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Christmas presents | Wall hangings
I have been in a crafting frenzy for the past weeks. I got this idea that I wanted to create wall hangings for my nieces and nephews this Christmas. I have been interested in sewing but never patient enough to learn all the proper techniques. I basically could do pillow cases and bags – no zippers, of course, and don’t even think of checking the seams on the inside …
My grandma showed me when I was little, but as far as I remember, when it got tricky I just let her do the work for me. But, as it turns out, you you can still do some pretty amazing stuff with a sewing machine, even if you don’t know very much. Which is great for someone like me who doesn’t have a lot of patience when it comes to learning new things. I want to be able to create something I like right away, I don’t want to have to practice and do a lot of projects that are doomed to turn out sucky just because I don’t have the techniques down.
My sister-in-law gave me a sewing book by Poppy Treffry a few years ago which I loved and found very inspirational. Basically, this artist uses her sewing machine to draw beautiful, quirky, and – what I probably love most about them – very colorful pictures.
A recent trip to the library reminded me of another crafty person whose work I love: Karin Holmberg, a Swedish artist. She does mostly embroidery, inspired by traditional Swedish techniques and patterns, also very beautiful, fun, and colorful.
Embroidery is even better than sewing in a way from the perspective that you need even less equipment, knowledge, and/or patience (at least when it comes to the mastering-a-skill-part).
So for my wall hangings I combined the two, sewing and embroidery, and it was very rewarding for several reasons:
- My compulsive fabric purchases at thrift-stores finally were justified.
- Sewing and embroidering turned out to have a highly meditative effect on me. Maybe due to my inexperience I found myself very focused on what I was doing, being very present in the moment, and for once: not thinking.
- Also: like most people, I enjoy physically creating something, especially when it’s something beautiful. Is there anything greater than the feeling you get when something you pictured comes into physical existence through your hands, and turns out (nearly) exactly as you saw it before your mind’s eye?
Unfortunately, my camera (actually, the batteries) and I weren’t really seeing eye to eye today, so I don’t have very many pix, and even less good ones. But here’s what I’ve got, will try to take more soon.
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Harvest
When I was growing tomatoes on the balcony of our apartment in Gothenburg, I decided that I would call it a success if I could get just one tomato out of it. I even insisted on taking the plants with us when we moved. They survived, and we got more than one tomato (not a lot more but hey). So I tried to approach this first year growing on our land with a similar attitude: I wanted to be happy with whatever we’d get, and take it as a sort of reference point for next year.
Our first greenhouse 
It’s a jungle in there … I am actually really pleased with the result, all things considered, and amazed by how much you get, even when you don’t put a lot of work into it, or sometimes not even any work at all. Like with all the lingon and rowan berries we picked and made jam from, or the two (!?) apple trees that produced so many apples this year that we couldn’t even process all of them.
left to right: potatoes, brussel sprouts, broccoli & cauliflower 
Rönnbär – rowan berries – Vogelbeeren 
Lingon – Preiselbeeren 
I am beginning to suspect that this notion of scarcity is something less natural than I have been led to believe, maybe a result of the food industry as it is today. It seems to me that the natural state really is abundance. It might take me some time to get used to that, at this point I am pretty still mourning every single apple that’s lying on the ground, not being made into jam, sauce or chips …
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Let it grow
It has been quiet around here, I know. I think our slow internet connection at home is the main reason, but also I went through a rough patch where I didn’t feel like I had anything to share here. Things have turned around faster than I could have imagined, and I am feeling inspired and determined to breathe some life back into this blog.
We finally finished building our greenhouse last week (no pix yet), and sowed a bunch of vegetables on the patch of land Peter has been preparing – with more help from his family than from me, ehem. I blame the long office days due to the commute … so, thanks Birgitta, Stefan and Felix! The patch shrank somewhat from our original megalomaniac outline when we had to face the reality of the hard physical labor involved when preparing the soil … Pix soon to come.
