now available (round 1)

new stitched-up photos - now available on big cartel

two new quilts - now available already sold on big cartel

old norse series: a new set of feather touchstones with the names of nordic mythological goddesses
for the goddess in you.  on etsy.

i took photos for over an hour yesterday and i'm still nowhere near finished with editing, resizing and writing listings! it's a process that takes a long time! but i will be adding items to the shops all week.  still to come...fish, clarity birds and feather scarves (as soon as i figure out how to best photograph those) and a few other surprises.  i'd better go get some more photos while the light is good!

seeking balance

dear balance,

please come and hang out with me, i need to spend some time with you.

i've got all kinds of beginnings going on and not a clear picture of where they will take me. quite a lot of fear seems to accompany all these beginnings, even if it comes hand and hand with excitement and happiness. there's also a lot of pressure. and at times i feel that i will burst into a zillion pieces just thinking about it.

so i paint feather stones, trying to find you, balance. the light and the heavy together in one place. in a size that fits perfectly in my hand. reminding me that it is possible to hold balance, even if only for a moment.

love,

/j

what if...

...someone made an IQ atlas of the world?

would we like the results? would we want to know? would our fears be confirmed? or would we be amazed? is ignorance really bliss?

i'm imagining one in my brain and it actually looks quite beautiful.

rocking out

last week, i got a wonderful little surprise in the mail. an open heart from the lovely blog, recovery from a life not lived, sent me two stones from her parents' ranch and two packets of seeds so that i can grow some of those yummy lemon cucumbers. i've already planted them in the greenhouse and hope we might get to taste them already this year, even tho' it's a bit late in the season. i'm hoping that the greenhouse helps. thank you so much, open heart!!

and photographing these little stones made me realize that i hadn't shared the lovely little flat stones that seaside girl brought to me when she came to blog camp:

i really love them--they're so flat and smooth. and now the little stone treasure bowl on my desk looks like this:

so, as i type and work away at my desk, i'm accompanied by little reminders of my connections from all over the world. i think that's pretty cool.

* * *

i'm off to dublin for a few days, but have scheduled plenty of secrets to keep you satisfied.

* * *

and be sure to check out the new project, across ø/öresund launching this week. it's a new photo collaboration with the lovely kristina. we're nikon girls, you know. skåne was lost to denmark in 1658, but we're working on reuniting them, at least in pictures.

stoned. in a good way.

a few weeks ago, trinsch of the lovely, carefree hairstyle fame (which i am too uncoordinated to duplicate, by the way, tho' i tried), had a corner view: the beach post which had some really beautiful stones in it. there was a picture of them lying in their natural state in the sand and then in a beautiful little stack. i asked her to upload that little stack to flickr so i could favorite it, because you know i have a totally minor and not at all requiring meds or excess baggage fees thing about stones. happily, she obliged and i was content.

and then, today, a little envelope arrived in my mailbox.

fabulous handwriting! cool stone with a hole in it! could it get any better? why yes, it could!

inside the pretty little bag were those very stones trinsch gathered on the beach in israel! how awesome is that? but wait, it gets even better.

that little white stone at the bottom (at 5:30) is a little piece of marble. trinsch says that it's from the historical site of caesarea--the ruins of a roman city--2000 years old. italian marble, washed and rounded and smoothed in the sea for hundreds of years, washes up on the beaches in israel, near the historical site. but my very favorite one is the little round grey one right beside it (at 7:30)--it's smooth and perfect.

trinsch's beautiful picture of them in their natural habitat

from trinsch's picture, i imagined that the stones were larger (tho' husband made fun of me for that, asking how large i imagined the bits of sand were), but i am madly in love with them and not the least bit disappointed that they are small--they're absolutely perfect! than you so much, trinsch, for making my monday! in fact, i'm sure it will actually make my whole week! 

today, trinsch has a lovely post featuring a typecase from her childhood where she displays stones and shells found on beaches around the world. you should go have a look at it, it will make your monday less weird, i promise.

