Karin's Style Blog

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We’ve got some news for you on manos blog!

oil burner, part of the 2010 collection

This oilburner is part of my 2010 collection and it’s one of the last things I fired before taking some time off waiting for the little one to arrive. He’s (yes, we think we know) showing no signs of wanting to come out yet…

Boule & Berså

In the meantime, I’m taking it so easy, sleeping lots and making sure I get my daily ice-cream, that’s about the only tasks on my to do list at the moment. I have also been seen to clear out the wardrobe, de-frosting the freezer and scrubbing the kitchen but those things are optional.

The other night we went to our ‘local’, Boule & Berså. We thought last summer would be the end of this charming hang-out along the canal, but to our delight they’ve survived.

What a wonderful place to go for a workshop! Right now they’re doing a tango course…

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Going to Copenhagen for the day with four good friends is like a vitamin injection. Despite rain and storm we had the best day! We fell in love with the first shop we went into, Mooment shop is tucked in on a small street called Hestemøllestræde and filled with a well selected range of eco quality products. We took the owners advice and went for a long lunch at the conservatory café in Glyptoteket where we also saw the cabinet makers’ autumn exhibition of chairs with the theme “dialogue".

We got into the Christmas mood at Royal Copenhagen, checked out some danish ceramics at Stilleben and Illums Bolighus, went two flights of stairs up to Hay house, design in a fin de siecle setting.

We were going to end the day with a visit to Tage Andersens flower shop, but it was raining so hard that we took cover in a bar instead, which brought us straight to the Bahamas.

Poppies and Great Burnet. Bigger and the whole bouquet.

I was exhausted after last week and inevitably have come down with a cold. It was a fun week though, on Thursday we organized a day for a group of one hundred (100!) visiting 15-year olds from the nordic countries. They went through six stations one of which was my workshop where they patterned a mug. I hope they really enjoyed it and were proud of what they achieved.

A hundred 15-year olds visited my workshop and patterned a mug each, here’s the result after firing.

I like this poppy boutonniere, found the tutorial through whip up.

PS manos news: The 100% linen dish cloth is back in stock and now available also in turquoise and lime.

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Mushroom picking is high up on my list of favourite things to do - no city sounds around you, just your feet walking on moss and breaking the occasional branch, sitting down for tea and a sanwich and as an added bonus, coming home with golden and black chanterelles. Tonight we will have mushroom risotto.

Photograph by Anna Kern (thank you Cia!).

My new porcelain cup was mentioned in Svenska Dagbladets interior deco blog with the beautiful picture taken by Anna Kern.

I like this shop, found via Kate.

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It’s raining today and I will enjoy the sound of the rain on my glass roof at manos, I’ve been picking reed on my morning walk to the shop, it grows in the water filled ditches.

I think we have 24 little chickens at Överjärva now, these hens have been busy this summer.

Alicia Manero
Emily Tu
Nina Buesing
Like a butterfly in your house

It’s time for a vacation now. manos webshop is open but I’m away! See you in August with a progress report from the Camilla and Karin collaboration.

Here are two nice tips to do in Stockholm and around during the summer:

Äppelfabriken, the apple factory.

Visit Äppelfabriken, I did a couple of weeks ago and here are some pics.

See free theatre, dance and concerts at Parkteatern, this is from Figaro’s wedding in Margaretaparken. Bring your own picnic.

Wishing you all a wonderful summer!

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I had only one day off over Easter weekend, but it felt like much more. Monday morning was ever so misty - everything was covered in a white veil, and then! it lifted and everything that is usually there appeared across the water.

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We opened up the summer house for the season, I can’t wait to spend days and long light summer nights here.

Here’s some love aimed at the other side of the Atlantic - I so enjoy my weekly read of 3191 - thank you mav and Stephanie! And I loved mav’s post at d*s about her local tea shop, HOmegrown (yes, a long time ago but I still needed to say this).

The chandelier that hung above the dance floor.

What a fantastic wedding I’ve been to this weekend! It was so generous - not least in a loving atmosphere. We danced all night and most of my pictures came out too dark. Here’s the few alright ones.

Dancing queen.

After returning from the weekend, I promptly came down with a cold and have done some surfing:

Via la petit Yaka moderne, I found A view to

Canasta quiero and galeria.

Bigger here.

Here I am in my new red skirt by Alison Willoughby, drinking a green tea and enjoying an easy read. London was as wonderful as ever, I had a relaxing and inspiring time. Here are the highlights of my Origin visit and of the past few days online (I’m away for a few days and so much happens!).

Lines & Shapes volume five, that I’m proud to be part of - buy one or subscribe to the whole series here.

StudioViolet with shop!

Origin links:
Ceramics by Kaori Tatebayashi and Ikuko Iwamoto.

Jewellery by Nutre Arayavanish, Tithi Kutchamuch, Heesung Koh, Adele Brereton, Lina Peterson and Grace Girvan - unfortunately her website does not show the beautiful jewellery she makes with natural pebbles, silver and wood.

Mixed media by Samantha Bryan.

Fashion and textiles by Eloise Grey, Teresa Green and Adrienne Rogers.

Wood by Gary Allson and David Gates.

The past week has been so filled with experiences it feels more like a month. A very good month! Above is a view from Saturday lunchtime in the mountains.

Camilla has come and gone, here she is working on our collaborative pieces - the more we work on them the more ideas we get - we’re already planning for a continuation…

Everything is growing in my greenhouse, the beans and the grape vine is demanding more and more space. The newspaper plant pot is made with a “potter” (krukmakare) from Runåbergs fröer.

I received this masterpiece from Urubbu in the post the other week, I’m completely charmed!

I’m doing an etsy shop update on Friday, it’ll be odds and pebbles.
Ciao.

Thank you for all the comments on my cosas collection! And thanks Adam for pointing this out

I’ve been longing to tell you this for soo long it’s almost anti-climax now, but I’m moving workshops! Into the beautiful space above. It’s the inside of this wonderful building. My aim is to keep the light and the air and not get too crowded - I’ll be reporting on my progress.

Beautiful pictures of food and vessels on Karen Wise’s site.

Emily has done a third tour of pottery blogs!

You’ve seen her around the web lately, artist Stephanie Levy creates small paintings and mixed-media collages like the ones shown here, created using translucent materials mounted on lightboxes. Here’s what they look like mounted.

I received an email from Elisabeth who told me about DaWanda, a German etsy so to speak. The ‘moon-gazing hare’ is handmade in the UK by Chloe Harford.

Hi there These sandals has done quite a few miles the past few weeks, but they were also thoroughly rested when the train through Serbia got delayed for 12 hours - or with the conductors words: “No problem for you, I turn off light you sleep!”

I need to go and stock up my fridge so just a few glimpses from my rail trip through Eastern Europe and I’ll be back later in the week.

Two little old ladies on a bench in Krakow.

In Prague they sold mixed berries in beautiful colour combinations.

The National Museum of Art in Sofia had the creakiest floor boards ever and some beautiful rooms, paintings and sculptures.

Tourist information was pretty sparse in Bucarest - we should have done our homework and searched the internet beforehand. Now I know

I’m sitting outside my workshop on a pile of clay that was just delivered. This week, me and Liisa went on an inspirational tour through SoFo, perhaps you can say its Stockholm’s Nolita or Hoxton. Here’s some places we went into or just passed:

Grandpa, a shop with a great mix of vintage furniture, fashion, books and jewellery. Cafe String on Nytorgsgatan, all their furniture is for sale so the place is in constant good change.

Next door to Grandpa is vintage fashion shop Påkläderiet and Coctail Deluxe.

Cafe Skåningen on Skånegatan. Stadsmissionen second hand. I got a pair of very cool sunglasses for SEK 20.

Kunigunda sell for instance Ivana Helsinki and Jenny Hellström.

AH’s ice cream bar on Skånegatan 92. Many believe they have the best ice cream in Stockholm… I also thought they had great table cloths outside. While we enjoyed our ice cream we passed Lolla Palooza, Sara Clausin and Tjallamalla.

King Lily looked interesting but it was closed for the day. We went into crafts galleries 125 kvadrat and Galleri Hantverket.

This is just a little snippet of SoFo, but they’ve got a great website with lots of info about the area. See the whole tour as well as more Stockholm sightseeing on my flickr.

I have to tell you as well that last weeks inspirational afternoon we went to the Architectural museum. Go there!! The summer exhibition with Japanese architectural duo SANAA is just stunning! I was overwhelmed! Of course I forgot my camera at home - I will have to go back I’ll show you later. Here’s designboom’s interview with SANAA with lots of great pictures of their architectural work as well as product design.

More Japan: don’t miss the beautiful stone like vases at Play Mountain Villa.

Last but not least - Abigail’s Sweet Horse Chestnut Mismatched Earrings are on sale!

My odyssey between swedish summer houses took me to Väddö, a longstretched island north east of Stockholm. The wild strawberries were everywhere.

This particular summer house had the most charming bar (its a fine line..), close ups here and here.

Typography by Oded Ezer, the photo of 3D hebrew letters above is from his photoblog on flickr, via beton & Garten.

I’ve been working on some new work - patterns and shapes - that I’m longing to show you. Here’s a small preview of a vase that I’ve had in my collection before. I made the original version during my first year at Central St Martins (10 years ago!!) and its been through a few changes since.

The weekend was spent at a friends summer house outside Flen. We swam in the little lake, ate a wonderful barbeque (I especially liked grilled aubergines - why haven’t I put them on the grill before?) and drank Pimm’s in the shade of the apple trees. Like being in a Tjechov novel (at least the apple tree shade, perhaps not the barbeque).

I found little bits and pieces around the house. I love the hen on the plastic cup! I’ve added some more glimpses on flickr. I also managed to catch up on what the Royal family has been up to lately as - like in many summer houses - gossip magazines were frequent.

Feffakookan introduced me to two new ceramic bloggers - musing about mud and bum crane.

Now I’m heading inside to do some glazing and I’m so happy to say I wont be doing it all alone as since yesterday Liisa is here doing her workplacement. And whats more - she will be here four months!! This will be so much help to me - and hopefully lots of valuable experience for Liisa.

Today is 300 years since Linné was born and he’s all over Sweden right now. The Japanese emperor is here for the celebrations. I’ve picked this years first buttercups and some beautiful grass that looks so nice in combination with my charcoal stoneware clay. That’s my little Linné tribute

You really liked the little van from the Chocolate factory! I’ve found out some more about the make - it’s French and called MEGA, the swedish agent is Importinvest and Megavan is based in the UK.

Read Judy Ross’ answers at design*sponge!

This coming weekend is the Easter Market here at Överjärva and as usual it’ll be lots going on. So far 60 lambs have been born and we have a new rooster amongst the hens. In the café they’ve been baking for two weeks and today all the market stalls are being put up in the yard. The weather looks like it’ll stay as glorious as it’s been all week.

I’m filling up my ’seconds shelf’ which is usually a very popular place to purchase from and I’m proudly putting out as many of my new tealight holders as I can. This is the first product I’ve had someone else produce for me and it’s been a few hicups along the way but the result exceeds my expectations! They are so lovely!! I’ll still be doing the decoration and perhaps I’ll have time to work on some new designs?

This lovely view is from a video exhibition by Vogt Landscape Architects, found via the excellent Beton & Garten.

I love the sunglass case by Hayden Harnett available from Rare Device, spotted on d*s around the web.

I know I won’t have time for a blog tomorrow, so I’ve uploaded lots of pictures to flickr - from my skiing trip to Austria and this and that from around the workshop.

Have a lovely weekend and for those of you who are close by - welcome to the Easter Market!

Last week was spent in the company of these two guys. The weather was glorious and we did some painting in the shade of the old Ash tree.

Country Living used my white hangings in a lovely spread.

The weekend was spent in the archipelago, in a house that has been moved from Hälsingland to Roslagen. Beautifully decorated using warm deep colours and bringing in details from China and Japan.

This picnic is from today outside the workshop, it’s cups and plates heading for ABC Carpet & Home.

Tomorrow, I’m picking up a small rental car and am off for a few days. Not far and not for long but oh, so lovely! Am leaving you to browse the archives, links and these lovely sites…

Ruahands - don’t miss the Jellybean and Wildflower bag from season 1 and the Toah bag from season 2, the beautiful fabrics etc in the collection and the DIY of the Jellybean. Actually, don’t miss anything! Ruahdesign is the furniture design site with wonderful photos.

Bits and Bobbins fashion scrapbook and studio shot.

Joy blogged about a lovely red Kate Spade bag.

Coolchiq spotted denim boots at Chanel. I believe that when I’m in the right state of mind I can wear whatever I feel like and it looks great. I don’t think I’d ever have the confidence for these boots though, but they’re seriously cool.

The rose outside my workshops smells wonderful.

A cup with a whale by Ayumi Horie. I like her drawing so much. Don’t miss her Pots in Action page.

A Yohji Yamamoto dress, captured by the Sartorialist today.

Recycled (looks like a piece of a porcelain cup and handle) ring, by Gabriela Felgenträger at alternatives (lots of inspiring jewellery there). Found by Ma Roulette.

I like checking back to see what I blogged about a year ago.

I went to stock up on some summer reading at the library and came home with brittish crime novels and some music - Johnny Cash and Tomatito for instance. I like both.

While at the library I looked through the exhibition by Livstycket, a centre for textile design / making and know-how for women of foreign background in Tensta (a suburb north of Stockholm). For many of the women, Livstycket is the first contact with the new country and the road into swedish society. Half the day the women do handicraft work and the other half they take classes in subjects as for example health or labour market orientation.

I think it sounds like a very good project and I liked the things in the exhibition. Especially this pillow with an embroidered recipie.

Livstycket is an old fashioned word for a piece of clothing that is warming and supportive. The exhibition is called “Slowly and lovingly” (sakta och kärleksfullt) and will be at the library in Solna centrum until August 11th.

Balloons for the birthday boy (4 years old)! We have marvellous weather in Stockholm right now and most of the birthday party was spent playing in the water.

Craftypod has started a series of interviews with indie crafters running small businesses. I love hearing about other peoples experiences with starting and running their business. On that note, don’t miss d*s interview with Rena Tom and Lena Corwin.

Here are two of the many posts I’ve marked in bloglines in order to tell you about but then never have the time to explore further… Style Bubble on fashion graduate shows and Style Bytes on giant rings. Both inspiring!

I found dutch jeweller Ted Noten via Valdemar’s New Jewellery blog. Although Valdemar’s blogwas born only yesterday, he’s got some great links up already. Noten’s wedding ring pendant can be found through chi ha paura..?

Diana Fayt is another recent blogger and a “voice from inside the studio” (her tagline, which I think is great and very promising!) as she’s also a fellow potter.

Like hoping for happy accidents and Lena Corwin, I like the textile designs by Hau Hauz.

More enjoyable new aquaintances to me are Ms Spinach and No Good for Me.

Tim Gough, via 30 gms. The print above is called Grr.

