moments of perfect clarity

Connections — maybe it's all about the yarn

2026-05-14T21:07:16.381+02:00

This post will be a departure for me - in that it has capital letters. I wrote it first over on Substack, but decided I wanted to have it here, where I keep such writing. And I don't have time to undo all the capital letters. Maybe now we'll have a mix here on MPC, or maybe it's the start of something new.

So much going on at the moment. Lots of separate projects coming together. And I’m starting to see how they all fit. And even though there have been moments when none of it seemed like it was headed that way, they DO all fit. The work ones, I knew would eventually fit. It’s the way that the more personal projects are coming together, or blending into the work that is more of a pleasant surprise. It makes me realize that my life is more holistic than I thought. What a revelation.

And weirdly (or not), it all comes down to yarn.

Our local creative group, CreaGive, chose Fifty-fifty as the theme for our yearly exhibition. The only requirement is that the work you bring must measure 50cm x 50cm. It can also be 50cm x 50cm x 50cm, or a cube. I spent a lot of time thinking of ways to break the rules while still technically not breaking the rules. (Hello, that’s who I am.) But I’ve ended up making a cube that does indeed measure 50x50x50. (Probably also, admittedly, who I am.)

I received some wool yarn, left over from industrial carpet production, from a weaver in town who is moving and so she wanted to give away all her weaving supplies (lucky me!). So it was natural to use that. We still have some of the sticks from Syrian artist Nisrine Boukhari’s The Wind’s Home, an ephemeral work that she created near Vejle Fjord in connection with a project for Trapholt Museum, back in 2017. They became the base of the cube.

And speaking of Trapholt, I was part of Astrid Skibsted’s Dataspejlet art project at Trapholt back in 2022. I both embroidered my data (from Facebook, of all places) and wove a section of the weaving done by my weaving group in Randbøldal. It’s when I learned about Astrid’s vikleprøver. And my cube is basically a giant vikleprøve (yarn winding).

So, you might say the cube I’m creating for the Fifty-fifty exhibition has been many years in the making. We are constantly taking in inspiration — through conversations, our eyes, our ears, the things we listen to. And I genuinely think we never know exactly how they will manifest when they become something. But our brains are working on it all in the background and all these impulses ARE becoming something. It’s just a matter of letting it come out.

I don’t really know what it is yet - is it a stool? or a table? a sculpture of sorts? But I will figure that out. Ideally, with enough time (and yarn), I will fully fill it out on all six sides. But for the exhibition, time (and work and other projects) allows only one side of it. But perhaps like life, it takes time to develop into something fully formed and filled out on all sides, connected and whole. I’m loving it as it is right now, but I also can’t wait to see where it’s headed.

I’m also working on a tea towel project. Taking a little break from my self-imposed assignment of weaving Taylor Swift’s albums as tea towels to do some for work. We have this cool drawer-insert contraption that helps you organize your kitchen drawers, but we don’t have proper photos of it. It will perfectly fit 15 tea towels and so I’m working on those. I created a warp that’s mostly white with black edges and stripes and one colorful stripe. I’m going to make it my own by weaving in with colors to make a rainbow of sorts.

I’m also going to change out the red stripe in the warp along the way. That sounds like a crazy idea, but I want to do something challenging and new in every set of tea towels I make. I need to LEARN something here! But really, who changes the warp along the way? And I intend to change it FOUR times!

Turns out I do! And it has worked! I’m happy there’s a four day weekend ahead so I can make lots of headway. I’ve woven the whole first towel since the change from red to orangey-yellow. Two to go before we change it again. I’m so happy to have Emmy, my personal weaving teacher and previous owner of my loom to help me with all of her wisdom and knowledge.

My loom, which is also much more experienced than I am, is also my friend in this project. Sitting at it, weaving these tea towels, the latest in a long line of creative, strong women to sit there, is such a privilege. The threads I’m working with, connecting me to them with every pass of the shuttle. The connections we weave to make up our lives take my breath away. Maybe it really does all come down to yarn.

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what a way to spend the easter holiday

2026-04-04T00:01:00.001+02:00

signs of spring. tulips in the window. snowdrops and crocus in the garden. a little warmer weather would be welcome. i've got one of those change-of-season colds — a head full of snot, ears all plugged, sore throat and an annoying cough.

i started this four days ago. i think now it's more than a cold. i think i have the cicada variant of covid. this, despite actually being vaccinated back in november because i volunteered to be part of a study. i can't get my hands on a test to find out for sure, but it's been quite a bit more than just the cold i thought i had at first. i've had industrial quantities of snot coming out of my head. i seriously have wondered how it was even possible. my stomach muscles are getting a workout from all the coughing. i keep spiking a fever. and i wake myself up coughing. my left ear is completely plugged. i made indian food for dinner tonight (butter chicken & saag aloo) and could scarcely taste a thing. the family thought it was good. it feels like a waste of a perfectly good easter holiday.

husband is off to ukraine on a short trip

2026-03-14T20:48:00.003+01:00

husband and a good friend left this morning to deliver these two vehicles to lviv. this trip will be quick and less nerve-wracking than the last one. they'll drop the cars off and then take a bus to warsaw and fly back home on monday. the cars have been donated by the danish geodatastyrelsen. they were used to drive around denmark, mapping everything and had been phased out of use. but they still have a lot of km in them. they're stuffed to the gills with all kinds of things - i saw heaters and pet food and more. i love and admire husband so much for doing this.

i'm hanging out with my molly bestie (yes, that minnesota kitty we brought home back in 2012), indulging my new obsession with making beaded rings - i bought one in portugal and came home and bought beads and watched a youtube tutorial and learned to make them.

he just called and they have stopped for the night in katowice, poland. he sounded tired. he said the hotel was really nice and they were about to go find some dinner. this trip definitely feels like it's lighter for both of us. no trip all the way east looming ahead. just popping to lviv and then heading home.

since i was up early to see them off, i spent most of my day doing much-needed tidying up around here. i took everything off what we call the pirate shelf - our first piece of furniture that we bought together - and thoroughly dusted and washed everything, vacuumed up the spider webs and enjoyed putting it all back and thinking about each item. weird moment of enjoying cleaning.

