2025 :: the year in pictures

that old daily photo project continues. i've been doing it more or less since i got that first dslr in singapore in may 2008. i'm clearly not actively trying to improve my photography these days, but more to document my life and help myself remember everything that happens throughout the year. the vast majority of my photos come from my iPhone these days, but i don't mind. i spent a bit of this lazy first day of 2026 looking back at 2025. 

january - the year started off pretty focused on textiles. knitting sophie scarves and weaving tea towels for husand's oldest. there was the weird incident with the swan on the road. i actually tried to scooch him off the road, since he was just sitting there and i feared a car would hit him. we called animal control and they came and instead of taking him away, they humanely put him down, since he apparently had the bird flu! the first swan i ever touch and it had the bird flu. luckily, i didn't get it. 

february - it was a pretty creative month, weaving, knitting, attending a talk with astrid skibsted, expanding my grove of avocado trees to include some lychee trees. we ate too many fastelavnsboller, as usual, but they're so yummy and their time is so fleeting. 

march - i went to arizona for possibly the last time. it was honestly a very nice trip - i celebrated my birthday while i was there and i also visited with family in minneapolis on the way. i did a radio appearance when i got home. and i started planning my first eras tea towels. mazi had her kittens while i was gone. 

april - the first rhubarb, weaving, a loom for the museum, a one day course with  weaving legend winnie poulsen, doing some podcast interviews for work, and a party in the heart of copenhagen. it's funny how you can fill your days with work and creative projects and almost forget that the country of your birth is being dismantled in the most brutal manner. 

may - husband did a heroic humanitarian aid trip to ukraine. the lilacs and the rapeseed were in full bloom. i got two sweet ducks and finished the first batch of taylor swift-inspired tea towels for the lover album. i helped a friend paint her dying sister's casket. it was a most intense day that spanned every emotion - we laughed and cried and laughed again. i got started on the next era - reputation. 

june - was all about 3daysofdesign. the festival itself is only 3 days, but a lot of planning and work went into it. i still found time to make elderflower and rhubarb cordial and finish the reputation tea towels. i got started on my summer weaving project - rainbow sherbet. 

july - the child moved home from arizona and it was so good to have her home. i admit it was a big relief. we had a gathering with friends in the garden, enjoyed the summer produce, and i wove a lot of tea towels.

august - weaving, volunteering at the museum, playing tourist in copenhagen and my first week at a højskole weaving course. it was a good summer and all too short. i did a warp for the next era - speak now - mostly because i had the right colors for it and a plan for what to learn this time (something called color effect)

september - it was time for the child to start her next chapter (a master's program) in lisbon. i joined the noma coffee club and had the best coffee i've ever tasted. the harvests continued and it started to be knitting weather again. and we started up the bracelet production again to prepare for the release of the life of a showgirl. 

october - life of a showgirl came out and the binge listening began. i went to masker i marsken, a knitting festival in højer, and realized i had become an astrid skibsted groupie. i so enjoy her workshops, i get new ideas every time. i started to develop an idea for a weaving project, involving weaving a message into the work in sound waves. i met weaving legend hanne vedel. i created a work for our annual exhibition, using my great grandmother's quilts. we got the coolest floor in our bathroom. 

november - our annual trip to højer with our creative group was a much needed creative break. my sister took amazing photos of the northern lights. i inherited a bunch of art and weaving supplies from the same source as my newest loom. i visited the lærke bagger pop-up at arken and was, as usual, inspired by textiles. i finished a new runner for the kitchen just before hosting our best thanksgiving ever. 

december - felt like a whirlwind. several weekends volunteering at our local museum. then lots of visitors over christmas. i requested that for christmas i wanted to be able to take a bath in our new bathroom upstairs, so husband worked his butt off tiling to make that happen. it makes me very happy. my sister came for christmas (she knitted that awesome sparkly pink scarf i'm wearing in the middle photo!) and some old friends also stopped by for a visit. we continued our tradition of a christmas eve charcuterie board. 

the year felt like a good one from my little corner of it. with everything going on  - war in ukraine, trump and all of his destruction of, well, everything, plus his designs on greenland - it feels a bit strange to say that. but my little corner really was filled with creativity, laughter, good times and people that i love. i'll have some more of that in 2026, please.  

what i wove this year

we're closing in on the end of the year. what a shitshow this year has been, watching that spray-tanned satan and his band of evildoers dismantle everything good about the country of my birth is disheartening to say the least. so i'd much rather focus on something positive and creative. like everything that i wove this year!

