Lineanongrata

so sorry...

...I just left without giving notice. I meant to, really, but departures are not my strong side. Theoretically I know I'm leaving. Practically I'm never packed and ready to go when it's time. So let's not even talk about telling anyone on my blog.
What's that ? They do have Internet in Germany ? Well gee, are you sure ? Would you like to hear one of my (many) good excuses for not using it to tell you about my vacation (the cat ate it. The bus was too late. It fell into the garden pond...) ?
But there were actually many good excuses for not using the Internet. As many as there were good friends to visit and babies to look and wonder at.

Hannah is my sister's goddaughter and namesake (in my mother's arms).

Jakob, my godson. With Lena, one of my two best friends.

You've already seen Jakob's shirt here. The pocket looks like decoration only when you don't fill the shirt with a baby, but it does have it's uses when you need to stow away grass and bits of wood you'd like to eat  and your mother doesn't consider acceptable nourishment.

next winter is sure to come

...and even though I enjoy knitting a new pair of socks for Vincent, I would like to have some sun between now and Christmas. There are tomatoes that would like some sun, there is a Vincent who would really love some sun, and there is my godson Jakob, who will soon be receiving these shirts, made of summer linen.

No one can wear linen in the rain, can they now ? Not even a German baby.

A chick for the wee chick. And if he bugs his Mama, she can put him in the blue shirt you've already caught a glimpse of here.

The summer bug (this summer is definitely bugging me with all it's rain) has also been transformed into some coasters, available in the shop if ever you fancy them.

bugs and slugs

We live on a winery. When we needed to bottle our wines, there were no bottles available (a bit of a monopoly thing going on in the glass production in France), so now I'm growing them. So what if they're plastic ?

I'll admit to plastic bottles being neither organic nor as beautiful as peas, for example, but they do make good homes for peas and other little plants that need protection. Because there has been a war going on in my vegetable patch. The slugs against me, and honestly, I don't care about casualties any more. The next strawberry that I pick and find a slug living inside will provoke mean measures like beer traps. For the moment I protect my most tender plants with plastic bottles that have had their bottoms cut off (I found the idea in Country Living. A magazine I've fallen in love with because not only are the pictures pretty, but you can actually read the articles ! Not always a given when it comes to 'pretty living' and 'home ideas'. I have access to the British edition, so you'll have to figure out if the American one is as good on your own.). Every once in a while I find a snail or a slug inside a bottle, but most of them see only plastic and think 'oh no, yet another field of plastic bottles. I wish they'd grow peas like in the old days.' Ah, all right. This is the place in my post where my little sister groans something about 'not funny', so I'll leave you with images of some nice little bugs, after having ranted about mean little slugs.

summer linen

Linen feels so much like summer. Evoking sand, pebbles, the beach. It has a visual life and an organic quality of it's own, wrinkling, seemingly cracking, 'one' all the same. I'm planning to put a whole range of products made of linen in the shop during the next few weeks. Because it's summer. And because I have a new obsession.

In fact, make that two new obsessions. Printing being the second one. I know I'm being a child, but reproducing the same image over and over again gives me such a thrill.

These coasters (made of linen, of course) are in the shop now, as are these notebooks.

The print is called 'remind me', and I'll tell you more about it in the next couple of days. If ever I forget, remind me, will you ?

time

Do you think people measure time differently ? I do. Mine is measured by the things I get done during the day. If I had to measure time by how long it feels I'd say it's non-existent.

On the winery the days demand grocery shopping (that's a time-consuming expedition when you live in the country), cooking for the boys, housework (yucky piles of laundry underneath which I find the occasional scorpion), work for the winery, the garden, taking care of the zoo and work for myself. For what I really want to do. The illustrations and the things I make.
Usually I try to invent something new. For the shop. For me as an illustrator.
Which is exhausting after a while if you lack time to really think things through (all right. I'll admit to not minding any sewing pattern, ever.).
So just to see how that works, and because I felt I needed a break, I spent the last weekends and evenings simply recreating things and patterns I found in books.. Like the little elephant or this outfit which will go to Paris as a gift for someone's son.
And you know what ? I loved it. It's so relaxing. It stretches time just a little bit and feels as though I had more of it at my disposition. Because there was no inventing to be done. Only recreating.

my little sister Hanna

sent me a bookmark with a holographic image. In which one can see an elephant rubbing his rear end on a tree. There is no way I could decently share this image with you, but you get the picture.
I'm suffering.
But, being a nice person, I sent her something in return.

(He's 'peanut, the wee elephant' from 'Last minute patchwork and quilted gifts' by Joelle Hoverson. The only change I made from the original pattern is batting his ears as well as his body. He seemed to call for fluffy ears somehow.)

friday crafts

I'm fervently hoping that Friday crafts announce weekend creativity.

Wishing you all a very happy weekend.

lights, please

I would even say pretty please and do some sweet thing with my eyelashes. Just for some light to take some photos.

Because I would like to update my shop with some shoulder totes but who would buy something vaguely resembling oatmeal with strawberries?

Or oatmeal with spinach, anyone ?

(The upside of short posts is that I don't make many mistakes in English. And the lesson from five days with rain is that a) you'll survive, b) plant's don't need light. That's a myth. They grow just fine in the rain c) people born in the South don't like rain and tend to get nasty after four days of water pouring over their heads d) you need to stay positive, though uninspired)

and thus...

Thank you all for your kind and thoughtful comments and emails. I'm still trying to integrate the fact that grandfather is gone. Trying to go from the verb 'dying' to 'dead'. We'll say good bye to him next week Thursday and that will be a very sad occasion, but right now there are stretches of time when I don't think about it and even more time when I do think about him and grandma, but only happy and funny thoughts. About how it was when we were little and they in their prime of grand-parenthood.

Before burying grandfather though, my new godson and I will be baptized. Monday. And to be precise: He'll be baptized and I'll then be his godmother. Lucky him.

Jakob was born in September and is the son of one of my two best friends. Even though he doesn't like his mother to talk on the telephone (thinking she should much rather talk only to him, if she please) and wails loudly when I call, he's the the source of many happy thoughts at the moment nonetheless.

It's as my grandmother always says: 'Thus joy and tears come from the same face.'

shh, it's still a secret

Eleven secrets, actually.