastic book «Early Style Hardanger» and the fillings and many more can be found in her book «Hardanger Filling Stitches». by @hardangerrebel

Cutting is usually one of my favourite things ❤️But I wasn’t prepared for how time consuming it would be to cut so many small squares 😅 I’m only half way through and my hands are so tired, I must be getting old 😂

Pattern from @vettycreations book Early-style Hardanger by @hardangerrebel

It’s time to cut! I’ve managed to finish all the surface embroidery on my little square table cloth and it’s now time for fillings 🥰 I thought I’d choose something different from the original design and I have the exact right book for it! ❤️🥰 The pattern is from @vettycreations book Early Style Hardanger.

The book Hardanger Filling Stitches is a treasure trove of fillings and I highly recommend it to anyone doing Hardanger regularly ❤️ I get no benefits from writing this, I just love Yvette’s books 🥰 by @hardangerrebel

If you should be wondering, this is what my bunad will look like when finished. It will be a project spanning several months and I hope to do other projects in between. It was supposed to be a winter project but I just had to start in on it, I got such itchy fingers 😂 But right now we’re having wonderful warm weather and I have put the wool on wool bunad project on hold, it is simply too hot and there are tons of other stuff going on right now. We’re replacing windows and old rotted cladding on our little cottage, so I’m hard at work painting outside walls and getting bitten by horseflies 😅 We decided to paint the cottage a cheerful yellow with white trimmings. The cottage is named “Solbakken” which translates to Sunny Hill, so yellow fits perfectly, don’t you think? And in between the painting and assisting my darling carpenter husband, I try to prettify the entrance a bit and give the entryway some curb appeal. I’m slowly transforming the overgrown garden into something a bit more manageable. I even discovered that the path leding up to the cottage was once gravel, so I’ve dug my way down and removed all the top dirt and grass to uncover the original path. It was quite the job! There will be no reels of me embroidering for a while, I’ve got dirty cracked nails and paint all over my hands 😂 so not insta- worthy 😁

Bunad picture credit goes to Norsk Flid Husfliden by @hardangerrebel

Tidying up the pattern! Some of these flowers look like a hot mess 😂 But with a little bit of patience and my trusted white gel pen I tidy things up bit by bit. The most difficult part is removing the prick and pounce paint. I have to gently scratch the fabric and use pliers to lift off the more difficult bits. The gel pen wears off all by itself so that’s not a problem. I made a small template to make sure I’m doing the flowers approximately the same all over the bunad, though a bit of variety is just fun ❤️ The human touch should be visible because we’re not machines, are we? by @hardangerrebel

Do you know the difference? Stem Stitch is worked with the twist of the thread, Contour Stitch is worked against the twist. Stem Stitch is fluffy and covers more while Contour Stitch creates a slim, crisp line. The execution of both are the same, but you stitch with your thread either above or below the line. When doing one or the other it is important that you consistently keep your thread above or below the line you’re stitching, no matter which way it curls or twines. Here I do Stem Stitch with an S-twist thread, keeping the thread below as I stitch. If I were to stitch with the thread above the line, the result would be Contour Stitch.
#embroidery #stemstitch #crewelwork #bunad #slowliving by @hardangerrebel