Linnea 'Ea' quilts...

Summer vacation is supposed to be just that. Vacation during the summer. But when your body gets the summer flu, things change. What was supposed to be vacation gets turned into a boring sleeping sneezing not-meeting-your-relatives kind of vacation. And trying cure your flu while trying to get some sleep in a bed that's not your own. But there is a silver lining here - being ill in a different town means that you can explore the content of books at the local library. Getting a library card wasn't that hard either, and thay didn't even look funnily at the "small pile of books" I wanted to borrow either. Only flip side with them is that I already read them all, and now I want more. I wonder if someone in the family have time to go with me to the library again today...? Small pile of books, tea and a packet of tissues.

Craft Friday is a 2012 recurring blog post where I present either a hobby jewelry technique or project I'm currently working on. As I wanted to tell you before , but post-phoned it slightly , I wanted to write about lack of inspiration while needing to create a jewelry piece. Now, I usually don't have a problem like this, but when I do, I do like a lot of other people and search for it. Now, for most of us with a computer this comes down to searching the internet. For others, me included, the 

The Truth about me Thursday is a 2012 recurring blog post where I present one truth about myself. Most persons like to talk . Some more than others.  I'm one of those . *sigh* Most people like to  talk  the most about one simple topic. Themselves. Unless they're embarrassed by something they've done, then not so much. Or depressed. Another thing is that some people go on and on and on about certain topics. Think broken records, but without the scratching sounds in between sentences. At times, this can make them really boring to  talk  to, at other times they make you so frustrated that you actually debate whether you can just dare to leave the conversation. Just walk away. Even though it's perceived as very rude , and your Mother/Father certainly taught you better manners . I once got the comment, from a friend, that "You  talk  a lot, but unlike [other friend's name] you always  talk   about different thi...

Craft Project Wednesday is a 2012 recurring blog post where I present a craft project I'm currently working on. Okay, today's update on the three dresses are thus: The violet and the two brown dresses have gotten all their upper parts (top and lining) cut out and the edges have been zigzag'ed. They're all mostly sewn together now too. The skirt parts also went through the same treatment, and only the violet skirt is still not sewn together with it's upper part. And... I took out the (still unfinished *sigh*) green summer dress, and finally made the lining for it. Parts before they got zigzag'ed. Most boring part, unless you count hemming the last part around the skirt. The worst part about sewing is that you can't really tune out while you're doing it - it's like you're going hypnotic on the surrsurrsurr  while desperately wishing it to be over. The silence between finishing one piece and reaching for the next is really ...

Okay, I must immediately admit that I got inspired from one thing that Tove wrote a while back on her crafts-blog . It was about the need to get a craft space. As in, a room or big desk or something similar where you can leave your handicraft and other project and still have room left in the house to just ... well, live? And not sort of get swamped in projects all the time. I must say, I do get what she's writing about. Because I've sort of resorted to use different parts of our home for different types of crafts. Here, let me show you... My desk. You've seen it before, and you're sure to see it again. Right now there's probably between four and ten projects currently "in progress" on it. Most of them are hobby jewelry projects, but since I want to use my desk for normal writing too... all of these project sort of "shuffle around" on the desk. Perched on the cabinet beside the desk... Here's where I put some of the ...

Craft Friday is a 2012 recurring blog post where I present either a hobby jewelry technique or project I'm currently working on. One thing I'm really glad for is the fact that since I decided that I wouldn't get stressed out or make any  kind of excuses for a sudden lapse in my blogging. My text, my rules. Which is why I'm letting you know that last Friday's craft post has gotten slightly postponed. I wanted to write this post instead, and leave the post I had planned to write about "lack of inspiration" for a later Friday. Yay, editor and writer's choice! Gotta love it. *smiles* So, instead I'm going to distract you all with some photos and talk about doing variations. More specifically, what I tried out a few days ago. Upwards down on the paper: coated tiger wire (black), crimp bead covers in various diameters and some 'goldish' small plastic beads. I'll return to the crimp bead covers (shown in ...

The Truth about me Thursday is a 2012 recurring blog post where I present one truth about myself. Every person has quirks that make them contradictory. One of mine is that I try being ecological... but I still take loooong showers. I crave  showers. It's usually the first thing I want to have in the morning - otherwise I don't really wake up - and it's usually the last thing I do before going to bed. Beginnings and ends. How each day starts, and how each day ends. With endorphins. Back in the summers when I went to scout camps, camporees and even one jamboree, I always sort of had to go on a morning swim. Salt och sweet water made no difference to me, or if it was kinda cold or if it was raining. Had to take my morning dip in water. So I can't really say it's a need  for warm water, it's more a need to get clean. Well, since anthropology and neuroscience gives us hints (nice subject by the way, much found online but don't read the popular...