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i genuinely can't decide if this is terrifying or reassuring - the philosopher who is training claude.

gatherings and random thoughts

2026-02-13T12:58:00.000+01:00

i shared before that i did a little ritual to celebrate the solstice. this was the intention that was left at the end of 12 days of burning intentions. "have people over at least once a month." i'll admit, i was a little disappointed at first. but interestingly, since this became my intention, the notion of gathering people together keeps popping up everywhere. like in this really wonderful episode of ezra klein's podcast.

so, what have i done to fulfill this intention so far? in january, i hosted a board meeting of our little creative group, creagive, at my house. i made ramen for everyone and we ate together and had our meeting. most of the members had to google what ramen was, but they left with full bellies and their horizons expanded. and i had some nice company in the middle of husband's trip to ukraine, which i really needed to distract me from worrying about him. a couple of days later, i had some old colleagues who have become friends over for the same meal. so i hosted twice in january. make that three times - we also invited a neighbor who is moving over for fastelavnsboller and to see my weaving studio one sunday afternoon.

tomorrow, i'm hosting three good friends for a little galentine's celebration in the afternoon. just really good coffee and small chocolate lava cakes, which i will make for the first time. i was so happy to be planning this, that i decided to make a small handmade valentine for each of them - a little stitched heart-shaped brooch for each. it was lovely to spend a couple of evenings crafting these, one for each of my friends, thinking about what they might like and seeing where my supply stash and creativity would take me. a little burst of creativity that was a surprising side-effect of my resolution to have people over.

i'm pondering the party we're going to have in the summer to celebrate my citizenship, husband's 61st birthday, my 59th and our 27th wedding anniversary. it bugs me that people only do a big celebration on the "big" numbers - we "should" have done one for our 60th or for our 25th anniversary, but i resist the tyranny of convention and so why not celebrate 61 and 59 or 27 years?

my friend said she had been thinking of themes for the party - something i hadn't considered. and now i can't stop thinking about it. what if everyone had to come in a blow-up costume like my beloved t-rex? my friend suggested taylor swift albums, but husband wasn't so keen on that. husband and i discussed maybe a james bond theme last evening, that would fit us both.

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an insane amount of questions regarding the new citizenship law from one (racist?) member of the committee who happens to be a member of dansk folkeparti?

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funny how he got parked in strange corners all over the company and never made VP, despite being there for 39 years...just seems a little weird, don't you think?

and yes, i'm still a little bit bitter.

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ugh, the knitting community on social media is a pretty toxic place. i wouldn't even know about this, since it's happening on instagram, but knittok is talking about it as well. why are women so nasty to one another? and why do people think knitting designers owe them something?

my brain is buzzing

2026-01-22T23:07:00.002+01:00

full credit to my sister for this photo. it's early morning purple aurora skies over the old barn from the back steps of our childhood home, which is now her home. purple has always been one of my favorite colors and though i go away from it, i always come back. i recently bought a purple sweater and some very cool purple and gold brocade pants, so it's back in my life. it often figures in the mild synesthesia i have in certain situations - i see swirls of purple and pink, quite like this photo, actually. though sometimes it's purple and peach or purple and green. i think purple comforts me.

my brain is buzzing. i haven't slept well since sometime last week. i might have mentioned that husband is currently driving around in ukraine, delivering all kinds of humanitarian aid. he visited an animal shelter today and delivered a lot of pet food and other supplies. a kind woman has taken in cats and dogs that people had to leave behind as they fled. he said they had 23 dogs and 48 cats and it was immaculate. i'm certain the food he delivered was much appreciated. i get tears in my eyes just writing this. but dang, it's keeping me from getting a good nights' sleep.

i feel like i'm absorbing all of the anxiety of the world. or channeling it. or something that's hard to describe. it's rather unpleasant. and it isn't conducive to proper sleep or firing on all cylinders at work. maybe i'll feel normal again when husband is home. but maybe i won't. maybe trump will have invaded greenland. maybe that bill to do away with dual citizenship in the US will pass. if it does, i know which i will choose, if only i would get the letter to say it's official.

the healing energy of a cube

2026-01-20T19:44:00.003+01:00

i'm not generally a worrier. i can take things as they come as a general rule, but this time, with husband in ukraine, i'm having some anxiety. it's probably the world in general. the country of my birth is about to attack and take a territory of my chosen country by force, starting ww3, so it's no wonder. there's a shit ton of anxiety in the air, so i guess it's not rocket science that i'm feeling it more acutely this time.

i stopped by my friend emmy's to drop off some weaving supplies last evening after work and she offered to make a simple dinner of creamy mushrooms on toast and a lovely winter salad. i gratefully accepted. while she cooked, i sat on the cube that she got when we visited weaver hanne vedel's studio last year. i closed my eyes and felt the energy from this beautifully woven work flow into me. it felt like a comforting, warm blanket settling over me.

emmy put on p8 jazz and i sat there and felt the hum of positive, calming energy coming from the cube and the whole atmosphere. i felt in touch with the calm, warm, powerful energy that hanne must have had as she wove the cloth that became this cube. breathing in the delicious fragrance of the creamy mushrooms simmering, i closed my eyes and listened to the music. colors began to dance in front of my eyes and i could feel the anxiety fade. it wasn't gone, but it became manageable. it was just what i needed.

