have i mentioned the second loom?

way back in 2010, before we even moved over to this falling down farmhouse, i acquired a loom. it's never been set up, but i've had it all this time. so once we decided that the brewery needed to be a weaving studio, i knew i had to set it up. along the way, i had acquired a third one and several smaller table-top looms as well, but there's not room for all of them. i still have dreams of having a loom upstairs in what will be the living room as well. 

a couple of months ago, husband and i spent the day putting the loom together. the two smaller ones i have are of similar size and we had to bring all the bits out here in order to figure out which belonged to which loom. we did eventually figure it out. it was rather like putting together a puzzle.

here are all the bits of the 3rd one. i cleaned them up and then the went back into storage until i can set it up upstairs. 

husband put up some hooks so that the extra bits that i'm not using on the big loom could be hung up. it can have 16 pedals, but i'm not nearly that ambitious as of yet. i'm only using six at the moment. 

we finally managed to get it put together. i knew i would need to call my weaving mentor to help me straighten everything out with all those "søller" (again, no idea what they're called in english since i've learned this entirely in danish). 

the view of the second loom through the first one. now it's really, truly a weaving studio. i'm going to set up a warp for weaving some more rag rugs. after i broke that bottle of olive oil on the first one that i wove and the second one had some issues with the yarn quality, i really need to weave a new one for the kitchen. 

it was rather fun getting out all the things that came with the looms along the way and figuring out exactly what all i have. and as you might imagine, i have a lot. it seems like every loom comes with a box or two of accessories. 

a week or so after this, emmy did help me get everything all set up and ready for the rag rug warp. i have to order the yarn and then we will get it set up. 

see the difference? i took this photo today - those strings are in much better order, just waiting for the warp.

we enjoy sitting at this little table and doing projects, even if it is right by the door. we sat here and made our friendship bracelets for the taylor swift concert (did i mention that my sister and i went to taylor swift in hamburg?). it's really become our favorite room.

and the view from the other side. i've got a second round of rainbow tea towels on the go on the big loom. when they're finished, i'll make us some bath towels for the upstairs bathroom. i'm pondering the colors and setup for those as i weave the rainbow tea towels.

somehow the color of the wood and color of the floor just complement one another perfectly. i love this room so much.

even when i'm working at home, i sit in a lounge chair over in this corner, just so i can be in the room. 

we can still do other projects out here, for example, husband is painting a cupboard over in the far corner. he just put down a drop cloth to protect the floor. i've had the sewing machine set up on the round table a couple of times as well. and i had a zine project going on there over the past week or so. 

people are always asking me how i have time for creative projects. i think it's mostly because i would rather come out and be in this room, making something, than sit and watch t.v. and even when i'm working on the computer, it tends to be here. so i guess my answer is that if you quite literally make the space for it, you have all the time for creative projects that you need.

those weird feelings you can't put your finger on...

i have the weirdest feeling when i go to our creative group's atelier up on the top floor of our local library. something about being there just makes me feel prickly, negative and a little defensive. i think it's been going on for awhile, but i only just was able to put my finger on the feeling last evening. i don't know why, but knowing that is a step towards figuring that out. 

i can feel that i put up a wall around myself. and that the wall actually prevents me from being present and open. it's like it appears without my knowledge and i find myself behind it, feeling a bit negative and out of sorts. 

or maybe it's just that i'm sensitive to negative energy. and there's loads of negativity there. i'm not sure that i've always felt it. at the beginning of the pandemic, i spent a lot of time there, as the library has a good internet connection and ours at home was iffy at best. so i worked there many days during the time we had to work from home. maybe that's it. some kind of corona-induced anxiety kicks in when i'm there. but why would that make me defensive and negative? 

it's also the scene where someone questioned how i was raised because i had wanted to send flowers from our group to the funeral of our group's founder's father. the other members of the board were against that idea, by the way. i'm still wondering how on earth that makes me the one who is badly raised. but i live outside my own culture, so perhaps it's just one of those things that's impossible for me to understand. but perhaps i associate it with the place. 