i started off with tea towels for husband's eldest. we made the warp just before the end of 2024 and i finished them up february 19. 11 finished tea towels! they were made in colors she requested. i managed to make a few of them more my style by going for a madras plaid look adding some orange and red. i keep one from every warp for myself, as a memory of what i've woven. she got six of them and the rest were sold or given as gifts.

on april 5, we created the warp for taylor swift's lover album, starting my quest to weave all of taylor swift's albums as tea towels. i wanted it to sparkle like the lover bodysuit and sparkle it did! i think emmy, my weaving mentor, wanted to talk me out of it, but in the end, we are both glad she didn't. it took awhile, but i finished the warp on may 18. 13 finished tea towels!

on may 24, i started right in on the next album - reputation. it was quite the departure for me to work in black and white and grey, rather than a colorful warp. i broke up the monotony a bit by weaving in a bit of red and green sparkle. i also had a different kind of silver and black sparkle thread in the warp, but it didn't behave nearly as well as the sparkle thread i used in the lover warp. lesson learned there! i took them off the loom june 28. i got 13 finished tea towels from this warp, though there are only 10 in this photo. i had to weave some extra ribbon for the straps, so the last three weren't finished yet in this photo. 

on june 29, we already made the next warp - i took a break from the taylor swift project to weave a good long summery warp that i called rainbow sherbet. i finished it already on august 9 - 21 tea towels! unfortunately, they're already gone - as gifts and one person bought six of them for christmas presents! husband's middle daughter also got six of them for her kitchen. i wove in with some sparkly threads and all the ones she chose had those. 

then the loom rested while i went on a week-long weaving course at skals, where i wove 8 small test weavings with 8 different techniques. i didn't want to put a new warp on the loom in case i learned something that i wanted to try out immediately when i got home. there are two that i will do for future warps in my eras tour project.

on august 24, it was back to my taylor swift eras project. we made the warp for speak now. i had the yarn for that one is more or less why that album was the next one. i've actually not gotten very far on this one, so i can't show the finished product yet. i chose to play with what's called "color effect" and i can feel that i'm already bored with it before i'm even really started. 

i have to pull myself together and get to work on it. this was just the end, or should i say the beginning, where i get the warp started and try weaving a bit with all of the colors to see how they look together. as you can see, i've tried a couple of sparkle threads as well to amuse myself. i have a stack of these weavings to make small bags/purses out of, but i have yet to make any. instead, i've turned to knitting of late, though not on my christmas sweater that should have been finished last christmas, but more about that in a knitting wrap-up post. 

i did finish one more thing on the little loom in 2025. i took a new rag rug runner for the kitchen off the loom november 19. i've come a long way in my weaving ability since i did the first one down in randbøldal 5 years ago. it looks so nice, i really love it! there's still 6-7 meters of warp on the little loom, to make some more rugs, so i just have to tear up some old duvet covers and get going. this one took me most of the year - i can see in my photos (that daily photo project is still coming in handy), that i started this one february 9. it was a bit tedious, laying in each strip of fabric and making them meet and lay just right. but that's why it's nice to have two looms, so you can move between projects according to what you feel like doing. 

i got some wool ready to try my hand at making a proper wool rug on that warp, but have made two attempts and am not keen on it, so i frogged it back again (not sure it's called frogging when you weave) and i'm not sure what i will make next. probably another rag rug with some old duvet covers in shades of pink and green that i can use in the bedroom. 

a total of 58 tea towels and one four-meter long rug woven this year. if i'd kept up my head of steam, it could have been more, but weaving just takes the time it takes and that's a big part of what i love about it. 

2023 :: a year in pictures

 

january

it seems like january wasn't all that memorable. working from home, a visit to mosegaard museum, frost and snow, lego flowers, the light slowly returning. 

february

lots of work stuff - spent a bit of time in copenhagen. enjoyed signs of spring. still couldn't stop making more avocado plants, which was my corona obsession. ate some good food. did some creative stuff. started planning the garden. 

march

sabin and her friends came for spring break, which was so much fun. went to a coiled basket class, made some yummy cupcakes for my birthday and a fancy charcuterie board for our little creative group's annual meeting. 

april

started spending time in the garden and even harvested the first herbs for a salad, as well as the first ruby stalks for rhubarb that i forced under some black buckets. bought some hoka running shoes, hoping it might make me run. spoiler alert: it didn't. billy the cat came by for his annual visit. he stayed around for several months. 

