Endings & Beginnings

For five years now I have been a part of this magic place called Blogland! I have written my posts regularly, sometimes on a daily basis and I have enjoyed sharing my thoughts and creative adventures with you all. Through my blog I have made new friends from all over the world and have been inspired to try out new crafts and techniques. I have participated in all kind of events like OWOH, Feltunited, In war someone has to die and International Yarnbombing Day, which I probably wouldn’t have done hadn’t I followed their blogs.

I have loved every day of it but have decided that it will come to an end. My blogging days are over maybe not for ever but at least for now. I feel both relieved and sad. It’s a big part of my life that won’t be there anymore. But writing a blog is time-consuming and I want to devote my time to develop as an artist. My head is full of exciting ideas and projects –I want to take up painting, try out embroidery on new mediums, maybe buy a knitting machine ….I might start a web shop, give workshops, write a book or sell my stuff on Etsy,….I just wont write a Blog anymore!

I have loved meeting you all!

Jeanette

A wee little break

I am taking a few days off! Hope to enjoy lazy days at the country house celebrating Easter with family & friends.

Hope you all have a wondeful Easter!

See yoy next week!
Jeanette

Spring cleaning

This weekend I did the spring cleaning of the country house, scrubbing the floors and dusting spider web from the wooden beams. Although we usually travel down over the day during winter the cleaning is the “official” opening of the house for the spring season. There is something so very special about the smell of soap on wooden floors. The smell is full of promises of the glorious summer days that will be spent there.

I finished the cleaning by laying out my newly washed rag carpets. I love rag carpets and I often fantasize about the fabric that have been used. Is there someone’s favorite dress among it somewhere I wonder? I especially love the pattern on my rag carpet in the kitchen. Some of it made is from old panty hoses. A jumble sale bargain for a mere 6 euro.

Jeanette

The Friday Tutorial

An Easter flower arrangement

Are you having dinner guests at Easter? Why not impress them with a flower arrangement on the dinner table. It’s dead easy really ! I made two…but I will show you the other one next Friday.

You need:

Twigs, tulips – I used birch, apple tree and parrot tulips (my favourite). You also need oasis and something to build your arrangement in. I used an old tin bowl, a jumble sale find.

First soak the oasis in water and then place it in the bowl.

Add twigs around the rim of the bowl.

Then add tulips in-between the twigs.

I always use an uneven number; I think it looks better that way.

Finish the arrangement by placing one tulip in the middle of the bowl and four tulips around it. Keep the first one a bit taller than the other four to get a variation in height. Finally add a few more twigs but this time in a more upright position.

Done! I think it will look stunning once the tulips are in full bloom and the twigs has got tiny little leaves.

Now I leave you for the weekend. Hope you have a creative one!

Jeanette

PS If you look closely at the last photo you can see the pillow cover I made using celery. The turorial from two Fridays back.

Chasing the blues away

Sometimes the best way to chase the” so much to do, so little time” frustration away is to just go ahead and create something. To play around with the material without a plan or a goal and almost without thinking. I ended up making a crown from wool, scraps of metal and some buttons. The crown just “happened”.

I decided that the crown will be a gift for someone I admire but haven’t met. It’s for a female journalist in my local newspaper whose pieces about art & craft and design always are a joy to read. I admire the fact that she covers craft and craftsmanship in a daily paper and always in a way so that you understand that she actually made a thorough background search.   

I figured that a newspaper office might need a little embellishment so today I put the crown in a big box with the journalists name on it and handed it in at the reception in the newspaper building. Hopefully they won’t panic, think it’s a bomb, call the bomb squad and have it blown up!

Take care

Jeanette

Time

Oh the frustration of time or to be more correct, the frustration of not having enough of it. There are so many things I want to do creativity wise but I never seem to have enough time to do it. Today I just sat there at my worktable unable to start with any of my ongoing projects, my heart beating and a huge despare, panic even building up inside. I felt that time was running out. I felt it so strongly that it was paralyzing. I wish I could take a year off….to be able to devote my time to create, try out new materials and feel the satisfaction of actually having time to pursue my ideas.

