Kilim - Love at first sight

Close your eyes and let’s make believe that we are in Turkey, in Istanbul maybe?

Hear the sound from the mosque when they call out for the evening prayer, see the light slowly fading in the narrow alleys and feel the heat still coming from the thick white walls and the lovely smell from fresh herbs and spices. Can you feel the feeling?

Now open your eyes and let’s go for a walk… along the streets not in Istanbul but in Stockholm. Turn left at the chimney......

and up the long steep street .....

and there it is at the corner – Taners Kilim Carpets! And if you are lucky the proprietor is standing outside welcoming you to step inside......

Welcome inside.....

And when you are inside? Oh joy! Beautiful, beautiful Kilim carpets, rugs and pillows everywhere you look. And if you close your eyes just for a minute you are right back in Istanbul again......

For me it was love at first sight. I fell like a ton of bricks not only for the carpets, rugs and pillows but for the proprietor as well. A charming man! Very patiently he showed me all the lovely things his shop could offer and told me a bit about the carpets as well.

I learnt that the Kilim carpets are hand-woven in wool or cotton. They were originally made by Asian nomads who used the carpets as interior decorating of their tents. The nomads spun the wool buy hand, colored it with vegetable dye and made carpets and woven fabric for pillows, sacks and saddlebags. The Kilims date over ten thousand years back and the carpets are a part of the nomad’s culture and tell us about their dreams and the environment in which they were living. The Kilims are woven in the whole of the Orient. The word Kilim in fact means "weaving technique" and since a Kilim is never a mass production every carpet, rug or pillow is unique. As the proprietor said

- A handmade carpet is not something you use and the throw away. A “real” carpet should last for a lifetime.

So did I buy me a carpet? No I didn`t. But I bought a beautiful pillow. A pillow that was so very much ME that it felt like it was made just for me. And next time I visit I will maybe buy a carpet. Because I feel very strongly that somewhere in that shop there is bound to be a magical and very special carpet….

........A flying one of course!

And once I have my flying carpet I can take a trip and visit you whenever I want to. I could fly to Angela and Cathy in Australia, Lili in Netherlands, Jane in San Diego or Betty Jo... or take a quick trip to Val in Chulmleigh or why not to Gerda-Thyra in Gothenburg or Anna Stilla or..... Now that beats visits in cyberspace don`t you think? So don`t be afraid if late at night there is a knock at your window - It`s only me on my flying carpet!

But until then..... if you ever are in Stockhom please pay Taners Kilim carpets a visit! It’s worth every minute of it!

And be sure to say Hi from me to the proprietor! As I said, a very charming man!

Take care
Jeanette

IRL

I want to tell you about my blogfriend Clara!
Her blog, Claras Linneskåp, was one of the first that I started reading when I entered Blogland back in February 2007. I was instantly charmed by the way she wrote and in constant admiration for her beautiful pictures and she always took her time to write long and very personal comments to my posts. I became addicted to her blog and took a quick sneak-peak everyday. Still, reading it makes me happy and it feels like receiving a warm hug from outer cyberspace! Clara became my first blogfriend! Through her I understood that this blog writing business isn’t just about surfing around, reading and commenting but that you can also meet some truly nice people out there….

Since then I have made a lot of other blogfriends too but Clara is special because she came first! Clara is special in many other ways too – a very talented photographer, excellent writer and a person that cares deeply for nature and environment. Now she has taken her environmental interest one step further. Some of her photos are being made into postcards and part of the profit is going to Naturskyddsföreningen which is a Swedish association for protecting the environment. So many people would have been satisfied by just selling their postcards but she goes and does it for a good cause too…

Way to go Clara!


Back in September I met Clara in IRL. She was having a photo exhibition in Blekinge and I went to see it. It takes about two and a half hours by car but that’s no distance when you have a chanse to meet a blogfriend. Meeting her was like meeting someone you have known forever. Of course I had to take a photo of her. A photo of a photographer…..

Here is a great big hug for you my friend


Take care
Jeanette

How to kill a gnome

I love gnomes!
Always have and always will. Not so much the Santa Claus type of gnome ( is he in fact a gnome or just an dressed up adult ?!?!?) but more the garden kind of gnome. The uglier and grumpier the better. Like Dobby in Harry Potter. Or the ones that lived with Snow-white. Now wait a minute, they were dwarfs right? OK so I love dwarfs too. Big deal.

Anyway.


Last weekend I learnt that I have been walking around killing gnomes by the dozen. Shocking news! Quite accidentally but killing them just the same. You want to know how? Here goes. Just by saying prosit! One of my friend had just been told that whenever you say prosit a gnome dies! In Sweden you say prosit when someone sneezes just like you say bless you or gesundheit! Can you just imagine how many poor gnomes that keels over and start pushing up the daises when November comes and the flue hits you big time? The more I think about it the more depressed I get. Since I heard the tragic news I have told a lot of people and they all go silent or turn quite pale. You can see how they start building up a picture of the poor gnomes holding their little hands over their ears trying to keep the sound of prosit out but without luck…. Seems to be alot more people that like gnomes than I initally thought. God I am depressed! I have to think up a solution…. I have it! Gnomes are saved from the ugly prosit death whenever someone is saying bless you somewhere else. And since there are so many more English speaking people than Swedish speaking the sum ought to add up….