Holly at decor8 posted about watercolourist Mizue Hirano.

Wonderful quilts by Ian Hundley, via Eva Noveau and Moco Loco.

Sew Recycled has a tip of where to buy Japanese craft books in the UK.

Style Bytes found this lovely cherry patterned Anna Sui dress from Spotlight Vintage. I own an Anna Sui jacket and skirt set which I treasure dearly.

This photo is from my dried-and-photographed-grass-and-leaves-period (which never seems to end). I’m forever drawn to those thin lines connecting with the fluffier bits and the joints - just lovely.

Designboom’s photos from their 2006 mart at ICFF and here are the designers that took part.

I like this green and blue and grey together. Huulaseventy didn’t want last weeks colour parade to finish so she’s launched another week!

I like Cindy’s flickr set of Abandoned Places and Things.

Annika has been to Skansen and Anneli has been to Julita. Follow their lead when you’re visiting Sweden.

Food art by Alinea, here it is potato they’ve made art of. Via lamarica.

I’m reading Dish by Julie Muller Stahl, the book I told you about in May last year… It’s presenting 30 female industrial designers and also includes essays on various aspects of design. On the front cover is “Dish” by Ana Mir. Here are some pages from the book:

Baby Lounger by Sophie Demenge.

H seat, designed in 2001 by Han Feng.

Swedish designer Monica Förster launched the ‘dot cake sun mini’ tables at last years furniture fair in Stockholm.

I like this book, I like the layout and it’s introducing me to lots of designers whose work I now want to know more about.

Galerie La Fayette in Paris.

Ye old english gas stove.

It has been a lovely week of colour, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it - thank you mav and Stephanie!

Tomorrow we’re cykling to the summer house, stopping off for a picnic in the park at Drottningholm (home to the King and Queen).

Have a nice weekend! Colliers from Lyndie Dourthe, via Treats and Treasures.

French Touche, Design*Sponge’s favourite design spot in Paris. Looks like a treasure.

Strings of dried rowan berries.

Me in my work clothes.

Three Layer Cake takes cakes to another level. This weeks interview features Eckart Maise, Managing Director of Vitra Home Collection and last week Kristina did an interview with Oscar Aciar who’s one part of Il Giardino Secreto, a shop/space in Rome. Here’s a quote from the interview: “The space is an island of innovation and visual stimulation, a secret garden within the city. A place where one can suspend rigid beliefs and preconceived ideas to encounter art forms which push the envelope of ‘normal’ conventions.” Sounds like a place I’d like to visit.

Fred Flare has visited Colette.

Some sketches I did for my degreeshow in 2000. I made a set of cups and beakers in which I was trying to express different friends’ personalities. Above is K and I was trying to capture her love of dancing and rythm by giving the beaker movement. It’s really difficult to do without making it seem like a mistake or the opposite, overdoing it.

Below is M and S - do you recognize?

Brown letters.

Cig Harvey’s got some beautiful photographs. Via Kunstbetrieb.

I’m joining mav and Stephanie’s colour week. Scrubbed and washed ceramics drying on my doorstep.

Here’s a link to the black cat’s puppet theatre. Click on “smakprov” to see a short taster. Via swedesres.

If I were into lists, mine would have accumulated into a novel by now. When I reach the limit for how many things one person can prioritize at once I sometimes (on good days) react with accepting that in my handmade world, things just take time and it’s really no use pushing because that only results in cracks and breakages. It’s much better to sit down with Ninni and have a cup of coffee.

Delicious days has been to Lisbon and it looks fantastic.

Rare Device sell this bag from Kristen Aronsson. That kind of handle makes my heart beat faster.

A sneak preview of the fall/winter collection from Odd Molly. Love it.

fiftyX3R posted a great story of how ugly sweaters and a creative mind can work wonders.

Swissmiss found Maria Bussman’s mouse hotel bed some time ago. Just because they’re tiny doesn’t mean they should be ignored.

Now, I really have to work on my next post for Whip up. Am very late indeed with that.

There’s a hole pile of books next to my sofa that I’ve been meaning to tell you about and what better time than when summer’s ahead?

Inspired, by Dorte Nielsen and Kiki Hartmann, is about “How creative people think, work and find inspiration". The book has it’s own website, which had a problem loading when I wrote this, but the book is also available from Amazon.

It’s a fast read with lots and lots of inspiring and stunning photos. The core of the interviewed people are from the world of advertising, but the book also includes architects, designers and illustrators and the odd musician.

I did feel that I wanted a more in depth text, more digging into what really triggers people’s inspiration and thoughts around why. It’s quite impossible to pin down, I know, and perhaps it’s all there and I was too lazy to do the digging myself….

Above is a page from the book, it’s the scrapbooks of typographer Chris Priest. He says: “I think making scrapbooks creates confidence in your visual language. When you’re actually working on them, sticking things down, you explore space, tension and composition.”

I found this quote by Anders Lund Madsen, entertainer from Copenhagen, interesting: “The more ideas you give away, the better ideas you’ll get in return.” Is that what the (craft) bloggosphere is about? We share and improve by sharing.

When writing this post I found dear ada, another blogger who’s been inspired by Inspired.

The door to my workshop has been wide open all day and I cherish the sound of rain falling outside mixing with the soft humming of my potter’s wheel. But what’s made my day is listening to Tango for four. Blending Finnish and Argentinian tango, I’m in love! Available from Amazon and I’ll soon return my copy to the library in Solna centrum.

This slightly unrelated picture is a Fritillary (Kungsängslilja) - one of the most beautiful late spring flowers:

Kath of Whip up and many more excellent projects is interviewed by Craft Sanity. It’s quite a long interview and lovely to hear some background to Kath’s projects.

If you want to listen to my choir, we’re performing the concert we did in Hungary this Sunday at 6 o’clock in Sundbybergs kyrka. The way I sound today I suspect I’ll be taking care of the page turning again… (by the way, I know the pictures are really tiny - making the them clickable to enable larger format is on the to-do-list!).

We had so much fun in Budapest, I am so so tired and my suitcase smells of the pepper sausages I brought back… Here are some glimpses of the journey.

They had so many funny signs in Budapest - whatever does this one mean? That you’re not allowed to go hand in hand with someone on this street?

The Grand Market Food Hall.

Me with my felted scarf, after the first concert there was not much of a voice left so on the second concert I turned pages for our talented pianist Ekaterina.

The Parliament.

The House of Terror was amongst the most impressive museums I’ve visited. The atmosphere, the scenography, the details - it made such an impression and the room of the dead made me cry.

I didn’t visit the spa, but peaked in through the windows.

Some parts of Budapest reminded me of Paris.

No need for me to cut the lawn when I’ve got these absolutely adorable little helpers… The black one has got white stockings!
I did have to draw the line when they started chewing up my climbing rose though…

Things like this keeps me sane.

UPDATE: This is outside my workshop and the lambs live on the farm where that is situated. This year 70 lambs were born…

Isn’t this a beautiful necklace? Here comes the surprise: it’s the intestines of a pig, tightened around silver bands. By Catarina Hällzon.

I just find these jewellery pieces so incredibly inspiring! Not only the pieces themselves, but also the added effect of the shadows, the direct use of natural materials and the combinations of those with precious metals. By Elin Christensson.

At graphic design you could create your own heraldry. By Jiri Adamik-Novak.

I’m standing in front of the illustrations of little old ladies. By Mia Bergendal.

I was mighty impressed with illustrated story of Edie Sedgwick, by Graham Samuels. The whole book wasn’t quite finished yet, so he’d done the preparatory work for the last pages and included that which gave a nice insight to the process behind the drawings.

Ceramic tables outside the ceramics shop. I’m afraid I wasn’t all that impressed with the ceramic work in the show, perhaps I’m being too hard on my own material…

The coffee maker is by Santi Nagoyo and it’s called Norm.

I didn’t have time to go and see the art’s department so this was all from Konstfack this year!

Nancy of Loopy design design and produce a small collection of girls handmade clothing, some of which use recycled materials. The pictures are just so charming and if I could shrink myself, I’d wear this coat and these wrist warmers!

Some lovely links that i found through le vestiaire de jeanne:

Oona

Chigo

Tantetini

I went to see the degree show at Konstfack (the University of Art and Design here in Stockholm) yesterday. As usual, textiles and jewellery managed to capture my heart and mind!

Incredibly inspiring jewellery by Catarina Hällzon.

Random and detailed textiles by Jenny Bergman.

This was just a little taster - more to follow later today! In the meantime, click on the pictures and let the students tell you about their work! (in swedish)

Right now, these sunny May days, it is heavenly to sit on the terrace outside the café at Överjärva Gård (where my workshop is) and drink a cup of coffee. The view is over the golf course with the apple trees (that used to be part of an orchard) and further away is Stockholm.

One of the things that intrigues me about Överjärva Gård is that it really is an old farm - being there feels like being in the country - and yet it is just 15 minutes away from the very centre of Stockholm. On one side, Överjärva is framed by the busiest part of motorway in the whole of Sweden and on the other are the trains running north. Together, they make a constant backdrop of noise. Due to some wonderful reason, my brain blocks this out and all I hear are the birds and the little lambs…

Here are some of my pieces against the fabulous wallpaper in one of the houses at Överjärva.

I was hooked by these links at Speak Up yesterday: the connection of Marian Bantjes to some fabulous moustaches and a link to polish design.

Port2Port is getting some great thoughts on design this week and I’ve printed out HobbyPrincess’ article on Design as Play, perhaps I shall read it in the sun with my coffee tomorrow?

You might want to listen to my incoherent ramblings at the d*s podcast today….

I just listened to Grace’s interview with Dave Alhadeff of The Future Perfect, it’s really interesting so fill up your ipods!

I’ve also completely forgot to mention my latest post on whip up, on potter’s markets!

At minky in the north laines, I found Peter Jensen’s clothes and instantly fell for them. Here are a few from the spring/summer collections ‘05 and ‘06.

It’s a good thing I have my little camera, or I might have very well emptied the beach in Brighton of its stones. I find the texture, shape and colour of stones so amazing. I want to have each one of them set in a silver band and made into rings so that I can wear them and adore them everyday. On a more ceramic note, they’re also a great inspiration for glazes…

I didn’t buy this top, but I was very tempted. It’s silk and the print was just so gorgeous… It’s from the spring/summer collection 06 (link to pdf) from designer Sarah Arnett, who runs the beautiful shop Simultané (and the staff was lovely too which added to the whole experience). Instead, I bought a stunning smokey quartz bracelet by Kirt Holmes…

That fitting room had a pretty lamp climbing up it’s wall. I know I’ve seen it somewhere, but can’t remember the name of the designer, let me know if you know and I’ll update.
UPDATE: It’s by Helena Christensen for habitat (thank’s dear reader!).

It was just such a pleasure having time to stroll around - in and out of shops, trying on a little something, having lunch with a glass of wine, reading a book… Here I’m sitting in Nia café and when I googled on them I found this Brighton gastronaut’s review. I actually did get decent service and the chicken salad with crispy bacon was not bad at all.

On the plane over to the UK, I read an article in which trend oracle Li Edelkoort says that restaurants is the new fashion, that’s where the trends are created. The article was illustrated by Stina Wirsén, a truly talented swedish illustrator and I find her work very inspiring.

That’s all for now, but there will be more Brighton to come this week. I’ll leave you with this flowershop on St James’ street call Planted. I love what they’ve done with the wood.

I’ve just had a coffe at the Redroaster on St Jame’s street, it’s got a wonderfully continental feel mixed with how I imagine Argentina in the 1930’s would be… Sitting there with my cafe latte, I expect a tango couple to make a dramatic entrance any time…

I can’t tell you how I’ve enjoyed my time here in Brighton; I’ve indulged in the pleasure of walking on the beach, having lunch with my book and a glass of wine, finding favourite shops scattered about Brighton (I’ll tell you all about them when I get home) and going early to bed falling a sleep while hearing the birds screetching and people’s voices trailing in through my window at the top of the hotel…

My camera is crammed full of pictures from Brighton and from setting up the show on Thursday, wanting to buy a piece of everyone’s beautiful work. Today is my last day here and I’m off to enjoy it. But first, I bought the latest issue of Crafts magazine and although I haven’t explored it thouroughly yet, I spotted inspiring jewellery by Sebastian Buescher, machine- and handstitched illustrations by Claire Heathcote (no website, but here’s a post from Layers of Meaning) and am in the middle of an article titled “Hands on Approach” by design critic Louise Schouwenberg (google her and you’ll find all sorts of interesting information, for instance she’s written a book with and about Hella Jongerius) on dutch designers mix of conceptual design and traditional craft techniques. I think you too might find it interesting. See you on Tuesday!

This is Vera and her mum decorating a mug together. I love organizing events like today’s “decorate your own mug". It’s really interesting to watch people being creative - to see how they go about the task and how they interact with each other - viewing each others mugs, helping each other out and perhaps giving each other advice…

I picked lots and lots of spring flowers to decorate the workshop with.

I’m heading out to the country to light a great big bonfire and put my feet up. Here are some links I’ve enjoyed lately:

Mateo Ilasco teatowels and other work. And her blog Designer’s library!

Marianne Thygesen - painter and architect. Here’s one of her goache’s on paper.

LYNN fabriken - shop and workshops in Aarhus, Denmark. Browse through their shop and take a look at their new showroom, Das Moebel, in Vienna - it looks really relaxed and lovely.

Rena at Rare Device has created a flickr group called “Rare out there” for her customers who want to show off their Rare Device purchases. Great idea, I thought! I love seeing what things looks like in other peoples homes, in an unpretentious kind of way.

Happy weekend everyone!

Glöm inte Konsthantverkets dag imorgon!

Above image is from today’s paper, a wonderful text - short and straight to the point - about the applied arts day, highlighting my event! Another thing that went straight to my heart was the illustrations by Sirije. Camilla has the greatest links!

Now that the asphalt is dry, I’m biking to work again and my i-pod is filled with podcasts. I love them! Tomorrow morning, I’ll be listening to d*s interview with Lotta Jansdotter, I’ll save the Amy Ruppel interview for the workshop and on my way home it’ll be Mark Kermode’s film reviews. And then, while waiting for the new craftypod or d*s next interview, I’ll be biking to the rythm of PSFK’s mixed tapes. Enjoy!

A Belated Happy Easter to everyone!
I fled the city and have been raking rather than blogging for the last few days, unearthing sweet spring flowers and indulging in the sun and the bird song!! Here are some things I’ve seen and enjoyed over the Easter break.

The colours of the icy sea meeting the reed.

The best climbing willow ever!

This beautiful bird bath is from Skulpturfabriken.

DesignKlicks brought me to some fine fashion photography by Julia Blank and portable hard drive in the shape of a stone from Studio Leung. German Der Spiegel is one of the three behind DesignKlicks, I wish the swedish daily’s would catch on to this idea, perhaps CraftKlicks?

