Trish – Page 9 – Patricia McLellan's Blog

2020-12-22

Twilight

If I think of the meaning of the word, twilight, I think of the time when it is getting light, just before sunrise, or the time after sunset when there is still light in the sky.

If you look at what astronomers calculate, there are three definitions of twilight. I’m going to give the times for today, 22 December 2020, and my location at Vangshylla, Norway as well as definitions and where possible a photo.

According to my source at www.timeanddate.com, twilight is the time between day and night when there is light outside, but the sun is below the horizon. The morning twilight is often called dawn and the evening twilight is called dusk.

The astronomical definitions of the three stages of twilight are based on the Sun’s elevation, see the diagram below. Sunrise is when the sun comes over the horizon. For calculation purposes, it is the geometric center of the sun that is used.

If we think of what is happening in the morning, civil twilight starts when the sun reaches 6 degrees below the horizon and lasts until sunrise. The actual point in time when the sun reaches 6 degrees below the horizon is called civil dawn. Nautical twilight is when the sun is between 6 and 12 degrees below the horizon and astronomical twilight is when the sun is between 12 and 18 degrees below the horizon. In the morning, astronomical twilight comes first, then nautical twilight, then civil twilight. In the evening, civil twilight comes first, then nautical twilight, then astronomical twilight.

1 Astronomical Twilight

At Vangshylla today, astronomical twilight was between 6:41 – 7:40 and 16:48 – 17:47. This is about an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. Before 6:41 and after 17:47, the sky is completely dark and celestial bodies that can be seen with the naked eye will be visible (in a cloudless sky). Lights in houses and city streets will be quite visible even at a distance. I have no photos during these times as it is too dark for me to get a picture. When I looked out a window during this period this morning, I could just see the outline of the hill in the direction where the sun would eventually come up.

2 Nautical Twilight

2020.12.22, 07:45 at the beginning of nautical twilight. It is still pretty dark and only artificial lights are visible in the photo. I live out in the country, so there aren’t many lights at this time of day.

At Vangshylla today, nautical twilight was between 7:40 – 8:48 and 15:40 – 16:48. Again, this is approximately an hour for each period. In general, artificial light will be required to do activities outdoors. In times past, when sailors navigated using the stars, most stars would still be visible to the naked eye. I feel that it is still quite dark. Today was a cloudy day, but perhaps on a clear day, there could be a bit of light just coming in the sky.

3 Civil Twilight

At Vangshylla today, civil twilight was between 8:48 – 10:05 and 14:23 – 15:40. This is about an hour and a quarter for each period.

2020.12.22, 9:14, taken looking towards where the sun will rise, during civil twilight. Today it was cloudy all day. If there had been a clear sky, there would have been more light. It still feels dark and lights are needed indoors to function. Outdoors one can do things without additional light.

This is the brightest form of twilight. In the morning, civil twilight begins when the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon and ends at sunrise. In the evening, civil twilight begins at sunset and ends when the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon. During these two periods there may be enough natural sunlight that it is not necessary with artificial light to do things outdoors. Some countries use this definition to make laws regulating the use of headlamps and street lamps and can also be used in rules affecting aviation and hunting.

Sunrise in Straumen, Inderøy at 10:05. Heavy cloud means that the morning is quite dull.

2020.12.22, 14:10, 13 minutes before sunset. The ball of the sun is just going behind the hill in the distance. There is still a lot of cloud, and it was raining where I was taking the pictures, but the sun’s rays shine under the clouds.

2020.12.22, 14:58, 35 minutes after sunset, so civil twilight. There is still a bright glow in the sky in the direction the sun has set. There is still enough light to do things outdoors.

2020.12.22, 15:46, so at the beginning of nautical twilight. There is still enough light to get a picture, though I had to put my cellphone on night mode. There is still a bit of a glow in the direction that the sun set over an hour ago. The lights in houses in the distance are showing up in the picture.

