There will be a “children’s literature day” at school, when the kids come to school dressed as a character from a book. Ingrid first wanted to be Olaf from Frost but I couldn’t think of a way to craft an Olaf costume in time. Then she suggested a cat, but we couldn’t think of any interesting female cat characters. We then settled on Sigge, the white horse in the eponymous series of books. So I am crafting a white horse mask.

We crafted invitation cards for Ingrid’s upcoming Halloween-themed birthday party. Ingrid drew monsters and skeletons and gravestones on hers. My designs were more abstract.

Ingrid has been working on a plush monster for Adrian’s birthday. Today she finished it.

Tiring of cows and giraffes (and limited in our zoological creativity by the fact that almost all chestnuts were the same size this year), both Ingrid and I also made some more abstract constructions.

During winter, when there isn’t much to be done in the garden, I spend more time on crafts. Last winter season I made an advent calendar in felt and started knitting a cardigan. The cardigan is still not done, because during this winter season I focused more on interior decorating. Time to finally make some curtains for this house!

We have nine sets of windows that “need” curtains. (I don’t think the storage closet needs any, and the glass wall in the living room is not going to get curtains either.) The bathroom window already had one, which leaves eight. I managed to sew curtains for four of them, so I’m halfway there. Perhaps next winter I will get the rest done.

The “office” was first in line because I wanted to be able to get rid of the glare on our computer screens. Thick, lined, but otherwise un-fancy curtains in a fabric that matches the art nouveau and early-1900s inspiration I’ve generally been following in this house: Sandberg’s Lily of the Valley.

The curtains for our bedroom are similar in style and construction. If your memory is really sharp, you may recognize the fabric: this is the curtain I made for the balcony door back in 2008. Back then I expected it to hang there for the next 15 or 20 years. The door itself only survived for less than three more years, but the curtain got a second life. I removed the tabs at the top, made a twin for it, and now it hangs in our bedroom. I am hesitant to make another prediction about its expected life, but I hope it will be long. The fabric: Sandberg’s Louise.

Actually, the twin is not quite a twin. Or maybe it’s a fraternal twin. The new fabric I ordered did not quite match the old one: one is more beige and the other is more gray. Maybe the old one changed colour in the sun? Maybe in a couple of years they will be indistinguishable. But during the day the curtains are apart, and at night nobody looks at them, so the mismatch doesn’t bother me at all.

The curtains in Ingrid’s bedroom are of a very different style… We looked at photos of curtains online and Ingrid had a very clear idea about what hers should look like. Patterned, but with a small pattern, “like maybe hearts or rings”. Ideally violet or lilac or something like that, or maybe blue. And tied back with nice bows, and with a valance. It took a while to find the fabric because this is not exactly in line with current decorating trends, but Ingrid was very happy with the result. She likes to untie the bows for the night.

And finally, some cushions. We had a set of three old cushions in dark green linen that I sewed in 1997 when I moved in with Eric, and they were really at the end of their life. There were actual holes in the fabric. These new ones are in dark brown wool felt, decorated with fabric in traditional Estonian patterns. My working name for the set is “Rebel yellow”. One of them I made after Ingrid’s wishes – can you guess which one?

PS: If you can’t make the numbers add up – office + bedroom + Ingrid’s room equals three, not four, right? – it’s because the office has two large windows which I count as two, not one.

Cirkus Cirkör is Sweden’s one and only major contemporary circus company. We last saw a show by them in 2010. Yesterday it was time for another one.

I quite liked Wear it like a crown, the 2010 show, except for one thing: the theme. It was about daring to be yourself, and daring to make mistakes. Which is not a bad theme in itself, but it was presented way too loudly and in-your-face and unsubtly in the show. Feelgood pop philosophy aimed at teenagers. But otherwise it was a nice show.

Their show for this year is titled Knitting Peace. I expected something similar to last time, but came away much more impressed. This show is noticeably more mature: quieter, subtler, leaving more to the imagination.

The dim lighting and the simple monochrome visual design, and the music (partly performed live on stage), all came together into one contemplative whole.

Knitting suffuses everything. The scene decorations are made out of rope, knitted or tangled. The props are rope tangles, or balls of yarn (ranging from palm-sized to one metre), or knitted dolls, capes, nets, or just plain ropes. And because they are so simple, they can speak of many things at once.

A man struggling with a tangle of rope: a tangled relationship? or a tricky problem? or Man’s struggle in general?

Self-inflicted or externally caused?

But the yarns and ropes were not just props: not just for decoration, or for the theatrical aspect of the show. Most of the circus numbers were also built around ropes and knitting. Rope-walking, of course, is an obvious one (but you’d be surprised at the number of variations possible). But ropes can also be used for climbing, hanging, tying… Rope can be knit (live on stage); rope ladders can be unravelled. One can balance on balls of rope, and tumble over and around them, or why not climb into one. The variety was amazing.

Technically the show doesn’t reach the same level as, for example, Cirque du Soleil. But in this show the theatrical aspect was so much stronger that the technical skills didn’t really matter as much. The two shows are so different that they cannot really be compared – they are two different genres.

So there is a lot of knitting in the show, but not much of an overt peace theme. Instead, if I were to try and pinpoint one master theme, it would be “struggle”. So, lack of peace? Or perhaps the struggle to find your peace – not peace as not-war, but inner peace.

There are more nice photos at MyNewsDesk.

Ingrid and I made chestnut critters this year again.

Back row, from the left: Rabbit, giraffe, snow man.
Front row: Elephant, hedgehog, six-legged dog, space alien looking for a hug.

Today we actually managed to visit a museum. Yay!

The exhibition I wanted to see was 100 Years of Swedish Handicraft. I had a very vague idea about the actual contents of the exhibition – modern takes on traditional crafts was what I thought it was about. Which was technically correct but really didn’t describe the reality very well.

The exhibition turned out to have two distinct parts. Part one was a number of thematic rooms with crafts that mostly combined modern design and ideas with traditional techniques. Woodworking, basket weaving, knitting, embroidery etc. This part was sort of nice but not amazing.

The amazing part was the other one. The other half of the exhibition was called Leaves, and consisted of 2000 wooden leaf-shaped frames that had been decorated by members in various crafts clubs and societies all over Sweden. Each leaf was different, and the variety was incredible. The leaves were arranged in vaguely tree-shaped stands in random order, with no effort to group like with like, which emphasized their variety even more. There were leaves worked in embroidery, knitting, wire, glass, metal, painting… leaves made by young children and by professional designers and craftsmen, leaves made quickly and leaves that must have taken months and months of work, leaves that fit within the organizers’ frames and leaves that broke the rules.

Many craftsters got their ideas from the leaves themselves. Some leaves were simply left to be leaves, beautifully wrought or decorated. Others depicted/were covered with/contained designs of trees, flowers, leaves, etc.

One interesting theme arose from the shape of the frame: its curved shape had led a number of craftsters to interpret it as a womb, and to fill it with a fetus/baby. Another recurring theme was probably born from the fact that the leaf frames were frames: there was a bunch of spiderweb and other web/net designs.

I only wish I could have spent more time and attention on each leaf. With two impatient kids in tow, this was difficult. But there is still more than a month left of the exhibition (until September 2nd) so I am thinking of going back there on my own. And if I do I will make sure to bring my SLR instead of the compact camera I had today.

And to top it all off, all the leaves will be auctioned off on Tradera (the Swedish Ebay equivalent), with proceeds going to charity. I am sorely tempted to buy one, even though (a) I have no idea which one, and (b) I have no idea where I would put it. But there were so many so beautiful things there that I may make the effort to make up my mind.