but how do i shake it off? i can feel that it prevents me from enjoying getting together with women i genuinely like in a place that's made for creativity. do i need to burn some sage up there? exorcise the demons? how do i get rid of this feeling so that i can enjoy being there again and be present for the people who i like being with? 

i don't mean to imply that i don't take responsibility for this feeling in myself. i just don't know the source of it, nor how to get rid of it. 

feeling blue about old my blue room

i've been in an intense adobe premiere pro course for the past two days. my head is full and i'm quite frankly exhausted. i was searching my flickr for a photo of pretty paper to use to encourage folks to participate in an art journaling workshop this weekend and i stumbled onto photos of my old blue room. and i got a bit, well...blue about it. i miss that beautiful space. somewhere i could leave projects out and where i could have multiple projects going on at once. somewhere to light a merry fire in the wood-burning stove, listen to music and hang out with friends and drink wine. and then cyndy sent me a blog post she did about my blue room long ago, which included a SONG that she wrote about it. i swear i don't think i knew about this song before now. i think that may have been during that period when i was feeling invisible. maybe it's just that the universe knew that today i would need to both laugh and cry at the same time. thank you so much, cyndy. it was precisely what i needed.

what does a creative workspace look like?

i've been pondering what makes the physical surroundings of a workspace creative. because it strikes me that just filling it with creative people doesn't necessarily do the trick. i've been pondering this for awhile and have collected quite a lot of inspiration on a couple of pinterest boards - kulturhus and stationen (co-working). interestingly, some of the first photos i pinned were of a workspace in LEGO's project house, several years before i ever started working there. the space looks amazing - with light, open spaces, bright colors and even includes a slide.

it's a light, bright open space and you can look down upon it from above. but even in most of the photos, there aren't any people working in the space (that could, i grant, be because the photos were purposely taken when hardly anyone was around). the photos represent a common area, and what they don't show is that they are surrounded by a traditional open workspace filled with normal office desks (which can raise and lower, of course). they also don't show the noise factor and the fact that if anyone actually uses the slide, it's quite disturbing to those working around it.

there are small meeting rooms overlooking the space. this meeting room, while colorful and (of course) filled with danish designer furniture (arne jacobsen 7 chairs and a peit hein super ellipse table), looks pretty small and cramped to me. and what about the distraction of looking down on the bustling workspace below or having those below be able to look up? does that promote or hinder creativity?

the cabinets there are filled with LEGO in all sorts of shapes, colors and sizes where the designers go to get the materials of their creativity. these cabinets are found in many areas around the company and there is something delightful about having all of those creative materials at hand.

this couch looks inviting and like a great place for an informal sparring session or impromptu chat. however, it's right above the big space below and it feels like everyone would be able to hear your conversation. this could be bad if you're discussing something confidential, but it could just also be quite disturbing to those trying to work below. especially as conversations in LEGO can take place in many different languages.

and stepping back a little bit, you can see that there's another informal workspace, just beside this couch, where it's even more obvious that the spaces are potentially more disruptive to work than facilitating it.

interestingly, every aspect of this area was thoroughly thought-through and deemed to be very creative and to promote creativity. all of the intentions were in place. but, in my opinion, it just doesn't work. it's too open, too many desk-laden areas are adjacent and it's too disruptive to getting work done. but i don't necessarily have any answers as to what would be better. i have an intuition that it involves getting rid of outlook and powerpoint as the main tools of people's work. and i also have an idea that it doesn't involve big, open spaces, but little, enclosed cavelike ones, to which people can retreat and do solitary, intensive work and then re-emerge and engage with others. i'm not sure precisely what that looks like. but i'm pretty sure it doesn't involve noise-canceling headphones for the entire department.

i suspect similar amazing-looking, well-intentioned spaces at google and various co-working places are equally not conducive to creativity.

i've got this book, on the evolution of workspaces, on my order list.  and after i published this, i came across this article on how etsy tackles the problem. and then i came across this one, which i think has some great ideas.

what do you think an ideal creative workspace would look like?

tho' it's totally unlike me to use someone else's photos, i did in this post. all photos came from here. 

universe, are you listening?