what to do?

this is post #699, which means the one after this is #700. i've written almost 700 posts (that's just on this blog, we're not even talkin' about all those others). i feel like #700 should be something special. a milestone of sorts (not to begin to seem obsessed with stones). but i feel a little paralyzed (that's been common this week) before the round number.

then it hit me, i have this fantastic resource right here, at my disposal. and that resource is all of you! so what should #700 be? i'm open to any and all suggestions (tho' i will pick my favorite in a most undemocratic perhaps even dictatorial fashion). and #700 will be the one that inspires me most.

so, put your thinking caps on and leave me a comment with your suggestions. perhaps a giveaway (and if so, what would you like me to give)? a dare? something you think i can wax philosophical on (not grammar, that's clear)? a list of questions you've always wanted to ask?

i wanna hear all your best and brightest ideas. because somehow these milestones matter, don't they?

sunday morning theories

we sit on sunday mornings at the dining table with the fat sunday newspaper, steaming cups of tea and the morgenbrød that husband always goes and gets at the bakery. it was during one of these times that the whole blog camp idea was born. what we're reading always provokes discussion, this morning it was of trading schemes to offset CO2, how this government hasn't devoted enough money or attention to research into alternative fuel technology and on to how difficult it must be to write a feature story about someone who won't speak to the reporter.

on the table were the stones i gathered on that beach in norway last week.  husband was teasing me about bringing half of norway home in my suitcase and i was assuring him i'd left quite a lot of it behind.  since he loves to dig, i said he should have more understanding for my need to commune with the rocks as he does with the soil in all that digging. i philosophized some lofty thoughts about how the stones put you back in touch with something ancient and basic and make you feel some kind of connection to a continuous line stretching through time.

and i was only half-kidding, tho' i said it all off the top of my head. i told husband that it gives me a palpable sense of calm to find a stone that fits perfectly in my hand and hold it, feeling its coolness in my hand and transferring my own warmth to it (sabin just picked up this stone which i had been holding and it was still warm after lying on the table for half an hour). husband suggested that i start a new -ism.  rockism. (we need to work on that name.) i'm aware that there are already theories like this involving crystals, but i'm much more drawn to simple stones.

rockism would advocate the gathering and collecting of stones and of sitting around holding them in order to get in tuned into that line of continuity with the earth. because i swear that if the stone is right, you can feel the ur-energy humming and flowing into you through the stone. i think we're searching for centres of calm in this fast-paced life and that one way i find it is in my love of stones.

that's my -ism and i'm sticking to it.

have i mentioned that i love my job?

this is what's on my brain this week and why i'm not visiting all of you as much as i would like. instead of my usual late nights of surfing all the blogs i'm folllowing, i've been up late writing. for work! and it makes me so happy! i've had three days in a row of talking to inspiring people and i get to write up their inspiring stories of innovation and dynamic change.

and this place is so beautiful, that i just totally can't believe my luck life.

and today, after a morning of learning and enthusiasm and meeting new people who love what they do and are doing totally amazing, innovative things, i had a bit of time to drive a little ways down the coast and find the most beautiful little beach covered in these:

i can tell you that i am once again grateful that i'm gold, because that  bag isn't gonna be light.

i promise i will be by to visit soon, it's just gonna be a crazy couple of weeks. so please be patient with me!

ok, seriously....

