Last week a man from Holland came and bought a whole curtain of hangings which left my walls quite blank. I filled the gap with my new hanging flower pots. They’re available in the shop now!

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Here’s some of the treasures at Skansens Klädkammare (clothes chamber). I’m lucky enough to know two of the talented women who work there and they showed me around. Thank you Yvonne and Berit!

Skansen is Stockholms beautiful outdoors museum where you - for instance - can visit historical buildings from Sweden and meet people dressed in period costume. Most of these clothes are taken care of and kept at the clothes chamber.

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Read about my day at A Beat That My Heart Skipped!

I’m finally ready with the compilation of my 2010 collection wholesale price list so now it’s only the bookkeeping for 2009 remaining. Phew. Each year I say to myself that I’ll do the bookkeeping continually over the year rather than saving it all… And still, here I am with three huge files to enter into the system… And I actually like keeping track of what comes in and goes out and to know what I spend on and how much I can spend. This year I’ll do it differently

Textiles from Bantie.

I went to the Stockholm Furniture Fair last week and met lots of nice people and spent a good long while at Konsthantverkscentrums stand where all my 4 pictures are from. That’s where Ulrika Krynitz wonderfully green rug was and you should check her website out because of the ecolodges she rents out… read more about this poetic wilderness retreat on the National Geographic blog. You’ll find Emma’s much more extensive report from the fair at the d*s guest blog.

Ki-Ki - a Japanese design shop on Renstiernas gata here in Stockholm.

The sunshine in my workshop.

I’m putting together my collection pricelist 2010 and will post a few images each day on flickr. The price list will be sent out to all the shops that already sell (or want to) my ceramics around the world.

I sometimes get the question which of my ceramics I like the most and I just can’t answer that because I like them all! Of course I tire of a pattern or a shape ones in a while, but they have a tendency to grow on me when we’ve been apart for a while and so I’ve got lots of “old” products in the new collection. And new ones too of course.

I left Dreams part two in the workshop and went for lunch at Restaurang Jungfrusund, lovely to sit inside with this view outside.

I get happy when I get a post card from Raymond Biesinger in the letter box.

It is getting lighter with each day but at 4.30 it’s this dark in the green house. Next week manos opens again after the winter rest and I’m bringing spring right in with greens and purples and pinks!

Today it is 5 years since I started this blog - my first post was about… wedding dresses! Thank you for still staying with me

Talking about weddings… here’s some gift ideas for Valentine’s. Spread the love.

*THank you for all the well wishes!*

Here’s from a very nice lunch with Maria at Fröken Nilsson on Ålstensgatan, I ate a pasta salad with salmon, capers and chick peas. Afterwards we went shopping in the second hand shop where I always find something to cherish.

My Friday assistant Josephine is blogging, make her happy and pay her a visit!

Oh, what life has in store for me this year. This ultrasound is from the end of November and now we’re already in week 21 and I’m wondering how far away from the throwing wheel my stomach will take me
These days you’ll find me surfing around on sites like Nuno & Dodo, Oeuf, periwinklebloom and bamboo baby.

Another beautiful winter day and I received a bird in the post. It arrived in the most exquisite parcel!

Thank you for your happy birthday wishes! It took me just a few seconds to figure out who was the messenger New years eve is my birthday and this last one was no 40 and cause for a celebration. I have been pondering on what and how since the summer and in the end my day turned out just like I wished for.

It was a fairy-tale-like midwinter day, when the trees are glittering and snow covered. It started with David giving me a Spanish serenade, continued at Överjärva with mingle in my candle lit green house and ended with a delicious dinner party, fire works and dancing at my brothers beautiful house. I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday and end to 2009!

I hope you had the bestest new years eve too! Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas all of you! We have a white Christmas this year, yippie!

Yesterday evening we braced ourselves for the wind and the snow and went out to a lovely little restaurant: Matkultur (food culture) at Erstagatan here in Stockholm. I ate wild char from Jämtland with goats cheese gratinated sweet potatoe, puré of pumpkin and a spinach salad with pine nuts. Delicious.

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Almost forgot…my favourite advent calendar this year: chemistry advent calendar. Click twice on the “calendar door” otherwise nothing much exciting will happen. The calendar can also be viewed on Youtube.

The Christmas market was - despite the appalling weather - a great success. I think we’ve never had as many visitors as we did on Saturday. On Sunday Diana Baur came all the way from Italy to visit, you can read about her Stockholm experience on her blog. I loved every minute of the weekend and today I’ve put my feet up for a well deserved rest!

I’m listening to a “winter album” by Sting and I can recommend it. I’m reading Anna Karenina and parallell to that an inspector Banks mystery by Peter Robinson. Perfect balance

Now it’s time for a nap.

This weekend 5-6th December is the traditional Christmas market at Överjärva Gård with lots of handicraft, Luciatåg, pony riding and food. manos will be open extra long during this weekend, from 10-16. Welcome!

What a gorgeous cold day today has been! I got an armful of conifer of my dad to arrange outside and inside manos. The top picture shows the left overs, some of them ended up on parcels.

Conifer left overs on parcels.

This coming weekend is the Christmas market at Överjärva Gård, I’ve written about it on manos blog where you’ll also find news about the latest shop updates.

The Uppercase book about Camilla looks gorgeous.

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.

I’ve been longing to tell you this news:
manos now has a blog and a website to accompany the online shop!
So that’s where you’ll from now on will find all manos related information. Here, it’ll revolve more about me - work, inspiration, when I’ve bought new mittens and so on.

Now I’ll better go to bed as tomorrow I’m going to Copenhagen for the day, meaning a very early morning!

MAV has curated Come Darkness at Chelliswilson in which I’m taking part with a ceramic mountain

My friend Eva Wilsson who made the graphic design of my website now has a website of her own. She has also designed manos website… stay tuned.

The weekend was dedicated mostly to choir practise in preparation for the big concert on Sunday evening. Together with a wonderful orchestra and singers we did a piece by Mendelsohn and “God in disguise” by Lars Erik Larsson. The church was more than full and the concert went splendidly. It’s something special being part of creating beautiful music and having such a great audience.

Apart from that I work, eat and sleep. I’m so busy I haven’t had time to post for over a week! I did however have time to enjoy a lunch of tomatoes grown outside manos and egg from the chickens at Överjärva. Mmmm.

Elisabeth is part of Envelop. Nice shop!

Here’s images from the current exhibition at manos, ceramics by Elisabeth Ottebring and the theme is compost. The earth under the glass is certainly from the compost. Lisa’s ceramics will be in the webshop on Monday. See the images bigger here.