Connections — maybe it's all about the yarn

This post will be a departure for me - in that it has capital letters. I wrote it first over on Substack, but decided I wanted to have it here, where I keep such writing. And I don't have time to undo all the capital letters. Maybe now we'll have a mix here on MPC, or maybe it's the start of something new. 

So much going on at the moment. Lots of separate projects coming together. And I’m starting to see how they all fit. And even though there have been moments when none of it seemed like it was headed that way, they DO all fit. The work ones, I knew would eventually fit. It’s the way that the more personal projects are coming together, or blending into the work that is more of a pleasant surprise. It makes me realize that my life is more holistic than I thought. What a revelation. 

And weirdly (or not), it all comes down to yarn.

Our local creative group, CreaGive, chose Fifty-fifty as the theme for our yearly exhibition. The only requirement is that the work you bring must measure 50cm x 50cm. It can also be 50cm x 50cm x 50cm, or a cube. I spent a lot of time thinking of ways to break the rules while still technically not breaking the rules. (Hello, that’s who I am.) But I’ve ended up making a cube that does indeed measure 50x50x50. (Probably also, admittedly, who I am.) 

I received some wool yarn, left over from industrial carpet production, from a weaver in town who is moving and so she wanted to give away all her weaving supplies (lucky me!). So it was natural to use that. We still have some of the sticks from Syrian artist Nisrine Boukhari’s The Wind’s Home, an ephemeral work that she created near Vejle Fjord in connection with a project for Trapholt Museum, back in 2017. They became the base of the cube.

And speaking of Trapholt, I was part of Astrid Skibsted’s Dataspejlet art project at Trapholt back in 2022. I both embroidered my data (from Facebook, of all places) and wove a section of the weaving done by my weaving group in Randbøldal. It’s when I learned about Astrid’s vikleprøver. And my cube is basically a giant vikleprøve (yarn winding).

So, you might say the cube I’m creating for the Fifty-fifty exhibition has been many years in the making. We are constantly taking in inspiration — through conversations, our eyes, our ears, the things we listen to. And I genuinely think we never know exactly how they will manifest when they become something. But our brains are working on it all in the background and all these impulses ARE becoming something. It’s just a matter of letting it come out.

I don’t really know what it is yet - is it a stool? or a table? a sculpture of sorts? But I will figure that out. Ideally, with enough time (and yarn), I will fully fill it out on all six sides. But for the exhibition, time (and work and other projects) allows only one side of it. But perhaps like life, it takes time to develop into something fully formed and filled out on all sides, connected and whole. I’m loving it as it is right now, but I also can’t wait to see where it’s headed.

I’m also working on a tea towel project. Taking a little break from my self-imposed assignment of weaving Taylor Swift’s albums as tea towels to do some for work. We have this cool drawer-insert contraption that helps you organize your kitchen drawers, but we don’t have proper photos of it. It will perfectly fit 15 tea towels and so I’m working on those. I created a warp that’s mostly white with black edges and stripes and one colorful stripe. I’m going to make it my own by weaving in with colors to make a rainbow of sorts.

I’m also going to change out the red stripe in the warp along the way. That sounds like a crazy idea, but I want to do something challenging and new in every set of tea towels I make. I need to LEARN something here! But really, who changes the warp along the way? And I intend to change it FOUR times!

Turns out I do! And it has worked! I’m happy there’s a four day weekend ahead so I can make lots of headway. I’ve woven the whole first towel since the change from red to orangey-yellow. Two to go before we change it again. I’m so happy to have Emmy, my personal weaving teacher and previous owner of my loom to help me with all of her wisdom and knowledge.

My loom, which is also much more experienced than I am, is also my friend in this project. Sitting at it, weaving these tea towels, the latest in a long line of creative, strong women to sit there, is such a privilege. The threads I’m working with, connecting me to them with every pass of the shuttle. The connections we weave to make up our lives take my breath away. Maybe it really does all come down to yarn.

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a night to myself

husband is at swimming and then the annual meeting of his triathlon group. so i'm all on my own tonight. i love it! and so does olga. i found the quilt that husband's mother made for him by hand some 30 years ago, washed it up and put it on our bed this morning. olga fully approves. and i'm sitting in the comfy chair in the corner of the room, computer in my lap, enjoying the silence and some candlelight and the fact that i don't have to do anything but exactly what i feel like doing for the next couple of hours. 

this is where i'm sitting, in a well-loved nanna ditzel chair. i've thrown a cozy fleece over it and a cute graphic pillow from ikea. those little side tables, i found in a secondhand store. that plant is about 4x the size it was when i got it half-dead on a markdown at the grocery store during corona. i took this picture a few months ago, so right now, there are more baskets (3 to be exact) full of knitting projects at hand than you can see. when i'm done writing this, i'll probably knit and listen to a cozy mystery set in the 20s. i like lady hardcastle at the moment. i've listened to them before, but it's always comforting to listen again. in these troubled times, we have to take comfort where we can get it. 