aurora borealis

2026-01-20T18:59:00.004+01:00

like most things, the sun is going a little bit crazy at the moment. there's a major solar storm going on. it was clear and cold here and i couldn't sleep anyway. i was worried about whether husband had made it to poltava and whether he was safe and i hadn't heard from him. i'm not normally one to worry, but these are anxious times and his trip is something to concretely worry about, rather than the general sense of worry and embarrassment caused by the spray-tanned satan on the daily. so it means i'm not sleeping all that well while he's away. i found myself awake a little before 2 a.m. and a text rolled in from my sister. she follows the antics of the sun and she messaged that we were ripe for auroras. so, since i was awake anyway, i went outside. and these are what i saw. right here in my own back yard. i'm almost hoping for another restless night tonight.

a good bubble bath can cure a lot of ills

2026-01-18T15:57:00.000+01:00

the upstairs bathroom is shaping up. i told husband that what i most wanted for christmas was to be able to take a bath in that bathtub. he worked his tail off in every spare minute for about a month up to christmas and on christmas day, i did indeed get to have my first bubble bath. sabin brought me some lush bubble bombs from lisbon. i lit some candles and it was absolute bliss.

there's still some painting to be done around the edges and husband wants to finish the window sills with some epoxy to protect from the water, but it's completely usable and wonderful. the floor looks amazing together with the shiny green tiles.

the shower, which is separate and not in these photos, isn't finished yet, but i don't mind. i'd rather have a bath anyway. the little bench in the corner covers up some pipes, but we turned it into a cozy little corner with some cushions. i'm not sure it's actually logical to sit there and relax, but i love how cozy it looks.

after husband left for ukraine yesterday, i wandered around the house, feeling at loose ends and like i couldn't settle down to anything. so i ran a hot bath with plenty of bubbles, lit some candles and tried to quiet my worries. there's a lot of madness in the world today, but a good bubblebath can at least give a moment or two of peace and comfort.

he's off again

2026-01-17T18:32:00.003+01:00

i'm home alone for the next 9-10 days. i didn't really use my time all that wisely today. i got up at 4:30 to see husband off on his latest trip to ukraine. we had breakfast with the group who is driving while they printed off all the customs papers they will need and then i came back home after seeing him off. and then i kind of wandered around the house, wondering what to do with myself. it's not that there's nothing i could do, i just felt a bit unmotivated to do any of it.

i have such mixed feelings about the trip. i so admire him for doing it and yet i'm so worried about him staying safe. i just want him to come home in one piece. i'm going to try to enjoy girl dinners and watching all the secret lives of mormon wives and real housewives that i want and just count the days until he comes home.

there's so much craziness and uncertainty in the world today and i can feel pretty helpless against it. i think husband does too and this is his way of doing something about it. i can only admire and support that, even if it will give me some restless, sleepless nights for the next week or so.

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i saw a truck from multiform kitchens, a high end, very expensive kitchen brand, delivering to the church planting neighbors today. i wonder if those donors at those churches in missouri and nebraska know they're funding a high end kitchen at a home they also helped pay for in denmark? 🧐

no idea what a christian is anymore 🧐

2026-01-09T17:49:00.003+01:00

this is one of those, i have to write about this in order to figure out what i think about it posts. we've had, for us, quite a lot of snow this week. today, it was sunny, clear and cold and very windy. the wind caused quite a lot of drifting across various roads in our area. i didn't walk far enough to actually show you how bad it is, so this picture doesn't actually do it justice. i decided to take another way around to get into town to get groceries and i got thoroughly stuck in a snowdrift. i oddly neglected to take a photo of my predicament. i called husband, who wasn't anywhere near home, to tell him what happened. he laughed, told me to go home and get a shovel and come back and start digging. i was definitely NOT wearing the right clothes for that task, but i was about a kilometer from home, so i walked back home to change clothes and get a shovel.

in the meantime, i asked husband if he could call the farmer who rents our field, to ask him if he could come with a tractor and pull me out. he could. i said i'd run home to change into proper winter clothing (thank goodness sabin got two pairs of moonboots on vinted for christmas) and i'd meet him back at the car.

i bundled up, found a little shovel, just in case, and headed back. as i was walking back, i noticed that our new neighbors were standing out by the road by their driveway. they are actually fellow americans and they are here in denmark as missionaries (apparently the danes are godless heathens, despite the fact that we have a state religion here and virtually everyone is lutheran).

when they first moved in back in october, husband and i took a couple of my many avocado plants over and welcomed them to the neighborhood. they didn't even really invite us in that day and we stood awkwardly in the entryway, talking to the wife and her mother who was here from nebraska, helping them move. while we talked, a couple of the sons (they have 3 and 1 daughter) also said hello. but we haven't met the husband or the daughter or the eldest son. it all seemed a little weird.

even weirder, when they looked up and saw me headed their direction, they went further into their property, seemingly to avoid talking to me. i'd think a bundled up woman in a blizzard, carrying a shovel, might warrant a, "hey, do you need help?" but i don't even think i would have gotten a hello without my saying hello first. it was weird, to say the least.

i wouldn't have actually taken them up on help, as i knew help was on the way, but honestly, i think it would have just been neighborly politeness to offer. i find it absurd that they are in denmark to "church plant" (according to one website i found) and they don't even display the slightest hint of christian kindness. what kind of christianity are they here to spread? i am honestly perplexed and a little offended.

yes, we have painted viking symbols on our house. but they don't even know us and haven't talked to us. what kind of attitude is it to see me coming and move further in to avoid even greeting me, especially in weather conditions like today's? what kind of christianity is that? i don't know if they're trumpy, but this makes me suspect they are. but christianty aside, i honestly would have expected more polite kindness from our next-door neighbors.

it feels like yet another symptom of a world that's just completely out of wack. luckily, the actual danes in the neighborhood were quick to help me. when i got to my car, the farmer was there with his tractor, along with another farmer with a big snow mover scoop. one pulled me out and the other cleared the road while we went to the other end, so that i could turn around and drive back home. dinner will just have to be what i already have in the fridge. and i'm thankful for the good people who do live in our area.

