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i happened on the boxes of driftwood today in a search for something else, which i undoubtedly don't remember (yes, i'm at that age, where i frequently go to another room to get something and stand there bemusedly wondering what it was). i'm easily distracted, what can i say? so i located my dremel tool (it's just like new, funnily enough) and decided to play. wood has a personality and a mind of its own. and i'm not known for my coordination skills. so there's a way to go. let's suffice it to say i probably shouldn't have been playing on the good dining table. but it was a nice way to spend an hour. the buzz of the dremel is oddly therapeutic.

that's all for now. if i write more, it will be a rant about the new law in the state of my birth, allowing (encouraging?) teachers to carry a weapon to school. i want to say something a bit more reasonable (and reasoned) about it than what's on my mind at the moment, so i'll restrain. for now.

exposed or concealed?

hol(e)y valentine's day!

these two little lovelies - the latest in my hol(e)y stones series are now in my shop.

lisa and i were discussing the felted stone thing not long ago. i had snatched up her cocoon stone as soon as it was listed (i was lucky) and even as i'm striving to expose my felted stones after swathing them in wool, i loved the notion that she had concealed beads within her stone for texture and to embrace the notion of something hiding within. concealment and exposure, those are notions to ponder. 

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Art-o-Mat is seriously cool.

and speaking of lisa, even cooler that her stones will be available there!

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and how much do i want a storytelling house in my yard?

and to host retreats for wild, awesome women?

peephole stones :: work in progress

when i'm at the beach, i love to look for stones with holes in them. i also love felting stones, tho' i do always have a pang of anguish over covering up my carefully-selected stone. so last night i decided to experiment with felting a stone with peepholes, so i could have the felt and still enjoy the stone.

i ran a couple of experiments - wrapping the stones, cutting holes and then felting. that doesn't work too well. you have to wrap the stone (use lisa's great tutorial), felt it a bit, so the felt is tight around the stone, then cut your holes and continue felting.

i got a bit fancy with this one, using two colors. i felted the orange around the stone first, then added the red, felted a bit and carefully trimmed the red layer away from the orange before they got too stuck together. i loved that the stone had a little hole started and i wanted it to show.

a couple of them came off the stones and i ended up with these little felty vessels instead. i'm going to play with them some more to see what they might become.

i'm also going to add some more embellishment (stitching, beads, painting on the stone) to these, so they're still works in progress. but i just had to share them already now. i feel like they're a breakthrough in making the felted stone notion my own. and they're getting me closer to a picture that's in my head. stay tuned.

i played a bit with my new inks yesterday as well, painting a few feather stones and even a bit of driftwood (the inks bleed on it in unexpected ways). i am madly in love with the paynes grey. the sun has gone again and there's a light sprinkling of snow on the ground, so it's a perfect day to stay inside with a cup of tea and play with felt and stones and ink.

a rolling stone gathers no moss

i've had this little fluffy bit of  moss on the windowsill for awhile now. i found it on a walk in the forest some time ago and brought it home. i liked the color of it.

yesterday, i was watching the river cottage, i learned that it's called oak moss and that you can eat it. i also learned it's not actually moss, it's a lichen.

it's also a key ingredient in lots of different kinds of perfumes. and i can see why - i sniffed my dry little sprig of it and it smells all manly and woodsy.  oh, and how awesome is this stone? husband found it for me on our christmas day walk on møn's klint - those white "eyes" are actually another kind of stone within the stone. we'll definitely be doing something with that natural face when i find the right piece of driftwood.

after learning oak moss was edible, i set out into the yard to see if there was more. it's such a gorgeous color - not quite as aqua green in it looks in this shot, but lovely nonetheless.

they call it oak moss for a reason, as i found it almost exclusively on oak trees, tho' i also found some on a birch that is standing right next to an oak tree. it seems to mostly grow on the older trees - the big, oldest one in our yard is covered in it, tho' much is too high up to reach. luckily, it's been a bit windy and a few sticks of it had blown down.

mostly, tho', i left it where it was. the smell is quite striking, so i imagine that using it in cooking requires very little. on river cottage, they fried it quickly in hot oil and used it as a garnish.

heston blumenthal has some fancy dish where he puts a dish of it in the middle of the table and creates an oak moss fog. i'm not going to get quite that fancy about it, but i am going try the river cottage way.

these sticks had blown down on their own (it's a very old oak tree in the back yard). i've got them in an old cupboard, drying a bit.

i'll definitely report back as to how it turns out. and in the meantime, don't you love that color?

my happy place

still processing the whole christmas experience (and not really done cooking yet), so in the meantime, some shots of one of my favorite places in the world - møn's klint. when we got to the bottom of all those steps and onto that stone beach, my molecules hummed in perfect alignment. more soon.

bringing back finishing friday

it's -15°C, so perfect for staying indoors and reviving the old concept of finishing friday.  i've got a stack of leather that's ready to be turned into iPad cases, some stones waiting for their feathers, a couple of sweaters in need of repair (not pictured), a scarf i'm working on for myself (there will be no way to finish that today, at the rate i knit), and book 3 of murakami's 1Q84. the book has to be back at the library in 10 days (not that it will take me that long to read it), so i fear that the book will win out. tho' it's nice to feel the inklings of creativity beginning to return, so perhaps a bit of sewing or painting will be in order as well.

happy weekend, one and all. what will you finish today?

feeling a need to be grateful

the best part about having a lot of heart-shaped stones lying around is that they make you think about things you love. because you can't help but think happy, grateful thoughts when your windowsill is full of hearts (even if it is also full of spider poo and dead flies).

right now, on this rainy day, i'm grateful for:

~ that at least one of our chickens (i think it's the same one) has begun to lay eggs.

