Do I qualify as a Californian now?

I have purchased a pair of cowboy boots. In my defense, they were a steal. If anybody wonders, they are of the brand "Latigo". I am a little chocked and not sure how to relate to them yet. I put them on, and then quickly took them off. 

Cowboy boots are iconic. 

They stand for something. Do we have to stand for the same thing, me and the boots? 

How do I even wear these? Why did I do this? Maybe its a way for me to try to relate to 'Murica.

 I am now going to try to not feel guilty about it, and maybe not overanalyze this. 

Over and out. 

Boris' Mugshot

Thinking of adding a stuffed body to this old fart, and dressing him up in a dirty night gown and a night cap.

Boris has lived a life as a introverted recluse for most of his life, but 6 months ago he was forced to move out of the house he had lived in his whole life, as his nephew Vlad wanted to gut the house, remodel and move his family into it. 

Vlad made all the arrangements for the move - Boris was soon moved out, and into one of the rat infested old Victorians on 58th Street.  

He has not uttered one word since the move and last night, as Augusta Watson in the apartment on top, had wrapped up her private, intensive home course in Balkan dance, there was a knock on her door. 

She opened, sweat dripping down her quavering voluminous body, and there stood Boris, dressed in his nightcap and gown, a cast iron pan in his hand. He knocked her over the head with the pan and stuffed a Tokyo Turnip in each of her nostrils, and a French Breakfast Radish down her throat. 

These are Boris' mugshots.

Dancing her little heart out

I have a huge old steamer trunk that I bought off of a man on the side of the road. It has metal corners and remnants of leather bands along the edges. It's not necessarily a very practical piece of furniture, but it is so full of history and personality - I imagine a family in the early 1900 getting on a boat somewhere in Europe, maybe Ireland, escaping misscrop and starvation, headed for the new world! Their travel chest is packed with linens and only the absolute necessities. 

I filled the chest to the brim with all my fabrics, along with all the ideas and dreams for each one of them.

As of late,  Lilian puts on some music, picks out some fabrics and dances her little heart out. I would say this is a perfect use of my dusty old knits and wovens.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/CloudberryAndMoss

Organic Process

Beach wood with seashells from a visit to Hawaii, a tiny nugget of beach glass, wrapped and framed with 14k gold filled wire.

I collect things in nature that are beautiful in their own right. Tiny, little nuggets of different shapes and materials are my favorites. 

For many, many years I have intended to turn my beach collections into jewelry, but it was just about a month ago that I first sat down with all my pieces in front of me, to attempt to create something beautiful. 

Some of my pieces will have a mixture of beach finds and interesting gems that I have sourced elsewhere, like this one, above, with a buttery colored druzy. Looks a bit like a popcorn to me!

My crocheted rocks have served as props for my shop photos for years. I move them around the house, to compliment a vase or serve as a paper weight. They were beach finds from years ago. I used some linen weaving thread to add a rustic element to the fine, intricate visual of the crochet. 

Check out my etsy shop:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/CloudberryAndMoss

My Nearest

For the past couple of months I have been trying to get used to a new job and new circumstances. I have been thinking about the reason I am here and what might have been if I was not here. A passenger is what I feel like. No say in what the destination might be. 

It's hard to bury your roots somewhere, when you don't feel like you have actively chosen. I am still struggling with that after 13 years in this place.

 Where I come from is not just one thing. It's not just Europe, Sweden, the West Coast or Bohuslän.

It's also two of my siblings snuggling on a victorian café couch.

It's deep, dark and plush moss that I fantasize little forest creatures falling asleep on at night, under a canopy of ferns.

It's memories of childhood at Sinkan, the little house on the fjord, where nature was all around and so close that we were one with it.

Teaching and showing my daughter to feel free and connect with what is really important in life.

When my daily life is stirred up, and my income is not cutting it, and unexplainable forces seem to blow a hurricane right in my direction, this is the place that I return to in my mind. A place that I can grapple hook on to and although I'm dangling from a rope, I am still swinging from somewhere.

