Travelling! We're home from a perfectly delightful sojourn in Scandinavia, back to a house full of the noise and busy-ness of offspring and animals, of cooking and cleaning. Not to mention a mountain of washing. I've done 3-4 loads a day since we got home and it's still like, full floor coverage in the laundry there. Joy!
We spent time in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland; unfortunately with limited time we could not fit in Finland, home of Marimekko. And the Moomins. I know, right? A little bit of sad face. But not too much since everywhere we went was pretty much ALL amazing. I'm in love with Scandinavia! I would seriously love to live on a fjord in Norway or anywhere in Iceland: except that I'm a wuss who just cannot cope with true cold.
Anyhoo, now to get into something I nerdily like to do; the retrospective travel wardrobe analysis, looking back the the success (or not) of the clothes I took, ponder on what I wish I'd taken, and generally how did it all go.
21 days
Where to:
Copenhagen, Stockholm, Norway, Iceland
Season:
Early summer. However I was keeping a close eye on the weather over there and soon realised that an early summer in Scandinavia is like early winter in Western Australia. So I packed accordingly. The daily temperatures were from lows as low as 7C up to about highs of 19C, and one delightful afternoon in Oslo when I met with the lovely Sølvi was warm enough to leave off the tights!
Expected activities:
Lots of city as well as country walking, one formal dinner, one hot spring and plenty of cold weather outdoorsy stuff, including hiking, horseback riding and zooming about in an open dinghy on a wind-whipped, iceberg laden, glacial lake. Fortunately, for that last activity everyone was provided with an ultra-thickly padded flotation suit, Michelin man like. Without which we would have fair dinkum all been icicles. Incidentally; no picture, sadly, but I can assure you a dinghy load of tourists all dressed identically as huge, puffy, red marshmallow men is a pretty darn hilarious sight.
Colour scheme:
Mostly strong, bright colours, tempered with ivory and only a little black
What I packed:
2 jackets: faux leather jacket (smart) and lightweight blue raincoat
2 jeans: black corduroy and ivory denim
2 scarves: ivory wool (smart) and raspberry jersey
6 tops: ivory Pattern Magic twist top (smart)
striped Tshirt, purple Tshirt
dark orange bodysuit, olive green bodysuit
royal blue short-sleeved hoodie
3 skirts: navy corduroy A-line, green corduroy, sludge-coloured denim
1 jumper: pink/green/ivory striped
1 dress; floral jersey, with beige satin petticoat to wear under
5 pairs tights/leggings: 2 prs black woollen, navy blue tights, paprika tights, olive cotton leggings,
neon green knitted hand-warmers
white bathers
6 pairs wool socks
3 shoes: black suede pumps, black leather booties, hiking shoes, plus red thongs,
chocolate leather handbag
not pictured; underwear, nightie, toiletries bag, umbrella
My daily outfits:
Apologies that some of these pictures have already appeared here as part of the me-made May collage. There was some overlap in time :)
Thoughts:
Well I was adequately warm and comfortable, and had suitable outfits always so in that respect it was a very successful little selection! I got pretty bored with everything I'd chosen by the end of the trip but that's par for the course :)
I know it looks like rather a lot of clothes pictured up there but for three weeks it kinda wasn't. The weather was cold so lots of items were worn layered together, frequently. The variety of tops: long-sleeved, short and elbow length; fitted and loose, worked out to be absolutely terrific for layering.
The surprise "fabulous" item was the royal blue Pattern Magic hoodie; which seemed like the perfect thing to go with almost everything else! I wanted to wear it twice as often and several times had to restrain myself from throwing it on over yet another day's ensemble. No joke, I need to make myself another one of those things!
I also really LOVE my floral dress. It just makes me feel really good when it's on, I think it's instantly flattering, it's smart enough to wear out to dinner as well as during the day and yet is still that traveller's godsend, non-crushable.
I tried to mix and match things up every day, and aimed to wear everything at least three times each. Because of the timing of our itinerary there was scant opportunity for washing clothes apart from the obligatory undies-in-the-shower-every-morning that I stick to religiously while travelling, no matter what. It's always best to keep on top of that at the very least, I reckon! Also I washed my ivory Pattern Magic twist top and "saved" my white denim jeans for the trip home. Might sound funny, but for us it's always such a long long trip to come home, from everywhere! so I always aim to keep something nice and clean for the trip home.
Shoes. Hmmm. In my opinion the trickiest thing in packing. Aaaaargh! So hard to narrow it down and always the most annoying and bulkiest things to pack! I had forgotten about the cobble-stone situation that is endemic to Europe so I kicked myself a bit for not bringing my desert boots. In retrospect they would have been fantastic in the city streets. But since my suitcase was bulging with new purchases by the end of the trip perhaps it was a good thing to have restricted myself there, spacewise. I took my black suede pumps because they can be worn both with or without tights. The tights-less occasions numbered exactly two! I guess I was overly optimistic about the prospect of warm weather, there :) My ankle boots were brilliant. Hiking shoes are just a given. I wore my thongs just once! but I never feel like they are a waste of space since they really don't take up any room in the suitcase. And you just never know if they might come in handy. That could just be the Aussie in me talking though :)
And yes, I met Sølvi! or define elise as she is known in me-made May.
I enjoyed a totally delightful few hours chatting with Sølvi; sipping champagne in the sunshine sitting alongside Oslo's beautiful new Operahuset (opera house) and discussing important world issues such as sewing, fabric shopping, blogging and me-made May-ing. Just a thoroughly gorgeous afternoon. And we were so caught up in happy sewing chatter that we forgot about the obligatory commemorative selfie!
Thank you so much for coming out to meet with me Sølvi! :)