Close encounter with Mrs Helylle

Tadaaa.... Yes! The wonderful Mrs Helylle do exsist ( I know you would want photo proof) and tonight we finally met. And she taught me how to spin….

.....Or she tried at least. And as the very nice person she is she even lent me the “gizmo” alias “the spinning thing” so that I can practice at home.

Thank you dear Anna ! It was fun!

Take care

Jeanette

A day off….

Today I had a day off to catch up on some creative stuff. My little exhibition is drawing closer and since I am supposed to show photos, wet & needle feltings and mixed media I better get going…. I have a few ideas but nothing really substantial yet. My photos will probably mostly be close ups of flowers and insects. About 12-14 of them I think, measuring 21 X 29,5 cm. My wet & needle feltings ? Well, that is the not so substantial part. And the mixed media? you ask. The answer to that one is that they are non existent so far……HELP!


This is a few ideas that I am currently working with.

Close up.

Come to think of it, this could be a mixed media piece.

I did add fabric, a photo and I even painted on it....

And this is was I started on today.

What do you think it is? I’ll give you a clue. One of my favorite flowers…..

While I was waiting for the wool to dry, which is about as fun as watching wet paint dry ....I made this guy in wire netting.

I got the inspiration in a shop in Stockholm but I can’t really say that mine got quite that lizard look that I was going for. The body is a bit too long and the tail a bit too short I think. The one in the shop was made of wire netting with a lot smaller “holes” in it so maybe that’s what made mine strange looking. I will just have to keep on trying I guess.

Now the wool is dry so,

Take care
Jeanettte

What’s with the chili?

I am fascinated by hotels. Well not the hotels as such but the interior design….What makes the designer chose a certain theme for instance? Two days ago I stayed overnight in Gothenburg. My daughters where going to visit the Gothenburg Horse show and me and the hubby where thinking more in terms of long leisurely lunches and some art galleries. We stayed at the Radisson and our rooms got me thinking….

The rooms were a disaster waiting to happen you see ….as interior design goes. I think the designer went for a sort of best little whore house in Texas effect with a bit of jungle theme thrown in for the fun of it. The chili red roof and the gigantic mirror with the rococo glass frame gave you a feeling of “red light district” and the wall behind the bed with its leopard print and the drapes made of glass beads made you start listening for the jungle drums. But the chili, that’s where the designer completely lost it….

If you look closely in the mirror you can see the leopard print on the wall......

Beads, beads, beads

Why on earth would you put a gigantic wooden chili on the wall ?????

And at the hotel breakfast, that’s where I lost it.....

It happens every time. My head starts rotating like a propeller when I try to get a good look at all the goodies and decide where to start first and my husband says I am a danger to innocent bystanders when I almost knock them over in my rush for the buffet table. But I like buffet breakfast, so dah!

Apart from the interior design and the casualties at the breakfast table we had great fun. We went for a stroll about town, visited a few art galleries and had a very loooong lunch. All while the girls were having fun watching show jumping and dressage.

We were not the only ones taking a stroll.....

On Friday hubby and I visited a photo conference. And do you know what I did? I bought myself a new camera. Believe me it wasn’t planned! No sireee! It just sat there in an exhibition case crying out for me to buy it. So what could I do? The poor thing was lonely and wanted a new home. I had to buy it! You understand that don’t you? And I was SO happy I almost walked on air. And all the way home in the car (3 hours) I sat with the box in my lap giving it the occasional hug and a kiss or two.

When I got home I was seized with misgivings….mulling it over you could say ( I am understating it here…..) . How could I buy a new expensive camera just like that? Without due reflection? What was I thinking of? Well, the truth is I wasn’t really thinking was I? I was “craving”! So now I have two cameras… and I just have to take twice the amount of pictures….. Oh joy!

Please Welcome the newest member of the family: Miss EOS D40 !!
My Canon EOS 350 D now has a big sister.

When in doubt always eat chocolate so I might as well end this post with a really good recipe combining the two - chili and chocolate.

Chocolate truffle with chili

250 g good-quality dark chocolate, chopped

seeds from one vanilla pod

100 ml thick ( double) cream

80 g honey

50 g unsalted butter

half a chili ( more if you like it hot), finely chopped

Pour the cream, honey and the vanilla seeds in a sausepan and give it a quick boil. Take it from the heat, add the chocolate and stir until smooth. Add 50 gram unsalted butter and stir until the butter is melted and it’s smooth again. Add the chopped chili and stir. Cover the pan and let it cool. When the chocolate is cool and set, make small balls and roll them in cocoa powder until completely covered.

Invite the one you love ( or the one you want to make fall madly in love with you) and serve the chocolate truffles with a glass of champagne. Or two…

Enjoy

Jeanette

Challenge

I have been challenged! I don’t normally do them but since it was Anna at Helylle who asked …..Who can resist? Here goes:

List 5 fun / unexpected facts about yourself
I am a twin. Fun for me and unexpected for my mother since she didn’t know until giving birth at the maternity ward

I have a constant crush on men from northern Sweden. It’s something about their accent…it makes me want to saddle up my reindeer, hit the sleigh and take off north.