what if it was possible to have a place where you could combine all of the things you want to do in your life? a place full of good energy, inspiring surroundings, nurturing, caring people. a creative place, where you could do business, come up with great ideas, learn new things and spend time with people who make you better at what you do and challenge you in a good way. and what if you could get a cup of really good coffee there? what if that place didn't exist, so you had to create it yourself? and what if there just happened to be a charming old train station building, standing empty, just waiting for you to make it awesome?

and what if it needed a whole lot of paint and elbow grease? would you do it? would you, on the theory that writing is the new praying, write it down here for all the world to see and hope that the universe is listening so that all of the pieces would fall into place to make it happen? would you dare to believe and do all that you could yourself to make it happen? even if people thought you were crazy?

can you feel sad and happy at the same time?

how on earth am i going to leave this?

this weekend i spent some time sitting by the fire out in the blue room, as it's come to be known - not to be confused with a bar by the same name in a little middle-of-nowhere town in the upper midwest. i tried to soak it all in. of course, the house has been for sale for awhile and i've known that i will have to part with this room, and in many ways, that's ok. there are things we learned from it and will do differently the next time (more square meters and better lighting). but oh, how i have loved this space - i have literally whispered "i love you room," upon entering on more than one occasion. there's just something so right about it. something that it's hard for me to define. it is at once light and roomy and yet cavelike. that must be the combination of lots of windows on both sides and the dark, rich, turquoise paint i chose. but it also has to do with the creative corner, where i sit, completely surrounded by art supplies - stamps, tape, paint, paper, fabrics, you name it, it's there.

these essential ingredients all come with us. when we go, all that will stay behind are the little wood burning stove and the blue walls. i haven't even decided if i'll leave the linen shades. i was always going to make them longer by adding some fabric to them, but i never got around to it. i've got to check to see if i need them on the windows in the new place (we still haven't heard whether our offer is accepted - there are some challenges (which may or may not involve morse code, telexes and possibly a dog sled team) reaching both parties to the sale).

although i'm sorrowful to leave this space, i am already scheming and planning the new space. i want that end wall that needs to be torn off anyway to incorporate various reclaimed windows, i want a balcony with a little office/computer space that overlooks the big room below, i want more space for books and better shelves for the fabric stash. i want a bigger table that's better for cutting out fabric and patterns and a big wall for laying out quilts. and the colors, just imagining the colors is exciting.  it might not be turquoise this time around. maybe it will be white with purple accents. or green. or a completely different blue. or a hot-blooded magenta. i don't really know. yet. but i think having all of these exciting possibilities is what will get me through the sorrow of leaving this beautiful space behind.

* * *

i've just drastically marked down everything in my etsy shop. i really don't want to have to pack these things up and move them, so do check it out. i'd much rather package them up all pretty and send them to you! there are a few helleristning stones, a couple of pillows, a baby quilt and a scarf. i know winter's almost over, but then you're ready for next fall!  there are a few of the spice line of clarity birds left as well in the big cartel shop, so if you'd like one to fly your way, go there. there will be a new line of clarity birds for summer (after the move). i'm also putting off the art journal course that i mentioned that i was planning until after we're settled into the new place - i had never announced dates anyway so we should be cool there. i just know my time will definitely be limited in the coming couple of months. we've got a LOT of stuff to pack!

a very creative weekend

oh how i am going to miss this room when we sell the house and move (that offer we got a month or so ago, we rejected in the end, so it's not yet sold). but, knowing our time is limited, we are spending as much time as possible in the famed blue room. on saturday, there were two sewing machines whirring away and canvases being painted. there were top models' outfits being designed and several sketches for a new ladybug plushie to be made as a gift for a friend. there was art journaling and sketching of garden designs. it was a veritable beehive of creative activity.

husband's oldest daughter's version of a plain spoken quilt top - all done.

the canvases were done by sabin and middle sister.

a baby duvet cover that i'm working on.

i was totally inspired by the quilt K is making.

my tanya whelan dolce quilt - fending off the winter blues.

i even got to the quilting stage of it and it's now all quilted (tho' not in this photo) and just awaiting binding.

a peek at the back of the dolce quilt.

it was dark when i finished the quilting this evening, so no pix of that.