Twilight in the summer

The length of twilight is affected by a location’s latitude, so that places closer to the equator have shorter periods of twilight than those places that are at higher latitudes. During the summer months at higher latitudes, such as northern Norway or northern Canada, there may not be any difference between astronomical twilight after sunset and astronomical twilight before sunrise.

So let’s look at my location. From 2021 April 11 until 2021 September 2, there is no official “night”. There is only twilight. From 2021 April 28 until 2021 May 20, there is no astronomical twilight, only nautical and civil twilight. From 2021 May 21 until 2021 July 22, there is only civil twilight. From 2021 July 23 until 2021 August 14, there is both nautical and civil twilight. From 2021 August 15 there will again be astronomical twilight and from 2021 September 2 there will be night as well.

I like the period between the end of April and the middle of August as it never really gets dark at night. Knowing that there will be lots of light in this period, helps me get through the short, dark days in November, December and January. At the summer solstice, on June 21, we get 20 hours and 53 minutes of daylight and the rest is civil twilight. This is quite a contrast with the winter solstice on December 21 (see the blog I wrote yesterday) when there is only 4 hours and 17 minutes between sunrise and sunset.

My source

2020-12-21

Winter Solstice 2020 in Inderøy

The winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere is the summer solstice in the Southern Hemisphere. One should more accurately call this the December Solstice as there is also a solstice in June, which in the Northern Hemisphere indicates the longest day of the year, i.e. the day with the most daylight hours. The December solstice is a particular time on a particular day, when the sun is exactly over the Tropic of Capricorn. In 2020 this happens on the 21st of December at 10:02 UTC, or at 11:02 local time where I live.

The sun was just clearing the hills in the distance at 11:02 local time. The picture was taken from sea level, at the high water mark on the beach. Note how orangey the colour are just after sunrise when the sun is still very, very low in the sky.

For those of us living in the Northern Hemisphere, this is the shortest day of the year, i.e. the day with the least amount of daylight.

Because of latitude and the way we keep time, the latest sunrise and the earliest sunset will not occur on exactly the solstice. The earliest sunset will occur before the winter solstice and the latest sunrise will occur after the winter solstice. (See explanation h ere)

How much of a coincidence is it that Christians celebrate the birth of Christ (Christmas) a few days after the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere? Here in Norway, Christmas becomes a festival of lights as the number of daylight hours is at a minimum and people like light.

So let’s look at some of the numbers for my location in Vangshylla, Inderøy, Norway

Date	Sunrise	Sunset	Hours of daylight	Solar Noon
Dec 18	10:03	14:21	4 hours, 18 minutes, 37 seconds	12:12
Dec 19	10:03	14:21	4:17:56	12:12
Dec 20	10:04	14:22	4:17:31	12:13
Dec 21	10:05	14:22	4:17:24	12:13
Dec 22	10:05	14:23	4:17.33	12:14
Dec 23	10:05	14:23	4:17:59	12:14
Dec 24	10:06	14:24	4:18:43	12:15

Notice that I have given the sunrise and sunset to the nearest minute, but one actually needs to include the seconds to show the exact number of minutes of daylight and to see the changes from day to day. There isn’t much difference between Dec 19 and Dec 21, only 32 seconds .

The latest sunrise is on December 24th and 25th at 10:06. The earliest sunset in on December 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th and 14:21. There are very small changes each day around the solstice. However, with exact astronomical calculations, the day with the shortest number of daylight hours is December 21st with 4 hours, 17 minutes and 24 seconds.

I have also included in the table when the solar noon is, that is, when the sun is at its highest position in the sky. This varies slightly from day to day, because the day is not really 24 hours long. Around the December solstice, solar noons are a little bit farther apart each day.

This photo was taken at 12:13, showing its highest position in the sky on the December solstice. Note how there is less orange in the photo and more blue, partly because the sun is higher in the sky, but also it is partly covered by cloud.

My source for information is: https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/ten-things-december-solstice.html. By going to Sun & Moon, you can write in your location and get the relevant times.