I fall very easily in love and I am a sucker for romance….books, films, music anything with a bit of romance in it and I am hooked. Usually accompanied with a piece of chocolate or two … ( most likely two)

I have a big model air plane hanging from the roof of my work room. It`s bright yellow and it makes me happy. My uncle built it and used to fly it before he put it away on an attic and forgot about it. I keep it in my work room to help me make my thoughts fly high and free.

I go on a diet every Monday morning and break it on Monday evening. On good days. On bad days I last until Monday come lunchtime…


List the 5 funniest or most unusual jobs you`re had :
Sorry nothing especially fun or unusual about most of my jobs. But all of them very interesting though. The most unusual one must have been when I worked as a physical therapist ant taught Lamaz breathing technique to non Swedish speaking pregnant Arabic women.


What are you`re 5 favourite flowers ?

Roses

Tulips

Peonies

Bluebells

Lavender
Last 5 films seen?
This is when it sounds so much better if you say the complete Ingmar Bergman collection or something suchlike. A bit of navel gazing and high brow! I have to admit that the last five films seen have all been Disney and all on video. ( yeah, not even on dvd!!! Stoneage....) But we have been down with the flu you know…. And that’s the only thing that really helps.
Robin Hood
Taran & the magic kettle
Aristocats
Bernard & Bianca
The jungle book

5 material things on my wish list ?

A blow torch (for enameling)

An Angora rabbit + cage (an Angora rabbit produces 10 times it’s own weight in wool. Okey, okey, I know they don’t weigh that much….but the wool. Aaaahhh so soft! And they are cute too! My cats would probably thank me for the caged lunch but a girl got to have dreams right? )

A macro lens for my camera

A robotic vacuum cleaner (they exist you know!!!!)

A sleigh (to take me up north….)

Yep, that`s it folks! Now I am supposed to challenge someone too but I think I just welcome anyone who wants to join in the fun.

Take care

Jeanette

A Happy

Valentine`s

Day



To you all !

Crochet

I can’t do crochet. At the handcraft lessons in school my kettle holders were never nice and square like the other girls but more often than not of a triangular shape. My teacher shook her head, made tsk tsk sounds and pronounced me unteachable. After that I more or less stopped trying. But a while ago I was visiting Maria’s blog and there it was, the most beautiful crocheted basket and the best of it was that it came as a crochet kit complete with necessary material and “how to do it”. It was sold in a shop in Stockholm and since I was going to Stockholm this weekend anyway I might as well buy myself a kit. I mean how hard could it be? Me being that much older and wiser and my handcraft teacher long gone, probably doing the crochet thing up in the sky.

I don’t have an older sister. I always wanted one though. A sister I could gossip with about boyfriends and who would comfort me when I was sad and whom I could borrow clothes and make up from. And who could teach me things – like crocheting.

I stayed with friends in Stockholm and I usually pretend that my dear friend B is my “big sister”. She is the very best of “sisters”, warm, compassionate, very wise, and extremely funny and a joy to spend time with. Of course she did the “big sisterly thing” and promised both to help me find the shop and to teach me how to crochet.

This is the kit from Frosta design

Do you want to see what else I got?

White "poodle" wool yarn and cotton ribbon yarn. I plan to make a shawl out of white alpaca wool with these two mixed in.

I bought a bag at Afro art. It`s made of an recycled Asian rice sack.

And this fabulous postcard by Jan Stenmark that says “In the dream she could fly. In the dream she could reach and dust places she had never reached to dust before”

Back at B`s apartment I couldn’t wait to get started. I read the pattern, which is a novelty since I am known as the woman who made “do not read the fucking manual” into an art form. But to be honest that mostly applies to computer and gadget manuals. On the back of the pattern you could read this information:

Crochet is good for your health
You breathe calmer
Slows down your heart rate
More stimuli to the brain and your koncentration increases
Lowered anxiety and frustration

Let me tell you something. THAT IS A BIG FAT LIE !
After five minutes of crocheting I was a nervous wreck, an angry and extremely agitated nervous wreck at that. Working myself fast towards a stroke. I could feel my blood pressure rising with every wrong stitch. Poor B, she got the kid sister from hell. After I had completed half the pattern it didn’t look like anything near a basket more like a squashed beret so I decided that I had had it with this crochet thing. But looking at what I had accomplished I suddenly realised that I CAN crochet I just can`t crochet a basket. Come again? Well, I did all the stitches right but probably not firm enough, some turning out less firm than the others and therefore making the basket all uneven and wobbly. But who needs a basket right? So now I have started to make a bag instead and so far it actually has a square shape instead of a triangle one.

Way to go Jeanette!

When I was in Stockholm I also visited Liljevalchs vårsalong.

Liljevalchs is the Stockholmers’ own public art venue. The Spring Exhibition/Vårsalongen, featuring works selected by a jury, is an annual event. It was great fun. And very inspirational. They actually showed both some needle felted art and embroidery and I think it’s great that handcraft, used in a new way can be an art form for younger artist. Me, I think I am going for ink and Tippex art. Tippex, you now the white fluid you used, in a distant past to correct mistakes when writing on a type writer….. An artist had made a beautiful painting using those two.

Or I just might crochet something…. I could call it “despair”

Take care
Jeanette