2025 :: the year in pictures

2026-01-01T21:52:00.004+01:00

that old daily photo project continues. i've been doing it more or less since i got that first dslr in singapore in may 2008. i'm clearly not actively trying to improve my photography these days, but more to document my life and help myself remember everything that happens throughout the year. the vast majority of my photos come from my iPhone these days, but i don't mind. i spent a bit of this lazy first day of 2026 looking back at 2025.

january - the year started off pretty focused on textiles. knitting sophie scarves and weaving tea towels for husand's oldest. there was the weird incident with the swan on the road. i actually tried to scooch him off the road, since he was just sitting there and i feared a car would hit him. we called animal control and they came and instead of taking him away, they humanely put him down, since he apparently had the bird flu! the first swan i ever touch and it had the bird flu. luckily, i didn't get it.

february - it was a pretty creative month, weaving, knitting, attending a talk with astrid skibsted, expanding my grove of avocado trees to include some lychee trees. we ate too many fastelavnsboller, as usual, but they're so yummy and their time is so fleeting.

march - i went to arizona for possibly the last time. it was honestly a very nice trip - i celebrated my birthday while i was there and i also visited with family in minneapolis on the way. i did a radio appearance when i got home. and i started planning my first eras tea towels. mazi had her kittens while i was gone.

april - the first rhubarb, weaving, a loom for the museum, a one day course with weaving legend winnie poulsen, doing some podcast interviews for work, and a party in the heart of copenhagen. it's funny how you can fill your days with work and creative projects and almost forget that the country of your birth is being dismantled in the most brutal manner.

may - husband did a heroic humanitarian aid trip to ukraine. the lilacs and the rapeseed were in full bloom. i got two sweet ducks and finished the first batch of taylor swift-inspired tea towels for the lover album. i helped a friend paint her dying sister's casket. it was a most intense day that spanned every emotion - we laughed and cried and laughed again. i got started on the next era - reputation.

june - was all about 3daysofdesign. the festival itself is only 3 days, but a lot of planning and work went into it. i still found time to make elderflower and rhubarb cordial and finish the reputation tea towels. i got started on my summer weaving project - rainbow sherbet.

july - the child moved home from arizona and it was so good to have her home. i admit it was a big relief. we had a gathering with friends in the garden, enjoyed the summer produce, and i wove a lot of tea towels.

august - weaving, volunteering at the museum, playing tourist in copenhagen and my first week at a højskole weaving course. it was a good summer and all too short. i did a warp for the next era - speak now - mostly because i had the right colors for it and a plan for what to learn this time (something called color effect)

september - it was time for the child to start her next chapter (a master's program) in lisbon. i joined the noma coffee club and had the best coffee i've ever tasted. the harvests continued and it started to be knitting weather again. and we started up the bracelet production again to prepare for the release of the life of a showgirl.

october - life of a showgirl came out and the binge listening began. i went to masker i marsken, a knitting festival in højer, and realized i had become an astrid skibsted groupie. i so enjoy her workshops, i get new ideas every time. i started to develop an idea for a weaving project, involving weaving a message into the work in sound waves. i met weaving legend hanne vedel. i created a work for our annual exhibition, using my great grandmother's quilts. we got the coolest floor in our bathroom.

november - our annual trip to højer with our creative group was a much needed creative break. my sister took amazing photos of the northern lights. i inherited a bunch of art and weaving supplies from the same source as my newest loom. i visited the lærke bagger pop-up at arken and was, as usual, inspired by textiles. i finished a new runner for the kitchen just before hosting our best thanksgiving ever.

december - felt like a whirlwind. several weekends volunteering at our local museum. then lots of visitors over christmas. i requested that for christmas i wanted to be able to take a bath in our new bathroom upstairs, so husband worked his butt off tiling to make that happen. it makes me very happy. my sister came for christmas (she knitted that awesome sparkly pink scarf i'm wearing in the middle photo!) and some old friends also stopped by for a visit. we continued our tradition of a christmas eve charcuterie board.

the year felt like a good one from my little corner of it. with everything going on - war in ukraine, trump and all of his destruction of, well, everything, plus his designs on greenland - it feels a bit strange to say that. but my little corner really was filled with creativity, laughter, good times and people that i love. i'll have some more of that in 2026, please.

ringing in the new year 🥂

2026-01-01T16:08:00.004+01:00

sent 2025 out with a bit of sparkle. ✨ let's hope that 2026 is better. we had a great evening with friends eating a lovely meal and playing a game called "ego," which i have to admit didn't really seem that egotistical, so i don't entirely understand the name. it was really thought-provoking and we laughed a lot. we got home very late (around 5 a.m.) and slept in. it was the perfect end to the year and the perfect start to the new one. still a few days of holiday left, so it's a soft start to 2026. happy new year, one and all. 🍾🥂

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i'm doing wendy macnaughton's 30-day draw together challenge again this year. wanna join?

what i knitted this year

2025-12-21T23:50:00.005+01:00

on january 1, 2025, i finished my first ever sophie scarf, the ubiquitous pattern by petite knit. it was to be the first of many. it's a little wonky and i hadn't yet learned an easy way to keep track of how many rows i needed between my increases, but it's warm and i still love the color.

it was soon followed by a second one, which i finished january 20. there were also mistakes, but i soldiered on and when i wear it, no one can see them. it was fun to work with two yarns and see how the variegated silk mohair changed the vibe as i went along.