Today I found another spring flower blooming, spring phlox. In my garden, this plant is often eaten by deer in the winter, so it often blooms later than it should. This year it is still growing well, even in December and has put out two flower buds. Is it hoping to bloom before the deer come to eat?

2020-12-20

Inderøy Walk – Skarnsund

Today’s walk started from home at about 11:30. We have a very short period of daylight at this time of year and as today was sunny, it was important to get out in the sunshine. My husband and son were my walking companions today and our goal was a small beach on the east side of Skarnsund.

As we walked down our driveway, I saw the first “spring” flowers blooming. I normally buy primroses in January in a store, so these plants are used to blooming in the middle of winter. This plant got moved last summer to a new location and it seems to have done very well to be blooming in December. They often will continue to bloom under the snow.

Our walk continued across farm fields, around the neighbouring farm and across another field. We have no snow on the ground and the temperature today was about 7 degrees Celsius.

Here we are following a tractor road along the hillside. There were icy bits and it was very rough as the farmer’s cows have been out grazing in this direction. Skarnsund is just visible to our left and in the distance.

When one sees the viewing platform in the woods, it is time to look for an opening in the fence as the trail goes down past the viewing platform The hill in the background is on the other side of Skarnsund. You would need to cross the bridge to get to it.

The hole in the fence which can be blocked off in the summer when there are animals out grazing. In the winter the gap is usually left open.

The slope down to the water is quite steep and one needs to walk carefully. I prefer to do it now when I am with others, in case of mishap. There are other trails in the woods here, most of them would be made by the deer. This area has not been logged recently, so it is nice old forest.

Here is the trail we are following which will take us down to two cabins and a beach. Note the green rope on the right which is a guide line down the slope. It is mostly just laying on the ground, sometimes covered in vegetation and not necessarily safe to grab, but it does show that you are on the right trail.

At this time of year, there are a lot of dead leaves on the path, which can make it slippery. However, there was no ice on the path as we are under the trees. It is hard to take pictures that show how steep the slopes are here, but one does not want to wander off the trail.

A deer trail taking off from the main trail we are following. We live in a temperate rain forest with primarily spruce trees. Where the trees stand tight together, little light gets to the floor of the forest so very little else grows. Here there are mosses and lichens under the trees.

Eventually we came to the stream that drains this hillside. There is even a little bridge to help cross it and a sturdy handrail.

A small stream tumbles downhill. There are also two waterlines that will take water from the stream to the cabins below.

We continued to follow the trail that now also had a waterline on it. This is a very common sight in the cabin areas around here. The lines may freeze in the winter, but people mostly use their cabins in the summer half of the year.

Skarnsund Bridge from the north east. This photo was taken at 12:14, so approximately when the sun is at its highest in the sky for today.

It was lovely to just be on the beach for a while. The sun was shining and there was no wind. The water was calm. There was snow on distant hills, but nothing close by. We were also far enough away from the bridge that the noise of the traffic was almost not heard. There were no fishermen out today. Everyone here is busy getting ready for Christmas celebrations.

Looking north. One’s location in relation to hillsides will decide if you get sunshine or not at this time of year. We live on the right side to get sunshine. The housing area on the other side of Skarnsund is Framverran.

The beach is not sandy at all, but in relation to many places along Skarnsund, there is a place to walk for a couple of hundred meters before the next impassable section of rock comes. At high tide, most of this beach would disappear under water. We were there when the tide was about halfway between low tide (at 9:17 and 122 cm) and high tide (at 15:36 and 290 cm), so an incoming tide.

A view of the bridge on our way back home, from the part of the trail that is possibly at the highest elevation. A check on the map on my cellphone tells me that we are at about 140 meters above sea level. It’s been a glorious sunny day.

I don’t take this walk very often, but today was a good day to do it. Sunshine, no wind, plus degrees in the air and two good companions. We used a little more than an hour and a half on our walk.