Craft Project Wednesday is a 2012 recurring blog post where I present a craft project I'm currently working on. Okay, the deal is like this. My stash of fabrics - with fabrics and textiles inherited from my mom/aunts/grandmothers - isn't miraculously getting any smaller. Even with Ida and Mimi picking out some fabrics that they could use for new sofa cushions. So I need to get in there, and get cutting. Which is what I spent 2 hours on, today. With the risk of sounding like a one-trick-pony here, I just went ahead and cut out the parts I need to make three identical V&A-dresses. Yup, the same vintage dress pattern I've used before, and probably will again and again and again... I mean, because I really like the skirt-part on it. It falls nicely, it's easy to cut out and to sew. And modify, since not everyone is a size S. Like when I did Mimi's Frostbite dress . But the upper part.... Don't like it. At all. Which is why I've tried...

Craft Friday is a 2012 recurring blog post where I present either a hobby jewelry technique or project I'm currently working on. So, in holding with the 1:1 ratio of jewelry design , and continuing on creating a mixed media necklace out of Emmis's and mine broken porcelain plates , I must say I'm currently really lacking the 50% inspiration needed. It's not that I don't want to create anything, because I do, but I just can't get the hint of an idea to even form in my head. And this is annoying, to say the least. I've put all the things I'll need for the project on my desk, and I've put my scrap book open on the "right page" there for all to see, I've even thought up a few techniques I thought I try out with the polymer clay on the same time. But I just can't  come up with any real inspirational ideas. Which is why I think this post should be about how people find inspiration from different media for differ...

The Truth about me Thursday is a 2012 recurring blog post where I present one truth about myself. Okay, so far I've written about my drinking habits , my eating habits , and how I like to cook . Food, food and more food. Story of my life, at least for the moment on my blog. What I was going to write today was about how I do realize that I'm actually overcompensating with my cooking today the fact that my Dad didn't allow us kids to cook that much while we were still living at home . Which is sad, since theoretical knowledge about how to cook something really doesn't compare with practical knowledge. I do, however, understand how a stressed out parent might not want the kids to bake something just before the dinner preparations are supposed to start. A sink full of dirty bowls and utensils, and the oven being used, isn't really helping. Cue hungry and not-so-happy family. Hypoglycemic people are generally not very nice. But cooking is als...

Craft Project Wednesday is a 2012 recurring blog post where I present a craft project I'm currently working on. Since I haven't posted anything about crocheting for a while, I thought I'd remedy that. Already some time ago - I think it was last autumn - I held an arts & crafts party here at our place. Amng other things, Anne left me a box with things (some fabrics, ricrac and yarn) she said she didn't have any use for. Among the yarns there was 5 skeins of "baby pastel" colored ones that I completely understand why she hadn't found any use for them. Neither of us are 'pastel' color users, but one thing that soft pastel colors are routinely used for is... baby stuff. And even though neither of us are expecting, or have friends who are, I just thought " why the heck not? " and started on a baby blanket. The pattern is one I found in the very lovely book The Complete Photo Guide to Crochet by Margaret Hubert . The p...

Craft Friday is a 2012 recurring blog post where I present either a hobby jewelry technique or project I'm currently working on. This one is gonna be quite short. If you have no idea what memento mori  is, then go and read about it. Mine and Micke's good friend Ida turned 26 years yesterday, and tomorrow she's throwing a come-as-you-are birthday party over at the only Irish pub here in Turku. And for her birthday, I'm giving her: Ida's new Memento mori-earrings. Why? Well, I thought she would think them cool, and since she's an art history major... I just thought she'd get it. What do you think? Too weird - or too odd - a present? update written the following Monday: She really liked them! I'm so relieved! For once I've managed to make a jewelry-present that was spot on. Huge success, and a huge relief. I'm so glad :)

The Truth about me Thursday is a 2012 recurring blog post where I present one truth about myself. Happy International Women's Day. Today's post is, among other things, about being a woman. If the previous "truth" post, the one that was about my 'drinking' habits, then I think I need to write one about my eating. Eating habits, that is. It seems to me, that more and more people make some fuss about eating. One one hand it does make sense, since eating/drinking/excreting/breathing/sleeping/procreating are major facts of life. On the other hand, eating should be as easy as, well, breathing. Which our bodies manage to do autonomously. Oh, part of our eating, the whole digestive-tract-catabolism-thing that's part of our metabolism, that's autonomous. And most of us don't think that much about it... except for us with allergies. Or stomach/digestive problems. Or those with digestive tract cancer. Oh well... there I really put my...