may

recorded the first episodes of my podcast for work (look for it where you listen - it's called the sociable kitchen). may is always when the canola fields are at their peak and i am here for it. it was also lilac time, which is my favorite time of year. may is also when i started taking wegovy. alas, i didn't do a may selfie, so we'll have to compare the ones that follow with the previous months.

june

june was eventful - a trip to berlin with a friend to visit some old friends of hers, husband ran a half ironman, i spent time in the studio in aarhus and fell in love - it's such a great atmosphere! we started to enjoy the garden. and i got new ducks. we also got a pig, though it was over at our friends' place. 

july

summer was here and that meant berries - strawberry ice cream, black currant jam. my grove of avocado trees thriving in the kitchen window. a visit to an old friend to record a podcast episode. turning my woven rug that weirdly disintegrated from useful object into art. and a new fully electric car for me. 

august

sabin came home and we painted a cactus mural in our bedroom. we went on adventures and ate blts. husband also made the most amazing covered terrace and i did my part by making big cushions for the lounge area. husband helped build a shelter. and milkshake, my white running duck, laid her first egg! mazzie had kittens, despite being a kitten herself. 

september

i started to really feel and see the effects of the wegovy and shedding those extra pounds started to make me feel better. had a pretty traumatic encounter with someone from my creative group, and was much more able to handle it - maybe due to feeling healthier. made loads of cordial and jam with all the yummy things from the garden. dyed some dresses in the indigo dye pot. and visited the danish design museum in copenhagen as research for my work podcast. 

october

spoke at a conference in amsterdam, went to the taylor swift film with work friends, moved into our new bedroom, enjoyed the kittens, went to a book release party and spent a bit of time at trapholt in connection with a new project. i also learned a new thing - pinhole photography. harvested the squash from the garden and went mushroom hunting. 

november

the child was a bit stressed and came home spontaneously for thanksgiving. it was great to see her and help her relax a bit. we painted ceramics together, ate sushi and celebrated thanksgiving with good friends. and we laughed and laughed that evening, which was great for everyone. husband and i went to copenhagen twice because we got the date of our family get-together wrong, but made the best of it by exploring the new park beside the opera. made plans to weave rugs for the bedroom on my friend's loom.

december

down 15 kilos (33 pounds) since starting wegovy and starting to need some new wardrobe items. it makes me so happy. decided to up my gift-wrapping game and made a zillion ornaments with hama beads. it was so relaxing! wore something sparkly every work day of december. it has been a year of ups and downs, but despite the questionable expectations of christmas, it is ending on a good note and overall, while not that eventful, it lands in the positive column. 

2021 :: a second plague year, in pictures

january

it started off ok. a quiet new year's with friends, some baking - homemade sausage rolls, cardamon buns, quite a lot of working from home. we were able to hold a couple of croquis sundays before everything shut down in earnest. we bought a greenhouse on the blå avis and spent a saturday dismantling it and carting it home. and our child turned 20 halfway across the world! so we gave her valentino sneakers in neon pink. as one does.

february

working from home meant my coworkers were mostly lounging around on the bed or staring out the windows. i was jealous of them. we had actual snow and enough cold temperatures so that the lake actually froze and though we oddly didn't skate, we spent a whole weekend down there, enjoying being on the ice, grilling sausages and loving that there was some actual winter. a week later, temperatures were mild, so we dug the foundation for the new greenhouse. i started a 100 days of payne's grey project, but quickly fell behind and abandoned it in a kind of malaise brought on by the monotony of working from home with shitty internet.

march

i bought a bright pink sweater and some ceramics from a local artist to cheer myself up. there were signs of spring. working from home continued and it was nice to live in the countryside to alleviate feeling so confined. making good food and baking were definitely things i chose to do to cope. we finally put the windows in upstairs on the front of the house. i bought an unusual color palette in linen for making a quilt. and check out how badly husband needed a haircut - we fervently hoped for the hairdressers to open again soon!

april

a white papa kitty, who was surprisingly friendly, showed up, signaling the advent of spring in earnest. we found a second greenhouse for only 500kr and moved it home on a trailer via the back roads, rather than totally taking it apart. a lot of april went to working on the greenhouses. i'm not sure i ever got dressed in proper clothes - i may have spent the entire month in sweatpants and a hoodie.

