Bunad og Kleloftet

Me and Izabela have been working at Bunad og Kleloftet for a few days since we got here. I was there for 4 days and I think Izabela for 6 as she is interested in fashion and dress making whereas I am working towards a fine art project perhaps using pattern as a key visual element. The women that work there all have their own individual businesses but also manage to work as a team which is nice. They were really welcoming towards us although maybe a bit uncertain as to what to do with us at first. The first day we were able to look around, chat to all of them and take lots of photos to get a feel for the place. We were then shown how to use the machines and did a bit of sewing work. I think we both learned very useful new skills such as traditional hardanger embroidery techniques (very hard work, took us around 2 days to complete a tiny square), cross-stitching and bead work. The women were very helpful, in particular, the woman in the photo above speaking to Izabela as she taught is all the embroidery and helped us whenever we got stuck - which was a lot! I am very grateful to her as it is such a busy time of year for them as the 17th of May is coming up (which is when they celebrate the anniversary of Norway becoming an independent country) yet she continued to give us unlimited help. Their work place was very homely and I think what was so attractive about it was that everything was done entirely by hand. Nowadays, I think that is quite difficult to find and they clearly loved and valued what they were doing.

Oatcakes and dancing...

Today at Vangen Skule me and Rhianna brought a flavour of Shetland to the pupils of the class we work with.  In the morning we worked with a group of four pupils and made some Shetland Oatcakes.  The whole class tried the oatcakes (including the teachers) with cheese and butter.  They seemed to go down well!  Some oatcakes were taken to the staff room so the teachers from other classes got to try them as well :) After lunchtime we taught the class 'The Boston Two Step'.  I brought in my ipod and we used sets by 'The Cullivoe Dance Band' for them to dance to.  They learned the dance very quickly and we all had good fun!  We are going to teach some more Shetland dancing to the children next week. :)
Kaela.

Our animation we did at Husfildskule

Rødruss

Yesterday, Izabela, Sarah and I took part in some Art & Design lessons at Husflidskule - Randi's school. We did some painting and then made an animation involving an orange. It was a bit odd but was lots of fun! While we were there we met some very nice Norwegian girls (Ida, Sunniva, Frida, Ingrid and Synne) who invited us out after school to 'cruise' in their party van, which they have to celebrate "Rødruss". Basically, this is when 18-19 year olds celebrate their last year of school by partying and drinking lots, and also playing lots of practical jokes (for example, having to go into a supermarket and bark in front of dog food for 3 minutes)

It goes on for 20 days and happens around the end of April just before exams, each colour in this celebration represents a different school - red, blue, black, green. Red represents Husflidskule. This means they wear special red trousers and some have their own red party van. We went with them to get their van serviced at a garage to see if it was safe enough to drive, and if it was safe they get a sticker to put on the van so police can't stop them while they're party-vanning. It didn't pass its service - but they're going to get it fixed and try again! It was so much fun driving around in the van! It had all the girls names printed on it and "HANGOVER" spelt on the bonnet. 

It sounded like great fun, but somehow we don't think we could get away with this in Shetland...

Linsey.

Plei

For 4 days I worked in a small, computer based shop called 'Plei'. They had 3 employees,  Per Arne - the manager, Kristina - who did the administration, and Kenneth, who was a sort of apprentice. They were all lovely and welcoming, and explained to me how the business worked. They wanted me to act as a 'graphic designer' in a way, and to help them with designing their brochures, leaflets, business cards etc. I really enjoyed my time there and learnt a great deal. They seemed happy with my work.

 On my last day they decided they wanted me to come up with their timeline picture on their Facebook page. They gave me their (very fancy) camera and asked me to go around Voss and take some nice pictures of the town and the landscape, and then I would incorporate their logo into the photo. I walked around for nearly 2 hours taking pictures of the snowy mountains, the lake and the town. I absolutely loved it! When I came back, Kristina and I looked through the photos, and decided on one to use. I then edited the photo slightly on Photoshop to bring out the colours, and then integrated their logo into the photo.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Plei/197844723272 - here is the link if you'd like to see it!

I really did enjoy it and will definitely go back and visit them before we go back to Shetland! :)

Linsey.

Skiing at Myrkdalen (Sarah, Linsey & Becky)

On sunday we managed to borrow some ski stuff from Randi and find our way to the ski slope which was around 30mins away by bus from Voss. It was really beautiful up there and it was such a lovely day so we ended up sunbathing in the snow high up the mountain. ...We didn't quite realise how high the ski lift was gonna take us and the problem was coming down! We had all been skiing before with school trips but we realised our skills were rather rusty as we attempted a Red slope!

Trows in Voss!