Whiplash is the name of whip up’s competition. This Thursday marks the first competition and the weeks theme is everyday creativity. You’ve got four days…

10 Corso Como in Milan is one of those shops I’d love to visit, from what I’ve heard and read it sounds fantastic. There is an article about 10 Corso Como in the latest issue of Republic (click to read it), danish furniture manufacturer Fritz Hansen’s magazine. Here’s an old article at designboom about 10 corso como and concept shops.

I love the styling of Fritz Hansen’s products, above is PK33 by Paul Kjærholm and below is the magenta coloured Ant chairs by Arne Jacobsen. Talking about Poul Kjærholm, Louisiana is showing a retrospective presentation his work opening 23rd June.

On another note, I like the shoes that these guys make. Found via Designspotter.

This looks like a very special book, it’s by Japanese costume and production designer Emi Wada and it’s called My life in the making. Isn’t that a beautiful title?

I found it on 25books-coffetable favourites

I lunched in in town today and flipped through great freebee magazine Rodeo, this page is showing info about the Diesel New Art , a competition you might want to check out.

On my way to the train I passed Norrbacka Tryckeri, a small printing company who’s window decoration always catch my attention. I thought perhaps they’ve been inspired by Mav’s inspiration wire?!

Salvor Kiosk - in Sweden until August 1st. Via hoping for happy accidents (who’s latest Sunday posting I loved).

“Any day now” is the title of a work of art (image below) by Nina Saunders whose work I found in swedish Elle Interior. I’ve realized I just missed her show at Andréhn-Schiptjenko (better info about that exhibition and others in Stockholm at Artnews).

Saunders is represented by danish gallery SPECTA, do browse through the other artists too, I liked for instance this.

These pieces by David Svensson has a calming influence on me and makes me want to climb right up on that “Glow ball", fill my lungs with air and just be for a while.

“Hang out” was exhibited at Wanås sculpture park in 1999 and the illuminators were shown there in 2003. Wanås is really worth a visit, by the way.

An exhibition of David Svensson’s work is opening this Saturday at Kristianstads Konsthall.

PS fiftyRX3 posted pictures from Hotel Basico, which looks like a cool and fantastic place!

Here’s a sweet little cloud brooch from tinycrown just to mark the weather today.

Jorun reminded me of crafts2eu, a network and gallery/shop for European arts and crafts. In their Appetizer Katalog you can find frozen moments from everyday life like “Friday night” by Andy Hazell and these very expressive tin figures by Lucy Casson. In the crafts2eu blog there are lots of links to be followed up!

Natural, simple things are just the best. Like this twigs and twine ring by Cally.

Nimis, a structure built out of scrap wood by Lars Vilks on the southwest coast of Sweden.

A weed embroidery from the book “Tiny embroidery Tiny garden", via Crafting Japanese. Have you listened to Craftypods interview with Matireya?

I’m probably going to have to pay dearly for this little blogging effort, as I’ve been lying horizontal on the sofa all day fighting a mean stomach bug. Now that I’m vertical I feel quesy again. The only good thing with this sofa position has been that I’ve finally read the issue of Nordic Reach I bought a long time ago. It contained for instance a glowing article of the food and entertainment on offer in Helsinki, illustrated with Ivana Helsinki’s great fashion (above).

I’ve also read through the latest issue of swedish crafts and design zine Slicker. You can download and read previous issues of Slicker on their site (in swedish).

Here’s a pod cast from craftypod about zines.

Back to horizontal now…

The snow is starting to melt and the streets are drying up. I’m relishing in the sound of my steps against the asphalt and am starting to believe that there will actually come a sunny warm day when I could wear a this dress from Erica Tanov, spring 2005 collection (many nice dresses in the 2006 collection too!).

Once in a blue moon I did a summer course in ceramics at Capellagården on Öland, an island in the Baltic Sea. It was a three week course and I loved my stay in this idyllic village. After whole days in the ceramics studio, we went swimming in the evenings, painted water colours on Alvaret and went for a “fika” at café Mejeriet. Bliss.

Capellagården was founded by Carl Malmsten, designer and cabinet maker. Here’s the Carl Malmsten shop in Stockholm. Apart from offering courses in crafts and design, Capellagården also has a biodynamical gardening course and the most beautiful and restful herb garden.

Now, I’m tempted by this summer’s courses, especially the textile workshop with Pasi Välimaa (maker of the beautiful rug above) and the japanese box course with Norio Tanno (Japanese master in box making!).

Here’s a link to other places to see on the south of Öland.

I love this image from Camilla Norrback’s spring/summer collection 2006. It definitely communicates her philosophy: “In a camilla norrback garment my hope is that you feel beautiful, empowered and sharp.”

Machine Made Patchworks 2 - I think I’m going to have to try and get hold of this book, it looks so inspiring!. Found it through Amy who’d been given it by Sally.

I liked this image from Wallwear that Sabine Brandt bought for her office.

Fred Eerdekens art, via MoCo Loco and Cool Hunting. I like the incorporation of shadows in his work. And Helene at favorite choses liked it too!

This particular piece reminds me of Marianne Tolmunen’s ceramic calligraphy from Konstfacks degree show last year. Her work is currently being shown in a showcase at Odenplan tube station here in Stockholm.

Postcards from Sweden. The mood, the subtlety, the light… just stunning photography by Niklas Falk.

I found this link at Swedesres, who also posted about tidningar.info, an online resorce (I almost wrote resort, which in a way it is) where you can flip through swedish magazines. For instance Hemslöjden, click on the blue arrow and if you don’t want to look at all of it I’d suggest the inspiring image on pages 11 and the adorable baptising dress with embroidered text on page 32-33. Enjoy!

*sigh*, Ana’s latest paper lady Miss Morris - I’d like to make her aquaintence!

Johanna at kokblog posted a lovely illustrated story about patties with onion and lingonberry sauce.

Anneli has started a blog (in swedish but lots of real nice pics).

Poppy linked to Tim Marr’s illustrations and to the very inspiring threadwork by Paula Sanz Caballero. Here’s lots of images of her work and here’s an article about cool threads (featuring for instance Paula Sanz Caballero) in Embroidery. You might also like the work of Anghrad South (below), from the current issue of Embroidery.

UPDATE: Abigail showed me the way to the website of Angrad South, showing lots of her lovely work.

Some of you might get a wee bit jelous of me now: I’m off to see Camilla!
I’m doing a window display in her shopwindow on Olivedalsgatan in Gothenburg.

Even more than the previous window display I did, I’ve used this to experiment. It’s been so rewarding.

I’ve had a limited amount of time and have had to work really fast with ideas and making. I decided to make tiles and work with texture. I’ve used black and white clay, some leaf decals, relief, one clay on top of another that shrinks and creates this really lovely pattern.

And now, the best part is still to come - putting it all together with Camilla!

PS Don’t forget to send a picture of your real outfit or your dreamed up outfit to fifty3X sustainable style carnival!

I’m enjoying going through everyones tips from Mav’s favourite music post last week. I had a such a busy week that I never did write any of my favourites, so here is one!

Rigmor Gustafsson is one of the many talented female jazz singers in Sweden. My laptop is vibrating with her brilliant version of “Over the Rainbow” from the album “Rigmor Gustafsson Live” recorded in 2000. She is the master of her voice and allows it a lot of freedom to improvise and it sounds great!

Through Rigmor Gustavsson I found Eric Boisson’s blog where he recently wrote a glowing review of her music. Now I’m hooked on his radioblog and am finding lots of new favourites there. For instance Feist, that was also mentioned in mav’s comments.

To me, the rythm in music can be directly applied to the rythm I sometimes feel that I find in form and decoration. The harmonies in music is also present in form. The intonation of words or sentences can translate into pictures or sketches. It’s hard to explain but I can feel it!

The images are from my sketchbooks.

UPDATE: Feist is interviewed in HoBO magazine, read the interview online under Current issue / Interview. Thank you, Cia!

I love the idea of design*sponge podcasts and you can give Grace suggestions as to who to interview. I wanted to hear Jonathan Adler and didn’t realize that Apartment Therapy did an interview with him some time ago. Interesting listening about how his business has grown and I find it extra inspiring as he is a potter like myself!

More design and business inspiration comes from Joy who is continuing her series of designer interviews, this time with Lena Corwin.

And to follow a designers daily entrepreneurial challenges, go read and enjoy Pamela Barsky’s blog . Read more about Pamela at Another Girl at Play.

The orchid is one of Lars’ portraits, I think I want to keep it forever at the top of my blog it’s so beautiful!

Luxist wrote about the Beauty Case Table by Silja Kaeser and Jessica Müller-Wallraf of Tisch 5 which made me visit their site and find the poetic Sweet November umbrella. It won 1st prize in the Nachlux award in 2005.

The Scandinavian Designmouse spotted this mug with Marimekko’s birch pattern, designed by Maija Louekari. It’s always inspiring to browse the Marimekko site and I like the way they reinvent their fantastic patterns. Perhaps it’s time for me to get the Unikko apron for the workshop?

“I would only ask you not to forget to play.”

Another timeless design inspiration is Alvar Aalto (quoted above) and Poppy linked to Aalto’s voice, a project to celebrate the Aalto 70-year anniversary. One of the designers interpreting Aalto’s voice is Tomoko Azumi, on whose site I found this picture of the Aalto vase-shaped canapés… I enjoyed reading this interview in icon with Tomoko Azumi.

Update: Maija Louekari is the designer of Marimekko’s birch patterned mug and Maija is shortlisted for the Elle Deco Design Awards 2006 for her pattern Ho-Hoi. Thank’s Mevrouw!

March is the first spring month but spring felt far away from Stockholm today, this morning I couldn’t see my hand in front of me for all the snow that was falling. The house above is next door to my workshop and I took this picture on a sunny day not long ago.

Mav has requested a new (spring) word to add to her growing swedish vocabulary and I thought you might all appreciate it, so here it comes: vårkänsla. I’ve tried to figure out how the pronounciation is phonetically written… [vɔrʃænsla].
It means spring feeling!

I go through a golf course on my way to work and I’ve often pondered over the pull that golf have over so many people? Beats me, but German company Wechselstelle understand. They have translated the power of golf and football into prints on clothes, oven mitts and table mats. Via Designspotter.

The packaging of xocoa chocolates gives me spring feeling! Found this pic at bergman.

Rena at Rare Device points towards an article in Metropolis Magazine about indie shopping. It’s about shops selling a carefully chosen mix of products that aren’t available everywhere. It mentions shops such as moss in New York and Colette in Paris as spearheads of this movement. I think perhaps 10 corso como in Milan could fit in. The article also links to some great “curated shops".

I couldn’t help myself, but bought this hugging bear (or Krammebamse as it’s called in danish!), designed by Caroline Lisfranc. He’s obviously supposed to have a partner to hug in his long bear arms, but for now he’s in the good company of all those books (that I’m saving for another post).

I found him in the shop at Louisiana, the museum situated in Humblebaek a 3o minute train ride north of Copenhagen. Louisiana is one of those places that will always be special to me, I remember it from being a kid when my parents used to take us there and we swam in the sea below the museum garden. Last year, me and Eva visited the Gerhard Richter exhibition and this time another german painter’s, Georg Baselitz, paintings were on show. Baselitz is rather famous for turning his subjects up-side-down, in an effort to challenge our way of seeing. I was drawn to the paintings he’s done during the last few years - light and expressive.

After Baselitz, I sat down with a delicious tomato soup followed by apple tart in the cafe. I was reading issue 8 of Kunstuff, the danish periodical for applied arts and design. I’ve taken out a subscription so will be sure to tell you more about that in the future!

Sunday morning and time for web browsing in the sofa with a cup of tea. I spotted this really nice tea container in Sabine’s kitchen and she took me to Illums where they sell the tea. From now on, I’ll be drinking Kusmi tea out of my favourite teacup. And I’ve got five little Kusmi’s for future presents.

Both the cup and the tea has a history. The cup is by Richard Dewar, an english potter in France. I bought four cups of him, two for my dad who likes his teacups big and two for me who love these cups! The tea has this fantastic history which began in St Petersburg in the 19th century, with a man called Pavel Michahilovitch Kousmichoff… that name alone would spark my interest in the tea! Read the whole story on the Kusmi site.

Illums is a very nice department store, good for fashion (although I only had eyes for tea this time) and here’s the scrumptuous display of flowers outside (and pink danish fashion for men…).

And so for the browsing…

“Self healing", an illustration by Caroline Hwang found via Ringo Lo.

I like the diverse style of OGIgraphics, found via chewingthecud. The image is from OGI’s show at the Receiver Gallery last May.

Before I leave my comfortable position in the sofa - I agree with Tribunal of Good Taste that “good blogging requires authenticity and some degree of vulnerability” and thinks she’s succeeded with her dip into cultural antropology!

There are bikes and people riding bikes wherever you look in Copenhagen. I’ve always been fond of their black bikes, they manage to look robust, cool and friendly at the same time. Here are some bikes casually arranged outside a bike shop in Nørrebro, next door to emmerys, another cool and friendly place selling homebaked bread, coffee, wine, chocolates…

While browsing for some info about emmerys I found this really nice list of places to eat (compiled by Thorsten Overgaard), one of which is emmerys in Århus. Part-Time Pro Bono Baker has also been to emmerys.

Compared to Stockholm, Copenhagen is rougher around the edges and I really like that. It’s alright if not everything is spick-and-span, it actually adds to the experience. The flowers become even more beautiful against a chipped fasad and the sleek industrial design stands out when viewed beside something with a different feel.

Ravnsborggade is peppered with antiques shops and inbetween are places like Kiertner where they sell ceramics by Rikke Jakobsen, felt table mats by Verso design and knitted critters by Kenana. I can’t get enough of the lovely shapes of Verso’s table mats.

Coming to Copenhagen makes me realize that I live quite far north, where February is a winter month and snow is to be expected. In Stockholm, you will find no furniture or flowers outside the shops for a long while yet…

After a train journey that left me despondent of SJ, I finally arrived in Copenhagen two hours late. This was however quickly forgotten and I had a lovely stay! Thursday was spent around and about town and I saw some different sites than at last years visit. I quite like finding my way through a city on foot and with a good map, but having a local showing you the hotspots is really very very nice.

We got off the bus at Blågårdsgade in Nørrebro and found fashion shop Klædebo, run by four young local designers. On the same street is a cute little shop called Mayol and I liked their door handle…

Across the street from the door handle is second hand shop Time’s up. The whole area of Nørrebro is filled with a mixture of shops, cafés and bric-a-brac - more to come in the next post!

The combination of drawings / sketches / photos / writiting never fails to catch my eye and this dress and pattern at K’s Gallery was no exception. Via the excellent Japanese crafts books resource Crafting Japanese.

The New York Times Style Magazine did a really inspiring display of the holiday gifts, laying the product or a photo of the product on a piece of paper, plastic, tissue or whatever. I also like the mix of products.