Craft Project Wednesday is a 2012 recurring blog post  where I present a craft project I'm currently working on. Okay, you know how some people collect things for no apparent reason? Well, I happen to "collect" the links of web pages of people who have either a biomedical/biochemical degree, but then either works in some field totally opposite or in it in some odd setting or another. Or just happen to blog about something other than biosciences. Thus I present to you: Margaret Oomen. She blogs over at  Resurrectionfern . She takes amazing photos, and some of the things she blogs about is crocheting and embroidery. I found out about her when the people at the Purl Bee (a store in SoHo, New York) had her over for a presentation of one of her patterns . If you google her name, you're overrun with photos of smooth stones covered with crocheted lace patterns . But even better, check out her Flickr-stream! It's different types of crocheted ston...

Craft Friday is a 2012 recurring blog post where I present either a hobby jewelry technique or project I'm currently working on. I must confess that I hadn't really planned ahead on what to write for today. We're going to catch a train today up north to Bennäs, because one of Micke's cousins is getting married on Saturday. Everything is packed, so we're good to go, as soon as I finish this post. Planning for this wedding - wondering what to pack , and which shoes , and which earrings to bring -  kind of got me thinking about functional design again. A well planned and executed design means that the jewelry piece in question is wearable to a lot of occasions, on top of being aesthetically pleasing . Weddings usually means dancing, and dancing usually makes you move faster than you normally do. Depending on the dance, you might even stand closer to your partner than what you do when normally  just conversing with them. Which means th...

The Truth about me Thursday is a 2012 recurring blog post where I present one truth about myself. There's this interesting thing about elementary-trough-high school alcohol and drug education. It worked, on me. Don't know about the rest of the people, but at least on me. I was an absolutist until I was 23 years and some months old. And then, it was pretty much a conscious choice for me to start imbibing alcohol. On a "alcohol oriented student event". Although, aren't they all? Like any scientific experiment I ran through the test itself, which meant drinking about 10 portions of alcohol in 6 hours, after which I got very dizzy and thus very nauseous, drank at least a liter of soda water, all the while complaining loudly how dizzy I was, then felt slightly better, ate a burger and some fries at McD, then fell asleep at home in bed, while the whole world was still spinning through the roof, although that was probably just my...

Craft Project Wednesday is a 2012 recurring blog post where I present a craft project I'm currently working on. So, I've written before about knotting necklaces. And how there's enough tutorials found online about that. Just google it, I promise you're sure to find one to your likning. My "random" Café au Lait necklace, still lacking a clasp but otherwise nearly completed. Hence, the tape and taped together strings. What I, however, haven't written about is how long I've waited and much I've wanted to make a copy of the "Café au Lait"-necklace found in the book  "Mastering the Art of Beading" by Genevieve A. Sterbenz .  Well, the answer is "long enough". Really. That book is one of the best books - if not THE best book - I've read at least so far about making bead and wire jewelry. It's clearly thought through, written in such a way that it's an absolute delight to read, the photo...

After the party my folkdance-group threw last Saturday, I must have forgotten afterwards to stretch my foot muscles enough. Which meant that come Monday, the rest of my body felt okay, but... my feet and calves were in a terrible condition. Especially after Monday's 3 hours long tango practice. Auch. So after I'd gotten home, I took a quick shower and then spent a blissful hour sitting on our couch, thoroughly enjoying a foot-bath. You wouldn't have been able to lure me away, it was so heavenly. It didn't work out all the kinks in my feet, but it came pretty close. Sleeping the rest of the night with a heating pad filled with wheat kernels also kinda helped. Conclusion: must remember to stretch muscles more often.

This post has nothing to do about anything important, and a lot to do with something very random occurring. Well, tomorrow is the day when my folkdance group celebrates it's 39th year, and naturally I've been trying to decide which dress I want to wear for the occasion. So, because I had - like right now - some spare time, I decided to pick out my options from the wardrobe. The first dress I tried on is a purple satin one that I bought second hand for 4 euros this winter. Pulled it on. Started to pull up the zipper. And it got stuck. And then it broke. And I couldn't get it off. No movement, in either direction. None whatsoever . And I'm still wearing it, because even when I phoned Micke and asked him to come home and help me take the whole thing off.... it just wasn't possible. Not without cutting out the zipper, anyway. So now, I'm sitting and blogging in our sofa, waiting for tango practice to come up. In the violet dres...

Craft Friday is a 2012 recurring blog post where I present either a hobby jewelry technique or project I'm currently working on. There is something to be said about the dichotomy that is porcelain and pottery. One one hand it is burned in very hot ovens, used to store everything from food to chemicals in, and  it can withstand the tooth of time for hundreds of years. A thousand even. But on the other hand... Shards from one of Emmis' nice, if broken, green plates. ...it breaks into a hundred (or a thousand) pieces if it accidentally falls on the floor. Which, needless to say, is what happened to a few of Emmis' plates a few weeks ago, as well as to one of mine last Tuesday. Left were a mess of shards, and I managed to scavenged a few before the rest were thrown out with the trash. I know there's lots of things that you can do with pieces of porcelain, beautiful mosaics e.g. , but when these accide...