2020-12-06

Inderøy Walk – Winter Sunshine

Today’s walk took about 2 hours and one of my goals was to get some sunshine. In December, sunshine is a precious commodity and though our house gets some in the afternoon, the days are short. By heading outside, I was hoping to get fresh air, exercise and some sunshine on my face. All goals were achieved and as I walked, I thought about how important light is in December.

The first photo was taken at 11:40 and the last one at 13:17. Today, the 6th of December, sunrise was at 9:42 and sunset at 14:30.

This picture was taken at 11:43 from Skarnsund Bridge. At this point the clouds are obscuring the sun so that I’m not actually in the sunshine. Note how low the sun is in the sky and though it was moving from east to west, it didn’t get any higher in the sky. Sunshine in December gives very yellow and orange tones to what it shines on, whether it is cloud or nature.

The mountains to the north of us are now covered in snow and the sun shining on them made me think about how location is so important to how much sunshine a place gets, though cloud cover also plays a role.

In Norway, it is interesting to see how the coastline has been settled. The north side of a fjord will get more sunshine than the south side and therefore will have more farms and villages. As you look at the picture above, the peninsula sticking out into the water gets a lot less sunshine than the mountain tops in the background at this time of year. Height above sea level will also affect how much sunshine a place gets, especially in winter. Getting higher up, there will be less land between the sun and where you are. As I crossed Skarnsund Bridge and climbed up a side road on the other side, it was noticeable that houses higher up got more sunshine than those lower down.

Walking today had its challenges. A few days ago, it rained on frozen ground and since then, there has been a thin layer of ice on road surfaces that are not often driven on. The side of the road can be even icier, so I had to be careful where I walked. This side road was sanded and doesn’t have much traffic, so I was able to walk in the middle of the road where it was sanded and had no problems walking, either up the hill or down again.

There was a lot less ice on the road as I climbed up the hill, especially where the road was mostly under the trees. With much less ice, the walking was easier.

This farm is getting a dose of sunshine. An open field between the house, farm buildings and the direction of the sun, allows the buildings to get some sunshine when the sun is not obscured by clouds.

This solitary birch tree was bathed in sunshine.

Yes, I got a dose of sunshine too, as my shadow proves.

I notice how the sunshine changes the colours of the things around us. Without sunshine, December tends to be a month of grey and white, with just a few dabs of blue and green. But when the sun shines on something, the colours turn more vibrant. Coniferous trees become very green and the sky was very blue where there weren’t any clouds. The brown grass and trees without leaves turn yellow and orange.

The coniferous trees are still green, but the deciduous trees show up as very yellow now that they have lost their leaves. The forest where I am walking is a mixture of both coniferous and deciduous trees.

Finally, I came to the pathway I was aiming for. This path, though labelled with a red man, meaning that it was a difficult path, was much easier walking than on the roadway. Under the trees there was almost no ice or frost.

I love this sort of a walk, into the forest and along a well-trodden pathway. At this time of year, it is quite quiet. I didn’t meet anyone else. Car traffic cannot be heard. There were no birds twittering in the trees. But patches of sunshine filtered through the trees.

In an open patch along the trail, the puddle in the swampy part of the path has frozen. There was ice in only one small section of the pathway.

The goal of my walk has been reached, Furufjellet (Pine Mountain), which was reflecting the sunshine as I had suspected it would.

I turned around and started walking home again and now Vangshylla was bathed in sunshine.

Skarnsund Bridge was also being bathed in sunlight. The concrete towers and the wires glowed in the sunshine.

The wires of the bridge are painted red, so they showed up very well against the blue sky.

Home again, and still an hour until sunset.

2020-11-30

Place mats – quilting and finishing

Quilting is the process of sewing several layers of fabric together. Finishing includes making the edges and corners neat.

Layers

Having now sewn the top layer of my place mat, the layer that shows, I need to make my place mats thick enough for their purpose. My place mats will be used a lot and need to soak up spills, deaden sounds on a wooden table, and tolerate a lot of washing. Making them with several layers, help them deaden sounds.