Also, I seem to have found the holy grail (yup, once again) when it comes to health/nutrition. It comes in the form of two books (by the same genius authors, Dr. Mary Enig and Sally Fallon), namely Nourishing Traditions and Eat Fat, Lose Fat. I know, the latter sounds like it’s just another dieting book but it is really more about health in general than (just) weight loss. Hopefully I can keep the momentum, and write an entry just about those (which is the least they deserve).
What would a post be without some pix? Exactly.
In May …
… I was at a wedding in Germany, 
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I bought mint at a Thai food store. The branches will grow new roots if you put them into water. After a while you can plant the mint – like so. 
A friend gave me the tip to pre-grow tomatoes in milk cartons. One can just cut those open when it’s time to plant them in the greenhouse. Since we get our milk from the local farm, I had my colleagues collect the milk cartons in the kitchen at work. Thanks guys! 
… we had our first breakfast outside. Usually the spot by the barn is best for dinner, since that’s where the sun is going towards the evening. 
There’s fish in the little creek going through our land! In June …
… Peter’s nephew turned five. 
He’s into chocolate cake and ninja turtles. 
We got him this. 
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These belong to Peter’s niece, and they reminded me of a project I had waiting in a drawer at home … 
Finished those yesterday. 
Very happy with the result. Don’t even care that I am being mocked with comments about circuses coming to town … 
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Lupines everywhere! Love them. 
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All yellow | The fall collection
Yup, it’s definitely fall. I am still not used to the fact that that doesn’t mean gray, rain and mud (hello Bremen, ’sup Gothenburg). Nope, here it means yellow, sun and more yellow.
This is what our little corner of the world looked like yesterday:
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Exactly my cup of tea | Our little corner of the world
I love our little barn (even though it is currently being eaten up by a fungus), and the fact that it has a little terrace in front on which one can enjoy the evening sun.
One has to be quick, though, I got about ten minutes of it that day (note to self: dishes can always be done later).
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Day 1
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Happy B-Day, me!
I spent the entire day in a car, which is not really how I had planned it but the important part is: I was at our new home before the end of the day.
This sunrise greeted me when I got up that morning:
Quite the appropriate start, don’t you think?
Something really strange and amazing happened to me on the way: There are several ways to choose to our new place for the last few miles. I ended up choosing the one that felt most familiar, which turned out to lead me into driving through complete darkness in the woods. I barely saw the dirt road ahead of me, the view in the rear mirror: pitch black. I felt like I was in a David Lynch movie. I got a little scared, and then a thought popped into my head: what if I was in the middle of some sort of real life metaphor? My old life was clearly behind me, no point in looking back but my new life was still something unknown. I was completely in the dark as to where I was in my life at that moment. All I could do was have faith that I am protected and that everything would be ok.
The clock in the car showed 9.11 pm – I was born at 9.17 pm. I was a little disappointed because I so baldy wanted to be at the house before I turned 30, and I clearly wasn’t going to make it that far in eight minutes. Then I got distracted by contemplating the birth (metaphor – was it really a metaphor, or was I actually going through some sort of real birthing process?) I found myself in. Suddenly the road was lit again, I was out of the dark. After a few moments I thought of looking at the time. It was 9.22, and I just couldn’t help but think (or wish to believe) that I probably must have driven out of the darkness into the light at the exact moment of my birth thirty years ago.
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What I do when I am not packing | Procrastination
We mean business. No, not the banana trade business. We mean the business that is packing so we get outta here.
We got boxes alright … Now we just have to pack our stuff. We still don’t know when we’re going to be able to move but when you think about it, packing a little each day would make it so much easier in the long run. „Would“ being the operative word here, since you know how these things go: you start out with a totally sensible game plan, and then you end up putting it off until the last minute, 30 seconds of which will be spent wondering why you didn’t stick with your plan, and what did you do with all that time anyway that you didn’t spent packing.