Making Fiddle Leaf Fig Babies

I have not been posting much as of late, as I have just started a new job. Having not worked for two months, it is both exciting and exhausting. 

I wanted to share what I did with my beautiful Fiddle Leaf Fig tree when I realized that it was growing a long, lanky branch. A couple of weeks ago I gave my tree a makeover and I am hoping for some beautiful babies to be born shortly.

Apparantly this is the season to take cuttings according to the www, and so I did. I think they look fantastic hanging out in their vases on my concrete bench. I put them right next to my dried leek flower stalks and I like the contrast of the vivid color of the living leaves against the memory of the flowers.  

I dipped my cuttings in a rooting powder and now, after a couple of weeks in water, there are tiny little knobs forming around the eyes of the branches!

This is what my tree looked like before the pruning...

...and this is what it looks like now. A little rounder, a little shorter and a lot more handsome.

Here is a link to my etsy shop:

www.etsy.com/shop/cloudberryandmoss

Bottling

I am following up on my post on how to make glögg, from late November. Here is a link to that post, if you would like to check it out: 

http://cloudberryandmoss.blogspot.com/2015/11/here-is-how-you-brew-your-own-swedish.html

It has been almost 10 weeks since I left my glögg on the lees to brew. You really only need to leave it for 6 weeks, but I have been lazy and busy, one after the other! 

I thought I would show you how to bottle this very lovely concoction, so here we go.

You will need:

a slotted spoon

soft plastic tubing

clean bottles

This is what your glögg is supposed to look like after a few weeks. The yeast is no longer active and all the sugars that could be transformed into alcohol have done so. At this point, you want to be careful transporting your bucket or bowl, as you do not want to disturb the sediment at the bottom. Take a slotted spoon and carefully scoop out anything floating on top. Make sure to only skim the surfaces so as to, again, not disturb the sediment. 

When the surface is clean, take your plastic tubing(I found mine at the pet store by the aquarium supplies) and put one end into the glögg. Make sure to keep the opening close to the surface. Place the bottle below the bowl so that gravity can do its job. Carefully suck on the other end of the tubing, to get the glögg flowing. 

Put your finger on the opening of the tube and release once it has been placed at the opening of the bottle.

Your glögg should now steadily flow from the bowl, through the tube and into the bottle. It is important to make sure that the part of the tube submerged in the bowl stays close to the surface! You do not want excess sediment in your bottle. 

When I get close to the bottom of the bowl I carefully tilt it so I can get as much glögg as possible out of my batch. There will, however be a little bit left at the bottom, as you try to avoid bottling the sediment. This brew will be very happy with just sitting on a shelf, maturing for the next 10 months or so, until you feel like the holiday spirit is calling again. 

Check out my Etsy shop, if you fancy:

www.etsy.com/shop/cloudberryandmoss 

Fire

Every night I light candles. I love how candle light creates patterns and casts shadows and living light. Fire is a basic element and it soothes me, just like the ocean or the sound of the wind in the trees outside my bedroom window.

 

And so, in my little apartment on Ivy Hill, I flip the light switches off and light candles to remind me of the pure and simple. For inspiration and to draw energy from what it evokes in me.

Lilian would rather eat her cereal and see what she eats. We compromise.

The knitting loom

Since Lilian was a baby, I have tried to get her interested in the things I love to do. She has tried her hand at baking, sewing, music, knitting, growing things,  drawing, designing etc. A few things have struck a chord with her, but music in particular. We do a ton of singing and harmonizing, and she has always been good at it! 

Although we have music in common, I always felt like it would be fun if we could make something with our hands together. She has rejected most of my attempts of encouragement in this area, but this past Christmas I got her a knitting loom and some yarn from Target. She sat with it for 1 1/2 hours straight and she just could not put it down. That is an accomplishment for a kid in this day and age, where everything around you happens fast! I really enjoyed watching her get completely absorbed by her project(a beanie) and seeing the fruits of her labor slowly grow into something to be proud of.  Good for her self esteem, fine motor skills and patience.

Finger Knitted Pot Cover

The fiddle leaf fig tree that I got for Christmas is finally in presentable condition! 