Here’s another nice combo, by Goldgelb, the contrasting colours, the textures, the angle - like it lots.

Tonight I went to the open house at Handarbetets Vänner. The name means roughly friends of handicrafts, and in their building on Djurgården here in Stockholm they have a weaving studio, a gallery, a shop (where they sell their heavenly coloured yarns), a workshop where they colour the yarns and a school.

Developing the expressions of textile art is at the heart of HV Studio activities and the open house evening was a very inspiring and lovely way to present these activities and the resources available at HV.

This embroidered painting was hanging in the upstairs studio and is one of the many collaborations HV has with artists. I’m ashamed with myself for not writing down who is the artist, my apologies for that. I thought of Natalie’s paintings when I saw it.

Another collaboration is with Ulrika Mårtensson who’s the artist behind this stunning “three dimensional textile sketch” (isn’t the idea of a textile sketch something very nice?).

This little dishcloth makes drying my workshop tabletops almost a pleasure. I love the colour (and have got several more in other colours, you might say I’ve become something of a collector) , I love the feel of it and to top it all off it becomes as new when it’s washed (or boilt for a little)! It’s from Iris Hantverk.

In my opinion Christabel should definitely be as pleased as punch of her pirate mittens.

Something like beautiful material qualities and simplicity in form? Because that’s how I’d describe this pochette and these torchons.

By Les petites emplettes who’s blog is part of favorite choses, a group blog with many talented artists and designers. In french, but I guess I’ll have to polish my poor little french vocabulary up again.

This l’ours géant is by anomalies.

My heartshaped stone was given to me by my dear friend Caroline and today it’s for all of you!

Some smooth websites - layout and content - I’ve come across lately:
Verzameldwerk gallery, explore the birds.

Aaron Jansinski Via Coudal, like music.

Ghulam Sakina is featured in the February 06 issue of Selvedge, the website is like an inspirations wall. His clothes are sold at Browns in London.

And this is a dress made out of a Norwegian postsack! I like the idea of something old finding it’s way into something new. The designer Susanne Hæstad has made a whole collection out of postsacks from all over the world.

This has been some kind of a wonderful Sunday. It started with my favourite morning past time: blogreading (actual reading, not only skimming) in the sofa with a cup of tea. After this, I went long ice skating with my fellow beginners from the long ice skating course. I’m slightly apprehensive of the thin ice and the deep sea, but just a look at these pictures (the pic above is from there) makes me conquer that fear! And you know, it’s a lovely feeling when the rythm and the balance is there and you hear just the sound of the skates against the ice.

When I got home, I typed Rigmor Gustavsson into Pandora and started going through the ever increasing pile of magazines threatening to take over our living room. While doing this, I emptied the fridge of one thing after another. I was thinking about things that the fridge should always have a supply of… Chocolate, coffee, milk (for the coffee) are three of those things. Right now I’m wishing that the Pyramides des Tropiques from Pralus was available from my fridge. Found through Seth’s blog and all you lucky Americans can get hold of it from Dean and Deluca.

To conclude my nice Sunday: I’ve found a fellow potter blogger!

I even read the adverts in Selvedge with interest and that is where I found Sri threads, a gallery specializing in textiles from Japan.

The cuts and the material and the pattern in kimonos are always an inspiration to me. This festive kimono is like a piece of art and if I was the owner of it and if it’s not disrespectful I’d hang it on my wall so that I could enjoy the sight of it everyday. Here is a baby kimono - have you seen anything as beautiful?

I think it was Maditi who posted about Saiso some time ago, also stunning Kimono work!

Helen Felcey makes stunning bone china and porcelain pieces that breathes harmony. Bone china is a material with a will of it’s own and I admire the exquisite finish of her pieces. Helen’s website has been under construction for an awfully long time now, but hopefully we’ll be able to see some more very soon! Read her statement on Photostore and view more of her work at Peter’s Barn Gallery.

Take a look at Caravanstyle’s inspiring web tour, some of the images doesn’t show up but don’t let that put you off - just keep clicking that arrow!

Camilla finds the best illustrators, here’s Alain Corbel.

With all this snow that just keeps falling, I should take a sleigh ride to the workshop tomorrow! I just need someone to pull. Any takings?

One of my favourite things lately is to let Pandora introduce me to music I might like. So today, I typed in Mav’s tip, Cat Powers which has led me to lots of great music - thanks mav (and Pandora)!

And here’s a painting exploding with colour, by Annette Brosch.

UPDATE: Last.fm is another kind of radiostation. While Pandora bases her choices on the musical attributes, Last.fm takes it cue from what other users like (who’ve said they like the same kind of music). Have fun!

For at least two years I used to pass Antoni + Alisons studio everyday on the no 19 bus. I found their window decorations intriguing, but never really understood what it was they did. Now I know. Vogue are showing their spring-summer 2006 collection. I like it.

The image from their sketchbook (above) is from the archives at the V&A. Below is an image from the Photographers Gallery in London where Antoni + Alisons photography is represented (I enjoyed reading the text about them).

Talking about fashion, check out the new Odd Molly collection. I like their way of inserting a ribbon just above the waist, very pretty. And the lovely cardigan is now available in pink, *sigh*.

Energy is what’s oozing out of my computer when I check out the daily happenings on all the crafts blogs and tomorrow it’ll ooze even more as it is the launch of Whip up. I’ll be dressing the blog up with more links and that’s where you’ll find the craft inspiration (any day now…).

I love knitted stuff and found Weardowney (I liked their spring-summer 2005 collection) and Clare Tough’s work in Selvedge (the images above and below are from her degree show), which led me to this article on fashioncapital and on to the beautiful, beautiful work of Anuk Harvey.

I wanted to post about my window exhibition but my photos turned out awful and blurry. Lars promised to go over there tomorrow and save the day.

In the meantime, do take a look at the Animal shadows and more vynil from Domestic and the sweet things from minilabo. I’ll be back tomorrow with some proper photos!

The spring-summer line from pattern wizards Eley Kishimoto. These images from are from British Vogue and it was Erandi who pointed me in that direction.

Here’s an article from Icon about Eley Kishimoto.

Loving the poster that Susie at Boygirlparty has made and wishing I could go see the exhibition for real. Bozza by Nouvelles Vague (via Joliana). Daily dose of happy accidents. Finding treasures on etsy. Seeing what’s new in Rare Device. Starting to explore flickr sketchbooks

It’s quite magical, like a night sky lit with stars. ‘The 14 series pendant light’ is designed by Omer Arbel. I thought this description that I found on his site was beautiful:
“The pendants are designed, to be clustered in groups the effect being of many tiny candles encased in floating spheres of water".

Found via Better Living Through Design and for sale via Unica Home.

Handwritten interiors, the right hand one is from Casa da Abitare for sure but I’m not sure about the left…
Update: The left one is a Joaquim Ruiz/Nani Marquina rug which is called Manuscrit. (Thanks Jonas!) While searching a little more around that, I stumbled onto this KE-ZU newsletter which I found interesting.

Helen Amy Murray is a seriously talented girl, mentioned by Imelda.

Jen Everett, a propstylist with a website.

Printed textiles by Dominique Piquier, look at the beautiful images under Ambiances.

Einat Peled is an Israeli illustrator based in New York She works mostly for American magazines but has recently widened the scope to include these pillows. Einat sent me an email and this is a quote “i have an inspiration wall too, inspiration books of all kinds of things, flowers and clothes and acessories and all kinds of objects, sometimes even just interesting color combinations, it’s very interesting to see how other designers work and what inspires them” - I couldn’t agree more! Don’t miss the linedrawings from her sketchbooks.

More Israeli design can be seen at designboom who are previewing some designs which will be shown at the Solos exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt museum in New York from January 27th. I love the playfullness and seriousness in the ‘stripped folding chair” by zivia and ‘handle with care’ by yuval tal.

Selvedge is one of my favourite magazines and now they have this great offer on.

Johanna Kindvall has a really nice foodblog (recently praised by another swedish foodblog) as well as a sketching blog with glimpses of her life in New York. The image of the relaxed café visitor above, brought me a whisp of summer despite the wintery landscape outside my window.

Paris shop Colette has an exhibition of photographs by Myriam Roehri, celebrating the “Fete Des Rois”. The customized crowns are created exclusively for colette by selected artisans and are for sale via ebay.fr.

This perfect happy party dress is from Heatherette and I found it while browsing stylehunter at Style.com.

It’s coming up to a year since I started blogging and I’ve been pondering Lisa’s questions “..why all you other bloggers out there got started… and how your blog has changed for you as a forum…. and what you are looking for from this community".

Lars told me that a blog was the medium for me and since I plucked up the courage to start I’ve realized he’s absolutely right.

So, why do I spend hours each week blogging?!
My blog evolves around my work as a ceramic designer and my main reason for starting it was to give a context to this work; to share my inspirations and to show there is thought behind the things I make. The blog is a complement to the scrapbooks I already showed on my website.

My second reason for starting a blog was to market my work and my knowledge. As a self employed designer it is important - if I want to stay independent and earn a living on what I do!

I couldn’t have wished for a more wonderful response; the support and encouragement I’ve had this year is more than I’d ever imagined. And as an added bonus, whereas I (sometimes) used to forget I now remember what has had an impact on me during the year and when I look back I can trace patterns and follow myself developing. As a marketing tool, the blog is great: I sell more directly, I trade things with others, I get involved in projects with people from all over the world and I get feedback on my work and work-in-progress. This network of friends and collegues makes me truly humble, I spend a little time and get so much in return.

To begin with, I was slightly intimidated by all of the people out there who would read my ramblings and think this or that about them… Now, I just try to be as intuitive and genuine as I can and I find the blog spurs me on - it’s made me start taking pictures again, it makes me brave and sometimes it makes me think! If that aint worth working for, I don’t know what is.

So there, I think it’s all here. Thank you all for stopping by and Happy New Year!

My, oh my, is it Wednesday already? The days just roll by in a frenzy of playing Captain Hook with my brothers children, eating Christmas ham on crispbread, listening to the CD I got for Christmas (Kings of Convenience), going for walks, reading about planet Blest in Diana Wynne Jones’ The Merlin Conspiracy and taking afternoon naps on the sofa…

Almost forgot: being entranced by the beautiful redbreasted bullfinches (in swedish they’re called domherre) in the tree oposite my kitchen window.

I’m having a rest from the workshop until next week and I’m looking forward to making charcoal coloured flowerpots in a textured clay that will be such a beautiful contrast to fragile snowdrops or helleborum… Am feeling inspired by the texture in Rick Henam’s red clay flowerpots and his very solemn and straight wireneck vases.

Last week I helped decorate the windows of Mikaela Willers shop on St Paulsgatan. It was so much fun! I do some displays in my studio once in a while, but this was more for real as lots of people will pass here and see it. The best thing was however to do it together with the others, Mikaela herself and Hattie from Bric a Brac (great fashion and shop here in Stockholm)

It wasn’t the easiest of tasks as we had a very mixed bunch of things to display. Mikaela had invited friends to make things in clay on the theme “ginger cookie land". From this sprung for instance a cool saxophone player in red clay and flying pigs with adorable little wings, a group of angels in white porcelain and the baby Jesus with golden lips…

I had done a drape of ginger cookie shapes in my favourite charcoal textured clay, some of them are attatched to the wall together with the red clay ladies with glazed and transfer decorated skirts…

I love Mikaela’s trademark flowerpots, glazed in brilliant strong colours. She sells them in her combined ceramic studio and shop on St Paulsgatan 11 in Stockholm. It’s a tiny showcase with loads of charm.

I have some links to unload…

swedesres posted about illustrator Karin Mårtensson. Don’t miss her threedimensional work.

Check out the Norwegian vintage fashion windows on Style Bytes!

And two links from Designspotter: Eva Kimheu and Elena Kikina - both have lovely fashion images. Above is Sunny by Eva Kimheu.

…it so warmed me after this winters first really cold day in the studio to come home and find I’m a muse to a muse! Being part of this kind network of encouragement and warmth has become a really important reason for me to blog. I’m mulling over more reasons to Lisa’s question why we blog? (They’ll form themselves into a post very soon, I’m sure.)

While mulling, this is what I’ve been occupying myself with in the chilly workshop today: wrapping (everyone is getting their own ceramic pig/heart/star with their present - no hierarchy intended) and making new ceramic letters to my sign (which was accidentally knocked overboard the other week).

I’m having the best of weeks with just enough orders, feeling lots of inspiration for future projects and I’ve stocked up on some great books (link to my library, in swedish) to read over Christmas!

Update: I’ve only updated the link to Lisa’s blog (thank’s Lisa!)

I bought Camilla’s 2006 calendar yesterday and it is wonderful (of course). I got mine from Designtorget, but you can buy it directly from Camilla.

It’s also time to buy a diary for next year. I’ve tried using the calendar in Otlook Express in combination with a tiny paper diary, but it just doesn’t suffice. I love my A5 paper diary!

I used to always buy Redstone diaries. My first one was 1997 with the theme True Places, the 2006 calendar theme is happiness. Despite the happiness theme, I will instead indulge in my passion for Bookbinders Design. Perhaps they have a nice blueberry pink calendar…

No snow yet…but sunny. I’m slowing down the workpace and take time to eat breakfast a little longer in the morning and walk to work and when I see this view, I’m almost there. Isn’t it lovely?

Yesterday, I put on my good linen skirt and walked arm in arm with Lars to Ulriksdals Värdshus where we were met by this Santa and then we ate Christmas lunch. Mmm, the salmon was my favourite.

Ulriksdal collaborates with art project Väsen (not in english, but click the images to see more pictures!), working with exhibitions that take their cue from the seasons. Ulriksdal also sell some of Väsen’s really nice products.

In the evening we went to Storkyrkan in Gamla Stan (the old town) to listen to Lilla Akademien play the violin in the most beautiful and joyful way, followed by an atmospheric Lucia concert with young singers from Adolf Fredrik music school. It was magical.

Mav’s postcards now live on the inspirations wall in my workshop, at the top squeezed in between Country Living and a stripy envelope from Paul Smith.

Update: Here’s a big picture.

This is my workshop winter windows!

fredflare is sharing a super New York holiday window show. I don’t know which is my favourite…the Royal Holiday of Barney’s, the pirhouetting little man of Lord & Taylor’s or the extravaganza of Bergdorf Goodman?

I’m venturing into Stockholm on Wednesday to add my clay ginger cookie garlands to the “ginger cookie land” Christmas windows if Mikaela Willer’s shop (St Paulsgatan). I’ll be reporting on how that goes and hopefully I’ll have some pictures to show you of the Stockholm holiday windows!

Here’s a glimpse from Processor’s exhibition at the Big Love gallery.

And here are some of the fab links I’ve come across on your blogs:

The dishgloves, the flock room, the balloon dresses…
Susie MacMurray found via Thoughts from the bus stop.

