Making & Hiding Out (d'you see what I did there?)

tea cosy for my sister for Christmas

Frank making golden bicycle wheels at our little class "Art Makers" at the new gallery in town : firstsite.

my tiny stash of very special material made into a little clutch bag, which I am using for small knitting projects. Note the reality of my crafting and do not for a moment imagine I have a "studio" or anything! Nope I craft right alongside the Lego and the puzzles.

updating the nature table with gnomes and gingham hearts from the Christmas decoration stash

Budd making a fabulous shed in the garden, he has worked really hard all week on this, whilst I have worked hard to keep Frank out of his way

Me, making a golden bicycle wheel, taken by Frank

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It has been busy around here with us making, building, creating ...
I finished the tea cosy for my sister for Christmas and am now making very few things for gifts. I made loads last year and it stressed me too much. Crafting and creating is something I do a fair amount of but I want it to kind of unfold naturally. I don't want to be handing over a gift that is only going to receive a lukewarm reception (it happens A LOT!) after I have sat up late trying to complete it. So this winter it's just a tie for Budd, a cowl for Frank and a couple of other gifts before I just knit for pleasure alone.
And next year I have already declared the year of knitting for ME!
That is going to be fun.
This week Frank and I enjoyed our second art class at the fantastic new gallery in Colchester: firstsite.
And Andrew has been spending the week building a shed in the garden; leaping out of bed once it is light and beavering away until it's dark.
He has done an amazing job.
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And onto the hiding out.
I have kind of been ignoring Diabetes Awareness month and not blogging about diabetes.
I think I have reached one of those phases of burnout and am just going with the flow.
In planing what to say here today I wondered if I should admit this.
A great deal of awe is felt here by me when I read other blogs, especially this month.
My stamina seems to have gone AWOL for November!
And, guess what, I wish it hadn't but I feel absolutely no guilt about it.
If I have learnt anything from this carousel of parenting a child with Type 1 Diabetes it is to trust my feelings and emotions and gut reactions to life and my moods.
I appear to have needed a quiet blogging month.
It certainly isn't all tea cosies and soup over here.
We have too many hypos and some ratios that have needed tweaking.
But the nights have been comfortingly predictable (for the first time in about nine months, I realised the other day! Jinkies! No wonder I look 93!).
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And this much I know:
Even when I lapse in regularity in my blogging.
Even when I am a bit lightweight with my post contents.
Even when I can barely function of an evening.
I feel the energy of all the other D-parents and D-friends out there.
Not in a weird way, just in a supportive way.
And I know that should I need to reach out, even after an absence, everyone is still there.
Just as I am.
Still here. Still there. Still reading.
Still Frank's Mama.

The Sky and River in Constable Country

Early this summer we made a family list of all the things we would like to do before summer drew to a close.

Well, today is 28th August and we finally got around to taking Frank out on the River Stour in a rowing boat.

We are all huge fans of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame and love the stretch of water between Dedham and Flatford.

One can walk along the river from the pretty village of Dedham to Flatford along the Stour Valley.

One side of the river is in Essex and the other in Suffolk.

It is our go-to family walk for any occasion.

Once in Flatford there is the water mill and a fab tea room and cafe (always a winner!). The mill was famously painted by John Constable (and by this I mean he painted a picture of it not that he whitewashed it!!).

And if you have a look at his paintings he took such care over and put such detail into his skies. Big billowing clouds, shades of grey, blue and purple.

Wonderful stuff.

These pastoral scenes have become a little over-exposed as they have been used for placemats and tea towels and ties, much like Vincent's sunflowers.

I don't think it is fashionable to love Constable but as he painted the beauty of my home county I feel a great fondness for his work.

So, as you have a look at my two men in a boat, look also behind them to the trees, the willows dangling into the water and that big Constable sky.



They loved it.

Frank, of course, wanted to row and those huge oars weigh a ton for him so he resorted to sitting at the front and either shouting "Ahoy" to other people heading up the river or calling out "Fire the cannons" at them instead.

I sat smiling and hid behind my shades ...

We docked the boat back at the launch jetty and about three seconds later (with no exaggeration) the sky opened and it rained like mad for as long as it took us to run to the van!

We picnicked and steamed the van up as we dried and then drove home via McLaughlan's for sweetcorn fresh from the fields.

A lovely kind of day.

FINTAGE

Quite recently I did a poster for Fintage; a Finnish vintage forum, community and blog. I tried to be somewhat active at the forum when it started a year ago but couldn't keep up as I just don't have the time to blog, tweet, update a facebook page and maybe even read some blogs every now and then... (and, you know, a have life off line too).

The theme of the poster was to be people on a certain bridge in one Finnish city. Can you tell which one? I'm not from around there so I had to rely on photos and google street view for some help :)You can click on the image for a larger view.

(As usual I always end up with two versions, the client's one and a more plain one I prefer, you can view the other one here.)

COME TO FINLAND!

Posters and postcards from the Come To Finland book; a book about vintage travel posters for Finland. I love old travel posters, and well, old posters in general. It's also interesting to see branding for Finland from back in the days.

You can browse the book as a whole online - I found some posters I remember form my childhood that were on the walls of our summerhouse (they still are actually). You can buy the posters and cards separately too, but I'll go for the book (and I actually intend to get it now, and not wait for some years like I unintentionally did with the Jaffas...)

EDIT : I have to add, as I realized many of you do not know; it's interesting and a bit sad too perhaps to see the poster for Wiipuri - Finland lost that big and old city to Soviet after the war, and tens of thousands of people had to leave their homes, buildings and businesses behind. Some of my family lived there in the early 1900's too.

THE BEGINNING, THE END, AND EVERYTHING THERE IN BETWEEN

You know I'm a big fan of animations of different kind, especially stop motion.
I'm also intrigued by so called street art; big fan of Banksy.

This is by Blu, and it's amazing:


It's a little long, I know, but worth watching!
(And as usual thinking about the making of gives me a headache...)

THE BOUDOIR SERIES

The result of the Atelieri shoot a month back, inspired by erotic photographs from the early 1900s (my hand however modestifying the photo a bit, for internet's sake..).

These can be seen along with the rest of the series at the "Alice in Wonderland"- exhibition about contemporary photography at Logomo in Turku, as part of the design capital 2011 happenings.
The exhibition will open on Friday and run until December.

THE JAFFAS

Some years ago I mentioned the Jaffa posters here on this blog; soda advertisements from the late fifties and early sixties that made the billboards again in a retro campaign a few years back. I've always wanted these posters and for some reason I kept on wondering how to get them until it last summer struck me - what the hell is wrong with me? Few things are ever further than a google away!
(Yes, really, sometime I am so old school I actually forget about the internet and think I have to find stuff in real life.)

A few minutes later two of the Jaffas where on their way home to me.

The posters are made by Erik Bruun, one of my favorite Finnish graphic designers (I really love this one too for example :). They can be ordered from his shop.