Just before Christmas, I quit my job. I was working at a restaurant in San Francisco, and they just did not treat their employees in a dignified manner. After one particular incident, I quit. The only problem  is that I had nothing lined up, so here I am with no money, with a child to support and a huge tree in an ugly plastic container. What to do? 

It is surprisingly hard to find a pot big enough, nice looking enough and affordable enough to fit my needs, and so I turn to finger knitting yet again!

I had a lot of muslin scraps laying around, but if you have an old sheet, that will work too.

I also made som smallish, round area rugs. Could possibly fit under the pot, or by the bed to put my feet on in the morning.  

My Etsy shop:

www.etsy.com/shop/cloudberryandmoss

There is a blurry-photo problem with blogspot. This is how you fix it.

I have been frustrated with the blogger platform. 

I have taken beautiful photos with my camera and uploaded them into my well composed blogpost, only to find the quality of the photo decrease drastically. I have posted my photos anyway, although feeling a bit embarrassed. What else was I supposed to do? From time to time I have tried googling the problem to find a solution but most of them have been outdated and do not apply to the newer version of blogger and/or google +.

I have finally found the solution! I have gone through all on my old blog posts and fixed the image quality and I can now feel truly proud of my work!

To illustrate what the problem looks like:

Above is a photo that has not been fixed.

Below, as you can see, the image is much clearer.

Here's what I did to get the image quality back to what it should be:

Insert the image into your blog post as you normally would. Right below the name of your blog, you will find two buttons that say "compose" and "HTML". Choose HTML. The image will now appear as code. 

In the second row of the code towards the front, it says "/s1600/". In the last row in the middle, it says "/s640/". You need to change the last number to match the top row number. So, your last number should read "/s1600/".

The last number will vary depending on the image size you choose when you insert the image into your blogpost. Sometimes it reads "/s400/", and sometimes "/s320/". It does not matter what the number reads, all that matter is that you change it to "/s1600/". 

It is easier than you think, and you will be very pleased with the result, as your photos will look the way you intended them to!

My Etsy shop:

www.etsy.com/shop/cloudberryandmoss

Best DIY baking project for kids: Chocolate and oat balls(chokladbollar)

Today Lilian invited her friend over to teach her how to make this fun Swedish treat. There is no oven or knives involved and it's so easy to make that even younger kids can do it without supervision. Plus it requires one to get their hands dirty, which adds another kid friendly aspect to the experience. 

These chocolate and oat balls(chokladbollar) are part of virtually every living Swedes childhood. As a matter of fact, the first documentation of its existence was found in a newspaper ad from 1918. 

So, kick your shoes off and let your kids take over the kitchen for an hour. Enjoy the fruits of your child's labor. Your tastebuds will thank you. Your waistline....not so much!

INGREDIENTS

1 stick (100g) softened butter

2/3 cup (1 1/2 dl) sugar

3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp cold strong coffee

1 tbsp cream

a pinch of salt

2 cups (5 dl) quick oats

unsweetened shredded coconut

or

Swedish pearl sugar

INSTRUCTIONS

Mix butter, sugar and cocoa powder together with your hands or in a stand mixer. Add wet ingredients and salt. Add oats and mix well. You might have to add a little bit more coffee or cream, but the consistency should be drier than you would expect. Sprinkle shredded coconut onto a plate. Make Swedish meatball sized balls and roll them in the coconut. Transfer to another plate. Let the chocolate balls rest in the fridge for 30 min before enjoying. If you have some left over, you can freeze them - they can be eaten right out of the freezer.

Tip: A good way to test if your chocolate balls need more liquid is to see how well the coconut sticks to them. If you roll them with light pressure and the coconut does not stick, you need more liquid. Be careful not to add too much.

Happy munching!

My Etsy shop:

www.etsy.com/shop/cloudberryandmoss

Out with the old, in with the new!

At 11.45 pm on New Years Eve, Lilian exclaimed, "It's out!".

 Out with the old,

 in with the new.

Quite literally.

Happy New Year to all of you!