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

Complaints choir Malmö

The complaints choirs started in Finland but as complaining is a universal phenomenon the project could be organized in any city around the world. Birmingham was first and then came Helsinki and now complaints choirs have been initiated all around the globe.The concept is the same all over the world. Community members send in their complaints and a text are made and the words put to music. The choir is allowed only to practice 5 times before their performance.

Do you remember the complaints choir I sang in last summer? No? Well, you can read more about it here if you like. I promised to tell you when the performance was out on youtube and tadah.....drumroll....here it is





I sang together with my daughter and we had great fun. If a complaints choir ever comes your way - join it! What better thing to do with your anger, frustrations and general hang ups than to SING it out loud! It makes you feel so much better afterwards!

Go for it!

Genie in a bottle?

The toothfairy lives on the other side of my block.....or maybe it`s the genie. You know, the one that lives in a bottle? Here I sat thinking about a beautiful bag that Anna had made and Poof it suddenly lay in my letterbox. Now isn`t that amazing? Someone has magical powers!

Must be Anna!

Thank you dear blogfriend. You made my day!

Jeanette

Creative at last....

My dear blogfriend Val wanted to see some of my wet feltings......had it been yesterday I wouldn`t have been able to oblige.....but today.....EUREKA! I have been creative! At last....

I have started to prepare my exhibition ( planed for March next year) and I have decided that I will not only show my photographs but some feltings as well. Maybe a few of my recycled items too. I wanted to do a really big felting and this is what it looks like so far.

The black wool is a sort of pre felted fabric that I buy from a supplier. It measure 150 x 150 cm. I had to use my kitchen table.....

The rest of the wool in place and the image is built up.....


Now I have to attach it to the black wool. You can`t imagine how much water I had on the floor! What we do for art eh?

All wet....and my socks too

I usually work the felt in my kitchen sink but this felting was way to large so I had to try something new. I rolled it in a cotton sheet, tied it up with strings and trew it in the spin dryer....

The finished result! Now it measures 60 X 90 centimeters so it shrank more than I thought.

I am going to work further on it with some embroidery and needle felting. A photograph of poppies inspired me. I am trying to chose between two alternatives:

1. Cut it into tiny inches and mount it on black wool again - something like this.

This a smaller version that I did last year and it measures 15 X 15 centimeters.

or

2. Keep it as big as it is with the added embroidery and needle felt of course.

What do you think?

Take care

Jeanette

PS Do pay Val a visit. She makes the most wonderfully creative stuff. One really creative lady that it!

Blog envy

When I surf around in Blogland I often get blog envy. All the blogs out there are much better than mine, has more visitors than mine and the posts have way more comments. Yesterday I sort of “woke up” and did a reality check! Do I want 50 comments to every post? YES my envious mind screamed at first but then I thought about it a bit more and the answer was NO I don’t. Because if you read some of the 50 or more comments the “famous” bloggers get on their posts they seem to be of the cut and paste variety written by someone that only want a return visit to his or her own blog. I on the other hand feel that I have blog friends who take an interest in my life and write very personal and lovely comments. And that is worth so much more!

After coming to that conclusion a weight sort of lifted from my shoulders and I felt free! Why? I wondered. The answer is that I am very good at pushing myself and to question my own abilities and I very seldom allow myself to feel content. So I did with my blog as I do with so much more – I made it into something I had to succeed in and then the fun almost went out of it. I love writing and I love taking photographs and through my blog I have an opportunity to do just that! It was why I started in the first place but along the way I sort of lost my bearings and it became something else. A competion. Trough my blog I have met some truly wonderful persons that mean a lot to me. The live near and far – some much nearer than you think. ( Anna happened to live on the other side of my block….) but they all feel just as close.

So now I am back on track! I write for the fun of it!

And I raise my glass to my dear Blog friends in Sweden, Australia, UK, the Netherlands and the States and thank you from the bottom of my heart for the lovely comments and mail you keep sending me! And the award that Lili gave me.....

.........I give to you all!

Take care
Jeanette