The making of... tough

I've been quietly making feelings in my studio lately. At a very slow rhythm, really nice to work stressless. Tough is a fun one to make although a bit tedious to get five nicely shaped and sloping cones. When I make tough, I always make a few as it's easier to work in a serie so I get to pick the best cones per feeling.

Flickr Favorites

1. hand dyed color picker, 2. Untitled, 3. pure morning, 4. Bright Pastels 2

The last mosaic of the year 2011 in my series of Flickr Favorites. It's been a fun, moving and colorful year. Searching for images is such an inspirational pasttime & I never look at it as wasted time. I hope you've enjoyed playing along or popping around at Flickr Favorite Tuesday. This will be the last Flickr Favorites too as I want to go 'pressure-less' into 2012 what my blog concerns.
So, I like to thank you for playing along all this time and hope that you'll still make mosaics and enjoy Flickr as much as I do.

Happy holidays

image by Park St.

While things have been a bit quiet around here lately, I now officially want to wish you the best of holidays. May your days be filled with family, warmth and fun. And may those that can not be with you, be near in your heart.
It's been an amazing year for me and I would love to take the opportunity to thank you all for being part of my community by following my blog, supporting my work and for generally being super awesome. I'm so grateful that your support allows me to do what I love and I sure wish that 2012 will be at least equally wonderful! :)

Flickr Favorites

1. handrail, 2. permanent waves,
3. reflection *past,future,present, 4. tregua armata

It's been a long time ago since I made a red and white mosaic. And with X-mas being so close, I think it's a quite appropriate color combo. I love red as a color - it's so vibrant and alive.
Do you think that these are the most used X-mas colors because of Santa's costume?

North Story - OOAK

When Anna from LilaRubyKing was here in November, we did some decal work together. Anna asked me to prepare some special shapes for that. She drew the shapes and I transferred 'em onto clay and handcut 'em. The process is the same as the other pieces but hand cutting each shape makes it even lengthier. And all edges need to be kind of rounded so that it's not too sharp to wear of course. But how fun it has been to work on them together. We were ooh-ing and aah-ing the whole time while making them and it was so much fun.
They have been turned into pendants with a sterling silver chain. And best of all is that they will be one of a kind (OOAK) as the images have been applied much like a collage.A fun detail is that even though we had the same shapes and decals to use, both our work is so different. You can find the ones that I made in my shop and the ones that Anna made in her shop. I went for minimalism while Anna went for artsy. :)
Do you love 'em as much as we do?

The making of... relaxed

After last weeks post of the making of the feeling sad, I though it would be fun to share some more images of how I make the feelings.
Feeling 'relaxed' is certainly one of the more tricky ones to make. It's hard to hold the feeling when I move up the layers towards the top and the edges are very vulnerable while I work on it.

Talking about feeling relaxed - ha - just what I've been doing lately. I'm taking things a bit slower and I'm really enjoying the free time I'm allowing myself.
I think it's a good time of the year to relax, don't you?
So don't worry if I'm not posting regularly these days, that means I'm either reading, knitting, sewing or doing nothing at all. I apologize for being lazy! :)

Flickr Favorites

1. The Door, 2. A door and two shadows,
3. 0328 red door (hdr-cross processed), 4. The seldom-used door.

Belgians have some really weird traditions. I'm not sure that the following is a folk tradition though. Birthday's are celebrated different everywhere and here, when you turn a new decade, there is this expression 'getting a new front door'. And this is what's happening to me today.
So quite often you see a real front door in someone's front yard, and if you're friends are even crazier you see perhaps 30 or 40. Thankfully I don't have any crazy friends who would actually gift me a real frontdoor - what a relieve! I'll just celebrate this quietly, go to work today and then afterwards go out for dinner and enjoy the new number. The older we get, the wiser, right?

Knitting for dummies

I'm not a good knitter. N.o.t. But when I was at Marta's home in September, I saw the knitted blanket again that I fell in love with last year. And then I knew I had to make one for myself.
After all, it's not really difficult to knit, just one row on top of the other.
Marta's blanket is massive and very loosly knitted and contained all left over yarns, so beautiful! Since I'm only a fresh yarn addict, I don't have that many left overs in my stash so I just went out to buy new balls. It's not the same but still, I can't wait till I have enough left overs...
I started this in the beginning of October so progress is really slow but the blanket is superwide - about 2,5 metres (2,75 yard) so I only do a row or 2 at a time. But it's a bit over half a meter long so I'm 1/5 of the way.
It's already cat approved and sometimes she makes it hard for me to knit as she's sitting on top of it while I'm knitting...