Kim posted a link to Susan Goodwins beautiful jewellery.

Camilla found the paper art by Peter Callesen and I love the snowflake floor.

I like things on spindly legs and so of course I fell for the Three Amigos table by Erdem Akan that I found via MoCo Loco.

And this is what Erdem makes with his bottles: the Depozit whisky glasses made from recycled beer bottles and candle holders made out of bottle lids. The bottle lid lights can be found on maybe design.

I thought today’s self portraits on muse to muse were both excellent.
design*sponge posted about Papa Stour, an online boutique selling work by scottish artists and designer/makers. Wonderful work and the images on the site are beautifully styled.
And one of Camilla’s many great links: Tilleke Schwarz, especially the textile images.

It’s strangely wonderful when a blogger friend materializes and sits at ones kitchen table eating chocolate cake with whipped cream… We tried looking at some shops but talked too much and decided on dinner instead.

Camilla’s been in Stockholm for an ‘embroidery as illustration course’ and I got a peek at an awesome Camilla-esque illustration with embroidered bits…

Erica Wakerly is someone else who’s embroidered illustrations I like (above).

Maria planted the idea of showing dream rooms and here are some room cuttings from Residence and Casa da Abitare. I like rooms that gives a feeling of spaciousness. Me and Lars live in a teeny weeny apartment, but it’s got a loft and although the floor area is not large the ceiling height is five metres which makes all the difference.

I like levels, like this room:

Bliss:

More fab rooms: Mecozy, Camilla’s bathroom and I know I’ve seen another but where?

Update: that memory slip is fixed, I’d seen more rooms at kelly’s blog - here and here!

I read an article about Antonio Marras in Case da Abitare and found his clothes and artistic installations so very inspiring. Above photograph is from Case da Abitare and do take a look at Marras website, it’s got some stunning images -dramatic and theatrical (below). The black-and-white images made me think of these images but with a touch of Dries Van Noten…

Remembering the days when the sun still showed… Here’s from Hagaparken.

The Cheese Dog from Superhero Journal put a big smile on my face. I wish it’d come visit my dinner parties too!

Swedish retro at Moderna Magnus, via tinycrown.

Yamauchi Kazuaki, illustrator found through creature comforts.

Beautiful German magazine Balkon Garten has started blogging.

On 19th November its Bloggforum here in Stockholm. It’s pretty much what it’s called, a forum about blogrelated stuff, and its high time to book so you don’t miss out!!

Exquisite printers Letterpressed has a new blog.

And here’s an elephant by Andreas Linzner.

I was browsing through old portfolios and clippings and came across some fashion shots that I’ve saved because I liked them so much - and still do.

I’m afraid I’ve been very neglectful when it comes to writing down which magazine the images comes from or who’s photographed them… What I do know is that the stunning coat above is made by Marjan Pejoski (if you, like me, is not allowed very far into his website, check this site out) and the dress is Swarovski crystals. My bet is that tthe page is from Italian Vogue. By the way, Marjan Pejoski is the designer behind Björk’s swan dress from a couple of years back…

(Try saying that very fast ten times in a row..)

Here’s how wonderful the chapel at Överjärva looked on Wednesday, when the big ten-year-celebration lunch was rounded off with coffee and berry pies. It had been decorated beautifully by Pernilla Breyer. Look how the afternoon sun is shining in on the autumn leaves…

The chapel was built in the late 19th century by Ohan Demirgian, who worked for King Karl XV. It has been used as an artist atelier (wonderful space to work in) and it’s future use is not yet decided, but I’m sure it’ll become something fantastic!

Chelsea Crafts Fair is a juried show for applied arts. It lasts for two weeks and each week present new artists. Here’s what I loved this years first week and here’s a link to both weeks exhibitors.

The skirts by Allison Willoughby are like pieces of art and I adored flicking through them, feeling the weight of the beautiful materials.

I always judge my own material the hardest…but Kathleen Hills ceramic light I love. Another light I fell for was Sheldon Cooney’s Bull Dog Light, one of those glass lamps where the bulb becomes an important part of the design and you see it through the glass.

The willow work by Lizzie Farey is made with such feeling for shapes, the piece above is called “Willow wallsketch".

I wish Diana Irani and Kei Ito had websites so that I could show you their work. I was inspired by the cuts of Irani’s suit jackets (Irani is currently working on a project about healing garments, read more) and Kei Ito makes stunning sculptural bags and garments (Craftscouncil’s Photostore has a large image collection of Kei Ito’s work and she is also represented by Lezley Craze Gallery).

There’s always some great jewellers at Chelsea and I liked Sarah Lindsay and Clare Hillerby (below).

Läs Sanna Hellbergs artikel (länk till pdf) om Maj Eskilsson (keramiker, formgivare, skribent) i dagens DN Bostad - jättebra! Den handlar om t.ex. det här, jag tycker hon slår huvudet på spiken:

“Fortfarande finns det de som tror att konsthantverkare är några som håller på med sin hobby oftare än andra. När läste du en text där en keramiker beskrivs som framgångsrika yrkesmänniskor? När någon professionell konsthantverkare omskrivs framställs hon eller han som någon märklig romantiker. Inte ens branschtidningar lyckas framställa konsthantverkare på ett seriöst och tidsenligt sätt. Vi lever ständigt med detta löjliga, romantiska skimmer kring oss. Var finns den samlande kraften som kan, och vågar, korsa gränserna?”

There’s an article in today’s Dagens Nyheter (link to a pdf) which touches on a subject close to my heart, here’s a quote by Maj Eskilsson (ceramicist, designer, writer) that I’ve translated:

“Some people still think that an applied artist [crafts person] is someone who is doing there hobby more often than others. When did you read a text where a ceramicist is described as a succesful businessperson? When a professional applied artist is written about, she or he is described as some sort of odd romantic. Not even the trade magazines succeeds in presenting applied artists in a serious and contemporary fashion. We constantly live with this ridiculous, romantic shimmer around us. Where is the uniting force that can, and dare, cross the boundaries?”

Is it the same in where you live?

I checked in with Charles and Marie’s blog and found these fantastic links:
cinqcinqdesigners (I find the presentation of their projects so, so inspiring!)
I Bride (beautiful site)
BDDW (I like a lot, the above image is from them).

Above is a detail of a unique chandelier, designed and made by jewellery designer Pernilla Philip. We showed it at an exhibition in February and since then it’s been hanging in my workshop, attracting lots of appreciative remarks.

MoCo Loco’s post about Francois Legault’s light Les cuilleres (the spoons) reminded me to tell you about the treasures I keep hidden in my little house!

Ana Ventura’s collage paper dolls are amazing and this last weeks are just so charming. Here they are assembled. I love looking at all the images at Ana’s blog, although I don’t understand a word!

Mmm, a whole bunch of foreign magazines and a first edition beautiful port2port card! Thank you, mav!

Also, don’t miss the super links Camilla has been splashing out this week: Emily Mahon, Plantimal Collective and Marion Deuchars are my favourites.

Angry chicken have had some unmissable links this past week. The little purse (I agree with Amy, this is my favourite as well) and bag comes from hum. And from kawana comes these cute oven gloves.

Designspotter linked to feindinge who’se vase looks stunning.

Crayon had a link to Miun, who’s fall/winter collection included this happy green dress with arm warmers.

I also enjoyed the massive moose at Groupies!

A couple of years ago, I used to sell my work in the shop at Rosendals Trädgård and now we’re giving it another go! I’m hoping to get over there on Wednesday to deliver, amongst other things, a couple of small mobiles (not this particular one though, it’s off to the U.S tomorrow!).

Rosendals Trädgård is a breathing space in Stockholm, one of the must-visit places. As well as being a very beautiful garden with an inspiring program , the greenhouses also hosts a cafe, a bakery and a nursery.

Rosendals has redesigned their website and now it really captures the feel of the place.

Nice to see entrepreneurial crafters running a collaborative blog! But how do I find out who made these shoes for instance?

I found this cute bag from littleoddforest by using the shop by colour tool at Etsy. Another cool feature is the time machine - go explore!

It really is autumn now. When I bike to the workshop I need a scarf around the head and something to warm my hands. But that’s ok, I have these lovely knitted gloves from Pernilla Svenre to dress up in.

I recently read an article about Pernilla Svenre and I was so impressed. She runs a creative bussines and seems to have had found a balance between creativity and economy. This is the kind of article that I like to read - about someone who’s doing what I’m doing, trying to grow a small creative business.

The article about Pernilla Svenre was one of the few interesting articles in the KIF magazine. KIF is a Swedish organization for artists and designers. I find their members magazine perfectly booring, most of it deals with grants and funds out of which artists can apply for money.

I’d like to read articles dealing with the entrepreneurial side of being an artist or designer. I’d love to hear others opinions and experiences on things that I’m sure we have in common: which freight companies to use; how to deal with order confirmations that are not kept; which trade shows to do etc. And it wouldn’t hurt if the layout of the magazine was a teeny bit inspiring.

So please KIF, if you want to keep me as a member, more of those Pernilla Svenre kind of articles!

Cia Wedin told me about Johanna Hofring and you absolutely have to have a look at her “top page” (as well as the other pages of course, but the first page has something special). Johanna runs two shops: Ekovaruhuset in Stockholms Old Town and The Art Fiend Foundation in New York. The crocheted red boots are from an exhibition in 2003.

Velvet da Vinci gallery in San Fransisco is showing Swedish Jewellery until 16th October, an exhibition previously shown at Flow gallery in London. Here is a ring by Aud Charlotte Ho Sook Sinding (above) and a necklace by Agnieszka Knap (below).

Do take your time to browse all the swell jewellery on display, for instance from the “100 Brooches” and the “Tiaras Will Be Worn” exhibitions and all the artists - I loved this ring by Florian Ladstaetter.

This past week has been filled to the limit and not much time left for checking up on favourite blogs, so I was pleased to get a shortcut via Maria’s list of posts she’s enjoyed.

Other posts I wouldn’t have wanted to miss lately are:
Hobby Princess’ entries on Local Brands, Global Concerns and Finish Street Fashion on HEL LOOKS,
Camilla’s link to Rebecca Gimenez’ book covers,
Modernista, truly enjoy her blog (in swedish).

A couple of weeks ago, I drove down to the seminar garden at Järna, south of Stockholm. The garden is full of secluded places, filled with calm and beauty.

Two people were sitting in the house with the thatched roof watching the view over the bay. The reason I went to Ytterjärna was that gardener Tobias Fredriksson want to incorporate applied arts into the garden.

I found some wonderful spots where my hangings can tinkle away in the wind, hopefully drawing the eye to more hidden treasures.

Images from beautiful Japanese zen gardens (via Japundit)
Japanese sites where I enjoy the pictures Weekend Stroll and
BG shop. And something for the stomach as well: Tres Petits.

Bookbinders Design is one of my favourite stationary shops ever! They inspire me to plan my days and weeks, write, draw and put together all my bits of paper and images into their exquisite range of journals and notebooks. It’s the colours that make me buy from them rather than from Ordning & Reda. My last treat was the green A4 size box which is now adorning my work cum kitchen table.

Look at this beautiful patterned inside of the notebook! (on the right hand page I’ve stuck a plastic “disc pocket” for all the beautiful business cards out there.

Jag gillar pappersmuggen från DN & Wayne’s Coffee’s kampanj.

Agent Form is a brilliant site presenting swedish illustrators. I hadn’t visited for a while but then I read about Rebecka’s new journals with covers by Lotta Kühlhorn (who by the way is giving a talk at the city library in Gothenburg on Nov 8th). And take a look at Rebecka’s own inspiring drawings here.

Galleri Mårtensson & Persson is in Påarp just outside Båstad in the south west of Sweden. I wish I’d made sure to pass through there this summer, when the gallery was still open… Oh well, I guess I’ll get another chance next year. It looks like a wonderful place to display art and what a beautiful building!

What I really wanted to see was the paintings by Carl Fredrik Ekström (yet without a website of his own, but read what others have written about him here, here, here and here). This piece is called “Bell” (I think):

At the same time this lovely lizard and other woven wire sculptures by Eka Acosta (best viewed in explorer) were shown. His work can be bought at beautiful Stockholm shop Svenskt Tenn.

Camilla’s paintings are on Clandestina Colours. My favourite is no 4 (obetydligt).

I thought it was really clever of Cecilia Nykvist to open her design/fashion/interiors shop Frank Form opposite one of the big hotels in Stockholm, where usually all you can find are not-so-very-special souvenirs with moose or polar bears on them. Contrary to this, Frank sell Cecilia’s personal selection of things that will last far longer than any polar bear mug (having said that, it would be a challenge to make a polar bear design souvenir with a difference).

Enough about bears… I love getting Cecilia’s newsletter every other month or so, gently and humoristically reminding me about Frank’s existence and all the new things available. In the most recent one I spotted the Granny purse (I love that style purse) by danish fashion team Becksöndergaard and “Stitch” light by my friend Kathleen Hills.

I very seldom afford things but when I do buy it’s usually something I really fall in love with and so I splashed out on a skirt from Lorek Mendian, one of Frank’s brands. And I can’t write about Frank without mentioning another friend of mine, Hanna Tonek Bonnett, who’s soft boxes from the “Rush of Plush” series are available at Frank. By the way: Frank is nominated as Best Shop by Alltomstockholm ("everything about Stockholm") and he certainly got my vote!

I just came back from a truly relaxing weekend in a mediterranean Gothenburg - it is lovely on the west coast!

I got my very own Camilla print when I met up with her and Morran. Above beautifully displayed against my 1980’s striped wallpaper… Check Nina Beier out, one of Camilla’s latest blog links - creative, beautiful and intelligent photography.

Bohemian Rhapsody in blue seems to have a hat theme going, the The Mad Hatter hats are all made out of paper bags - who would have guessed?!

The amazing team at Port2port posted a link to Gasa*inc to which I will return many a times.

The Tulipglass was designed by Nils Landberg for Orrefors in 1954 and it’s something of the most exquisite I’ve ever seen. The glassblower who made them is called Henry Karlsson - what a magician! Sometimes he could actually make this glass as tall as one metre.

Although it was conceived in the 1950’s it is still part of “Swedish grace", a term used to describe the products of the Swedish applied art industries in the 1920s. I’ve read my essay on Scandinavian Modern which describes this term as “the ability to lend grace to the daily chore of life". Beautiful concept.

Visited Asknäs Krog (restaurant) the other night. It’s a little treasure on Ekerö, west of Stockholm. I really like going to local places, especially a gem like this one.

Mmm, saw this Chair for Day Dreamers at MoCo Loco. It reminded me of this. The designer is Jason Ong and he’s from Singapore, read his thoughts on this design and others here. I liked that he’s increased the height of the first step “to signify taking a bold first step in chasing a dream".

This kind of house shape appeals to me, it’s got a nice kind of integrity about it. This particular house is by Sturehof castle just outside Stockholm.

I quite enjoyed being tagged - twice!

