My Pocket

bubbles in the snow

Never tell your winter coat farewell, or April will play tricks on you.

in the Lebanese cedar

We woke up to dazzling white on Sunday morning. The first proper snow this year and in the same week as a day of 17 degrees Celcius, bare legs and short sleeves. One of the few people up at 9.00 am (it's the spring break) was blowing gigantic bubbles from one of the upstairs windows of the school. When it had all but melted away at midday we thought it must have been one magical dream, chasing after iridescent bubbles with snow spilling over your boot-tops, shaking flurries of flakes off the cherry blossoms.

Especially since the day before we were surrounded by this...

After we shook the snow off our boots and had some hot tea I spent most of the day on the floor making jar lanterns, cherishing working with my hands, humming to myself.

They glowed in the lilacs flanking our little gate all evening.

take your dreams off the shelf

On Friday, when I should have been writing college assignments, I went for a long walk and spent the evening fooling around with handmade stamps in my notebook.

handmade for you

Ooh, I just signed up for something that is making me happy... Anne Marie at Life in Yonder invited three people to take part in a pay-it-forward exchange that she originally signed up for on Woollie Wanderings. This is what was said there and what I will do in turn for you:

"I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week… LOL… but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog."

I would be delighted to make you something special and wrap it up, so if any of you are interested I will send something in the post for the first three to leave a comment. Signing up means you will do the same as me and have three people to send handmade things to.

What you need to do is paste the promise above into your blog and pay it forward. I like that idea :). I'm not sure what I will make yet and it will take me a little while but it makes me happy to think about!

room for living

This week I thought I'd show you around our place. Starting in the living room/study/dining room/craft room, the first of our two rooms. We live on the first floor in a typical British cottage that was built sometime in the beginning of the previous century. It has been split into two levels, the door to the downstairs living areas is bricked up which creates two flats.

This room is our living room where we have our meals, where I do my acupuncture studying and where I have my craft corner. I have a perfectly well suited, spacious desk to do my studying at (bottom right corner in photo) but I quickly made myself comfortable at the dining table as it has the most wonderful view.

Note the piles of college handouts on the floor, I just swipe the table top when it's time to eat. :) I love watching and listening to everything that goes on outside. There's a yearling deer venturing out of the woods several times per day, the wild rabbits are always out hopping around, the doves swoop over the trees and yesterday there were two young boys galloping their horses up the field.

The leaves hanging in the window is a mobile of sorts that I make every autumn. I hang a piece of thread with a glass bead at the bottom to weigh it down. Then I take leaves I've found that have turned vibrant colours and I wrap the thread around the stem to hold the leaf hanging. It's very easy to do and doesn't require any tying but it's a bit difficult to describe. I'll give it a try anyway - you hold the leaf upside down, stem down, let the thread wrap from behind the leaf to the front (basically just crossing the stem once) and then let the leaf drop to hanging down, which should twist the thread into place, holding the leaf in the same place. Err... or you just do it anyway it works! I like having the leaves in the window where they feel like they're still on the tree and the light shines through them.

i made that

I made something this weekend, I actually made something! I have been wanting to sew my own clothes for so long now, but never had the courage to just go ahead and dive in. Yesterday I found some remnant navy blue linen in the fabric shop and thought of this top in one of my Japanese craft books.

So I bought some seagreen lace trim to go with it, all the time thinking it will end up like the other projects I've got the materials for that are still lying on the shelf, and then to my surprise went home and promptly sewed it together. I made mistakes in every stage of the game but I enjoyed it. It turned out not quite like the picture and I skipped the ribbon and bow altogether, but I like it, wonky seams and all.