Ideas that now feels sadly out of reach….

Jeanette

Tag Tuesday

The theme for this weeks Tag Tuesday was EASTER EGGS. I love bunnies ( as you may know by now...) and when I found these little lovebirds sorry I mean "love rabbits" at clipartandcrafts.com I thought they fitted the theme perfectly. I used some feathers from my collection too. The tip of the feathers has the same blue color as the background but you can`t really see it very well on the photo.

Jeanette 

Spring is here

the red onions has moved out in the green house

This weekend was devoted to gardening. Saturday was spent at the country house where I raked my flower beds and borders giving little squeaks of joy every time I found a bulb or little plant that had survived the winter. I also made plans for my vegetable garden. This year I will grow three different salads, potatoes, onions, squash, beetroot and sugar snaps. Hopefully I will get some rhubarb, red currant and raspberries too.

I spent Sunday in the greenhouse replanting the sugar snaps and planting seeds for dahlias, beetroot and white Echinea. The sun was shining, the birds singing and the cats were hunting the first mosquitos.



...got it!!!!



I drank my afternoon tea in the green house enjoying the fact that now spring has really come to stay.   

Jeanette

The Friday Tutorial

Sock Bunny

My family suffers from the SdSE-syndrome. That’s the Spin-dryer Sock Eating syndrome for you who didn’t know. We are quite convinced that the fluff you find when you clean the spin-dryer in fact are not fluff but leftovers from the tiny munching little aliens that hides in your spin-dryer and lives of eating socks. They are picky little buggers though and never eats two of the same kind leaving you with lots of ill matched socks. This is when your glass is either half full or half empty. Since mine is usually half full I enjoy the fact that this opens up lot of opportunities for making sock bunnies.

I think there are just as many ways of making sock bunnies as there are socks but this is how I do it:

You need two socks, a scissor, needle and tread and some stuffing. I use wool but you can use pretty much anything you like.

Cut the foot of one of the socks right down the middle, but don’t cut all the way to the heel. This will make the ears.

Cut the other side of the sock down the middle. This will become the legs.

Cut the foot off the second sock and divide it in two by cutting it right down the middle. This will become the arms.

Turn the bunny body inside out and sew the ears and legs together. Leave a hole in the crotch for turning it right side out again and for stuffing.

Stuff the bunny’s body and legs. I usually don’t stuff the ears because I like them floppy. Many people use the “heel-side” of the sock for the face but I like to use the heel for making a bunny bottom instead. That way it sits much steadier. Fill the arms with stuffing too, not to tight. 

Use a tiny ball of stuffing and to shape the nose.

Sew the hole together.

Shape the neck and head by tying a ribbon around the neck. The sew the arms to the body just below the ribbon.

Then make the face. I used fabric markers but you can do some embroidery or have buttons for eyes if you like.

Tadah – done! Meet Sally the sock bunny !

Now I leave you for the weekend. Hope you have a creative one!

 Jeanette

Joy

Oh the joy of growing plants from seeds! The miracle of it all amazes me every year. How you put this tiny, tiny little seed in a pot and after just a few days a plant appear. There is something so very vulnerable about these tiny little plants, they make my mother instincts appear. I speak gently to them and guard them like a hawk against my two very nosey cats.

This is the Isop and the sugar snaps I planted last Sunday.



Isop



Sugar snap



No sign of the onions yet though. I think I will go and talk to them...

Jeanette

You may not believe this

While I visited the Yarn & Fabric show I did not only buy a lot of yarn but I also attended a half hour workshop of Amigurumi. Now anyone who knows me would probably not believe this due to the fact that I with great stubbornness swear to the fact that I can’t crochet. I hated it in school and could never get my kettle-holders nice and square. The mere thought of reading a pattern, increase or decrease made my head spin. But what do you know? Miracles do happen!