Before the backing material is attached, it is important to trim the edges of the place mat and make sure it is the size you want it.

I cut an old flannel sheet into the right size rectangles and used two layers of the sheeting to make a thicker place mat. This filling layer will not be visible in the finished place mat. The backing is made of a solid blue that goes well with the top. The edges will be folded over to the front to make good edges.

Here you can see the three layers for the place mats. The top layer is the patchwork that I have designed and sewn. On the bottom is the backing in a solid colour. In between is white flannel sheeting which adds thickness to the place mat. The white sheeting will not show in the finished place mat.

(Note: I am doing my sewing in November when there is very little daylight. I am mostly doing my sewing while it is dark outside. This means that most of the pictures were taken inside under various inadequate lighting conditions. Please excuse the poor quality of the colour in the photos. A few were taken outdoors and they will reflect the real colours much better.)

Quilting

Quilting is the process of sewing all the layers together so that they tolerate washing. There are many ways of doing the quilting, but with a geometric pattern like I have, I like best to follow the lines of the pattern. In this case I decided to sew only in one direction, and in the trough between two strips. I have chosen a contrasting colour so that it shows. When sewing in the trough, the stitching may not show up, if you use a colour of thread that easily disappears into the fabric’s own colour.

When doing the sewing, start in the middle of the place mat and work your way to the outside edges. As you sew the different layers may stretch a bit and by starting in the middle you can reduce unwanted tucks as you sew.

Looking at the back side of the place mat, you can see that I have quilted with parallel lines in one direction only.

Many of the old-fashioned quilts were quilted with various flowery patterns in the sewing. This, of course, is a personal preference. With other place mats where I have appliquéd patterns, there is often more pattern on the back. This place mat has a very plain pattern. It is adequate to hold all the four layers together solidly enough to tolerate a lot of washing.

Finishing

Once I had finished the quilting, I worked on making neat edges. The backing was folded twice and pinned in place. I always have difficulties with the corners and I spent quite a bit of time trying to get them all the same and easy to sew so that they didn’t come apart.

Here the backing has been turned twice to make a neat edge

Here is a close up of how I had pinned the edges and corners.

I also did some extra zigzag stitching in the corners so that the place mat tolerates a lot of washing.

Three of the place mats in use, with the new blue plates that they were designed to match.

2020-11-27

Place mats – Cutting and sewing

Once the design has been decided on and the calculations made, it is time to get down to the practical work of cutting and sewing pieces together. My design at the moment is geometrical, using squares and rectangles in three colours of fabric.

Tools

Self-healing cutting mat, roller knife and cutting ruler.

If you are going to do much of this type of creative work, it is important to invest in the tools that are needed. Cutting a lot of small pieces with scissors is both time consuming and inaccurate. A roller knife along a flat edge will give a much straighter cut and cut down on the wear and tear on your fingers. Use a self-healing cutting mat. The one I have has metric measurements on one side, and inches on the other side. You can choose the measurement system that suits you best. I have been metric since before I moved to Norway in 1980.

Using a roller knife, you can cut through several thicknesses of fabric at the same time. Make sure you have extra blades for the roller knife as they can get dull quickly if you are cutting a lot.

Cutting

I was using leftover pieces of material that were often odd shaped, but I was able to use up quite a few of these pieces. The challenge can be to get the squares and rectangles matched up with the grain of the fabric.

First I cut long strips 4 cm wide, then I cut the strips into the correct lengths.

The dark blue pieces were to be of three different lengths, 4 cm, 6 cm and 8 cm. All pieces are 4 cm wide.

I ended up with over a thousand pieces. I made a few extra of each colour and size in case any turned out uneven or unusable. It was a bit of a challenge to count how many were cut, but I did them in groups of 10 and that helped. With persistence the job gets done.