Well, let this be my account for at least part of that time not spent packing: obviously, I spend that time on the internet. Looking for inspiration for the part of the renovating process that I am looking forward to the most but which I already realized is going to end up pretty much on the bottom of the priority list of things that need fixing – decorating. Even I realized that waterproofing exterior unfortunately trumps beautifying interior.
So this is me preparing to get sucked into an alternate universe where things are upside down:
I am definitely into the style of Jess‘ room … 
… and not just because it basically feels like my own after watching two seasons of New Girl in three days 
Digging the technical drawing of the dandelion. 
I also dig Catalina Estrada’s folklore wall paper art, although I don’t really care for how it looks like it was drawn on a computer. I guess I would like for it to be a little more scrawly. 
Still – pretty cool. 
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I could go on – but I won’t check out Catalina Estrada’s site for more 
More folklore 
… and more. I wouldn’t want any of our rooms to look like this but I am liking the whole bright-colors-lots-of-ornaments-and-small-decorative-items thing that these folklore style rooms have going on 
Love the wall AND the tiles. 
I could also get down with an idea on the other end of the scale: an all white room with one element that pops out. Not necessarily with china dolls or a cheetah carpet … 
(Another) Future DIY project? 
Very much into yellow lately. I wonder if it’s just a phase or if I could actually live with wallpapers like these for a while … I’m thinking downstairs hallway. To be honest, I have seen these PiP wallpapers in a look book at a store (passing time waiting for the library to open, not that you asked), and I didn’t think they looked that great from up close. Anything that is processed by computer kind of loses it’s soul in my eyes … Maybe I need to draw my own wallpapers … 
Also digging turquoise in general and this baby in particular. Nice job! Well, so much for now. How do you spend your time procrastinating stuff? Got any inspiration for me (not in the procrastination department, doing pretty ok there by myself, but in the decorating department)? Feel free to send it my way!
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Indestructible | Plant life
The deal with the house has felt so right and so real the whole time to me that making the down-payment (this past Monday) doesn’t even seem like that big of a milestone. The house has felt like ours the whole time.
Not even the fact that we’re still waiting for an appointment with a chimney sweeper (who, we hope, will tell us that everything is OK because otherwise things could suddenly take a turn towards pretty pricey …) can change that. Like I’ve been saying: I have come to the conclusion that I’d rather be excited about things than worried even if not everything is settled yet. If everything works out, then great – I did not waste any time worrying. If things don’t work out – then at least I had those moments of excitement and happiness. Anything can change at any time anyway, so.
The plants in our apartment, which we once again abandoned for a trip up north, remind me how powerful and amazing life is. If these little guys can bounce back like that, so can I if for some reason things with this house don’t turn out as I imagine …
Tuesday night … 
… this morning (Thursday). 
They actually looked a lot better already a few minutes after watering them. 
I just didn’t really bother to take any more pictures until this morning. 
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If I can just get one tomato from these I’ll be happy. 
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Yes, that is a plant pot with the O’boy logo painted on. Don’t ask. 
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More like mourning glory … 
… morning glory! -
Indian-Per
Last night we visited a former colleague of Peter’s. They don’t call him „Indian-Per“ for nothing: he’s single-handedly turned the farm he bought into a ranch. This guy really has an eye (and two hands) for details. I took some pix, check it out:
Where there’s an Indian-Per, there’s a tipi … or three … aiming for twelve (!) 
The stables. Indian-Per has two horses and a dog, all three of which are so well trained that they walk around on the property without any fence. Impressive. And adorable. 
Bathtubs upcycled – how cool is that? 
This is actually the view from the terrace, so imagine sitting in one of those bathtubs and looking at this (the sauna, btw). 
And of course, the sauna itself has a great view of the pond, too (which I managed not to capture here). 
So inspiring to meet someone with a vision and so much drive. Inspiration is important, Per agreed – inspiration not to copy others but to become your own original. Well, I’d say he’s got that one down.
