Karin's Style Blog

One of our Christmas presents; a Bengt & Lotta candle holder, but the two figures do have a strange likeness to Lars & Karin…

Bengt and Lotta run a company together and I believe they’re most famous for their Moose collection, but they do lots of other things too - nice wooly blankets and a Fia-med-knuff tray for instance. (Here’s how Fia-med-knuff (swedish for Ludo) is played.)

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.

My friends Eva and Gabriella made this beautiful ice chandelier a couple of years back. It brings beauty and light during oh, such a precious time. Here it is a little later, when the ice had started to melt and the sun had gone to bed…

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas!

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!)

Oh, it’s great to see my pieces in Rena’s shop! I was introduced to Rena Tom’s jewellery and to her shop, Rare Device by design*sponge. Here’s d*s post about Rare Device and here’s one of d*s posts about Rena and her jewellery.

This marquise lariat necklace is from Rena Tom’s Holiday 2005 collection.

Check out all of the designers carried by Rare Device, with links to their individual websites (a very generous gesture!). This Saturday is the Trunk Show and Holiday Sale in Rare Device and once more I wish I could travel around the world by snapping my fingers… But I’ll do second best, I read about it on Rena’s blog!

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…

If I was the lucky owner of a bath tub, I’d buy a giftpack of bubble bath from Space NK . But since I’m not, perhaps a clayperson like myself could treat a box full of handcare as a business expense?

And this is a beautiful gift for someone else! Pulpstore and Alabaster are new Swedish beauty sites I’ll also be browsing.

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.

Last night was the NobelPrize Banquet at The City Hall in Stockholm and from my position in front of the TV it looked spectacular!

I always enjoy watching the Nobel Banquet with the beautifully dressed up people, the extravagant flower decorations and the serving of the food. This is how beautiful the Royalties looked this year. I also enjoy listening to the speaches and what the commentators think of them.

This years “Divertissement” - “Floral Transformation” - was breathtaking! The entertainment: costumes, choreoghraphy and direction - was created by Bogdan Szyber and Carina Reich in collaboration with the 52 singer strong Allmänna sången choir from Uppsala, alongside with the florist Gunnar Kaj.

The flower decorations for the tables was brought in by the choir and they were dressed up in them - flowers coming up on long stalks from their heads or being carried around their necks or in voluptuous bunches in their arms. Combined with their singing a magical nordic fairytale athmosphere was created. Read more about the banquet in Dagens Nyheter (article in english).

The Nobel dinner service was designed by Karin Björquist for Rörstrand and it can’t be washed in the dishwasher so I imagine they’re still washing up after the bash…

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!

I have an awful habit of forgetting my rings on washbasins. I get terribly annoyed when I do this and curse myself for not taking a picture of the ring at least.

The first ring I lost was one I got from my grandmother. It was a natural stone that she found by the lake where she lived (and where we used to go swimming together in the ice cold water). The colour of the stone was a dark plum and the shape of it was slightly irregular and it was quite large. She had it set in a wide silver band and attatched to a plain silver ring. Despite it’s coming up to ten years since I lost it (in Barcelona) I still love it and can picture it on my finger. It would look gorgeous with my new grey sweater…

So, the other week I got a tip (thank’s Joseph!) about Kirsten Muenster’s jewellery and it reminded me very much of this ring - the beauty of the stones colour and shape in combination with the silver setting. Just beautiful - enjoy! Oh, and what a wonderful Christmas present for someone special…

Since I’m spending most of December in my own studio, I’ll sadly miss lots of good things out there:

The ginger cookie house is built in Kvarnbyn where Lisa Vilhelmsson is selling her fab towels. More pictures of Kvarnbyn’s Christmas.

Camilla and Lenas Christmasshop. I think I may have to order some of Ana’s cards from them…

Grafikens Hus is always worth a visit.

Vintervikens Trädgård. is open this coming weekend.

I might make it to Kapsylen, as they’re open every weekend before Christmas. I want to see where Lisa works!

Rosendals Trädgård, on the 18th it’s their “fire festivities” - take a look at the pictures!

The curved glass section on the left hand side is the shopwindows of Dundee Contemporary Art (DCA). The DCA shop has been stocking my work for a couple of years now and I just had an email from Julia, whose in charge of the shop, saying their latest order arrived safely with nothing broken, so that’s a relief! I’ve gotten pretty great at packaging if I may say so myself… (the trick is to pack small boxes inside the bigger box and of course use lots of bubble and packing chips). Here are two of the pieces I sent:

They were really happy at DCA today as Simon Starling, winner of this years Turner Prize, had his first solo show there! Wow!

The DCA shop also sell for instance the Ghost candelabra by Innermost, t-towels by Unity Peg and jewellery by Grainne Morton. If you visit Mortons website, do download her pricelist which show her playful and stunning jewellery, here’s one of her brooches:

I’ve got this t-towel by Unity Peg.

I’ve had the nicest weekend! I don’t think I’ve ever had so many people through my doors in just two days. Thanks all of you who came to visit and all of you who took a virtual peek here!

Now I’ve got another open studio weekend to look forward to, I’ll be open this Saturday-Sunday 11-4 pm. This weekend it’s only me though, but to make it more alluring I’ll treat you to glögg and pepparkakor! And I will be selling not only my ceramics, but also some of Daniel Reynolds beautiful pieces. Welcome!

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.

And there’s still some to unpack tomorrow morning…