~ baby hedgehogs.

~ having a really good riding teacher.

~ hedgehog sneezes.

~ leaves that are changing color.

~ acorns on the ground.

~ and have i mentioned the baby hedgehog?

~ potato and bacon omelette for dinner.

~ the fact that people love to tell their stories.

~ that my life is my life and not that my job is my life.

~ eggplants and tomatoes in the greenhouse.

~ elderberries.

what are you grateful for today?

thankful thursday

homemade blackcurrant soda

homemade blackcurrant cordial

a beach scattered with <3 stones and an old ball jar to put them in

a variety of flowers in the garden

flowers - the one good thing left behind by the old owners

a bit more sunshine today. it helps.
i hate that i've become one of those people.
those people who obsess about the weather.
but i need regular sunshine.
cloudy days just don't do it for me.

i promise to blog about something else soon.
but first, a dose of sunshine.

panic sets in (in a good way)

my very first market draws near. it will be on saturday and i'll have a table, together with jude & elizabeth at a spring market in sønderborg. the local fish shop guy had the idea last year and they hold four of them per year. it's a mix of food and handmade items and they want to have a focus on organic - i imagine the june and august markets will have more local food. but i imagine a lot of things about the market, because i've never been to it, nor have i ever participated as a seller myself.

sabin has selected a few of her stones to sell as well (tho' i have to sneak a few back out since i want them!)

it feels like i've been working towards it for forever and a day, but i suppose it's really only since january. i have quite a good stash of items built up, but there are lot of unfinished items as well, that aren't going to make it this time. i'm trying to be kind to myself about that. i have plenty - i have birds and stones, a couple of quilts, a tea cozy, a coffee cozy, some sweet little duvet covers for the baby duvets they use here in denmark (baby dyne, as they're called), garlands. lots of items.

a new helleristning viking ship - now i'm branching out a bit more from the originals.

my sewing machine broke down in earnest on the weekend and i was a bit panicked as i have a number of unfinished things for the market that need sewing. but i came up with an idea for some scarves made of jersey that won't need any sewing! i found beautiful, thin, soft jersey in soft spring colors and got out my gocco printer.

i drew up some feathers and burned two screens and got to work with the fabric inks. i've done plenty of gocco with paper in the past, but not much with fabric. i learned so much about how the ink behaves and how the screens behave. the hours melted away as i worked on the scarves. in a very good way. it was definitely a feeling of being completely in flow. and that's what it's all about, really.

i am absolutely delighted with how they turned out. again, an instance of something that's even better in reality than it was when the picture popped into my head. it's also an interesting exercise in how necessity does indeed breed invention. i was a bit panicked about my sewing machine and wasn't sure i'd get it back in time to finish the last items that i wanted to take to the market, but then this idea came to me (surely a product of hours of browsing goodness on blogs and online - but also my own) and i was able to do it without needing the machine.

better photos of the scarves once they're totally dry. i'm really excited how they turned out! and while i had the screens out, i did a little stack of moleskines with feathers for the market as well.

i have all day tomorrow to finish the items i can finish (i DID get my machine back - more on that later, as it's a story itself) and then i'm ready. i'm really ready. i have no idea whether anything will sell, but if it doesn't,  my etsy and big cartel shops will be well-stocked next week. and the process itself has been worth it.

12 hearts - 12 years

12 hearts - one for every year

12 years ago today, husband became husband. not a day goes by when i don't think, "that boy is a keeper." it's also his birthday. clever that, then he can never forget our anniversary. right now, as my anniversary present, he's putting in a new gas stove arrangement for me. we'll be able to cook his birthday burgers (yes, that's what he wanted) on the new burners later today. i got him some real wellies - neither are very romantic presents, i guess, but it has been 12 years - we have less to prove and more knowledge of what would make the other one happy. so a stove and wellies it is. the sun is shining and it's shaping up to be a good day.

all wound up

it has recently come to my attention that i need less details than other people. if i'm going somewhere, i have no real need to know where i'll be staying or how i'll be getting there.  i'm quite content to just have a general idea of what the agenda will be once i get there and a vague notion of the time things start. i can, in short, just wing it.

i am increasingly of the opinion that i'm in the minority on that one. some people (possibly even most people) have a deep need to have things confirmed and then reconfirmed again. and then to call to follow up on the confirmation. and maybe call back one more time to just reconfirm that it's confirmed and maybe to ask for one more mail confirming the confirmation.

you might imagine that all that confirming and reconfirming drives someone like me, with her vague notion of the details, completely friggin' bat shit crazy. and you would be right. 

relax people, they're just details. don't get so wound up. it'll all fall into place.