Remember that accuracy when cutting is very critical to the look of the final piece of work. I use a 1 cm sewing allowance on all sides. So if a finished block is to be 2 cm by 2 cm, I cut it 4 cm by 4 cm. This is all done when doing your calculations during the design of the project. Using a roller knife and a long ruler helps make the edges very straight. By using the lines on the cutting mat, you can make sure that corners are at 90 degrees and that lengths are as accurate as humanly possible.

Sewing

The best procedure when making geometrical patterns is first to sew the small pieces into strips, then to sew the strips together to make a larger piece. You want to think carefully how you do your sewing so that you don’t get a lot of material bunched up to the right of the sewing needle.

To reduce the amount of cutting of thread that you do, I suggest that you feed the small pieces into the sewing machine with a couple of millimeters between them. This saves both thread and time. I cut the pieces apart when I ironed each piece. I worked on making 30 strips at a time. I find it easiest to work with the strips if I press the seam allowance to one side before I add the next piece. It means a lot of moving from the sewing machine to the ironing board, but I find the moving around is good for me.

Five pairs of small pieces sewn together. They are easy to cut apart once they are out of the sewing machine. At this point I ironed the seam allowance to one side.

Here I have four pieces sewn together and the fifth one is laid on top. They were lined up more exactly as I fed them into the sewing machine.

Accuracy is very important when both cutting and sewing pieces together. When making a strip with 8 pieces, if each piece is out just 1 mm, you can be out 8 mm by the end of the strip. I had one strip that ended up being much too short and I had to pull it out and replace it.

Here are some of the finished strips waiting for assembly.

Once I made all the strips that I needed, I arranged them in the correct order for the place mats. This can be a good time to check that the lengths have all come out close enough to use.

Here I have lined up the strips in the correct order to make the pattern I wanted. I then make them into a pile so that I just take the next one from the pile while sewing them together.

In the next blog I will explain how I have made the backing and done the quilting.

2020-11-11

Inderøy Walk – Fog and Øyna

Wednesday is my usual day to go for a walk with a girlfriend. The weather forecast was for sunshine so I was looking forward to today’s walk. As I went out to the car, I noticed fog rolling across the water, coming out of Skarnsund. As I stood watching for a few minutes, the fog rapidly moved out over Trondheim Fjord.

Picture taken at 9:38 looking towards Skarnsund Bridge.

I had agreed to meet my friend at her house in Straumen and I was anxious to see where there was fog and where there wasn’t fog. As I had hoped, the fog was mostly on the water and if we walked uphill, we would be in the sunshine.

We choose to walk up to Øyna, a hotel and restaurant located near the top of a hill in Straumen. (See their website for more information about them. You can also get information about them in English here.)

Øyna, a commercial enterprise having hotel accommodation and a restaurant serving locally produced food. It lies at the top of a hill and lies low in the terrain.

The newest hotel units also lie low in the landscape but each room has a beautiful view over Straumen, Trondheim Fjord and the surrounding area.

Even on a foggy day, the views from here were good though, of course, not as good as on a sunny day. In the picture below you can just see the top of the spire of Sakshaug Church, sticking up from the fog. This picture is taken looking between two of the new units of the hotel, so this is the sort of view there would be from the hotel rooms themselves.

Looking down the hill from Øyna towards Straumen, most of which is hidden in the fog. In the background are the hills of Levanger.

Looking westwards towards Trondheim. We are now high enough above the fog to get an interesting picture of how the fog covers the fjord. Where you see white, it should be mostly fjord underneath the fog.

I always find it interesting how patchy fog can be, especially when looking at it from above. Here I am looking eastwards towards two of the housing areas of Straumen. Not everybody has sunshine.

Back home and this picture was taken at 12:00. There is more fog on Skarnsund, but it is still lying low over the water.

The fog is wispy over the water, but not rising particularly high above the water, so I am still in the sunshine.

Looking towards Ytterøy with the small boat harbour at Vangshylla in the center. The sun is low in the sky, even at noon.