may

things tentatively began to open up and we were able to go back to the office a couple of days a week. i realized that i preferred working at home because the coffee here is much better than the swill that passes for coffee at work. the greenhouses were completed and we planted a few things. weaving at the museum started up again as well, which was very welcome. i attended an embroidery course at the museum in kolding. we hung our spring exhibition, but didn't hold an opening, as larger gatherings still weren't allowed. billy, the prodigal cat, made his annual return (he definitely has another family somewhere) for the summer. the swans built a nest at our end of the lake, but alas, i don't think they ever hatched out any babies. 

june

summer days came - we had a department outing on a colleague's boat, which was on the most perfect sunny day. flowers bloomed, the garden took off and we had our annual sankt hans bonfire. husband ran a 4:18:4 mini triathlon and seems to have been bit by the triathlon bug. i prepared the warp for my crazy striped tea towels and husband worked on the siding on the west side of the house. 

july

i finished the rainbow quilt i had made in early 2020, just in time to give it as a gift to friend's daughter who was graduating. we enjoyed the garden bounty that was the reward of all that hard work on the greenhouses in the spring. i made a second quilt, using the funky linen color palette - planning it as a picnic quilt for my work in the exhibition. we spent all the time we could enjoying the garden. i only took a week off, saving my holiday for a hoped-for november trip to the us.

august

life was essentially back to normal. we were in the office again full time, though we all took days working from home here and there because we had grown accustomed to it. the garden continued to give generously, both veggies and flowers. husband decided to extend the house a couple more meters since he had a new plan for where the stairs should be. an old bloggy friend came to town and explored copenhagen in the rain. husband's eldest ran the copenhagen ironman, which was an absolutely amazing feat of which i am still in awe. i finished the quilt and at our exhibition opening (which was really the closing), i set up a picnic, complete with snacks and cocktails that everyone attending could sample. it was a good month and didn't at all seem like it was in the midst of a plague year.

september

i resolved to grab all the chances i could for creativity, starting with a lovely weekend down in højer with my creative group. it was absolute bliss and i even got a pair of green sandgren sandals in a little shop run by a lovely woman who i believe made up prices for each customer individually. i made an artwork of a focaccia with all kinds of goodness from the garden to take along for sharing and we made quite a lot of linoleum prints while we were there. then, a few days later, i went to fanø for a very enjoyable day with my weaving group. then, our team had a much-needed trip to copenhagen together and went a long ways towards repairing the damage wrought by too many months of working from home and a boss who had gone down with stress. the coffee continued to be much better at home and the garden generously provided flowers for all the vases in the house.

october

i attended a gourmet knitting day where i met some lovely and talented knitters and thoroughly enjoyed the company of women. we saw the latest james bond in a posh theatre with reclining seats - the first film we'd seen in the theatre in several years. a hard frost came and stopped my dahlias in their tracks. i brought the mango plant inside, along with all the avocados that i'd been growing as well. my first sweet potato crop was a bit tiny, but it was fun to try growing them. i'm not sure our climate is warm enough for them. i finished four tea of my crazy striped linen tea towels, in time to take them as gifts to the us. just before we left, i found two kittens i didn't know about in the greenhouse. they were absolutely adorable and we quickly found a new home for them.

november

finally, that longed-for vacation came and we headed for arizona and some sunshine and warmer temperatures. it was a great trip! we went to a sorority gala, the asu-usc football game, we climbed south mountain and we saw the grand canyon and visited sedona. it was so much fun seeing husband see the grand canyon for the first time. back at home, we went to husband's aunt's 90th birthday and i played with shibori in the dye pot twice! once with real indigo. i decided to take a new job in the new year and we put in the windows on the other end of the house. it was yuzu time and i got all that i could and made loads of delicious things with their fragrant goodness.

december

december started with the discovery of a charming little gin bar at halmtorvet and two visits to jah izakaya with colleagues. i find the food there so inspiring and delicious! we did a small belated thanksgiving gathering. husband made me a christmas calendar, giving me a new holey stone every day - he had collected them last summer as he spread stones from a big bag we had ordered in front of the house. when he was doing it, i asked him if he had found any with holes and he laughed at me. but he was secretly saving them to do the christmas calendar. he's a keeper. mid-month, the child came home and that was wonderful. we've been making her favorite foods and taking care of all the things she needed to do - like going to the doctor and getting a pfizer booster to go with her johnson & johnson vaccination. we had a wonderful white christmas with snow on the ground and the most sparkling, beautiful frosty walk. we should have celebrated husband's eldest's 30th birthday on new year's eve, but she got covid and we all had to isolate until we could test negative (we have all tested negative multiple times now). it wasn't the end to the year we expected, but maybe it was fitting anyway. 