After the half hour work shop I had made a crocheted cup cake in bright pink and I was hooked. I bought two patterns and when I got home I started on the first one – a rabbit! Now I have two feet and a paw to go and then I am finished.

Oh you may laugh thinking that a cup cake or a rabbit is no biggie. Well maybe it isn’t for you but for me its right up the same shelf as changing tires, sew a zipper or repaper your living room. It might not be rocket science but I still say - Wooohooo way to go Jeanette!

Jeanette

Tag Tuesday

This weeks theme in Tag Tuesday was GOOSEY – geese and ducks. That made me think of Jemima Puddle Duck from the tales by Beatrix Potter so Jemima it had to be.

Jeanette

New additions….or addictions…

I visited a Yarn & Fabric show this weekend. They had a lot of rubbish there but also some really lovely yarn. Naturally I had to buy some….

I bought this beautiful 1-tread wool yarn from Iceland in the most amazing colors. The yarn was quite addictive. The green is for a sweater and the bright pink and red for a shawl. Don’t know what I will use the orange for yet but it will come to me in the end.

Then I found these gigantic “must have” buttons. I might have about a zillion buttons but nothing g like these. They will brighten up many a garment in my only too black wardrobe.

I also bought a ball of Noro yarn for a spider web thin Citron and….

.....a yarn made of recycled saris. Have yet to figure out what I want to use it for but that is part of the fun….

Now I need to rearrange my workroom to get it all in.

Jeanette

The Friday tutorial

Playing with food

Did your mum tell you not to play with your food as a kid? Well here is your revenge. Who could have known that the celery stem looked like the perfect image of a rose? and that you can use it as a stamp? I didn’t anyway. I got the tip and a tutorial in this magazine.



Bonnier 101 Ideér Nr 1 2012



They used celery to stamp on paper but I went for fabric instead. I really had a lot of fun and like to chare it with you all. Here is how I did it:

You need: fabric, fabric paint, a brush and celery.

Cut the stem off the celery.

I wanted both a big and a small rose so I cut one piece quite near the end and one piece higher up. The smaller piece didn’t hold together so I secured it with a rubber band.

Add paint to the celery using a brush. Now doesn’t that look exactly like a rose? Amazing!

Start stamping!

I didn’t get as clear an image as I thought I would. I think it’s because my celery had spent a while in the refrigerator and was a bit soft. It would probably have worked a lot better with a really fresh one.

I ended up making a “spring lady” . She looks like she is wearing gigantic Carmen curlers more than roses but what the heck. I think I will use it for a pillow cover.

Well, I knew it as a kid and I know it now – playing with your food is fun!

Now I leave you for the weekend. I hope you have a creative one!

Jeanette

All in a days work!

This is a busy time of the year for me because I have so many plants that I want sow from seeds indoors in order to develop a healthy transplant of appropriate size to then be moved outdoors. Today it was red onions (red baron) and yellow onions (Rijnsburger 5), sugar snaps ( Oregon Sugar Pod) and Isop (Hyssopus officinalis).



Sugar snaps planted in containers made of toilet rolls



Red and yellow onions



Sorting out the Isop seeds



I also set my potatoes to chit in egg trays to get good and sturdy sprouts for early planting and harvest.



hopefullu I will have poatoes at midsummers eve



In the next few days I hope to sow Brussels sprouts, Texas Salvie ( Fairy Queen), orange tiny echidnae and white big echidnae, two other kind of Salvie, one arch blue and one white. The Echidnae and the Salvie are all from seeds I collected (“stole”) in a park last year. I have never used seeds that I’ve collected myself before so it will be fun to see how these will turn out.

Last but not least I finally got down to sewing the buttons in my cardigan. The cardigan have been finished for “ages” but sewing buttons bore me to death so I have been putting it of. I think the colored buttons gave the cardigan a cheery look and my button collection came to good use.

Jeanette