this is the quilt that husband's mother made for him. long before my time. i never got to meet her, as she died the year before husband and i met in macedonia. but i feel like i get to know her a little bit when i look at all the beautiful details of this quilt. it's hand-quilted. the middle squares are all related to husband's life - his time in the royal lifeguard, a danish flag, an apple tree, i think there's even one that represents him and his ex, but that's ok, because it's part of his story. the squares around the outside are all traditional quilting patterns. i think she was exploring form and color - both of which i love and relate to. looking at it feels like having a little chance to know her, even though i never actually had that chance. we leave some of ourselves behind in the things we create and they can be felt by those who encounter them. 

wow, i've missed being here. i didn't even know that i thought any of that until i sat down here and started typing. amazing how leaving meta platforms has already freed my time and my thoughts for better and deeper things. what an incredibly good decision that was. i feel physically lighter and relieved. and i'm already settling into myself in a way i haven't in way too long. and even though the blog era is over, i'm happy to be here for myself again.

i bought this buttcrack character from the wonderful sandra juto. she was one of those i followed and admired and even probably felt a bit unworthy of back in the old bloggy days. she is so cool - a swede with an impeccable design sense, who moved to berlin. i never managed to get one of these guys back then, but she recently made a few again and i chose him. he's whimsical and he takes me back to that time, back when i couldn't wait to come here and write and figure out what i thought about the world. i stayed in touch with her through instagram (so there were some good things about it at one point) and found out that he was for sale there, but now, i'll just have to visit her site to find out what she's got on offer. and that's just fine. i have a lot of her wristworms as well, in a variety of colors (and i just spotted a couple of new colors that i might have to have). she's going to stop making them, so if you too would like some, you might want to pop over and get some. 

i'm impatiently awaiting the arrival of a whole lot of new weaving yarn. last week, i attended an artist talk with astrid skibsted and we made these vikleprøver (yarn windings) and after that, i got inspired for my next tea towels (think taylor swift eras tour colors). i became acquainted with astrid's work a few years ago through a project at trapholt, then i interviewed her for our podcast at work. we had a long and wonderful chat after the talk last week and i was reminded how enriched my life is by the creative people i encounter. it's no accident that both of the ones i've just mentioned (incidentally, i'm wearing some of sandra juto's wristworms in this photo), are both working with threads. maybe what the world needs right now is more threads to bind us together. 

and on that note, it's time to knit. i'm going to the states in two weeks to visit the child and my sister and some cousins and my last remaining aunt on my father's side and i need to finish at least one sophie scarf.  i will even be able to squeeze in a visit to my old bloggy friend sandra. i can't wait! 

looking for the elusive red thread

we got together in our local creative group on sunday and made small "flexigon" books together, inspired by places that mean something to us. because i love the little museum down in randbøldal, where i go to weaving every other wednesday, i wanted to make that the focus of my little foldable book. i selected some photos that i'd taken there, as well as a photo of the runner for my kitchen that i wove there at the museum. many of the photos i chose were of that work in progress and the one in the middle is of the new runner that i just started last saturday. what i wanted to ponder in my little book was the magic of the place. because it really is a magical place. 

and what came out was something else entirely. i began to think about the way that we trace red threads of meaning through our lives. or the way that we probably should do that and don't always do so. and my little book became a kind of meditation on that. perhaps because i have used red strips cloth in my rug, or because i often struggle to figure out whether there is a cohesive meaning to my life. it can feel like i'm really just bumbling along. 

but it's strange that wasn't what i sat down to create. i wanted to create a little book that expressed the magic i feel in the air when i'm at the museum. it's a really special place. it makes me feel calm and centered and present. i feel it immediately when i step out of my car, my shoulders relax and i breathe deeply. it's in a little valley, on the curve of a creek, nestled down in the trees. part of the magic is the group of women which gathers there, especially the leader of that group, who is a lovely, spry, can-do woman who makes things happen. she's a big part of the magic. but the place itself has something special as well. maybe it's on just the right vortex, or just the way it's placed, there on the creek, nestled at the base of a tree-covered hill, is perfect. and i wanted to try to capture that in my little book, but instead, it ended as a search for a red thread. 

i guess i unconsciously chose that myself when i chose the pictures that i did. i have many other pictures that capture the magic, but the ones i chose were nearly all of my own weaving and in that way, i guess i did control the direction it took, even if it maybe felt like i didn't. i guess i'm just looking for that elusive red thread.