It's the third garment I have ever sewn, the first two were in school - a white cotton vest and a navy silky ballgown type dress for the 'prom' age 16 (both plain as can be, didn't like frills then either. boy was I fidgety in that dress - this just ain't me). I've been thinking about sewing my own clothes for the last year or two, because I rarely find what I am looking for in the shops, I don't like the fabrics they use and I feel bad about the working conditions of the people putting them together. If I could have it my way I would have mainly woven fabrics in my clothes, instead of jersey which wears out and loses shape so quickly. (Knitted things are the exception of course.) Linen and woven cotton just become more beautiful the more wear they get, softening, getting worn and fading colour with grace.

My choice of clothes has changed dramatically over the last two or three years, along with me feeling much better in myself. The better I felt, the more I felt I deserved to wear clothes that make me feel good, and the more clothes I wore that made me feel beautiful and comfortable, the happier I became. I've been a tomboy most of my life, I never was a dress-and-ponytail-girl, and it took me months to gradually stop feeling like an impostor wearing skirts and eventually dresses. Now that's about all I wear! I suppose it's a romantic/bohemian style - long swoshy skirts, feminine dresses, layers of this and that and a hodge-podge of stripes, flowers and dots. I like it simple though - plain muted colours and natural materials, classically cut mostly. Still, sometimes I glimpse myself in the mirror before going out in the morning and think "Caroline, I don't think anyone else would ever wear that combination of clothes."

Except a gypsy maybe. I like gypsies.

hello september

Goodbye summer colours, light evenings, warm breezes, rustling in the tree tops, bare legs, swims in the pool and lying on the grass.

Hello September, rusty, burning, vibrant colours, high blue skies, fresh breezes, rustling piles of leaves, autumn coat, woollen mittens and dark evenings for cuddling up indoors. I love autumn, I do I do. It inspires me like no other season, thinking what to wear, what new things to learn, walks to go on, places to see, making changes to my life, planning ahead, pouring over books, pulling out my soup recipes, picking up my knitting, wearing my beloved woollen hats again, skipping down the road on a good breezy sunshiny day.

What do you look forward to in autumn?

Some things of summer I bring with me though - I still wear my summer dresses, above the warmer layers, I still wear my sandals for as long as I can, with woollen socks, I wait to put on a coat until I have to because I love wearing only a knitted cardigan or pullover and wrapping my pashmina around me instead. I like sitting on the grass on a dry day, smelling the dry leaves and the soil, lying down to watch the clouds skim by high above, listening to the wind and the trees moving. I want to sit outside to eat my lunch way into October or November, wrapping up warm.

This feels like autumn to me:

"Read me a story inside
Lie if you like
But make the details
True in my mind
We need to feel
Absolutely wrapped
In your glove
Lie back and listen
As I read you my life"

The Wind-up Bird, Tunng

(I know I've recommended that song before, but I'll do it again, it's so sweet.)

Inside, I want to listen to stories, to magic, colourful scenes, details that spring out, seeds planted that grow into dreams. I wish you that and more. Have a good night!

projects

I never blogged about the project I was sewing on a while back. It was a quilted baby blanket and my friend Sophie received it a couple of weeks ago. The baby was a girl, called Tindra which in Swedish pretty much means twinkle, like the stars, sweet! I thought the baby could lie on the blanket on the floor, but Sophie says she'll save it for the winter and use it as a duvet, bless! It went surprisingly well sewing that, only one what the!? oh nooo... moment after getting half-way through sewing the wadding onto the outside instead of inbetween the outer layers. I didn't bind the edges, next time. Oh, and of course not all the patchwork squares lined up but it being the first time I tried it I wasn't surprised. The fabric is a mix of things, the sweetly patterned ones from Superbuzzy, the green linen from John Lewis, the blues from Laura Ashley, the peachy from a ripped kaftan that was in the cleaning rag-bin :), and the white is an old cotton bed-sheet.

Embroidery is a treat, I love it! I'm bringing a project to France next week, to do on the beach. The pattern for the rabbit is from this Japanese craft book - it's a lovely series. This ebay seller is excellent too if you haven't already found her, free shipping (takes a couple of weeks to the UK) and very good prices for the books.