The making of... sad

When I make the feeling 'sad', I always make more tears so that I get to pick the perfect ones. It's not easy being a perfectionist... *sigh*

Light in the darkness

Today, Hilde from Blue Celeste came by our home to deliver a lampshade that I ordered. It will bring light in these dark days of December.
I'm loving it to pieces! :)

Pakjesavond = Present night

On monday evening I went to our sew/knit/crochet/craft-group called 'the smart buttons' (Knappe Knoopjes) and we had a small celebration for Sinterklaas called 'present night' (pakjesavond) If you want to read more about the tradition of Sinterklaas, you can read it below.

It kind of felt like being a kid again and I enjoyed seeing all grown ups being really happy with the gift that someone else made and carefully wrapped. I'm really pleased with mine and I managed to make a quick snapshot during my lunchbreak today.
It's made by Katja and she wrapped up 2 beautiful, colorful pouches, actually a pencil case and a clutch. I'm the kind of person who can never have enough pouches so I'm a very, very lucky girl! :) And they are really well made! Love the fabric too! Thank you, Katja!
I'll show you later this week what I've been working on at the craftnight. It was too dark to take pictures when I got back from work. So stay tuned...

Sinterklaas explained

In the fourth century a.d. St. Nicholas (in dutch called "Sinterklaas" or "Sint Nicolaas"; in german called "Sankt Nikolaus") was the bishop of Myra, which is now situated in Turkey. According to the legend, he saved his town from starvation. He is also said to have revived three dead children, and to have offered gifts of dowries to poor girls. Some sources say that he died on the sixth of December in 343. In 1087 his relics were taken to Bari in Italy. It is unclear why, according to the Dutch tradition, he comes from Spain. Possibly it has something to do with the fact that St. Nicholas was the patron of sailors. In the 17th century Holland was famous for its navigation. Maybe by contact with Spanish sailors this myth began. It could also explain why St. Nicholas has "zwarte (black) pieten" to help him because the Moors dominated Spain for several hundreds of years. (Another [more popular] explanation for "zwarte piet" being black is that he has come down the chimneys so often [see below] that he can't wash the dirt off.)

His legendary gifts of dowries to poor girls led to the custom of giving gifts to children on the eve of his feast day, 6 December. The companions of St. Nicholas (in Germany and Austria they are called "Knecht Ruprecht" or "Krampus") show the victory over evil. Together with his "pieten" he visits children to punish the evil ones and to reward the good ones. The worst punishment is to be taken to Spain in "zwarte piet's" bag out of which the good children get the sweets (called "pepernoten", "taai-taai", or "schuimpjes") and presents. A less radical punishment is to get the "roede" (rod) instead of presents. Nowadays there are not much evil children any more...

A few weeks before his feastday St. Nicholas comes to Holland (and Belgium) on his steamer with all his "pieten" and the presents which they prepared in Spain during the year. This event can be seen on Dutch television. From his arrival in Holland till his feastday the children can put their shoes in front of the fireplace. During the night St. Nicholas visits all the houses by travelling over the roofs on his horse, traditionally a white/grey (called "Schimmel" in dutch), and "zwarte piet" enters the houses through the chimney to put little presents in the children's shoes. Sometimes the children put straw, carrots and water near the shoe for the horse.

On the eve of his feast day St. Nicholas visits all children. After knocking on the door he gives them a bag full of presents (if they were good children). Early in the morning of 6 December, when he has visited everyone, he leaves and goes back silently to Spain, to come back next year.

[Source: Coone.com]

Flickr Favorites

1. exhibit three, 2. i will find a way, 3. freezer burn, 4. family planning

It's the first Tuesday of the month so we play by theme if you like. And the theme is 'art'.

I find it hard to capture art in only a few pictures but these ones above came all out of my favorites. Art is different for everyone and for me it needs to be accesible for everyone to have the title 'art'. Quite often when you go to a museum or exhibition you see pieces that are celebrated as art in it's highest form but where I feel it's not just because it's not accesible.
I know art critics disagree with me when I say that I love it when a work has a title/name. For me, that's giving me a glimpse into the artists world and makes me understand the piece better. And even though a piece of art should speak for itself, it still makes a world of difference for me to know what the artist intended it to be through a title.
How do you feel about titles?

The beauty of a second

Seconds Of Beauty - 1st round compilation

from The Beauty Of A Second on Vimeo.

[via HLN]

Montblanc is a German brand of watches and writing instruments and wants to honor the chronograph. It was invented 190 years ago by Nicolas Rieussec, who managed to count time until a fifth of a second. To celebrate that, Montblanc organised a competition for short movies of exactly one second in collaboration with Wim Wenders.
The above video is a compilation of the first short movies that they received and I think it's absolutely beautiful! If you want to enter your second, go here.
Because every second counts...