In the meantime, normal life has started again and I just found time to actually write this blog about the remaining months of the Swedish Studio Kvinna calendar . Last week You could already read about Stockholm and fika, here's the rest!
February – Together
Last week I already mentioned the Sami, the original nomadic population of Lapland. Don't call these people Lapps, because they see it as an insult. They live in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Some of the Sami traditionally followed the reindeer herds, for their milk, meat and skins. And they used those skins for tents and nice warm clothing, like in this illustration .
April – Archipelago Coast
The archipelago is an area with shallow and often brackish water and numerous, mostly small rocky islands , called skerries. In Sweden, these are mainly found on the west coast near the province of Bohüslan and in the east from Stockholm to the Baltic Sea. There are thousands of small islands, inhabited and uninhabited, that can only be reached by water.
June – Herring
In the Netherlands we love it, but the Swedes are doing herring eating 2.0. When the new herring is caught in June, it is marinated in all kinds of sauces. Think of mustard, dill and beetroot. During holidays you eat it on a slice of rye bread. And then there is 'surströmming'; fermented herring. Known worldwide as one of the most disgusting dishes. It is recommended to open the can of fish outside because otherwise the pungent smell will linger in your house for months…
August – Horse from Dalarna
I think that everyone who has ever been to Sweden recognizes this horse: the Dalahäst . Häst is the Swedish word for horse and Dala means that it comes from the region of Dalarna (in the west/middle of the country). There, at the end of the Middle Ages, the farmer's fathers made wooden toy horses for their children. Other children wanted the horses too and so it first grew into a means of exchange and later into a symbol of Dalarna and all of Sweden.
October – Swedish design & Abba
Everything, well almost everything, looks beautiful in Sweden. Almost every restaurant or sandwich shop looks like it came out of a home magazine. The best design classics come from Sweden (and Denmark) in my opinion. What do you think of this chair, designed by Yngve Ekström in the sixties? Or that cool lamp by Poul Henningsen? And such a retro interior is of course not complete without a bit of Abba on the radio.
December – Tomtes
A tomte (or nisse) is a kind of Scandinavian gnome-elf, according to folklore the soul of the first inhabitant of the farm. They are maximum 90 cm high, the males have a long white beard and wear a red (pointed) hat. At Christmas there are special juletomtes, for which something tasty is hung in the Christmas tree or by the mantelpiece.
Although I put our tomtes away with the Christmas stuff with pain in my heart, I am now happy that it will be almost a whole year until Christmas again. Rumor has it that we will be going on holiday to Sweden again this summer. I can't wait 🙂
In the webshop The calendars are there, in case you don't have them on your wall yet and would like to.