I had a most enjoyable walk, including a good climb up the hill in Straumen, an exploration of an area I hadn’t seen for several years, and lots of sunshine. We used about 75 minutes on our walk today.

2020-11-06

Place mats – Designing

I am in the process of sewing 1068 small pieces of material together with the goal of making 6 place mats for our kitchen table. I don’t mind the sewing, but my mind needs something to do while my fingers to do the work. So this series of blogs has been written in my mind several times before actually sitting at the computer to do the writing.

Several years ago I started making a series of place mats using patchwork and quilting techniques. The first series was autumn leaves, the second series was winter and the third series was spring tulips. We use the autumn series and the tulip series regularly, but the winter series I wasn’t that happy with and they have been taken out of active service.

The first set of 4 place mats with a theme of autumn and leaves found in our yard – maple, beech and birch. The placement of the leaves on each place mat are slightly different.

The second set of 4 place mats with a winter theme. Though each place mat has a snowman and two trees, they are all a little bit different.

This time I made a series of six place mats with tulips as a symbol of spring. These usually blossom in May here.

In July 2020, we bought new dishes for the kitchen, a beautiful blue (my favourite colour) from IKEA. However they didn’t look very good on either the orange or the green place mats, so I started thinking about a new set of place mats that went better with the new dishes.

Already the day after I had bought the new dishes, I went hunting through my boxes of leftover material and looked for a variety of materials that went well with the new dishes. I set aside the ones that went well and then the ideas of what to use and how to use the material had to mature for a while.

Eventually I decided on three materials that I would use on the top of the place mat and a plain dark colour for the backside.

The bottom material in the pile in the picture is big enough to make the back side of six place mats. The other three will be used to make a pattern for the top side.

Time goes by and the idea sits there and I have to decide on what sort of pattern to make. I decided something more geometrical this time and decided on a zigzag pattern, using the three chosen materials. The lightest colour is quite bright, so small amounts of it.

I made three suggestions for a zigzag pattern with slightly different proportions. Finished size played a role and I chose the top left-hand pattern to continue with.

In the bottom right-hand corner I calculated the sequence of the pieces of material. One square on the paper is 2 cm, so three squares means that the finished piece is to be 6 cm long. X and A refer to the light blue material. The shaded squares and C are the dark blue material and the blank squares and B are the patterned material.

This is the sampler I made to make sure that I liked my pattern.

The calculations for how many small pieces to cut.

Next came the detailed calculations of what size pieces I would need and exactly how many I would need for 6 place mats. Some are 4 x 4 cm, some are 4 x 6 cm and some are 4 x 8 cm. All pieces have 1 cm on each side for seam allowance, so a 4 x 4 cm square will come out as 2 x 2 cm in the finished place mat. The total came to 1 068 pieces plus a few extra for good luck.

The next blog will be about sewing the pieces together.

2020-10-222020-10-24

Inderøy Walk – Mosviksenderen /Skavlen Transmitter

It is now October and winter weather is around the corner. My friend and I had looked up at the tall mast last week and agreed to walk up to it, if the weather permitted. The weather wasn’t that great, but we did the walk anyway.

I’ve been trying to find information about the mast but the information I have found is a bit limited. The building is located at 401 meters above sea level. The mast is a transmitter for several Norwegian television and radio stations and was built in 1973. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skavlen_Transmitter )

The hill in the distance, covered in cloud, is where the mast should be visible on a clear day.

We drove along Fv 192, towards Saltvikhavn in Mosvik, drove about 1.5 km past the turn to Salvikhavn and found a parking spot on the side of the road. After all, we wanted the uphill walk for the exercise. We parked about 2 km from the mast at an elevation of about 200 meters above sea level. The temperature was about 3 degrees Celsius and there had been snow at higher elevations in the night. There was some slush on the road, much of which is a gravel road. Thankfully my friend had already changed to winter tires on her car.

As we started our walk up the hill it was obvious that the views today would be very limited. Cloud cover was low, but there was no precipitation while we were walking. The closest spit of land is Ytterøy, an island. In the distance is Levanger.

