I´m dreaming of knitted dresses...

Just a quick update after a very busy weekend where I laid hands on the last details of my order to Norway. I thought I show you some of my latest cuffs that are going to be send tomorrow.

A vibrant yellow-pink-orange cuff that was inspired by the dahlias in my garden.

The next two cuffs capture the more dusty still rich colours of an autumn day.

A glamorous version for the festive season – would even make a gorgeous wedding cuff I think.

I was visiting an old friend in Germany a couple of weeks ago, she is a weaver and designer and gave me some of the most gorgeous mother-of -pearl buttons she had left over. To be precise, she gave me a whole bag of them – thank you Brigitte! As you can see I made some rather glamorous rings with them.

I also created these rings, they are made of vintage bakelite buttons which are simply lovely with their subtle colours.

And here a picture of my "Mohair Beauties", sweet crocheted flower brooches just perfect to lighten up a grey winterday! Available in 8 colours in my etsy shop

Other news include the purchase of a knitting machine. I have thought about getting one for a long time but after having seen the film “Sequins” - french title "Brodeuses" - (which actually is about two embroiderers who are very different but make friends through the shared love for their craft ) I simply had to buy one! Why, you may ask, isn´t it about embroidery? Yes, but when I saw the green lacy knitted dress Claire is wearing in the last scene of the film I knew I wanted to make dresses and shawls like that!

Now I´m soon going to be the proud owner of a Brother KH 900 knitting machine (it is going to be delivered on Tuesday). I signed up for a course next weekend and going to keep you ajour with my lace knitting progress! And - if you haven´t seen the film go and get it! It´s so typical french with a good plot and it´s simply a feast for the eyes! It´s my favourite film ever, bien sur.

I´ll be back soon with a little feature about one of my dear blogfriends and favourite artists!

Busy times and new opportunities!

I´ve really been busy these last weeks! My parents visited us last week, which was really nice. I had such a great time with my mother, she is a creative mind too and we made jewellery together, went shopping and chatted a lot. And she ironed all the clothes and linen that had piled up for weeks in my laundry basket.... Here´s a picture of us, doesn´t she look gorgeous? She is 66 years old, who would believe that! Hope I have inherited her good genes!!


I´ve been stressing around a bit, I have to deliver my work for the first exhibition on friday, I open my own summershop in the train carriage the 1. of july (and the carriage still has to be cleaned, some of the furniture I use for displaying my work has to be painted and there are some reparations to be done on the boards of the carriage) and then there is also the exhibition at my friend Tracys gallery....

Anyway, I managed to finish two re-vamped vintage slips and made a couple of headbands using some of my vintage millinery flowers.


I even found the time for a little brocante tour last saturday. Here are some pictures from the first place we visited, an old farmhouse that used to be a pub in a tiny cosy village - so typical Danish!



They had mostly old china, glassware and silverware, but I managed to find these beautiful old tins and the funny small forks.



We decided to have a cup of tea in Ebeltoft, a small town nearby, and popped around another antique store. As you maybe can see in the picture, it´s quite a shabby venue, but packed with all kinds of vintage stuff.


I rummaged through a basket full of all kinds of small items and found these nice old pearlnecklaces, beads and jewellery findings. Great stash to re-use in my work!


After that we went to the café, and on the way I discovered that in one of the old warehouses someone had opened a combined studio and vintage clothing shop. Of course I had to check it out, and I found a nice black dress from the 50ies, quite hard to find in bigger sizes so I am really enthusiastic about my find!! The owner, who is a painter, actually recognized me, she had been at my summershop. We started to chat and she asked if I was interested in doing a vintage fashion show with her at the local festival the last weekend in July and I said I was indeed! We agreed we would show both vintage dresses, my re-vamped vintage slips and tops and my handcrafted textile jewellery. Quite exciting, I´ve never tried that before.

And, there are more good news: she actually rents the studio for a very reasonable sum and told me the owner was interested to rent out more of the space, so I´m going to meet him on thursday to discuss the possibilities. My plan is to gather four or five artists/crafters and use some of the space in the warehouse as a combined studio and shop. By sharing the rent we can keep the costs low, which is important, because Ebeltoft is heaving with tourists from June to September - but the rest of the year it´s more or less dead, so you have to earn your money during the summermonths.

Well, as you can see - lots of things going on at the moment - I´ll keep you informed ;-)

Oh - about the peacocks - they actually belong to a farm outside our village, the people haven´t had them long and obviously the peacocks decided that it was time to take a closer look at the surroundings ;-).

Home Sweet Home...

I recently set up my flickr photostream and my God, it´s addictive!! But I still found time for a little bit of shopping, bumped into this great flower-fairylights in the local shop and had to have them! They look nice draped around my tailors dummy with the vintage slip, don´t you think?

The cupboard is a fleamarket find that I´ve painted in a nice pale yellow shade and the scarf is a gift from my friend Tracy.

I made some more pictures of our home and my favourite vintage goodies for the flickr site.

Here you see a corner of our living room. On the blue cabinet a collection of beautiful ceramics made by my friend Laila Witt. The painting is the work of another friend of mine and the lovely vintage Chinese lantern was given to me by my generous and dear friend Tracy who had found it during a holiday in Brighton.

Some vintage goodies from my studio. The mirror is a fleamarket find as is the beautiful tin, the doilies and the vintage pearl necklace. The metal lace in the foreground is just stunning and comes from France and the other lace is a mix of ebay and fleamarket finds.

I have to show you this, too. It is a vintage angel from the 20ies and it comes from my home country, Germany. She looks like a beautiful fairy as she looks down from the top of my vintage Dutch mirror. I found her on ebay, the picture was quite bad so I didn´t really know what I had purchased befor the parcel arrived and oh so happy I was when I saw her! Look at the teeny tiny candle!! The seller had a blond version too and I´m so cross with myself I didn´t buy this one too!!! I guess I just have to enjoy the one I have.

The last two things I want to show you is recent work - I don´t want you to believe I´ve been lazy! The picture above shows my latest cuff. It´s built around a piece of vintage jewellery and made of layered silk and lace and embellished with a vintage appliqué, pearls of an old necklace, glassbeads and hand embroidery. The cuff was inspired by Sophia Coppolas film "Marie Antoinette" which I recently saw again.

This brooch is inspired by "Marie Antoinette", too. It´s made of a lacy vintage serviet ring combined with hand dyed tulle and embellished with lace, sequins, trim and beads.

If you want to see more, check my flickr photostream. See you soon!