5 albums in your ipod
Mozart Requiem
Cassandra Wilson “Blue Moon Daughter”
Allison Krauss and the Union Station “Live” (2002)
and lots of radio programs…

5 movies you’ve seen recently
oh, brother where art thou
starwars
love actually
… it’s summer - I haven’t seen that many movies recently! I have listened to Mark Kermode’s reviews at BBC Radio 5 though.

5 nice things that happened to you recently
I rearranged my workshop and it’s just the best layout, am really pleased.
the wonderful article in DN about me has generated 100 nice things, I can’t tell you enough times what a boost it’s been!
Anna wrote a really sweet post where she called my cup delightful!
Lars cooked me dinner (as he so often does)

5 MP3s on your playlist will instead be 5 magazines on my bedside table
Selvedge
Icon
Domino
Hemslöjden
Elle Deco (spanish version)
British Vogue

oops, that was 6…

It’d be interesting to hear some answers from coolchic, Britta and Anna - if ya feel like it!

I had this post planned, but Camilla beat me to it! (Camilla also had these two great illustrator links today - Anna Ödlund and Lena Sjöberg).

Oh, well, here’s my favourites. Olydig (disobedient) make bags and purses and textile cards and more in bold patterned textiles. The bag I liked the most (above) is already sold! But there are also these two and other stuff very reasonable priced they are.

Olydig’s website includes an english swedish dictionary for with words like olydig, varukorg , kardborre - a nice little collection for aspiring swedish speakers! Check it out.

Alsta Trädgårdar (gardens) is situated a 20 minute drive away from Uppsala. I’d never been there before and really enjoyed the lush growth against the frame of the greenhouse. We all agreed that the café offered the greatest treats of lemon meringue pie, chocolate and mazarine cake.

One of the greenhouses held an exhibition of exact copies of 18th century furniture made by Emma Söderholm-Fritz and Helena Ahlqvist and in combination with this was drawings and ceramics by Birgitta Watz. Here’s an article (in swedish) about Watz, she has an expression that I thought was appropriate on art/craft/design related blogs - she calls herself artistic researcher. The whole place has a generous and genuine feel about it (they also offer 5 beds for B&B).

Where to start? So many blogtreasures to browse. Here’s one before I turn in for today. One of many lovely collages from one good bumblebee, also am very fond of this purse from the very same source (link to blog).

Am having some time off, away from home and the workshop, doing whatever I feel like. It’s heavenly and since the weather has been wet, to say the least, I’ve been to see a couple of exhibitions.

We visited one of my favorite places, Grafikens Hus in Mariefred. In a beautifully renovated old barn is the home of Sweden’s greatest graphic collection with a library and workshops. The whole space exudes light and space, beauty and intelligence! Combined with a superb café one can’t find anything to complain about.

The summer exhibition in the upstairs gallery show projects by Christo and Jean Claude. I’m a fan of Christo’s collages of maps, lines, photographs and drawings. They were hung in a collage kind of way interspersed with photographs of finished projects and several films following various projects from beginning to end. It’s not just the finished project that becomes art, it’s the whole process of meetings, planning and executing. Really very interesting to follow, also enjoyed the story about Christo and Jean Claudes romance!

I love these pieces of jewellery by kazuko. It’s the beautiful stones and pearls and the way they’re sort of scattered together in a very unpearl like way. Only available through Barneys New York. Via Luxist.

catrackBerlin is the publishers behind German gardening magazine Balkon & Garten. It’s a lovely little paper, very inspiring. The current issue is called Lieblingsplatz - isn’t that a beautiful name? They also do this grey graphic design that I fell for.

Truly enjoyed the quilts at angry chicken today. Strong patterns and colour mix. The quilts are made by the talented women from Gee’s bend.

The roses and cress and their shadow.

This is a sign of my talented mum, she put together simply beautiful stone arrangements. And clothes drying in the sun and the wind really is summer:

Lars pointed out that I might just have given the impression that I was spending my weekend at my very own mansion by the lake. Well, in a manner of speaking… Only, not so fancy and not mine, yet simply paradise.

The birds seem to like the ceramic stones I’ve made for the birdbath - they try to steal them! Sorry though birds, you have to get stronger, it wont do to keep dropping the stones all over the place!

The peony is one of my favourites and it seems, the ant’s favourite as well… If you look real close, you might be able to spot one walking along the very top.

This dress against that wall is just wow. From Pita, found via Layers of Meaning.

Thanks for all the lovely and supportive comments - I will be sure to forward all the positive response as well! If you are interested in buying anything you see, just send me an email and we’ll take it from there. The sweaters come in five different animal patterns so I will have to tell you more about them I think.

The sun is shining and tonight I’m heading off for the countryside, tomorrow will be spent in the sun, on the pier in our little bay of Mälaren, heavenly.

I’ve been meaning to post some images of Rachel Howards work for some time. There’s not an awful lot available about her on the net, but she can be found via Hidden Art (an absolutely excellent London based network with loads of talented artists, so happy browsing!). I love Rachel Howards embroidery and also her quilts - sensitivity and humour in harmony.

Processor is five talented women who after their Textile degree wanted to work together and lucky for us, they were inspired by our theme, flora and fauna, and have done some great things that are included in Amongst Tigers and Rhubarbs. This limited edition sweater is a labour of love and it is also “eco-friendly” and for sale for £67 in five different patterns, here are the dog and the fox with his paws sticking outside the frame (on the back as well!):

Processor are also responsible for the tiger precense and lovely purses (£10), scarfs (£13) and pillowcases (£16) that I wrote about yesterday. This is their postcard:

My absolute favourite Processor items are the two fragile and yet strong trees made up of layers of transparent textiles cut in fab shapes, here together with Elin Basander Lundins rocking chair “A Swedish Tale".

I’ve added two new links: one to Britta’s blog which I really enjoy but is’s only available in swedish and the other one to port2port, a correspondence blog with loads of lovely links every day - hard to keep up!

Private View night and we had planned to serve drinks, tiger cake and home made crisp bread underneath the great banner. Well, slight change of plan as the weather was arctic and instead all went inside. Eva’s mother had been baking crisp bread for the past month and it was a great success, it looked and tasted absolutely fabulous! As did Victoria’s tiger cake, all enjoyed with rhubarb lemonade or wine spritzer.

Here I am, doing my big round of introductions (I thought it went rather well!). We’re all watching Daniel Reynolds, who earlier in the evening was putting the finishing touches to his display (do take a look at Daniel’s website, he’s got some beautiful work):

And we mingled on and felt we really had achieved a great exhibition! The best thing is that the show will go on until 14th August - do come visit!

Phew, tonight was the private view and it was a lovely - although chilly - evening. Several of our wonderful exhibitors came and I so enjoyed meeting them. Meeting the makers adds so much value to the product. I’m too tired to write very much so I’m saving that for tomorrow! In the meantime, take a look at textile group Processor’s clever stuff. Above is one of their jigsaw animals that are now spread out over the lawns at Överjärva Gård, creating great patterns. Below are some of the products they’ve made for the exhibition shop; scarf, purse and pillowcase.

I really like the Orla Kiely spring/summer collection 2005 catalogue (and everything in it). So playful and graphic and I love the collage style of the catalogue.

Lately, I’ve developed a fondness for woven baskets and willow weaved structures… It’s something about the rustic and down-to-earth feel about it that intrigues me. The other day, I found this big beautiful and terribly dusty old basket which I was told had been used to sieve the baltic herring in… and so now that’s standing around in my workshop waiting to be shown off to the world. While I dust that off and get it ready for a photo shoot, take a look at this woven tray and painted woven basket from Blackash Baskets.

For the past week or so the weather in Stockholm has been ever so lovely. This sunny weekend was spent with friends building Amongst Tigers and Rhubarbs. Here’s a sneek preview: Beatrice Fägnell’s leafy sofa, the sunny coloured lamp by Design Dessert and flocked ceramic softboxes by Hanna Tonek Bonnett. In the background the Processor (Sara Wikman, Nina Roeraade, Hanna Kerman, Anna Nilsson och Helena Engarås) tiger can be spotted, designed to leave patterns on the grass…

I was reminded of Birgit Burströms company Handtryckta Tapeter in the current issue Swedish Elle Deco. Birgit Burström makes stunning wallpaper. She carries a big collection of original or newproduced 19th and 20th century wallpapers and does reconstruction and newprints of wallpapers from old fragments. The website is not completely in english, but the pictures says it all.

Some of the wallpaper seem to be named after the places they were originally found, like the above example which is called Fröreda Storegård. This is a beauty from the 1950´s called The Tales of HC Andersen:

Finally, this is the Parrot blind:

Like the prints and sketchbookwork of Paperheart, found via the ever surprising bohemian rapsody in blue

Together with three friends I’ve been working on two collaborative projects this last year. We started out with a small exhibition of around 15 invited designers/craftspeople at interiors shop Plan ett in Stockholm in January this year. During the spring we have been planning and organizing crafts/design exhibition at Överjärva Gård and now it’s only two weeks left!!

The exhibition is called Amongst Tigers and Rhubarbs, it’s a name inspired by one of the greatest swedish children’s books “Loranga, Mazarin and Dartanjang” by Barbro Lindgren. We like the name because it makes us curious and it suits the theme of the exhibition so well: flora and fauna. Also, we hope the spirit of the wild and unruly characters in the book somehow will be reflected in the exhibition…

Amongst Tigers and Rhubarbs will show work inspired by flora and fauna from around 30 designer/makers. I’ll introduce you to some of them during the next couple of weeks and hopefully you will want to come and see the exhibition for yourself! It is open Thursday-Sunday 11-4 pm from 30th June until 14th August.

For the last year or so, I’ve been really busy with orders and trying to get organized so that I can expand my business. I haven’t set aside time to play around with or develop new ideas, but somehow my mind and body do that themselves. All of a sudden I find myself completely endorsed in working on new patterns or shapes that I’ve been pondering on. And thank goodness for that, it’s a necessery breathing space.

Lately, I’ve been collaging my own prints with words and readymade images.

The sown drawings has turned into for instance tealight holders.

Camilla is taking part in the Feira Laica craft fair in Lisbon in June. Another craft fair taking place in another part of the world also in June is the renegade craft in Brooklyn, New York. In Stockholm, we are spoilt with STREET who this coming friday is throwing a vintage- and secondhand evening from 5-10 pm.

The summer exhibition at Grafikens Hus is work by Christo and Jeanne Claude. Open 29/5-30/10. I really like Grafikens Hus; it is light and airy and show fantastic Fine Arts printmaking in the beautifully restored royal barn. And not only that, they also have a very good café, a shop and workshops where you can see the techniques behind the prints.

Kim of Something to Say has collected links to examples of nature as a source of beauty. Somehow this made me think of the swedish caterers Kring Mat (roughly Surrounding Food) and the very inspiring way they display food (their website is in swedish, but most of the links to the left leeds to examples of their work).

The recepie for this white chocolate mousse can be found at delicious:days, a favourite food blog of mine. In my attempts to keep a spamfree blog, I recently managed to wipe out a comment from delicious days (and others) and am hereby apologizing!! In the future I will not delete spam while talking on the phone but instead concentrate on deleting the right comments!!

6th June is the national day in Sweden. I am celebrating by bringing to you some more New York images!

These are from the day I met up with my friend Judy, here sporting a blue and yellow Marimekko hat from Clearly First on Madison. Clearly First bring a selection of scandinavian design to upper east side - they spotted my swedish heritage through the Fjällräven rucksack on my back.

At Felissimo designhouse we saw the exhibition Designed in Sweden, where for instance my friends Åsa and Malin of Design Dessert showed their lamp “The Emperors New Clothes".

After the scandinavian start to the day followed an afternoon of walking through Central Park over to Upper West side (Seinfeldt neighbourhood - I tried to figure out where in NY Carrie lives and I thougth she’s probably a Nolita kind of girl? I should have gone on an SATC tour of course) and a delicious picnic from gourmet heaven Zabar’s on Broadway and east 80th Street.

You Are Beautiful uses the medium of advertising and commercialization to spread a positive message. Get your own You are beautiful stickers! Via Flaneuse.

Tracey Bush via NOTCOT. I love the use of envelopes and maps.

A real and - in a creepy sort of way - amazing insect pattern comes from artist Jennifer Angus, whom Kim mentioned some time ago. These walls are made up of real bugs, neatly pinned into patterns. It will give me nightmares imagining them on my living room walls…

Images from the exhibition Textile summer 2003 at Virserums Konsthall in Småland, Sweden. Below is a dress by Kerstin Boulogner for a dancer in “Lammsjön” (lambs lake…).

I’m a packaging scavenger; I’ve found so many lovely boxes from Tiffany’s, Hermes and others while browsing the streets of London. When I lived in London, I seriously used to take a walk in areas where I knew people didn’t cherish their packaging but instead they threw it out on the pavement for me to find and treasure!

If I don’t have a preference and if I have enough money, I gladly buy things because of the packaging. The Persian Nectar tea from Serendipitea (above) was one of those purchases. I’m still enjoying the chocolate from Dean & Deluca, another packaging paradise.

Here are some other boxes that I like: Mini Washi box from Koo-Ki Sushi; the tea tin comes from Tea note (found via buzzville); the lovely soap packages are from fresh and the pasta box is designed by Designbum.

Under påverkan - ett samtal om inspirationskällor
Jag misstänker att det kan komma att bli proppfullt i Nationalmuseums hörsal på tisdag den 31/5 kl. 18.00 då Emma Woffenden, glaskonstnär och Tord Boontje, designer samtalar de om vad som har influerat dem. Fri entré!

I found Southafrica based Strijdom Van der Merwe through Something to say. So much beauty on his gallery section that I could hardly make a choice.

The best with Beckmans degree show was the rooms inbetween the exhibition rooms, the ones you walked through to get to the real exhibition. They had these quirky lamp installations that I believe were arranged by Maria Frostner, Parasto Backman and Henne Lindberg. At least they were the group that curated the exhibition.

Some thruths are perhaps easier to swallow if delivered in chocolate? Linda Falk’s chocolates imprinted with personal messages such as “I am breaking up with you” or “I love you” wrapped up in a nice box was the kind of smart and obvious idea that made you think someone should have thought of this before?!

Sissi Edholm och Lisa Ullenius showed an alternative burial ground which made me take a look at their website where I found the birds and the “Peas” sign:

I enjoyed visiting Konstfack’s new facilities at Telefonplan. It felt fresh and spacious and kind of fun.

Four people graduated from the Ceramic and Glass department. I liked Eva Lövqvists glass collection of lights and jewellery (above) named Parasit, Marianne Tolmunen’s calligraphic ornament in black clay (above) and Magdalena Nilsson showed a photo of a ring that I liked very much. It looked like it could be made of silver, a smooth approximately 1.5 cm wide ring with a cut out oval in which a symbol was painted straight onto the skin. Nice idea. I also enjoyed her concept, it was very similar to the one I worked with for my degreeshow although she had worked it through much better than I did. She called her project The Royal Nilsson’s and based it on her family members, so that the products that came out of it somehow expressed their personalities. (I used my friends as my inspiration for a series of cups.)