As for any other inspiring sewing, it hasn't happened. I've been doing lots of this:

and this:

This was half-way through the second lot of curtains, I didn't bother folding and unfolding them between pressing and sewing.

I did a quick job of it all really, no pins and only one proper seam for the top. For the bottom seam I just pressed one fold and zigzagged across the cut edge, creating a neat edge for the front and the back looks a bit ragged, but it being for the boys' rooms the curtains won't be visible near the floor for very long anyway. Because the fabric is so thin it falls more gracefully this way too, not having too bulky and heavy a seam at the bottom (I tell myself :>). I didn't have to do anything with the sides as the fabric was just the right width for the job.

Finally I just want to show you this because it looks just like a picture I remember from a children's book which if I remember correctly features a very small girl, ponies, huge blackberry bushes and some adventure, don't ask me what. What was important to me as a kid was the berries because they looked so luscious, there being both blackberries and raspberries on the same bush. Blackberries aren't common in Sweden so I didn't know, but now of course I can see why they drew them that way.

When I go to Sweden next I'd like to bring my favourite children's books back with me. My parents were great with books, they bought lots and read something every evening for us in bed. Also, Amy reminded me of my Calvin & Hobbes collection which is also left in Sweden, that will have to come too.

sewing and butterflies

For the moment I'm sewing voile curtains for the boy students' rooms in the cloisters. Their living quarters are called the cloisters because it's a building with an open central square with lawn, trees and a pond. The 30 odd rooms all face in towards this and there are covered walkways all the way around to the doors. The walls facing inwards are all window so they need a thin curtain to complement the thick one, just so you can have some privacy but not keep out the light. That's what I'm making, as some need replacing. It's a lot of fabric...

On a completely different note: butterflies.

creative imperfection

On the train going down to Paris I nestled up in my seat with a sewing project, something I haven't done before. Excellent! I can look out the window watching the world go by, the way I love, and do something practical and creative with my hands every now and then. I've been wheedling with myself lately, trying to get my flow going because I know how much I need to be creative to keep me sane. I've been pretty stuck for a while now, having everything I need to start up several projects but not getting anywhere. Like a lot of people I suppose, I'm a perfectionist and sometimes, you know, what you create isn't quite what you thought it would become. And then I think, better to stick with my imagination and keep the dream. But life isn't very juicy that way, nothing going through you. Besides, perfect is rather boring and barren.

So, a few small things are beginning to take form and this train project is finished now. D asked for a case to keep his camera in and I really like the colour he chose, rusty orange. I'm fond of this way of fastening buttons but I don't know where it comes from. I've only seen it on parcels coming from Asia, but I'm sure this kind of closure is common elsewhere too. So simple. You just wind the yarn a couple of times around the button and there you are. It's secure too, though you might have to replace the yarn at some point.

Stitching all over the place, yep that's me. :) And I like it that way.

magnolia

Another of the magnolias have unfolded its petals. In the morning it was a tight bud the size of both my fists. I could smell its faint scent from several steps away. By lunchtime as I came out the door of the school I knew it had opened to bloom as I could smell it already meters away. I love the silky feel of its heavy head in my hands, dipping my nose in and breathing in the perfume. It will be gone by Thursday I should think. But what does a flower know about Thursday, there is sunshine to bask in and bees to see.

I know about Thursday, because by Saturday I have to hand in this blasted essay. Sorry about the language, but writing essays are one of my least favourite pastimes. Like pulling teeth. So, let's talk no more about it. When I am finished do you know what I will do? Finish this:

Can't show or say anymore about it for the moment as it is a gift for one of my old friends in Sweden who has had a baby. I liked her so much in school I don't know why I didn't keep in touch. I just don't generally. Don't expect people would want to stay in touch with me. But in this case, she is so worth it and I am so terribly late with replying to the lovely letter she sent me that no excuses will do. I want to make her this in any case. And perhaps she will even still talk to me?