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A heron just landed on our pier, but I scared it off trying to sneek closer to take a picture.
manos is having a summer sale in the webshop - you need a code to take advantage of 15% off everything! Read all about it here. Until July 22nd.
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Thank you for all the greetings and beautiful gifts! Wishing you a Happy Midsummer! We’re off to the country side.
nest has a new website and blog.
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He’s here and mum couldn’t be more proud! This is Leonard’s feet and here’s his beautiful little face!
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My sister-in-law makes the best cakes. This one was for her birthday recently (no other birth to report about yet…). It’s a Prinsesstårta and it was ever so delicious.
I haven’t been in the workshop for over a week now and last night I dreamt about ceramics, more specifically about teapots… I think I’ll have to sketch down some ideas and perhaps there’ll be teapots added to my collection?
But whose taking care of manos then, you may wonder? I’ve left it in the safe hands of Liisa and Pia who are taking such good care of it - only open on weekends mind you…
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…
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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Greta Garbo had her first big film role in the film Gösta Berlings Saga. Gösta Berlings Saga © 1924 AB Svensk Filmindustri
For the next book circle we’re reading a swedish classic - Selma Lagerlöf’s Gösta Berlings saga. We want to combine it with something more modern and on this excellent book blog I just found another swedish author, new to me and not yet in english: Till sista andetaget by Anna Swärd.
My hanging flower pots in good company, thank you Nicole!
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Me and the stomach are still around, just been busy finishing as much as possible before not working for a while! This week summer has come to Stockholm and I’m slowing down, spending a few hours in the workshop and then doing whatever I feel like. Yesterday I had a coffee overlooking the Royal Castle
Peonies in the kitchen window.
Tonight I’m discussing We, the Drowned with my book circle. I usually finish the books in time, but this time I’ve been distracted by a couple of books about childbirth and working with the pain… Also, I find that I often just sit and very un-characteristically look out into space without doing anything… Anyway, the book we’re talking about has after a slow start for me, turned into a wonderful story that I’m looking forward to finishing in my own sweet time.
Norwegian Crafts magazine online.
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After having been to measure the fast-growing stomach, I strolled in the sunshine to a favourite café of mine. They serve their homebaked baguettes with Gruyere cheese and a fresh salad on the side. I really like that they don’t try to stuff everything into the bread. The salad comes with a lovely dressing called matsuhisa, here’s Martha Stewarts recipie. I bought myself a fashion magazine and dreamt about a summer wardrobe including perhaps a pair of hotpants, high heeled clogs and earrings… My feet are not really built for high heeled shoes and I’m pretty sure hotpants won’t be my dresscode of choice for some time, but that doesn’t stop me dreaming…
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I’m making more of the hanging flower pots and the ones that make it successfully through the firings will be in the shop next week.
This time of year it’s getting warm and lovely in the green house, the warmth spreads in to my workshop and speeds up the drying of my newly thrown pieces - strangely enough it takes me by surprise each year… I’m under the illusion that I cover it real thoroughly when I leave in the evening but when I come back the next morning I realize that I should have tucked it in even more carefully. The result is a lot of drying cracks and so I get to fill up my ’seconds shelf’… One of the joys of clay
An illustration by Judy Kaufmann and here is her etsy shop.
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Back after a soft week in a timber cottage with my family, it’s nice to take it easy. Above is my mum eating a waffle at Fågelboet.
I got a parcel in the post with an accompanying postcard by Jackie Bos which made me look up her blog, I like it a lot.
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I’m off for a week of fresh mountain air, when I come back it’s only 6 more weeks to go!
I like the products from danish Re:Something.
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Gifts for Aurora who turns a month on Sunday… Bought from Zèbre à Pois, the shoes are by Oeuf, made in Bolivia and the hat is by Ketiketa made in Nepal.
I wanted to show you the newborn lambs at Överjärva Gård, but my computer is behaving very badly at the moment so it’ll have to wait…
Happy Easter!
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During the autumn I was making lots and lots of tealight holders, shamelessly using a Teresa Green towel for grinding them down around the rim. Thankfully, I’ve now got help with the production and the tealight holders are available again after a times absence. They’re my best sellers and I don’t have the capacity to produce them myself. And to be honest - I’m not at all as good at it as the ones who are doing it for me.
The tealight holders are cast in plaster moulds and although I know how to do it, it’s not my speciality and not what I really enjoy doing. My other work is hand thrown by me and that’s a process I enjoy and am good at. There was a period when I was thinking about which road to take - the mostly-handmade-by-me road or the finding-a-factory-to-produce-for-me road. I chose the first and am really happy with that choice. Having said that, I’m not a stranger to getting things produced for me when it suits the design better or when it cannot be produced any other way.
Lovely Lacerisesurlegateau, found via jodiijodii.
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Today is the private view of Liisa Välivaaras Ceramic Heads at manos. Each of them has a story to tell. Welcome between 2 and 5 pm! The exhibition continues until April 11th.
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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!
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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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.
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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.
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