and then january 26 there was suddenly a 3rd one in pink. i was getting the hang of it, but still a little inconsistent in counting those rows and remembering which side my increases should happen on.

february 14, i gave myself a valentine in the form of a sophie hood. it's made of soft blue permin tweed that i found on sale at my local yarn shop. the child appropriated it in november, but she will be giving it back when i finish a cream colored one for her.

march 1, i finished a brown sophie scarf for my sister. still with a few imperfections, but i was finally getting there on figuring out where i was at and i think i even managed to keep the increases all in the same side.

i finished a green sparkly sophie scarf on the plane to arizona on march 13, but neglected to take a photo of it finished. i immediately embarked on the next one.

march 27, i finished my first cashmere sophie scarf and decided that all sophie scarves should probably be cashmere. this one was for husband's middle child's birthday.

april 20th, i finished a brown cashmere one for myself, but then later gave it to a friend.

i had a period over the summer where i was weaving more than knitting, but i did manage to finish a light blue sophie scarf with a sparkle thread around the end of may. i think i finished my pink one around this time as well, or a little before, but weirdly failed to take a picture of the finished product. the pink one is cashmere and was also held together with a sparkle thread.

summer was approaching and my sophie scarf production slowed to a trickle. but i had to do one in a bright, cobalt blue. i finished it sometime in early june.

so far, this is pretty much the year of the sophie scarf, and we were only halfway through. then i took a bit of a break and did a lot of weaving over the summer. summer feels less like knitting weather.

september 20, i finished my first sweater vest. mistakes were made. but i've worn it quite a lot since making it. i immediately started on a pink one in the same pattern. held with a sparkle thread, of course. alas, it's not done yet.

december 6, i finished another sophie hood, made with the beautiful japanese noro yarn i got when i was in minnesota in march. i held it together with a lovely silk mohair thread to make it softer.

it was so fun to make another sophie hood, i dug out some cream yarn with neon flecks in it and immediately made another, finishing it dec. 16, because i was sick and able to hang out on the couch knitting for an entire weekend. the child wants one in plain cream, so i've already started that one, hoping i might be able to finish before she heads back to portugal.

and that's it, all of the finished knitting projects for 2025. i do have quite some WIPs built up and it's one of my intentions for 2026 to finish all of them up. we'll have to see how that goes!

celebrating the solstice

2025-12-21T23:04:00.001+01:00

i've long wanted to do something special to celebrate the winter solstice. i saw a tiktok that suggested that you write down 13 intentions, cut them apart and fold them up and put them in a jar. then, every day for 12 days, you burn one of them without looking at it. then my sister sent me that very same tiktok, so i decided this was the year to begin celebrating the solstice with this ceremony. i convinced the child and her friend to do so as well. on the 13th day, you open the last intention and read it and it's the main one for your year ahead. it will be interesting to see which one remains. it felt really nice to do something to mark the shortest day before the light begins to turn again.

what i wove this year

2025-12-15T09:45:00.007+01:00

we're closing in on the end of the year. what a shitshow this year has been, watching that spray-tanned satan and his band of evildoers dismantle everything good about the country of my birth is disheartening to say the least. so i'd much rather focus on something positive and creative. like everything that i wove this year!

i started off with tea towels for husband's eldest. we made the warp just before the end of 2024 and i finished them up february 19. 11 finished tea towels! they were made in colors she requested. i managed to make a few of them more my style by going for a madras plaid look adding some orange and red. i keep one from every warp for myself, as a memory of what i've woven. she got six of them and the rest were sold or given as gifts.

on april 5, we created the warp for taylor swift's lover album, starting my quest to weave all of taylor swift's albums as tea towels. i wanted it to sparkle like the lover bodysuit and sparkle it did! i think emmy, my weaving mentor, wanted to talk me out of it, but in the end, we are both glad she didn't. it took awhile, but i finished the warp on may 18. 13 finished tea towels!

on may 24, i started right in on the next album - reputation. it was quite the departure for me to work in black and white and grey, rather than a colorful warp. i broke up the monotony a bit by weaving in a bit of red and green sparkle. i also had a different kind of silver and black sparkle thread in the warp, but it didn't behave nearly as well as the sparkle thread i used in the lover warp. lesson learned there! i took them off the loom june 28. i got 13 finished tea towels from this warp, though there are only 10 in this photo. i had to weave some extra ribbon for the straps, so the last three weren't finished yet in this photo.

on june 29, we already made the next warp - i took a break from the taylor swift project to weave a good long summery warp that i called rainbow sherbet. i finished it already on august 9 - 21 tea towels! unfortunately, they're already gone - as gifts and one person bought six of them for christmas presents! husband's middle daughter also got six of them for her kitchen. i wove in with some sparkly threads and all the ones she chose had those.

then the loom rested while i went on a week-long weaving course at skals, where i wove 8 small test weavings with 8 different techniques. i didn't want to put a new warp on the loom in case i learned something that i wanted to try out immediately when i got home. there are two that i will do for future warps in my eras tour project.

on august 24, it was back to my taylor swift eras project. we made the warp for speak now. i had the yarn for that one is more or less why that album was the next one. i've actually not gotten very far on this one, so i can't show the finished product yet. i chose to play with what's called "color effect" and i can feel that i'm already bored with it before i'm even really started.

i have to pull myself together and get to work on it. this was just the end, or should i say the beginning, where i get the warp started and try weaving a bit with all of the colors to see how they look together. as you can see, i've tried a couple of sparkle threads as well to amuse myself. i have a stack of these weavings to make small bags/purses out of, but i have yet to make any. instead, i've turned to knitting of late, though not on my christmas sweater that should have been finished last christmas, but more about that in a knitting wrap-up post.

