An Enlightening Experience

A few weeks ago I purchased and then received a light tent. This has completely changed the way I take photos. And I've learned one major thing about myself - I am (or was) scared of light.


Now, I've never been scared of the darkness. Even as a child when I was scared of alligators under my bed (I had a deep blue carpet.... thoughts of sharks appeared later), but this had nothing to do with the dark. When it was time to go to bed, I was able to convince myself that they too were sleeping.


But during the day getting to my room would involve running down the hallway at full speed, making a sharp 90 degree turn at the end of that hallway, and the flinging myself through the air until I landed safely on my bed which was in the middle of my room.


However I digress.....


The first round of photographs I took were a great improvement over those that I took before I had the light tent. However, many members of the European Street Team I know and love were telling me that they were not light enough.


This involved a second round of photography. When this was done, I touched up my photos using my favorite (free) tool: Picasa3. I lightened them so much that I thought they looked unreal. However, my team members cheered me with great energy, saying I had finally got it right.

Had I really? I thought my pictures looked like they were almost touched by the hands of God, light cascading from above.

But apparently there are many who are not agreed with me. The traffic in my stores has soared to almost 3 times what it was before.

And I'm getting hearted. By others than my team members. That too has not happened for quite some time.

So once again I've learned that I do not see the world quite as my fellow man does. Why this surprises me is another good question as I had resigned myself to the fact that I live in a slightly altered universe than many - and feel quite at home here.

Still, I'm starting to get use to the changes, to stretching the walls of my security box. Starting to think: Yeah - that is a really cool picture.

Premier of Else-Gunn Cowls... and a surprise from my favorite girl.

There's a woman who lives in my neighborhood, Else-Gunn. A totally cool woman. She's a very good friend to one of my neighbors and one of her children is in the same class as one of mine. Over the past two years I've had the oppurtunity to have many conversations with her. She's always smiling. She always has something funny to say. Even when she's really irritated at something, her humor bubbles over. So even if you really agree with her that the situation is down right awful, you're giggling.


She has to be one of the nicest people I know, and during the last couple of months I've had the oppurtunity to slowly get to know her better.


A week or so ago she decided to give me a big bag of gorgeous yarn that she had collected.... and had intended to knit cute things from. But sometimes the best of intentions don't work out. It was so nice of her to give it to me and I am very grateful for her thoughtfullness.


Right from the beginning, I had made it my first priority to make her a cowl as a thank you. She did let me know that her favorite color was pink.... and I am almost finished with her project. But first I had to think up a good idea, and practice a few times before setting to work.


I found a beautiful shell technique that looks stunning. I've made two cowls already, which I've taken pictures of:


This first one is made from a dark pink cotton (this one is not her's). It is 95% finished as I need to add some buttons to it. I was thinking mother-of-pearl. It's a little hard to see, but I hope the shell pattern comes forth a little bit.

Here is a second one that I have done witha combination of two types of white cotton. The plan is to naturally dye this one (and others I will make from cotton) using natural materials I can find from the nature surrounding my cabin.

It's my intention to make a lot of cowls of this style, in different colors. And all of them will be under the title Else-Gunn Cowl.

Fame is always fun to pass out to others.

And here is a man's cowl that I've almost finished knitting. This is 100% wool in a fantastic bright red color. Great for sports fanatics.

And then later today I got a bit of a surprise.

It was rather warm today, and after a few hours of swimming in the ocean, I decided to head back up to our cabin to start getting dinner ready. My daughter came with me and once inside she asked me if she could work. This is quite different from just painting or coloring, which she also does.

This was just perfect for me and left me free to make dinner.

About 20 minutes later she comes to me with this:

The light had already started setting.... but what she's made for me is a new diary/journal that I can use (having seen that I was coming to the end of one I am working on presently).

I was really stunned. I mean, I have always thought I have the greatest kids. I have always had the opinion that they are more thoughtful, considerate, and have more empathy that the average kid. But this rarely invovles me. It usually involves everyone else BUT me.

But maybe sometimes it can be my turn too.

Scarf with Attitude

Sometimes life is a bit difficult. Sometimes people push your buttons in ways that don't like. Sometimes things are a bit out of your control and there's not much you can do about it.

So what can artistically inclined people do during a time like this? Let their nasty feelings out through some of the work in a humoristic means.

What can I say? Life was difficult for me during the coldest time of the year. It's always good to vent your anger towards a semi-mythical figure.

I was Interviewed! Yeah!

I was recently interviewed by a fellow Etsian: Mea Culpa's Body and Bath Creation. The experience was great and I'm looking forward to my next interview.

1.What is your stores name and what do you sell (and anything else that you wanna share about it)?

--- My store is named Plask Design. I sell mostly cool and innovative winter wear: hats, scarves, and fingerless gloves. I do my best to use, and am experimenting more with, recycled and upcycled materials. I am knitting and crocheting more and more with textiles and plastics as well as traditional wools, cottons and silks. I have also started to encorporate printed material into my store in the form of Traditional Norwegian Recipes, as well as knitted/crocheted postcards that of course are meant to be used and sent off to friends and family. This is because I am actually educated in Creative Writing and Journalism, and am working on my first family travel book which will be entirely published by myself.

