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Tag archives for Midsummer

5 Steps to Making Your Own Midsummer’s Head Wreath

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If you saw my post over the weekend about how THE MIDSUMMER’S COUNTDOWN IS ON, you know that I’m pretty excited. One of the things I’ve been most excited about are the head wreaths.

My Swedish friends would probably laugh at me if I called them exotic, but to be honest, there is something so old-fashioned and nostalgic about creating flower head wreaths that they do seem foreign, enchanting, and even, well, even exotic to me.

That said, it’s all good and well to want a flower head wreath of your very own, but I had no idea how to make one.

“Oh, if only I were a Disney princess,” I thought to myself, wistfully, while standing at my window and gazing out over my kingdom courtyard. “Then all I would have to do is stand here and absent-mindedly sing as I gaze, and a host of forest animals would come bearing flowers, and then probably some remarkably humanoid mice would assemble them for me, and a team of birds would assembly to carry it to me and place it on my head, whistling industrially all the while. If only! If only.”

And then I sighed and gazed out at the courtyard again, longing for an answer to my plight.

Fortunately, I was jarred out of my reverie by my friend Anna calling, reminding me that we had already discussed the head wreath situation and had decided to meet today to do a pre-Midsummer’s trial run. Phew. Thanks to Anna, magical woodland creatures are not a necessary part of the head wreath process. Anyone can make them in five simple steps.

5 Steps to Making Your Own Midsummer’s Head Wreath

1. Collect flowers… lots of them

You need a serious amount of flowers—way more than I thought would be necessary. For the two of us, we probably used one full grocery bag of assorted wildflowers, grasses, and clippings from bushes. I thought that maybe we needed only flowers with long stems or with big petals, but even small, short flowers can be woven into your wreath. Just go for what you think will look good.

One small caveat: if you can, look for flowers that look like they won’t wilt right away, although it’s not always easy to tell what will hold up and what won’t. The jasmine bushes are in full bloom right now and the flowers look and smell amazing, but Anna told me that the flowers start to lose their petals almost immediately. Perhaps the best thing you can do is collect a wide range of flowers the first time around so you get a feel for what works and what doesn’t as you do it.

2. Start with a small bouquet and a long thread

Choose one large flower to act as sort of an anchor, then group 4-5 flowers around it. Tightly wind a thread around them a couple of times. Take a few more flowers, repeat. You’re on your way!

Alternately, you can start with a frame made out of wire or a tree branch. This might make it easier because you can measure your head size ahead of time, but it’s also an added step that you don’t really need. We made ours without frames, but if you really want to make sure that you end up with a wearable wreath, it might be a good idea.

Flowers, thread, scissors, and voila! You've got a flower head wreath. Photos: Kate Wiseman and Anna Bylander.

3. Build down and out

Continue adding flowers, grasses, leaves, and whatever else you find to your wreath, wrapping the thread tightly around each batch of additions to secure it in place. You can make a really thick, fluffy head wreath or a thinner, more delicate one. I went for the thick and fluffy effect, but it was really hard to bend it into a circle by the end. Anna made a thinner one and had a much easier time making it into a wearable wreath. Next time, I’ll probably go for the thinner wreath so that it’s easier to shape and lighter to wear.

Midsummer wreath in process. Photos: Kate Wiseman and Anna Bylander.

4. Loop back towards the beginning and tie the ends together

As you’re working, start bending your garland of flowers in a ring shape. When you get to the point at which you want to finish your wreath, use your thread to attach that long anchor flower that you started with to the base of your flowers. The long flower should mostly cover the stems at the bottom, and if it doesn’t, don’t worry too much—that can be the part that goes at the back of your head!

5. Smile! (and spritz)

You’re done! Place your flowers on top of your head and smile! (No whistling birds necessary.) Lightly spray your wreath with water throughout the day to make it last longer and brighter. Depending on how big and into what shape you make your flower wreaths, you can also use them on the table as decoration, as a temporary wreath from your door, or as a hanging decoration from your tent. As they say in Swedish, “Det är bara fantasin som sätter gränser!” In English: the only limit is your imagination.

The final product: two satisfied girls and a beautiful flower head wreath. (Mine became more of a garland... newbie mistake!) Photos: Kate Wiseman and Nils Bylander.

Now onto the aquavit…

There will be more Midsummer-themed posts coming this week! If you missed the introduction and background to Midsummer celebrations, check out my last post, THE COUNTDOWN IS ON. (Like I said, I’m a little excited about this…) And if there’s anything you’re curious about or would like to see covered, be sure to leave me a comment letting me know!

Kate Reuterswärd - Expat

June 20, 2011

THE COUNTDOWN IS ON

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Ladies and gentlemen, we are now officially within one week of Midsummer. Hallelujah!

This will be my fourth summer in Sweden, but I have only been to one Midsummer celebration before. Actually, it was all the endless talk about Midsummer that served as a reason to visit Sweden for the first time. I was studying in Italy at the University for Foreigners in Perugia, and I kept hearing about this amazing day from all my Swedish friends. When my friend Josefin, a native Stockholmer, invited me to join her and her friends out in the archipelago for the celebration, I was all about it. Surprised to learn that there was an archipelago, but enthusiastic all the same.

Dear Josefin, Princess of Midsummer, yes I will come visit you on an island and eat large amounts of delicious herring and dance around Maypoles with you. Anytime. Photo: Kate Wiseman.

So on the day before Midsummer in 2008, I jumped on a Ryan Air flight from Italy to Stockholm, arriving in the city around midnght, just in time to catch the sun making an obligatory nod towards the horizon before starting to climb back up in the sky. Welcome to the land of the midnight sun.