Oh who am I trying to fool. I just have to stop saying prosit.


Atjoooo!
Prosit!
Oh bother, I mean Bless you of course!

Take care
Jeanette

I shall pass through this world but once....

I have neglected you terribly. No posts published and no comments on your posts either for quite a long time. As you could read in my last post time is playing tricks on me. Don’t know what’s happening. Is it a world wide conspiracy? Is there actually 22 hours instead of 24 now? I seem to be running faster and gasping for air …..I do funny and interesting things most of the time so I am not really complaining about that but oh how I long for some “reading and cup of tea time” lying on my sofa. And how about some chocolate too while I am at it! Come to think of it, last weekend was of the sofa and chocolate variety…..

I spent a lovely weekend with friends in Stockholm. Dear friends! Spending time with them is like being held in a warm hug. Or entering a world full of warmth and joy of living. They mean a lot to me and I miss them terribly when I am not there. Such friends are rare!

We spent saturday walking about town in the beautiful autumn weather. I had my camera with me of course....

We strolled about town looking at people....and inside the occasional shop of course. Speaking of shops. I have admired my friends beautiful Kilim pillows and carpets for a long time and this weekend she had promised me a visit to the carpet salesman. Oh joy! My only experience of oriental carpets was reading the childrens book about Ture Sventon as a child. In the book is a carpet salesman called Mr Omar and he gives Ture Sventon a flying carpet….. In the book Mr Omar is a very strict person wearing a fez. So you can imagine what I was expecting.

Mr Omar and Ture Sventon


But when meeting the salesman in the flesh so to speak it was love at first sight. So much love that I will dedicate a whole post entirely to him. In a very near future… And of course I fell in love with the carpets and pillows too and had to buy me one. More about that in the next post too.

I will show you inside the shop really soon....

Yesterday they presented this years Nobel prize winner in literature. Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio. As always it makes me feel quite stupid. Through the years the times I have heard the author in questions name before are rare and read an actual book even rarer. Suddenly all newspapers are full of articles about the authors fantastic work and I can’t help wonder why I haven’t heard about him before. If he is that fantastic? And every year I say to myself “you really must read one of the books” and every year I end up not doing so. How come? I read a lot. And I mean a lot. But not the right books apparently.

Right now I am reading a book that made a real impact on me. It’s an autobiography written by Anders Andersson who is 83 years old and who started out as a pig farmer in the south of Sweden and after his retirement ended up in France growing olives. He started an art gallery on his pig farm just because he loved art and his firm belief is that everything is possible. This all sounds a bit corny and the book really isn’t that well written but it is breathing life! And hope! And the joy of being happy and still curious of life at the age of 83. And it’s not only that he himself is living a good life but he tries to makes other peoples life good to. Not by being a “do-gooder” or doing charity work but by being there and being someone you can count on!

I went to listen to him reading his book a while ago. And that too was love at first sight. Wow! Such a charming man! And good looking! A journalist asked him what the secret of a good life was

- Don’t surround yourself with grumpy people! he answered. The rest is just down to good genes.

That’s says quite a lot about the man himself doesn’t it?

There is a quote in the book that sort of sums it all up and it makes me cry every time I read it. It says:

I shall pass through this world but once.

Any good thing therefore that I can do or any kindness

I can show to any human being let me do it now.

Let me not defer it or neglect it

for I shall not pass this way again

One day when I am gone – in hopefully many years to come – I hope that I have lived my life just like that!

Take care

Jeanette

Autumn colors

Autumn is my favorite time of the year. The bright colors, the crisp air and the brilliant blue sky, early morning frost …..the list can go on and on. Autumn makes me feel vibrant and energetic and I always want to start new projects.I usually take an enormous amount of photos during autumn because the light is so much better than during summer but this year I simply haven’t had the time. For a long period now my weeks have consisted of only Mondays and Fridays .What ever happened to the days in between I don’t know. Could be due to my new job perhaps? Or the fact that we have bean tearing down a gable wall at the country house and are fighting against wind and rain to get the new one built? Anyhow, last weekend I finally had time for a long leisurely walk acompanied by my camera alone! This is some of the photos…

When I got back home I was so inspired by the colors that I wet felted a shawl and a pair of long wrist warmers . When I sat making the wrist warmers my husband asked if I made kettle-holders ( you know the ones that looks like a mitten….) and Emma told me it looked just like the cast she had last summer when her wrist was broken. Oh the warmth and encouragement of your family eh… Well this is what they looked like. It’s going to be a present for a dear friend!

Naturally I am planning to make a pair for my husband too ha, ha! He is going to wish that the word kettle-holder never left his mouth! Sweet revenge!

This weekend I am going to Stockholm to visit friends. Stockholm is beautiful in the autumn too so I am bringing my camera and hoping for good weather.

See you soon!

Take care

Jeanette