-- It is also interesting to note that 'Plask' is actually the Norwegian word for 'Splash'. I chose this as a name for my store for two reasons: 1) I love the sound of the word and feel that it resonates in any language, and 2) the west coast of Norway is one of the wettest places on earth and receives over 3 meters or 10 feet of rain a year. The perfect place to develope designs for the items I make.

2. How long have you been crafting for yourself before you decided to share your designs with other?

-- I can't remember if it was my mother or my grandmother who taught me how to crochet, but I was shown at an early age and then started flying on my own after that. When I first moved to Norway as a newly wed with my husband, money was tight while I went to school to learn the language instead of working. My mother-in-law taught me to knit and everyone that year received socks for Christmas. Once I could do both things, I spent the next 5 years or so playing with different stitches and techniques. It wasn't until I found Etsy and I became more focussed on creating finished products with a high degree of professionalism.

3. Where do you get your inspiration?

-- I actually get my inspiration for the materials I come across. How do I make a bag full of wool, each ball a different color, into a spectacular object that someone will love to have on their body? What will happen if I cut up this kitchen curtain with with gorgeous colors into one continuous strip and make a hat out of it? What can plastic be made into? How do all these different materials feel against the skin? This is the part of the journey I enjoy the most.

4. Is there a funny story where you accidentally screwed something up, but it turned out better than you planned?

-- Not really a funny story, but a long-term learning experience. In the beginning, I didn't understand that a lot of the items I made did look very good at all, until I was finally finished with the product and the decorating of it. Then about 6 months ago I met a landscape painter who was visiting a friend of mine. I saw the stages of his work (I had really seen the beginning stages of a painting) and saw that his work didn't look very good at this point either. This realization made me focus on the final vision of my product and not pay so much attention to how it appears before I get to that stage.

5. How do you see yourself down the road?

-- I really don't know where my creative journey will take me, but I'm pretty much open to anything and any type of material.

6. Do you do this for fun or for serious business?

-- A little bit of both. The economical social structure of Norway is one that I could not live off my work, pay my mortgage payments and keep my children feed. I will be continuing to work in my career (which in itself is very creative) for many years to come. But I am continually thinking of, and planning for perhaps 20 years in the future when I'll be approaching retirement. I hope to have created enough success that I can begin to cut back on my hours of work as I get older.

7. Do you ever get a creative block?

-- I am a mother of two youngsters, aged 4 and 6. I work full time and my husband also works full time shift work. Life is incredibly busy already, but we also add in weekend mountain hikes, trips to our sea-side cabin as well as skiing trips in the winter. This is of course after the house gets vaccuumed. I simply don't have time to have a creative block: there's always an etsy project that needs to be worked on or finished.

8. What is one favorite thing that you made and felt bad selling it - only because you liked it so much?

-- I absolutely love most of my gloves. They're my favorite things to make. Most of them turn out much better than I had envisioned and I always question if 'these' will be the latest pair that I will give to myself.

9. What is a normal day like for you?

-- My husband wakes up around 5am. I usually don't sleep well after that so am often up at 5.45 or so. I make myself coffee, check etsy, my team blogs, my private blog and then my email to see if I received any news from home.
-- 6.30 - 8.00: pack lunches, wake and dress the kids, feed them breakfast, dress and deliver them to the places they need to be and then head to work.
-- 4.00ish - start heading home and pick up the kids. Start dinner if I'm home first. Eat. Start kids on an activity while I do some laundry or clean up the kitchen. Spend some quality time with the kids. Get kids ready for bed, read stories, sing, kiss them goodnight.
-- 8.00ish - do a bit more laundry or one more housework job.
-- 8.30ish - the night is mine and I can work on Etsy. Do check Etsy itself, my blogs, then get to work until about 10.00 pm. Then go to sleep and start the whole thing again the next day.

10. What else interests you besides your craft?

-- Our family spends a lot of time outside. We go on mountain hikes (some are spoken about on my blog: plaskdesign.blogspot.com) and have a sea side cabin we often visit. Here we do a lot of fishing, as well cutting down trees and chopping firewood. During the right times of the year we harvest in a lot of blueberries, raspberries, and apples.

11. Is there something you would like to say as the end of the talk?

--- I think those who use Etsy as an area to shop and/or sell should really start realizing and understanding that they are at the very beginning of a new politican and economic part of history. I truly believe that the internet levels the feilds between big corporations and the private seller. I also believe that in the future (and hopefully during my lifetime) I will be able to see the demise of big industry and the rise of local industries of all types: manufacturing, agriculture and farming, and possibly even areas such as energy creation. Wouldn't that be cool?

Another Textual Sensations Scarf

Here is another one of my Textual Sensation creations that will be put up for sale tomorrow, September 19th, 2008. I was given everything used to make this scarf by two different people.