The conditions were perfect for a terrible, terrible let down. I had traveled from one end of the continent to another to take part in super-hyped day with a bunch of people I didn’t know (except for my friend, of course) for a holiday whose festivities are largely dependent on the weather being good. And yet, despite all that, the day was perfect.

Garlands of flowers for your hair and maypoles to dance around: what more could you ask for? Photo: Kate Wiseman.

The weather was flawless: warm and sunny on an island where the sky stretches for miles. I discovered for the first time just how well the general Swedish population speaks English. A Maypole was erected, and while I didn’t know what was being sung, I hopped around said Maypole in a circle with the rest of my new acquaintances while they sang and laughed. (Later I was told that I was a little frog, hopping around.)

Drinking songs were also sung, and great quantities of bitter-tasting aquavit were drunk. I had my first taste of herring, and for a few moments I very seriously considered taking a swim before a tentative toe stuck in the water sent me racing for the comfort of blankets. And while it got a little dim late at night, the sun never really set.

This is the sweet life. Midsummer food and the most perfect Swedish cottage of all time. Photo: Kate Wiseman.

Now, three years later, I get to do it again. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

Here’s the skinny on Midsummer (or Midsommar, if you want to be authentic about it). It is yet another of the many holidays with its roots in pagan traditions, but this one does not have a Christian tradition that was superimposed over it. It’s a good old-fashioned sun-worshipping/fertility/thank God it’s summer festival, originally celebrated on the summer solstice (June 21) but now celebrated on the Friday closest to the solstice.

Traditional celebrations involve a very distinctive Maypole (think fertility again), lots of food, and even more aquavit–a very strong, flavored liquor. I’m sure our resident food blogger will be talking more about the menu and drink choices, but I’ll be covering other Midsummer traditions in more detail throughout the week… stay tuned for more!

Kate Reuterswärd - Expat

June 18, 2011

Welcome to the neighborhood!

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My first encounter with Sweden came in Italy, when I was a student at the University for Foreigners in Perugia. I started dating a Swede within the first couple of months, and my Italian roommates had some cautionary words for me.

Svedessi sono freddi. Cold, like their country. Just a little frightening.

The man on the right (my roommate Giuseppe) was responsible for the pearls of wisdom about Swedish people, but clearly we're coming from a very different perspective in any case.

I kept dating the Swede, though, and then I went back to the United States for my last year of college. I got used to fielding questions about Sweden and Swedish people, a country I had still only spent five days in.

No, they don’t have Swedish fish (American gummy candy). Yes, they are really quite blond, generally speaking. No, they’re not all crazy socialists (it’s a parliamentary democracy, duh). Yes, they are really good-looking.

I also got to see my own culture through foreign eyes for the first time: to see how different it is to need a car for life in the suburbs, to appreciate how warm and welcoming Americans are, to experience the joy of actually receiving service with a smile and the delight of unlimited soda refills.

My first trip to Sweden, my first Midsummer in Stockholm, my first encounter with herring.

After I graduated, I went to Sweden for two and a half months during the summer, just short of the 90 days I was allowed to stay in the country without a visa.

I fell in love with the warm summer days, the easy-going lifestyle, the fact that the whole country seemed to be on vacation, and the bicycles. I learned that waffles are a dessert item, not a breakfast food, and that the best way to eat them is covered in jam made of cloudberries, a sought-after yellow berry that grows only in the far north of Sweden.

I also brought parts of America with me, in the form of a 4th of July barbeque party, Mexican food nights, and real American pancakes with maple syrup.

Swedish-style dessert waffles at Skansen, an open air museum and zoo in Stockholm. Note the gooey yellow stuff on the waffle: that's the cloudberry jam!

Another summer ended, and I returned yet again to the United States. I worked in Washington, D.C. first as a waitress and then as an English language teacher at an international language school while applying to other jobs throughout the world. I was aiming for a job just about anywhere in Europe so that I could take a step closer to Simon and to Sweden.

It took awhile for me to figure out that I could actually apply for what my family jokingly referred to as “a love visa” to Sweden just on the basis of my relationship with my Swede. It seemed ludicrous at first. I can get a legitimate visa to Sweden just on the basis of “planning to marry or cohabit with a Swedish citizen?” This is clearly a land both inhabited and legislated by starry-eyed lovers.

I filed the application, and in the meantime, I got a job in Vienna, Austria. I moved there in January 2010, and about a week after I accepted a year-long position there as a project manager, my visa application to Sweden was accepted. Of course.

In May, after a few more months of shuttling back and forth between Vienna and Lund, I gave notice at my job and filed my residency papers for Sweden. In July, Simon and I drove halfway across the continent with a trunk full of my things, headed for the land of Vikings and meatballs, crayfish and Aquavit, long winters and long summer days, Maypole dances and government-mandated coffee breaks.

Two friendly Swedes illustrating the finer points of mushroom picking.

For the last seven months, I’ve had the opportunity to be immersed in Swedish culture as an American abroad, and it feels like I have a foot in both cultures.

My friends are almost all Swedish, and they’ve included me as part of their group and done their best to humor my questions and explain what’s going on. (Now tell me again, why does Lucia wear candles on her head? And why are the boys dressed like wizards?) I’ve been enrolled in my free government “Swedish for Immigrant” classes, where I meet other immigrants and learn about Swedish culture from a pedagogical perspective.

At the same time, I’ve been able to introduce my own cultural traditions within my group of friends, with carving pumpkins for Halloween, hosting our very own Thanksgiving, and baking chocolate chip cookies.

Eating Swedish meatballs in Sweden used to be an exotic and photo-worthy happening. No more.

Welcome to my expat blog at Sweden.se! Skål!


Kate Reuterswärd - Expat

March 7, 2011