a springy dress that i made for myself from the adult couture sewing book that i bought from pomadour24 on etsy. i can highly recommend the japanese sewing pattern books. the styles are simple and beautiful and even without japanese, you can follow the directions because the pictures are brilliant. it took a bit longer than it would have had i been able to read the directions, but in the end, it really wasn't bad at all. the patterns come on big sheets in the back of the book and you trace them off onto pattern paper and then follow the well-done layouts and directions. in just one afternoon, i had a new dress!

some fabulous leather pieces i acquired recently.

i've got plans for this, so stay tuned!

i spent some time just admiring my fabric stash.

and after looking at various stash groups on flickr, i realize it's quite manageable.

and in fact, i probably should really get some more if i want it to be a stash to be proud of. :-)

luckily, a bunch of goodness is on its way from here and here.

and i'm sure some of it will arrive this week.

another shot of the paintings.

sabin's on the left, m's on the right.

i think sabin's sense of color is absolutely brilliant.

she even had to mix to get those colors! i'm so proud of her.

and i ADORE these tiny canvases, especially the one with the face.

and how she used bits and pieces from the little plate of fabric and thread clippings.

i knew those would come in handy for something.

it's just too bad those canvases are so tiny (like 3" x 2")!

i haven't actually been counting towards my 100 creative things in 2010, but i think we're on track. i'm going to try to upload everything to flickr and do a mosaic to count in the near future. with various computers having been in the shop, my pictures are in three different locations. sigh.

all of this made it almost ok that it snowed all weekend!! 

what did you make this weekend?

rearranging in the blue room

blue card translation: "one has an opinion until one blogs a new one"

the pink one, i think everyone can read

green card translation: "'god is dead' - nietzche 'nietzsche has just been erased from facebook' - god"

as soon as i felt better yesterday, precisely 36 hours after beginning to feel sick, i went on a cleaning and tidying frenzy in my studio, aka "the blue room." blog camp approaches and it needed a good tidy. i changed out the things that were hanging on my inspiration wall and so now these postcards, which i picked up in a café not long ago are there. i thought they were all pretty clever. also changed out the MOO cards, putting up some different ones.

but the biggest project was sorting and folding my fabric stash and making some "shelves" for it out of the wooden crates that our weekly organic veg comes in. since we are, after all, making an effort to consume less this year, it seemed like it would be good to put those boxes to use. you can see them beneath the iPod HiFi. makes it MUCH easier to assess the color ranges when it's all visible like this.

i think you can actually learn quite a lot about your taste when you organize your fabric and see it all in one spot. i tend to like bright, fresh colors (lots of teals and greens, surprise, surprise) and rather scandinavian prints on white. and i've bought a lot of fabric in ikea.

and i finally hung up the little copper whirling dervishes i bought in istanbul last october. aren't they sweet? and they have a little evil eye bead to ward off any bad vibes that might try to get into the studio.

i'm working on my blog camp prezzies today in between getting some letters ready to go about my freelance writing business (yup, i'm available for writing assignments if you know anyone who has a need, especially someone who wants to tell stories about ships).

#1 in the 2010 year of creativity

a little viking ship stamp carved from an eraser.

i forgot how much fun it is to carve stamps!

#2 - cloth goody bags for blog camp 3.0
i won't spoil the surprise by telling what's going in them.

ok, i'd better get back to work. i'm not quite done out there. hope you're enjoying your thursday. the giant ball of fire (what's it called again? the word has fallen from use around here) actually put in an appearance in the sky today, so my spirits are lifted considerably.

picture inspired by spudballoo's far superior pylon picture.

these aren't really pylons so much as the light poles on the street in front of our house.
taken at 9:20 a.m. this morning. (thanks char, for asking whether it was sunrise or sunset.)

shifting forces of gravity

i did something this week that feels like a major step for me.  husband is always teasing me that my friends are all virtual and the things i find of interest happen in places far removed from where i live. so when i read in the local newspaper that a new association of local artists was forming, i decided to get involved where i am. and i joined.

in order to do so, i had to say that i was an artist.  that felt really strange and like a major shifting of gravity beneath my feet. related to this step, i also worked on setting up my long-procrastinated etsy shop this week. i still haven't listed any items, but i'm getting closer and i will let you all know here when it's up and running. and i even called it shifting forces of gravity, because that's what taking this step feels like.