i did finish one more thing on the little loom in 2025. i took a new rag rug runner for the kitchen off the loom november 19. i've come a long way in my weaving ability since i did the first one down in randbøldal 5 years ago. it looks so nice, i really love it! there's still 6-7 meters of warp on the little loom, to make some more rugs, so i just have to tear up some old duvet covers and get going. this one took me most of the year - i can see in my photos (that daily photo project is still coming in handy), that i started this one february 9. it was a bit tedious, laying in each strip of fabric and making them meet and lay just right. but that's why it's nice to have two looms, so you can move between projects according to what you feel like doing.

i got some wool ready to try my hand at making a proper wool rug on that warp, but have made two attempts and am not keen on it, so i frogged it back again (not sure it's called frogging when you weave) and i'm not sure what i will make next. probably another rag rug with some old duvet covers in shades of pink and green that i can use in the bedroom.

a total of 58 tea towels and one four-meter long rug woven this year. if i'd kept up my head of steam, it could have been more, but weaving just takes the time it takes and that's a big part of what i love about it.

reading can take you anywhere

2025-11-22T22:56:00.001+01:00

i had a most interesting conversation with husband's eldest this evening. she is consciously cultivating an interest in reading. she joined a book club, she went to a book forum (bookcon?), and has even already bought tickets to next year's edition of the same. she had a terrible teacher early in her primary school years, so this is a brand new interest and one she's choosing intentionally. i admire her for that.

she asked me what i like to read. i said, "everything." and that's mostly true. of course, i have things i like better than others. i can reread/re-listen to the mrs. pollifax novels endlessly. but i did study russian literature, so reading has always been a very big interest for me.

still, i found it hard to recommend books to her. she said what she likes best is what's called "fagliteratur" in danish. which means non-fiction, specific topic-related stuff. she was reading a book called "tarme med charme" (which means, loosely translated, "the charm of the intestines," which oddly rhymes in danish). she admitted she wasn't keen on the style of the book. i could have told her that from the overly cutesy title. ugh.

i recommended murakami, some of the james bond novels written post ian fleming, but sanctioned by his estate (anthony horowitz and kingsley amis come to mind), danish author solvej balle, who just had a great feature in the nytimes, and gabriel garcia marquez. i tried to describe some of the books to her, but then she said she had trouble with fiction because, "what should i use that for?"

i was stymied by that response. what can i say? there's nothing you can't use it for. you can use it for everything. you can use it for how to live your life. you can use it to open you to the world and experiences you wouldn't otherwise experience. you can use it to cry, to laugh, to process what you think about the world. i tried to express that to her, but it wasn't easy. and it oddly sounded a bit vague.

how can you tell someone that books can transport them to worlds they would never have imagined if that part of their imagination isn't turned on? what book would it take to turn it on? how do i take her from the charms of the intestines to lincoln in the bardo or quichotte? or the wind-up bird chronicle?

it's so encouraging that she wants to read to expand her horizons, but what's the best way in that takes baby steps, but opens up a world that hasn't previously been open?

thank you, molly!

2025-11-21T22:49:00.000+01:00

this week, i stopped by a random stranger's house, which is near my work in aarhus, to pick up a little parcel from my bloggy friend molly. it's a small world. a friend in south africa who i've never met in person, but who feels like one of my oldest friends, 🫶 sends an envelope for me with someone she's working with who happens to live in denmark. and it totally brightened my day in this dark time of year. it's a lovely blank book, a sticker, some tags, a cool capetown patch and a notebook that can stick to the refrigerator. i will smile and think of molly every time i see these things and use them. and i will be grateful all over again for this space and the whole bloggy universe, even if it isn't what it once was. i hope this friend of molly's work will take her back to capetown so i can return the favor. and if that's the case, molly, i hope you like taylor swift tea towels. 😘

this week in seven senses

2025-11-16T18:01:00.002+01:00

i enjoy reading the seven senses substack. the seven senses are the ones that come to mind - see, hear, taste, touch, smell, plus two that are a little more thought-provoking - balance and envision. i decided to try my hand at noting down something from those 7 senses that i experienced this week. it seems like a noble exercise.

see

i stopped by arken, a modern art museum south of copenhagen. i wanted to see this lærke bagger popup. lærke bagger is a famous danish knitter who has written two books that are part knitting pattern book and part autobiography. the sweaters in the photo are her "inner child" sweater, knitted by people all over denmark (and probably the world). each knitted with their own colors and their own stories. i didn't knit one (yet), but i'm impressed by those who did. anytime you gather a bunch of similar things together, it's impressive. there are so many stories there in those fibers, you could feel the energy of them all in the room.

there was another exhibition there by an artist called kenneth rasmussen. he has a manic need to knit plastic bags and it resulted in this amazing installation. doing your obsession in a huge quantity can really turn into something. that's quite reassuring to a person who has currently made it her mission to weave all of taylor swift's albums as tea towels.

hear

what i'm listening to is a bit mainstream, but that's just how it is. i can't get enough of taylor swift's life of a showgirl. i listen on repeat and i play the songs in order and i don't skip any. my current favorite is elizabeth taylor. but i also really like opalite. i feel like i'm officially a real swiftie now and this one will be my album. i can't wait to weave it.

taste

i made this yuzu curd for some cupcakes i took to a gathering with my old colleagues. it's yuzu season and i ordered two boxes from freshland. it's such a delicate flavor. the cupcakes went over well. and i just ordered one more box. the season is short and i absolutely love the citrus perfume-y taste. i might even go non-traditional and do a yuzu pavlova for thanksgiving.