From the Textiles department, I enjoyed Gill Weibull’s rug that crept up on the leg of a chair and continued in rugged edges out on the floor and painted up on the wall. I was also mighty impressed by the professionality in Josephine Drakenberg’s well thought through concept “Bonus".

But what I will remember from this year’s degree show is metall designer Klara Schmidt’s superb brooches made out of glue and pearls (I think! correct me if I’m wrong!), exquisitely displayed on glass shelves and lit so that they created a shadow on the wall.

Brooklyn is big! And we only spent an afternoon there, but managed to cover some ground anyway. I knew I wanted to visit a shop called The Future Perfect in Williamsburg. The reality greatly surpassed my expectations, their website do not do them justice. But perhaps it was the whole experience of walking down North 6th Street - which in parts is a bit scruffy - passing some big guys unloading old suitcases that looked like they were stuffed with dead bodyparts (or perhaps that was just a long leap of my imagination) from a van… wondering whether perhaps I’d written down the wrong address? And all of a sudden, on a corner is the shop featuring a brilliant, cool and friendly mix of furniture, wallpaper, stuff… I love it when cutting edge places have a friendly side to them.

Across the street from The Future Perfect is American Appareal, with all the casual/sports wear you could ever wish for.

After a coffee we browsed the streets around North 6th and visited Brooklyn’s very own Minimarket, on Bedford Avenue, selling funky clothes, shoes and jewellery. I couldn’t say how it compares to the Stockholm version as I still have to visit that. We took the subway to south Brooklyn and Smith Street, which hade lots of little design shops and galleries.

And lastly, a stroll along Brooklyn Promenade and the lush streets leading down to it. This is the Manhattan skyline from our Brooklyn perspective:

Beckmans 24-29 maj.
Konstfack till 29 maj.
KRAFT - Konsthantverkskooperativ i Gula Byggningen, Gustavsberg.

After Lisa’s comment about the images on my blog, I feel a need to come clean! An introduction is due: my boyfriend Lars is the man with the magic fingers… he takes all the pictures (that aren’t borrowed). And not only that, he’s the brain behind all programming on my website and blog!

One of the day’s that I spent at ICFF, he took the subway to Coney Island and spotted the fake palmtree above and the great boardwalk below.

Daniel at Clio said not to miss Nolita, an area north of Little Italy, and I’m glad he told us about it - I so enjoyed the laid back cutting edge feeling of the streets. I completely fell in love with A Detachér on Mott Street, a shop that carry a carefully handpicked range of design and art objects mixed with fashion and furniture items. Across the street from A Detachér is Starstrings, where the crystals are mixed with guitarstrings and made into very delicate jewellery. Their window display was peonies floating in a shallow pool of water. I bought simply magnificent stationary from Papivore (above) on Elizabeth Street, (do take a look at their website at all the clever designs), where also Hable Construction have their outlet selling for instance these bags:

This is the bit of blue sky I saw during ICFF days, the image is taken in the glass entrance of the Javitz Center. But what is a blue sky compared to all the interesting people I talked to, showed my portfolio to, sold my work to and got lots of wonderful feedback from? I will remember one woman in particular who said to me “You have a very rare sensibility", I thought that was such a beautiful thing to say and I will treasure it when in doubt of my talent and capabilities!

The ICFF is quite a managable size compared to a lot of other trade fairs and in passing, I did see quite a lot of the things on show. However, I didn’t look properly so I’ll leave it to the big blogs to give a rundown of it all. Take a look at design*sponge, MoCo Loco, apartment therapy and for the massive danish presence I suggest you visit the excellent blog CPH127.

Here’s a snapshot of the Swedish booth the day before it all opened:

Imorgon, söndag den 22 maj kl 18, blir det en fin konsert i Sundbybergs Kyrka, högt uppe på kullen på Rosengatan 15. Sundbybergs motettkör, musiker från Radiosymfonikerna och solister under ledning av Benjamin Åberg framför Franz Schuberts stora Ass-dur mässa och Felix Mendelssohns vackra psalm “Som hjorten ropar efter friskt vatten". Fri entré. Välkommen!

Thompson street is lovely with all sorts of small shops. The childrens clothes and accesories shop Makie carries charming and beautiful dolls by Tamar Mogendorff, across the street is another of the many designer dog accesories shops that New York has many of. Next to that is Michelle and Daniel Lehmann’s lovely shop Clio. I was keen to come and visit Clio as they will be the first New York shop to carry a range of my ceramics!

On our way to moss gallery, we passed a parade of rubbish bag carts that looked as if they were on display but it was most likely someones life belongings. One of the incredible things with New York is that opposites live side by side and it seems to be a friendly jargong between them. I also was happy to find that I felt safe and well taken care of by the New Yorkers: if I was lost standing with my map someone immediately would ask if they could be of assistance and I very much appreciate that.

moss is located on Greene street and show a fusion of contemporary crafts and design, items that are handmade or production manufactured. Most of the work in moss is displayed in glass cabinets as if it was a museum. Usually I want to touch an object and lift it up so that I can feel the texture and weight of it in my hands, but I didn’t really mind the glass interuption. The display and mix of the objects in the cabinets were interesting and I was intrigued by them. Next to Moss is a shop called Troy (like moss, named by the man who owns it), where we admired the fantastic sculptural glass chandeliers. Unfortunately Troy was the only place in New York where they completely ignored us, everyone else was very charming and helpful, and so I didn’t find out who the chandeliers were by. Oh well. Vivienne Tam has a shop further down on Greene Street and I fell totally for her adorable clothes.

The first afternoon in New York we bought tuna rolls and ice coffee in a deli and went straight up to Central Park. From where we sat we could admire the new high rise buildings by Columbus Circle at the same time as the beautiful trees which had pink flowers growing directly on the branches. The south east entrance to the park was guarded by Yellow and Kiddy Elephant Underwear by Japanese (what else?) artist Chinatsu Ban.

The view from our hotel window was neck-braking. We stayed at Radio City Apartments on 49th Street, just by Rockefeller Center and had our own little kitchen which turned out to be really useful and saved us dimes that was spent on other things than breakfast.

Back from New York with a suitcase full of bits of paper with information (that will be disclosed bit by bit right here), beautifully wrapped gifts and cool sneakers, adorable crocheted top by Israeli designer Otentico at Rosebud, the lovliest blueberry pink FCUK tracksuit, the new US interiors magazine and book! But most of all full of energy (although half asleep from jetlag that is beginning to set in) and inspired. It will not do to go to New York only every seven years, my aim will be to go there once a year - it’s such a boost!

I’m moving around New York with a feeling of being a tiny little ant and at the same time being on top of the world! Yesterday was the premier day of ICFF and the designboom designers market is a hit with everyone, it’s so much fun taking part in it and meeting all these people! Yesterday was also the ICFF party in the sculpture garden of MOMA, it was a warm breeze and my gin&tonic tasted exquisite. My poor legs will need a long rest when I come home… On Wednesday we walked around Soho, Tribeca, Greenwhich Village and Nolita - so many abosolutely amazing shops, really inspiring! On Friday setting up didn’t start until late so we went over to Brooklyn and visited Future Perfect on 6th Street, so cool. The view of Manhattan from Brooklyn Promenade is awsome!

I’m trying to stay awake late tonight as I’m off to New York tomorrow (!!) and thought I’d sleep on the plane instead and arrive all alert. Erica Tanov is one of Camillas lovely links today. I especially liked the striped skirt and hand knit belted tank from the spring collection. I recently stumbled over insurgent muse and I have a feeling it will become a favourite, just like Bricolage. According to Webster’s online dictionary, insurgent means “In opposition to a civil authority or government.”

Stunning images by Judith McMillan. I did think that her site didn’t reflect the ephemeral beauty of the plants… Found via Notcot via La Petite Claudine and a long trail of other blogs.

Jag gillar det Johanna Swanberg letar fram och skriver om i Sköna Hem, i det här numret bland annat interaktiva tapeter från Pepper-mint och Paint by numbers samt om inredningsbloggar: hon tipsar om design*sponge, apartment therapy, moco loco och treehugger.

Alltför ofta shoppar jag loss på Pressbyrån, häromsistens blev det Elle Interiörs specialtidning Sommarstället, modebranschtidningen Habit och danska interiörtidningen Bo Bedre. Jag tyckte verkligen om Habit, det här numret handlade en del om butiksinredning och belysning och jag är lite insnöad på det just nu. För övrigt tyckte jag det var en schysst mix av trender, konkreta tips och skön layout. Dom andra två tidningarna innehöll samma gamla vanliga mix av trevliga interiörer och kommer snart att malas ner i min utmärkta dokumentförstörare och användas som förpackningsmaterial.

Då och då får jag en papperslapp formad som ett hus i brevlådan. Den har en flärp som bildar husets dörr och öppnar man den står med halvspretig handstil “Vi säljer grejer som ni fått över för billiga klöver! Det kanske är nåt du behöver?” Är det inte den ultimata direktmarknadsföringen? Genomtänkt och så charmigt utformad att den tar sig förbi min ingen-reklam-tack-skylt och jag har nu varit där med grejer jag inte behöver!

Hundreds of Chinese paper lanterns from Galeries Lafayette in Paris.

A summer view, thistle from an old book and super yellow flower.

Wee Wonderfuls always have such great finds, the latest being a New Yorker Rion Nakaya’s photoblog. Atmospheric and brilliant photos from NY: Maribelle chocolates which was promptly added to my list of to do’s in NY.

I’m going to New York for ten days in May! Bliss. It’s almost ten years since my last visit so I’ve got some catching up to do. I’m taking part in The International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) but that’s just for four days and I plan to do lots of walking the streets of New York too. My boyfriend says we must take the tube to Coney Island and see Manhattan from the Brooklyn Promenade so will do that! Shall visit the Guggenheim, The Museum of Modern Art and perhaps The Noguchi Museum. Will be window shopping at Clearly First, Clio, The Future Perfect, Matter, Moss and browsing The Market NYC. Will also buy myself some lovely clothes and shoes and jewellery… I read about The Red Cat in Dagens Nyheter today and that shall go on my list of places to eat.

Any more tips on other musts to cram in during my ten days will be greatly appreciated!

Rachel Kelly (who’s interactive wallpapers make me long for a lovely big house of my own to try them out in) latest wallpaper is called New Shoes and was commissioned by the sponsors of Sex and the City. Rachel’s illustrations of designer high-heeled shoes overlay a background pattern of flower silhouettes and polka dots. The design comes in four colourways: Carrie (pink), Charlotte (ivory), Miranda (magenta) and Samantha (white gold). The interactive part comes in form of a range of stickers and transfer sets to be applied on over the New Shoes pattern.

Nu när det blåser snålt kring radions P2 vill jag slå ett slag för två program som är givna i min radiovecka. Kalejdoskop och Delta är bägge blandade musikprogram som överraskar och får mig att lyssna på sånt som jag kanske inte hade hört annars. Senaste programmet kan höras på weben och spellistor ligger ute i 60 dagar.

Porcelain by Bodo Sperlain, Childrens book by Aoi Huber-Kono, US Tree by Josef Frank and here is the real thing (via Something to say).

I was introduced to Marcello Chiarenza’s work by my friend Gabriella. He’s got harmony in these fragile structures and I love the light.

Salvia is another one of those Japanese sites that I can’t get enough of. Beautiful, inspiring. Don’t forget to look at the images of shop interiors and windows. Found via Wee Wonderfuls.

This site has kept me away from my tax return for hours now and I don’t even read Japanese. The shop is addictive, I like everything and it looks as if a lot of people do as every other item is sold out.

Bruno Munari has done some very inspiring design work. Here are a two of his illustrations for childrens books that I find wonderful. The pictures comes from the Utrecht online bookstore, a lovely site to browse.

Stilleben is a beautiful ceramics shop in Copenhagen and I find the way they create patterns of things (see photos on their website) really inspiring.

Lovely links at Camilla Engmans blog today, I especially like Anna Larssons graphics. Another great find via Camilla is Heide Trepanier at Stux gallery.

Selvedge is a magazine for anyone addicted to textiles. I haven’t found it for sale anywhere in Sweden yet, but it can be subscribed to as paper or online magazine.

Thanks for the tips leading me to more info on Ritva-Liisa Pohjalainen! The dress I mentioned earlier is from the Allegria of Fashion exhibition. This is currently on show at the Lahti Historical Museum. A movie of the exhibition can be viewed on her website, it takes about 4 minutes. I understood from the adjoining text on the website that the film was going to be about her workingprocess - which would have also been really interesting - but it “only” shows the dresses.

I was interested to read the story of Ritva-Liisa Pohjalainen’s design. Her dresses are very sculptural with beautiful lines and wonderful materials in them. My no 1 is still the red one, but these two are very close.

Idag på förmiddagen strosade jag runt trädgårdsmässan i Älvsjö. I hall C hade Peter Ødegaard valt ut vackra bilder, bland annat Boltanski’s serie Monuments - Les Enfants de Dijon från 1985. Dessa var del av en hel idéträdgård - tankarna bakom är visualiserade här. Här är mer fint:

Heritage Scrapbooks is a digital archive of vintage scrapbooks. Found via Bibi’s box.

“En fascinerande aspekt av design och formgivning är att det alltid går att göra något nytt. Och varje gång vi får syn på det nya, det vi kallar cutting edge, det oväntade som uppstår i skärningspunkten till framtiden, förvånas och förundras vi. Tänk på en mugg av keramik eller porslin. Hur många kan det finnas i världen? Är det inte fantastiskt att det går att forma ännu en mugg, i ännu en form som vi inte sett förr, ännu ett mönster en glasyr en lätthet eller tyngd som vi inte upplevt tidigare!?”

Ovanstående är ett citat ur en artikel som Cia Wedin skrivit om mig. Hela artikeln kan läsas under Formstarkt/ keramik på Cia Wedins och fotograf Björn Lanners trädgårdssajt Onestep Garden. Onestep Garden är inspirerande läsning om sånt som rör trädgård - resor, komposter, formgivning och smultronställen - allt illustrerat med underbara bilder. Vårnumret innehåller också besök hos min pappa - under Trädgårdsmästeri/Fakta tipsar han om hur ni ska sköta er kompost!

Nu önskar jag bara att jag visste vart dom färgglada plasthandskarna, som Sanna Hellberg skrev om i lördagens DN Bostad, kom ifrån så att jag kan vara lite fin när jag gräver i trädgården!