i'm not sure what kind of artist i am and that's a little bit the issue. i've tried so many things over the past year, in my process of getting back in touch with my creativity, that i've been kind of all over the place (see yesterday's post for evidence of this). a bit of painting, some sewing, some quilting, a few little clay robots, gocco prints and of course, my photography. i'm leaving the door open and we'll see where the muses take me.

i think one of the places i want to go is back towards these driftwood people that husband and i made together a couple (or is it 5 or more) years ago:

"great love"

j & j-p, 2002

easter island meets denmark

j & j-p 2002

at the time we made these, we also made a few others for friends and family as gifts. it was a really interesting process. we'd lay out all of the driftwood on the table and see which pieces spoke to us. then, husband would fashion the metal wire into arms and legs if that was what was needed or attach them and do all of the hammering and drilling and screwing bits. i did the painting and the actual composition. it was a great partnership and i'm not sure how we drifted away from it. now that he's got his workshop and i my studio, we should be able to go back to these collaborative pieces.

i'm brewing a post on my sources of inspiration these days and will share that will you soon. happy weekend one and all...

p.s. shifting forces of gravity is totally a murakami thing. :-)

all is quiet

we woke up this morning to a winter wonderland of snow. it's still gently coming down, but it feels awfully warm out there, so i don't know how long it will last. it was enough that i had to shovel in front of our house and the neighbors' (they're in turkey). normally, husband would do that, but he's away all week, attending a course. it was so magical being out in the gently falling snow that i didn't mind shoveling. in fact, it was a rather invigorating way to start the day. and i felt justified in having bought purple furry bumper boots, since you totally need such boots in the snow. and they leave a pretty footprint:

it's funny that it's actually no quieter than usual, but because the world is white and the contours softened  by the snow, it feels even quieter. the only sound i can hear is the crackling of the fireplace downstairs and the cat snoring (she's really got a problem, i wonder if we should have that checked). it feels like it will be a productive day.

yesterday was productive too. i had a knitting lesson from a very nice lady who works at sabin's after-school program. she has wednesdays off and we agreed to meet down at a cafe and have a coffee and she'd teach me to knit. she did help me quite it a bit on how to hold the needles, but it still feels like a stressful activity to me. i tried to knit last night while watching t.v., but found it very difficult. but perhaps it will come. i love the materials of knitting--soft yarn of natural fibers in beautiful colors, wooden knitting needles. they feel so good in your hands that i am drawn to it, despite the tension and what i call the retarded monkey stance i end up in when i'm knitting. i'm sure once i get the hang of it, i'll relax. because knitting is supposed to be relaxing, right?

i also finished my mad quilt-in-a-day project . i guess i didn't actually succeed in making a quilt in a day, since all i finished was the top that day, but i do blame my old sewing machine, which simply couldn't handle quilting together a layer of fabric and a layer of fleece. fleece is actually rather temperamental in its behavior towards a sewing machine.  but yesterday, i made the binding (after a couple of false starts involving my (in)ability to see angles and envision how they will turn out) and sewed it to the quilt. because i was "cheating" and not really quilting, but sewing a quilt top to a fleece, i was able to sew the binding on with the machine too, rather than by hand as the last step. that made it much faster and it turned out really well. for a first attempt. and i really do love these fabrics from ikea.

it will be comfy and cozy to snuggle up under in the writing house/studio/atelier these days. tho' the fireplace was installed last week and it's WONDERFUL. it warms things up quickly and i haven't subjected my hair to flames in over a week!  i hadn't yet shared a picture because i keep hoping for a day when the sun is shining and the light is better, but that hasn't come, so here's the picture i took last friday of the first fire.

although i had intended to tell travel stories today (memories are coming out of the woodwork as i read paul theroux's pillars of hercules), i guess you get domestic homey musings instead. i blame the snow, it has me nesting and hunkering down inside. i think i'll go get materials to make a fairy costume for sabin's upcoming school play. she plays a little fairy in sleeping beauty. my travel adventures will keep 'til tomorrow.