touch

this is a little twist of what's left of a warp that was made by a weaver named anne grete buhl. i'm not even sure what she made of out of it, but now i have her loom and some of her weaving yarn. these are silk fibers and i love the colors. and i love how they feel in my hand. i'm sure they contain a story. and now i get the chance to continue that story.

smell

i'm finding smell to be hard. for one thing, there's no good photo for it. as we opened all of the boxes today from anne grete's home, it released a stale old house smell into the room. they had been in her empty house and she died a number of months ago, so i suppose that's natural. she was battling cancer in her final years and no doubt it developed over that time too. the loom i got from her also smelled like smoke. she had smoked for many years and it had penetrated the loom. i spent hours this summer, cleaning it and scrubbing off all of the nicotine. i wondered at one point if we should just make a bonfire, but i think it's more or less ok now. i think the fibers and fabrics can also be freshened up.

balance

i've had a few situations recently that have upset or frustrated me. i endured a long drive where the main topic was boring car-related talk. like about the best way to take care of your brakes as well an extensive discussion of the switch from summer to winter tires. towards the end of it (i had forgotten my airpods, so i was trapped in the back seat where it was difficult to contribute (what would i have said anyway?) but impossible to tune it out), i thought about opening the door and jumping out. it was that bad. then last friday, one of the same colleagues made two outrageously sexist comments during a presentation. he thought he was being funny. but it wasn't. it's 2025 and he's a director. totally inappropriate. anyway. the point of these dumb stories is that coming home and hanging out with molly can make it all better. she is my balance.

envision

my sister snapped this picture of the northern lights this week from the yard of our childhood home in south dakota. the sun has been crazy active and so the auroras were strong. alas, it was too cloudy here in denmark, so i didn't get to see any, but man, have i enjoyed her photos. i feel like they could inspire a weaving. look at those amazing colors!

weekend getaway

2025-11-10T20:23:00.006+01:00

our local creative group went on our yearly trip down to the bottom lefthand corner of denmark - højer. (is that how we're supposed to describe a country? i think maybe the picture in my head is too related to the map.) we've been going for quite some years now. there's an affordable big old house we can rent where we can all sleep (it sleeps 13) and an atelier where we can paint and dance and make a mess. and we did all of that. plus making ourselves some lovely food and drinking slightly too much wine and snaps and something called a half bitter that tasted a bit like christmas. four of the ladies are in their 80s and they are all super cool and fun, each in their own way. i hope to be as curious, funny and spry as they all are should i reach their age.

one of them painted this watercolor of some members of the group when we went to the beach. i had immediately gone down towards the water, so i'm not in this one. i was wearing clothes that blended into the landscape anyway.

we all go on these weekends needing something different. some need companionship and people to talk to. some need a break and a change of scenery. i think we all want to be creative. we all bring too many materials. i took four knitting projects (i worked on 3 of them), some watercolors, some journals, fabric and hand-dyed embroidery wool and my linoleum cutting tools. i had no idea what i would want to work on. i think what i ultimately wanted to work on was the food that i made. i bought some beautiful raviolis at the italian supermarket in copenhagen and made three different sauces for them for everyone to enjoy on friday.

of course, i found myself wanting to work on a knitting project that i hadn't brought along. that's the way it always is. you think you're bringing all the options you have then your brain thinks of something new when it can't have it. at least i restrained from buying new yarn. and that in spite of visiting a yarn shop! all i brought home were sausages from the local butcher and enough renewed energy from all the laughter to last the week.

the emerald jade bathroom

2025-10-26T13:21:00.002+01:00

remember that cool floor we got in what's now my weaving studio? now there's one in our upstairs bathroom as well! we're thinking of it as the emerald jade room now! it just went in this morning, so it's not even dry yet. i'll share more photos when it is dry. we're going to leave this one high gloss (we think). soon we'll have a full bathroom that we can use! i can't wait! the never-ending house project marches forward.

weaving secret messages

2025-10-22T21:37:00.003+02:00

i'm not sure if i've mentioned this here, but husband is the kind of guy who is utterly unafraid to rethink things. so after we added the new roof a few years ago, he decided to move the stairs to get to the second floor from where he had originally thought they would be. this involved building a couple of extra meters onto the back of the house. as one does. but it being a rather large undertaking and him being a one-man show, he has discovered that they don't match up 100% as accurately as he would have liked. he thinks this can be hidden by covering that portion of the ceiling with a really cool weaving.

as one has the weaving bug, i am on board with this, so i am very deep in planning what said weaving should look like. it's not a tiny undertaking, as it's 166cm wide and about 6 meters long. times two. so needless to say, i am looking for inspiration, as i'm still a baby weaver. i know that my loom can handle whatever i throw its way, as it's much more experienced and wise than i am.

i have this idea that whatever i weave, needs to contain a secret, meaningful message. and since i've been spending a lot of time in the studio, working on a podcast for work, it hit me that it would be possible to weave sound waves. they would look like a cool pattern and if you knew what it represented, it would also contain a message. since that occurred to me, i can't shake the idea. i recorded a meaningful message in the studio the other day and took a photo of the sound wave. i think it has potential.

i ordered up a bunch of weaving books from the library. this one about danish weaver bodil bødtker-næss had some very interesting inspiration in it. it was all i could do not to write and underline everywhere in the book, but i did restrain. i've definitely got to order this one so that i can write in my own copy.

and fold down a bunch of pages, like this one. she wove panels to divide a big open office space for danske bank back in the 70s. they don't look entirely unlike sound waves, eh?

this one could also have a sound wave vibe.

and this one definitely does. i don't think i will directly copy any of these, but they do give me some ideas for how i could approach this. combined with the idea of mounting a weaving on a wooden frame, which i saw at hanne vedel's workshop, i think an idea is forming. but i've yet to settle on a color scheme. i'm doing a few watercolor sketches to try to work out some ideas. i think husband will even build a tiny miniature version of the frames we might want to mount the weavings on, so we can create a paper version.