My next door neighbor is also an advid crafter (mostly sewing, but some knitting as well). She has two children that are smaller than mine and receives all of my clothes that do not fit my children anymore. To show her appreciation to me (although I thought it was her who was doing me a favor - it's much easier to go next door with bags of clothes instead of driving 35 minutes to the nearest Salvation Army Drop Off Center) she bought me a large bag of different types of wool from the Dale Factory that's located north of us.


The material I used to make the appliques (Dreaming of Sunshine) came from a number of cool curtains that a friend of my sister-in-law's was wanting to get rid of. She certainly did not want to throw them out as there was nothing wrong with them. She just didn't want to have them anymore. And in Norway we pay for all the trash that is taken away from our houses (meaning if you only set out your trash container once every two weeks, you save a lot of money), so these curtains would be filling up a large space in her trash container she could be saving for something else.

All in all, it was a win-win situation for everyone. This includes the lucky customer who will decide to buy this product one day. :)

Industrial Knitted Postcards with Environmental Message

My quest to use up every single piece of material that I would otherwise throw away has really forced me to use and stretch my brain in ways I had not imagined. And I hope this is just the beginning.

Below are various knitted postcards that I have produced. They are made from wool leftovers that are too small to make gloves or scarves from.... or are made from other items that have outlived their usefulness for whatever reason. These may include but are not limited to the kitchen curtains and last years Christmas table cloth that Uncle Louis permanently stained. I am also looking forward to making more of these from my store as well.


The above is made from kitchen curtains from our cabin that no longer could be used, but which had some really cool colors. I have also made a hat from this material and gave it to a little girl down the street.

The above is part of that Christmas tablecloth mentioned above - it is mixed with green yarn. I did this on a whim and felt like the result looked wet, slimy and murky. Hense the old 50's movie title popped into my head.

And here's something to do with all my left over green bits that actually looks cool.

And finally one of my favorites. I plan to make lots of these appliques to help get the message across!

Upcycled Appliques that Bring Forth a Message

Another thing that has completely absorbed me through last few months - making my own hand sewn appliques that deliver a message. Suddenly it's so fun to pull up old sayings, cliches, song titles and movie titles from the far, far past. Phrases that I remember from my early childhood that are deeply connected to important parts of my life... I feel in my heart that this must also be true for others who are of the same generation as me.




On this warm and cozy scarf I've added three appliques that spell out the phrase: Dreaming of Sunshine. For all of us who try to make it through the cold, dark winter months sometimes we need that bit of extra to put a smile on our face and give a bit of warmth to our hearts.

Now that I've started on this path, a plethora of ideas of phrases have started to emerge from my head. I certainly cannot sew that fast, so I've started keeping a diary just for these phrases to be used at future time. I am looking foward to the weeks ahead of me.

Textual Sensations - Bringing Back Letter Writing With A Zing

My educational background is actually a university degree in English/Common Wealth Literature with a minor in Creative Writing. Writing has always been a big part of my life - In my earlier days, I used to have pen pals that received 25 page letters! This was of course before the time low cost computers, email, low cost cell phones and sms'ing.

Letter writing has taken a turn for the worst. This is something I'm sure everyone can agree upon and even the days of my long, long letters is a thing of the past. But while we might not be able to change our fast paced world, we can certainly take this world with both hands and personalize it according to our own wishes.

To this end we have I have started to design knitted postcards. The front sides are artistic, unique and inspiring enough to make the receiver stop in their tracks. It will take them out of their fast paced world and make them think: Wow - someone really likes me!

The Ultimately Upcycled Sun Hat

This is first of an idea that I had been thinking about for close to a year. While I love crocheting and knitting with wool, it has seemed to me for quite some time that there were just so many other interesting things to use instead of wool. These ideas for me include: plastic of various forms, disgarded textiles, soft metals and even grasses. I have had a lot of success with the plastics and textiles, though I still have yet to find time to try the other two materials.

These pictures show one of three sun hats that I have made from plastic bags. Even though we are a family that recycles paper, plastics, pop bottles, metals, and glass.... and have shopping textiled shopping bags to carry our groceries home, even we seem to collect a lot of unwanted plastic bags. I had been considering that there must be something much more fun to do than simply use them as garbage bags.

These sun hats were fun to make. Creating plastic material to crochet did take some time, but not so much that I was willing to drop my idea. And the finished product turned out to me much more practicle than even I had envisioned. It protects one from the sun as it is crocheted and therefor thicker than sewn material. However, despite the fact this is made from plastic, it is quite cool to wear due to the open spaces between the stitches. This is especially true when one is moving around.

As with all my products, I love to decorate them in some way. Last year I spent a lot of time working with flowers and squiggly lines, both of which seemed to be very popular and sold well. While I'm still interested in using these motifs, I've been having a lot of fun working creating text on appliques that can be sewn onto things. These appliques on this hat proclaim: Do Your Thing. This of course can be interpreted any way that you wish.