Vad glad jag blir! Svartsjö Slott har fått hyresgäster! Bland andra Lars Wallin och det bådar väl gott om jag får döma av hans fantastiska kreationer? Slottet har stått tomt många år men blev för ett par år sedan vackert renoverat med fantastiska handmålade tapeter i de ljusa rokokorummen. Det ligger helt underbart vid vattnet omgivet av en stor 1700-talspark. Läs mer om slottet på Statens Fastighetsverks websida. Från den information som ges på websida och pressrelease så ska verksamheten innehålla både sommarkonserter, utställningar, restaurang, konferens- och festverksamhet. Ovanstående foton från Statens Fastighetsverk och en artikel om Lars Wallin i Svd. Bilderna nedan tog jag för två år sedan då renoveringen var klar och allmänheten fick komma och titta. Det kom enormt mycket folk och de utlovade gratis kanelbullarna tog slut i ett nafs.

Camilla Engman (who’s lovely blog is a great inspiration) is one of the makers in Lovely Design’s scrap paper project. The site has got links to all the people taking part in the project, lots of interesting illustrators work there. Do check out the other projects at the Lovely Design site.

More things made out of paper are these Book Bags from Rebound Designs.

Jag har förgäves försökt hitta något om Ritva-Liisa Pohjalaisen, som gjort den här fantastiska klänningen, men zero luck.

I’m a sucker for botanical drawings so it was easy to be intrigued by the Flora Danica paper dress by designer Annette Meyer in collaboration with Royal Copenhagen. The dress is made out of paper with prints of Flora Danica services flowers and golden board.
In order to make the paper suitable for clothing so-called “crumble parties” took place where several workers from Royal Copenhagen rubbed the necessary 200 meters of paper between their fingers. The Flora Danica Dress is on show 2/4 - 8/5- 2005 at Malmö Konstmuseum.

I found these presscuttings of Meyer’s work really inspiring:

I bought this bird as Easter decoration but I like the company so I’m going to let it stay for as long as it likes. Got it from Svensk Slöjd at Nybrogatan in Stockholm, lovely shop. When I got home, I found modbird design - more lovely birds by Lisa Congdon. The fabric and the combination of spindly legs with a plump body works brilliantly and as a bonus: the fabulous label underneath.

The Frankie Files is a blog posting expired patent design drawings. These chirpy chickens are on a pillow top from 1913. The proud rooster is by Anna Johansson from Anna built. Happy Easter everyone!

Jag vet inte vad som är värst: tomma och smutsiga skyltfönster med en trasig gardin för eller dom där det ligger några muttrar som vårsolen skiner på genom en smutsig ruta? Jag önskar att någon tog sig an alla dessa övergivna display ytor som skriker efter lite fantasi! Här är några inspirerande skyltfönster från Tokyo. Via Japan Design Net.

Idag sov jag ut och vaknade lagom till att få se Sanna Hansson, formgivare och Fredrik Karlsson (obs! länken går till en pdf artikel om Nya konditoriet som Fredrik jobbar på), konditor i Utbildningsradions serie “Mitt jobb”. Bägge programmen är verkligen underbara! Både Sanna och Fredrik kan ses igen på UR’s web.

Saw at Coolchiq that fashion label Jovovich-Hawk is opening up shop in Greenwich Village. Lucky me who’s going to New York in May!

I’m growing my very own web forest! It looks really healthy to me, quite a jungle. Create your own at Texone’s Tree Applet.
Via Josh Rubin.

Might not be all that comfortable to sit on, but hey, I’ll just look at it. As a piece of art. By Patrick Jouin, available at Moss in New York.

This cover makes me smile, it’s absolutely charming. Not as charmed by the music though…

“Dish” is a book and an exhibition, edited and curated by Julie Mullerstahl. It shows a selection of work by 40 female designers from across the globe. The March issue of Icon has an article about the book. Core 77 reports from a Julie Mullerstahl event. The book can be bought from for instance ad libris. Some designers featured in Dish are Marre Moerel and Ayse Birsel with her Red Rocket desk.

Project Fox sounds and looks really exciting. Hotel Fox in Copenhagen is one part of the project. It opens in April with rooms decorated by graphic designers, illustrators and street artists. And they’ve got a “design a room contest” going, but be quick, entries must be sent in before April 10th.

I’ve come across the hotel in several blogs, both Reluct and Designboom, but Josh Rubin at Cool Hunting was first and he had all these great photos.

Jacob Hashimoto via Designboom.

I helgen som kommer är det påskmarknad på Överjärva Gård, en ljuvlig plats strax norr om Stockholm, där jag har turen att ha min verkstad. Marknaden är öppen lördag och söndag kl 11-16. Kom och hälsa på de nyfödda lammen, shoppa, fika och lyssna på sagor i kåtan! Här är några bilder från Överjärva i somras. Välkommen!

The way the butterfly is used on this Insect vase is just too alike the patterns I’ve been working on lately… I promise, I only just saw it! By Ted Muehling for Porzellan Manufaktur Nymphenburg . The silver spoons are also his and I think they’re just beautiful.

My favourites from the Issey Miyake spring summer 2005 collection.

These posters were designed by Designbum for The Natural History Museum of Humboldt and for the Humboldt Arts and Music Festival. I like the mix of typography, butterflies, cows, colours and I love the green! They’d definitely make me intrigued enough to want to visit both.

I’ve reshuffled a bit on my website and added lots of images out of my combined scrap- and sketchbook.

My 2.5 year old nephew Rasmus has opened my eyes to cuddly toys and I’m now overwhelmed by the amount of soft dolls, robots, monsters and other such items around! If you’re into making small soft friends, you should check out the online crafts project called a month of softies.

I am now even considering a soft doll of my own, not only considering I actually want one! My favourite by miles is Donna Wilson who’s creatures are just great (I wonder what Rasmus will make of them though?). This is Bunny Blue and Ed Red, the latter has got a very big brain.

Donna’s creatures are currently on show at the Crafts Council in London.

Shadylace av Chris Kabel från 2003.

The snow is thick in the air and the birds have actually started singing. On the design front spring is here and there are lots of beautiful beautiful birddesigns around and butterflies and insects too. My biggest crush is this Iguana fabric by Glasgow based Timorous Beasties.

Pigeon Light by Ed Carpenter for Thorsten van Elten.

The Chaos Couture bag, from Versace, found through Luxist.

Through Design Sponge, I’ve been introduced to Bella Muse, Paper Monkey Press and Little Paper Planes:

Screenprints /prints / cards from Bella Muse, all designed and made by typographer Alicia Peck.

Stationary from Paper Monkey Press in California.

From Little Paper Planes, t-shirt by Carrie Vawter and “I hate this bird” art by Kelly Lynn Jones.

I went to Copenhagen with my friend Eva, and its thanks to her I’ve got most of these pictures as my own photographic skills turned out to be poor…

At the corner of Kompagnistræde and Læderstræde is Creme de la Creme a la Edgar (I think it’s named after something out of Aristocats?) which is a gorgeous shop with a very inspiring way of displaying childrens clothing, toys and this charming moose which I just fell in love with.

Opposite from ‘Edgar’ is Wettergren & Wettergren, a fashion and accesories shop run by mother and daughter selling costumized vintage clothing.

Stilleben is dedicated to selling ceramics, a personal mix of industrial and studio ceramics. Take a look at their website for a clever and beautiful way of mixing and styling objects!

We now strolled down towards Nyhavn and on to Bredgade to visit the Danish Museum of Decorative Art. We had a lovely omelett with spinach and goats cheese in the cafe and talked for so long that the museum was closed by the time we were ready to see the exhibition… We did manage to see their Design Studio which is like an educational room where design objects are chategorized after which material they’re made out of, several of the objects can be touched and even tasted. It’s so well put together and a great resource for children and grown-ups!

I was looking forward to visiting Gallery Nörby, Denmarks leading ceramics gallery for studio ceramics and we happend to come on the day of switching exhibitions. Paul Scott, well known for his research into ceramics and print, was in the middle of putting up his joint exhibition ‘Body Blue’ with Ann Linnemann.

Crafts Collection promote and sell danish applied arts and design. Their showroom might be a bit tricky to find if you don’t know it’s there, but we just followed our expert guide through the streets of Copenhagen, Sabine Lavigne, and arrived at the second floor of Amagertorv 1. Unfortunately most of the collection was at the Ambiente trade fair in Frankfurt, but we did get to see some of their latest collection CC09, recently featured by Design Sponge.

Designers Zoo is situated a 20ish minute walk on Vesterbrogade away from the city centre and it’s well worth it. Lots of danish ‘gemyt’ on the way and when you get there the shop is light and airy with some great crafts in it. I especially fell for Charlotte Ostergaards ethereal clothes.

Lucky for us, the Danish Design Center was open until 9 pm on wednesdays and no entry fee. We tried out seating by the Campana brothers from Brazil and Eero Aarnio from Finland, saw graphic design and the Danish Design Prize winners from 2004.

Before bording our train, we just had time to peak through the window at Koenroeg and Moshi Moshi.

Tokyo based illustrator Naomi Yoshida has really caught the beauty of the very popular swedish dish macaroni and meatballs.

Having previously been ignorant about Gerard Richters paintings I have now been introduced. Louisiana in Humlebaek is showing a retrospective of Richters work, the exhibition is called ‘Image after Image’ and is open until 29th May. All sorts of images with energy or concentration in them and some with great spontaneity. I was inspired by the colours, the blurred and yet sharp photorealistic paintings, the light and the concentration in the painting called ‘Reading’… and the quotations accompanying the paintings made me think: “…the artist’s productive act cannot be negotiated. It’s just that it has nothing to do with the talent of ‘making by hand’, only with the capacity to see and to decide what is to be made visible. How that then gets fabricated has nothing to do with art or artistic abilities.” (Richter 1986) The exhibition has been reviewed in Svenska Dagbladet and in Dagens Nyheter.

‘Bach (1)’ can otherwise be seen at Moderna Museet in Stockholm.

‘Reading’, 1994

‘Woman with umbrella’ 1964

‘Colours’ 1974

I’ve previously always visited Louisiana in the summer and it was as calming and beautiful in winter. This is a view from the reading room with a springboard coming out through the window.

Den här veckan ska jag njuta av orkidéerna på Bergianska Trädgården och så ska jag åka till Köpenhamn, jippie! Kanske blir det den tyske målaren Gerhard Richter på Louisiana, det blir definitivt besök på Stilleben och Designer Zoo. I brist på att gå på en föreställning så ska jag iallafall titta på nya operahuset och likaså kika in genom fönstren på Noma.

I’ve mentioned Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s The Gates earlier. Well, now it’s revealed - in Central Park for only two weeks. Check Josh Rubin’s blog out for great photos.

Thanks to Eva Grinder, here are some images of the Swedese stand at the Stockholm Furniture Fair. I liked it, I wanted to stay there, hang my jacket on their trees by Michael Young and Katrin Petursdottir (read Calimero’s article on Katrin) and try out their chairs. And that’s the trick at a fair, isn’t it? To make people stay - in your stand.

I thouroughly enjoyed my long day at the Stockholm furniture fair. Although I had a long lunch at Interni cafe, splendidly designed by Marge architects, exhaustion set in after lunch and no coffee in the world could help. Before that, however, I saw lots of good design.

In the Greenhouse area, showcasing design schools and small independent designers, I saw this lovely red yarn stool “Inner Bond” by Jungsin Lee, an MA student at HDK, the School of Design and Crafts.

Monica Förster’s lawn with tables and, although I didn’t manage to catch them on the image, many coloured threads stretched from the ceiling, creating a sense of space.

Outdoors lighting from FLUX.

I always fall for this pink, it’s so deeply cool. On the right is design from Iceland, childrens seating by Sigridur Heimisdottir.

Marimecco’s new birch patterned textile by Erja Hirvi.

I love to be treated well by sales people at fairs! And that I was at Offecct, that guy really knew his products and it was so interesting to hear him talk about them. Vertigo by Eero Koivisto was awarded most interesting new product at the fair. Made of “one-way-mirrors", the table projects itself in eternity. Cell, also designed by Eero Koivisto, is another example of creative use of material - it is made by the stuff used in skis.

The most inspiring and yet probably the most simple stand at the fair was Swedese, who sported light walls washed with white colour and a spacious display of the new collection of upholstered furniture in a fresh green. The light pink tulips looked lovely - after four days at the fair!

Mia E Göransson is one talented ceramicist. Her hauntingly beautiful “Bonbonierre” made out of bone china, stand on short legs (I’ve always been drawn to vessels that have legs) with twigs and leaves growing around and out of it. I also love her elegantly simple tiles in terracotta clay with imprints of leaves and sprigs.

Ms Göranssons work is now on a touring exhibition with swedish design in the UK, it just left the Crafts Council gallery in London and is now heading for The Whitworth Gallery in Manchester. I also spotted an article about her in CRAFTS magazine no 191 as well as the February edition of brittish Elle Decoration. Mia E Göranssons work can be purchased from Blås & knåda, a group of swedish potters and glassblowers.

Dries van Noten is one of my favourite fashion designers. I love his use of materials and patterns and the casual feel with which the clothes are combined. This is from the spring/summer collection 2005.

Imorgon är sista chansen att se design/konsthantverk/konst i en skön blandning. Det är sista dagen för utställningen Bordsskick på en av Stockholms bästa inredningsbutiker plan ett. War bowl från engelska Mosley meet Wilcox, UZU skålar från japanska Ribbon Project, Moth lampa från Rose Cobb och mycket mer internationellt bra som inte ännu finns att köpa i Sverige!

Stitch, lampa i benporslin av Kathleen Hills och Rose Cobb.

Plus svenskarna så klart: väggklistermärken från Karin Persson, nya jättefina vaser ur serien Rush of Plush av Hanna Tonek Bonnett, laminatgolv av Anna Nilsson, Lotta Kvists tyger och vaser samt min keramik förstås.

Today is such a crisp beautiful winter/spring day and I was inspired to work on new patterns. I’m drawing quietly naive flowers with a fine pen and thinking aquamarine, red and black. The colour inspiration comes from this work of art from the autumn 2004 collection of Hussein Challayan.

Whatever I’m working on I’m always inspired and probably influenced by the work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, in particular the drawings of the artwork. Their latest project, The Gates, will be unveiled in Central Park on February 12th. Here is artwork for the Gate and Pont Neuf in Paris.





A more recent source of inspiration is a British textiles magazine called Selvedge, beautiful layout, images and some very good articles. In the September/October 2004 issue they had a brilliant wallpaper factfile and the “indulge” page featured Fairy folk. In the recent issue the article on the Venice biennale is illustrated with some amazing photographs.

I’ve found so many inspiring books and magazines I’d like from You work for them. And they also have these wonderful posters. This one is from their limited edition poster collection. I’m attracted to the colours and the sharpness in the image, am also keen on the thin lines versus the more blobby bits…

Dom här utställningarna vill jag gå och se och det är gratis! Made in China på Östasiatiska Museet och Do Redo på Nordiska Museet, bägge håller på fram till 28 mars 2005.

Isn’t it a beauty with the width in the skirt and all those marvelous roses? From YSA.