i made a test sheet with all of my potential colors. i got some cool gansai tambi japanese watercolors to play with.

the planning is half the fun. but husband is impatient for me to get started. i'm not even sure yet what kind of yarn to use - linen? wool? cotton? it's quite the adventure.

danish weaver hanne vedel

2025-10-22T12:56:00.001+02:00

the amazing danish weaver hanne vedel, who is 94 and still weaving, held an open house during the autumn holiday last week. we went to visit her. she was taught to weave by cis fink, one of the classic old danish weaving teachers who originally owned my loom. this photo above is of hanne vedel on the left and emmy, my personal weaving teacher and the one who gave me my loom, which once belonged to cis fink. i feel so privileged to have met hanne vedel and even more privileged to own a loom with such history.

hanne vedel is one of the most prolific and famous danish weavers of the 20th century. this is a bolt of cloth that she wove for the curtains for the upgrade of the trustee council chamber (also known here in denmark as the finn juhl chamber) at the UN building in new york. so simple, but so beautiful.

we spent nearly two hours at her studio, just looking at everything and being inspired. this wall hanging gave me an idea for some weavings that i want to do for our home (more about that in another post soon).

i need to weave some long panels for a steeply vaulted wall above our stairs and i've been pondering how we could fix them to the wall so that they don't sag. this might be a way to approach it.

this work looked different, depending on the angle you stood in relation to it. i'm not sure my project will be able to do that because you can never get up high enough to look at it from the one angle, but it was inspiring nonetheless.

i sent husband past her studio on the monday after our visit, so that he could look at the frame this piece was mounted on. now i just have to figure out my version.

hanne vedel is still actively weaving. she had projects set up on two looms. this one, involving horse hair, was also super inspiring. i have so many ideas now and not enough time or enough looms to execute them all!

now i just need to find someone with a horse that wants to trim its mane or tail.

look how lovely that it is! simple but beautiful.

hanne vedel had run spinderigaard, a spinnery, for many years and so i scored some lovely wool and silk cones. it's enough to make a lovely scarf or something. i love those greenish speckles. i got some with black speckles as well.

a first look at stitched journeys

2025-10-05T19:27:00.000+02:00

my dream of a tiny house built out of my great grandmother's quilts is now a reality! i will put a couple of small stools in there and on the day of the exhibition, i plan to (i hope) record people's stories of their own journeys. more about this soon. i'm exhausted from two days of setting up the whole exhibition. we have more than 60 works this year and it looks really great! i'm working on a video that will show everything. we just have to put on a few finishing touches on the exhibition before it's ready. it's a good one! people were clearly inspired by our theme of the journey starts here.

the journey starts here

2025-10-02T21:32:00.007+02:00

it's nearly time for our yearly exhibition in creagive. the theme this year is "rejsen starter her" or "the journey starts here." i'm making a little house which will have a wooden frame and it will be enclosed by my great grandmother's quilt tops. people will be invited to come inside and tell a travel story. i want to record their stories, so i think i'm going to set up my traveling podcast recording studio inside my quilt house.

i think sometimes about all the stories those quilts tell. stories that i don't know. i wrote about them here, when i exhibited them a few years ago at my favorite little museum down in randbøldal. i think i'll call my work "stitched journeys" and i'll invite people to record a bit of their story, so that their stories can be part of the shared fabric of the journey we're all on. i feel like the world could use a bit more of that these days.

* * *

i loved this substack piece on collecting books.

though unlike the author, i absolutely love writing in books and even have to control myself not to write in library books. sometimes without success. which is rather a bad thing because i currently have a bunch of library books on weaving checked out. i'm frantically looking for copies of them in used bookstores, so i can buy them and write all i want.

catching up

2025-09-11T19:20:00.001+02:00

my current wips. i haven't knitted all summer. summer weather just isn't really the vibe for knitting. but i went to the knitting group on tuesday and got some help with two of the projects (the yellow vest) and the loosely-woven white shawl/swimsuit cover-up. the weather is turning a bit cooler, though we've had a lovely indian summer of late, and so it feels like knitting time again.

the child and her good friend headed off to lisbon on tuesday. school starts next week. she sent me a load of pictures today from their exploration of the city. we were going to accompany them down there, but husband has a big audit at work next week, and so the timing wasn't good. we decided we'll go in november when it's rainy and dark here and the girls are settled in.

we had a lot of fun with the girls - roping them in to helping at the harvest market at the museum (we took a little break in the new kro stue here). we did puzzles and played cards and explored the area and ate some good food and drank some wine and watched real housewives. it was all quite relaxed and chill and just what we needed.

i joined noma's coffee club and i fear i will never be the same. that buku sayisa is absolutely incredible. we haven't tried the chelchele yet. we're trying to savor it. husband is also crazy for it. it isn't cheap, but we've decided we're worth it. life truly is too short for crap coffee.

i've started on my next set of taylor swift tea towels. i'm doing speak now this time, as i had all the colors and they work perfectly for the setup i want to play with this time. i've only just started - i'm still trying out all of the colors in a section at the start, to get acquainted. i found a mistake and managed to fix it. the loom never lies, it shows you everything.

i think i'm coming down with the first cold of the season. my throat is sore and i'm achy in my shoulders. it seems like the change of season is always accompanied by a bug. it's no doubt also a result of slowing down after running around for several weeks. and of staying up half the night, watching the news of charlie kirk being shot. i'd like to say i have mixed feelings about that, but i honestly don't. these people don't face the consequences of their toxicity very often. i wonder if we won't look back and realize that the civil war had already begun.

* * *

i really loved reading this piece about books.