The first part of the road leads around a farm. As we walked uphill, the sheep were being moved into a different field. They all seem to have their winter coats on and they had on different colours. The darker ones had horns.

As we walked uphill, there was more and more snow. It was a bit slippery under foot. But we weren’t the first ones up the hill today. We saw one vehicle drive up and there were tracks of several vehicles in the new snow.

I asked my friend what she thought the purpose of the sign was and her comment was that when there is a large amount of snow in the winter, the road needs to be marked. They may not plough the road all winter, but it would have to be usable by snow scooter. There were lots of other trails off the road, often with tracks from an ATV.

“Danger – ice falls from antenna” – we must be getting nearer our goal. Notice how much snow there is now. Height above sea level makes a big difference. At lower elevations the precipitation would be rain. We have now climbed about 200 meters in elevation.

Finally, the goal of our walk, though the top of the mast disappeared into the cloud cover. I was surprised at how large a building was connected to the mast.

There were three vehicles outside the building, doors were open and people were obviously at work. Here is where the cables come out of the building and head up into the mast.

There was certainly a lot of different equipment on the mast and I couldn’t see all the way to the top because of the cloud cover.

I’m not sure if the view would be much more interesting in clear weather. Though one sees the mast in clear weather from afar, standing on the ground at the bottom of it, it looks like there are a lot of trees around it.

Though I enjoyed the walk, I would definitely recommend doing the walk when the weather is clearer. I plan to do the walk again next year, in the summer months of the year. The walk was a little over 2 km each way and we used a little over an hour.

A few days later I was able to take this photo of the mast, taken from the other side of Skarnsund. Though it shows up well for the naked eye, I had problems getting the mast to show up in a picture, even when I zoomed in a lot.

I have zoomed in a lot to take this picture, which means it became very grainy.

2020-10-14

Inderøy Walk – Korpåsen in Mosvik

Today was a pleasant autumn day, with no wind or rain. I went for a walk with a friend. We meet most Wednesdays and enjoy walks in various parts of Inderøy.

She parked her car near the school in Mosvik and we walked around the farm called Stor-Grande and were soon in the woods. Though we started off heading towards one particular check-in place, we ended up changing our minds and going to Korpåsen which has a beautiful view. We used about an hour and a half on today’s walk.

A lot of the walk was along a tractor road. It was steady uphill, but not steep.

Though the tractor road was easy to walk along, the terrain went up very steeply and down very steeply on either side of the road. This wasn’t an area to walk off the road.

The tractor road was in good condition and obviously used. We came to an open field where the sun was shining on the trees turning yellow.

We had come from Stor-Grande, a blue trail, meaning that it was easy walking. So far we had walked 2.1 km. To the right in the picture one can see the trail that goes towards Øksnåsen.

In the middle of the woods we came to this sign with a map of the area. We took the trail towards Skarnsundbrua. Now we were on a more difficult walk.

Now the trail became narrower and slightly more challenging, with roots in the path and in places large rocks to climb up. Here you can also see a small wooden bridge across a stream. Note the red and white streamer on the tree on the right which is the modern method of marking trails. On the tree to the left is a round patch of red paint which is the older method of marking trails in the woods.

Somebody has made visitors welcome by putting up a sign telling the visitor what the name of the place is. From here there is a view over Trondheim Fjord and the center of Mosvik.

There was even a flag flying today. The box on the tree has a book one can write one’s name in.

The view looking westwards towards Trondheim.

The view looking eastwards towards Verdal.

Today the temperature was about 9 degrees Celsius, so we didn’t sit long at the top. There was just a bit of a breeze and after climbing uphill we cooled down quite quickly. Soon we were walking again and heading down the hill to the car. It was a very pleasant outing with a good friend. This is a recommended walk, with many variations if one wanted to take an even longer walk. See the map in the picture above for suggestions on a round trip in the area. We walked back down the hill the same way we had gone up.