....could THIS blog be any more perfect for where i seem to be at at the moment? it's called "everyone needs a rock," and although there are more layers to that phrase (which is awesome), this is a blog featuring...yes, you guessed it....PICTURES OF ROCKS!! people with their favorite rocks. i'm in heaven. i feel validated. i feel it's proof i've not gone mad. i feel i must share more of my own pictures of rocks...

i wonder if there are meds for this?

a perfect day

the sun was shining brightly on the white cliffs of møn's klint

i took the pooka with me and let her use the D60

she shows promise as a budding photographer

this is one of hers

we took along a few friends to show off their new tails in their native habitat

and a couple of their friends

from resurrection fern 

and one from geninne 

it felt like there was some kind of poetry

in a stone from mexico meeting the baltic seashore

doesn't it look strikingly at home?

and there's somehow even more poetry in

geninne's stone meeting margie's stones on this shore.

and i felt somehow poetic for being the link between them.

the whole group got together on a rather eyeball looking treetrunk

see?

you know i couldn't resist.

we took along this friend too.

isn't he sweet?

sabin made him at her afterschool program.

i spotted a few more seeing stones (thanks jules!)

a few of them may have accompanied me home

i loved wearing my wellies...

and sabin had on hers too.

they're our only matching accessory.

more tomorrow about this...

see if you can guess what it is

the eyes have it

once you start looking, you find that eyeballs are everywhere...

by the side of the road

on the beach

on the birch trees

and sometimes they even follow you home.

glorious weekend

it was a glorious weekend. sunshine and definite scent of spring in the air. time spent with an old friend i hadn't seen in ages. freshly-baked bread for dinner. a major clean-up/air-out of the studio. gathered a whole lot of stones on the beach (some of the ones below we had before, so not ALL of those in one go), but plenty of new materials/inspiration.

why yes, that is a metal basket full of rocks hanging out conveniently just outside my studio door.

do you think it's possible to fall madly in love with a rusty old pickup that's sitting by the side of the road?

gorgeous polish embroidery found at det blå marked in haslev. major treasure!

evidence of sunshine in my studio today. it looks so beautiful shining on my sari. i had the sari out, looking at and wondering if i should just have a bollywood party or turn it into something else...

and these, the coolest (and starting to be biggest) 8-year-old feet on the block. she's so hip with her red converse all-stars.

and the first report of brazil just in from husband: "so far, brazil looks like the balkans in the jungle."

i found that hilarious beyond belief. 

if you've been to the balkans, you would too.

more tomorrow. our time changed today, so i'm going to try to adjust.

so far, it's been great, but i'll be sorry tomorrow morning.

no place like home

waiting for me when i got home yesterday were my beautiful wobblies from atelierBB. i was ordering a wedding present for my sister-in-law and couldn't resist a little something for us as well. i ordered these sweet little orange, yellow and red dessert plates.

and the green was a little surprise that brigitte included. how awesome is that? thank you brigitte!! and if you haven't yet checked out her work, do it here.

also waiting for me were the latest additions to my fast-growing collection of resurrection fern crocheted stones and merfish. the teal merfish was so lovely "swimming" in its packaging that i hated to take it out:

but take it out i did and it posed for several pictures with its old friends:

and how exquisite is the "missing pieces" covered stone? it's even prettier in person than i had imagined.

i you haven't visited margie's blog to see what she's working on next, you really must. it's a most inspiring place.  here's my entire collection of her beautiful stones:

and just now, the mailman brought me this beautiful little felted bowl that i ordered from artemis artemis in new zealand (on etsy of course). it's my very favorite colors and the perfect size to keep my rings in (even the big one):

also waiting for me was a wonderful REAL letter from my aunt mary. she wrote four pages, sending birthday greetings and telling me how she's getting along after my uncle jim died last fall. she's surrounded by her children, grandchildren and soon to be 18 great-grandchildren, all of whom live in south dakota except one of the grandchildren and his two(?) kids, so although it's hard to lose her best friend of nearly 70 years, she's getting along well. she sent along a really neat picture from 1946 of my dad and his brothers and the first of many nieces that they eventually had (i have 29 cousins!). that's dad on the left (he was the youngest of 9):

i love so much about this picture. the car behind them. the fact that they're all dressed up. that the baby is crying and clearly wanting to be handed back to her mama. such a lovely thing to get in the mail.

and speaking of  mailboxes, i'd better go work on those 50-follower prezzies i've promised and do a bit of work work since i'm now gainfully employed. happy weekend everyone.