* * *

i wasn't going to do a full month-by-month mosaic post, but i found myself perusing the ones from previous years and decided that it's nice to have them to look back upon. so, as always, this one's for me. and what's nice is that as i looked back over the photos and wrote the words here, i realized it may have been a second plague year, but it wasn't really all that bad. 

2020 :: a plague year, in pictures

january 2020

it all started off just fine, didn't it? a nice 70s themed evening with friends to welcome in the new year (i did this mosaic backwards, but didn't want to start over, so start in the bottom righthand corner), a resolution to do a creative act of some sort every day (i did that, but only because i count writing and cooking as creative acts) and of course, cats.

february 2020

experiments in baking, more creativity, some vintage finds and of course, cats. the pantry filled up with water because it never stopped raining, not even for one day. i went to louisiana museum of modern art with a friend, not knowing that wouldn't be possible again for much of the year. 

march 2020

despite reports about the virus, we still met sabin in barcelona and had a lovely week there with her. i came home and immediately started a new job the next day, and the day after that, they sent us home to work from home for the next few months. i kept up the creativity, cooked and hung out with the cats.

april 2020

spring came, despite the pandemic, nature just began to grow and burst forth, marching on. there was a lesson in that. we cooked a lot at home and even had a few chances to eat outdoors. seeking comfort, i began a rereading marathon of the mrs. pollifax books. and as always, i enjoyed times with the cats.

may 2020

still working from home, but the weather improved and we started to be able to go to the office at least part of the time. that was really nice. i discovered an app called too good to go, where local grocery stores and bakeries and even restaurants sell a "magic bag" for a song and you save food from being wasted. i plan most meals around these bags now.

june 2020

the strawberries began and i made loads of cordial from them and from the elderflowers. there was actual sunshine and i spent time in the garden - with the cats, of course. and i bought handmade items from individual artists. and i stitched up some masks for myself. there was no mask mandate in denmark, but i was headed for the states, where there would be.

july 2020

i went to arizona to help sabin move out of her apartment and into the dorm. we had quite some adventures and her car broke down while i was there and couldn't be repaired, so she had to get a new one. got a new small bee tattoo while i was there and we spent evenings cooling off in the pool. it was so nice to be together with her. and traveling in the pandemic meant my flights were pretty empty.

august 2020

home again to a new car - my first new car ever! a citröen cactus, which is a little baby SUV. we embarked on our big roof project and so i did a lot of cooking and the weather was beautiful, so we ate outdoors. the light meant that husband could work long days. he had help for a week and they got a lot done, but not everything.

september 2020

more berries, more cordial. i regularly bought myself flowers at a pick-yourself field nearby. the roof project continued and we got the actual roof on. weaving began again and i started on my latest runner for the kitchen. there was still a lot of cooking and baking.

october 2020

corona anxiety started coming into the picture again. numbers were rising. a good friend's kids both got it - being the first people who i know in real life who had the virus. i made great progress on my rug and we were back in the office regularly, though still not 100% of the time. i voted and sent it to chicago via DHL to be sure it was there in time. 

november 2020

the darkness settled in, and we began working from home once again. but sabin came home and we did two small gatherings for thanksgiving since it wasn't possible to gather in larger groups. it was so nice to have her here, but she was a little depressed by the darkness and the constant drizzle. i put up christmas lights on the house for the first time, both to combat the darkness and because we would be home for christmas this year. 

december 2020

a corona scare, frustrations with the isolation and not being able to see friends, and wearing masks and constantly being tested. but we made it through. we ate a lot of good food, i made yet another turkey and we did see family for christmas. sabin went back to arizona for the new year and arrived safely. i bought a sequined dress that i wore for both christmas and new year's, because we all need a little sparkle in this plague year. 

* * *

this was a bit of a belated review of 2020. i'm once again grateful to my daily photo habit, which hasn't let up since i began it in may 2008 when i got my first "real" camera. these days, i often take the photo with my phone, but since it's an iPhone 12 pro max, it's got a pretty good camera in it. having all those photos really helps me stroll through the events of the year, but it also took some time to get them uploaded and made into mosaics. it doesn't really look all that great so far, but here's hoping 2021 will be better. fingers crossed it will improve when biden takes the oath of office.