SAMPLE AUCTION for Doctors Without Borders

A few weeks ago we marked the one-year anniversary of my mother-in-laws death. In both the grief of that loss and the celebration of her life, something that keeps coming up again and again is the love she had for making things. Cooking, growing, sewing. Now our home is filled with the evidence. There are plants in my garden grown from seeds she saved for me. "Grandmas best rice recipe" is the only one my kids will eat, and our beds and sofa are adorned with the most beautiful quilts. Not just ours - her best friend sent us a card mentioning the lovely handmade gifts she'd received over the years.

These tangible traces of her creativity, her knowledge, her personhood as a whole. Over the last year, adding the finishing touches to the child's quilt she’d been working on, I've frequently stopped to ponder their significance and how they surpass the initial act of making or giving. How blessed we are to have them to hold on to, to remember. For the past two months, also, I've dwelled on the scores of Gazan makers and givers that have been reduced to horrifying numbers.

Limbs, deaths, orphans. Displacement, disease, starvation. Where are their traces, the mothers who embroider (honoured in this beautiful piece I came across a few days ago)? What's happened to the statuettes painstakingly, lovingly carved out of olive wood? Who's there to savour the steaming pans of musakhan? And what on earth do you do when both maker and recipient are gone? To me, creating is as important as breathing, but it seems rather trite to say that when I'm able to focus on far more than just survival.

I feel it is only right, then, to do what I can in the best way I know how. On the 22nd of December - Winter Solstice and one of my absolute favourite celebrations of the year - I will be auctioning off a shawl and a cardigan sample.

75% of the auction proceeds, as well as all crochet pattern sales until 31 December, will be donated to Doctors Without Borders. I am keeping the remaining 25% to pay myself a small salary and to cover things like postage.

If you're interested, please do read all the details below carefully. And don’t forget, if you can't place a bid, you can still contribute by sharing this article and/or my social media posts.

Would you rather make your own crocheted garments and accessories? At the very end of this post I’ve added links to a selection of my favourite designs.

---

W H A T

ITEM ONE - ilo. Cardigan

A swingy, A-line cardigan with a delightful contrast collar, hem and cuffs. Handcrocheted by Designer Eline Alcocer using pure, soft alpaca yarn.

Size - finished bust circumference 92cm / Length 58.5cm

Starting bid 75EUR

---

ITEM TWO - Dawn to Dusk Shawl

A stunning show-piece of a shawl to flounce around in all day, and maybe all night too. Handcrocheted by Designer Eline Alcocer using pure wool and a blend of wool/nylon and mohair/nylon.

Size - 160cm wide / 72cm deep

Starting bid 50EUR

W H E R E

The auctions will take place here, in the comments section of this blog post.

W H E N

Friday 22 December. Bidding will open at 9:00 CET, and close at 21:00 CET. Bids received after this point will not be valid. The highest bid wins.

H O W

To bid, simply leave a comment stating the item you are bidding on, and how much you would like to pay (please note the starting bids). Once bidding has ended, the winner will be notified via email. Payment will be due via PayPal within 5 days of this email being sent out. Non-payment after this date will result in the next highest bidder winning the item.

Postage - I will cover postage to anywhere in the world, but please note that the bidder is responsible for any import fees.

A N D F I N A L L Y

Let me be clear.

I cannot and will never understand what it feels like to be Jewish or Palestinian. To offer my opinion as a white person in the global North would not be a valuable contribution, to say the least. What I will state, however, is that I am against the oppression, abduction and murder of any peoples in any circumstances, and that I fully support calls for an immediate and lasting ceasefire.

---

F OR T H E C R O C H E T E R S

Pink Grapefruit and Pineapple Marmalade - aka Anti-Winter Jam

One of my favourite things about Summer and early Autumn is turning the abundance of fruit into jars and jars of jam. I'm always a bit sad when the season ends, but then, just a few months later... Marmalade! I love marmalade. In fact, I'm the only one in my family who does, and I have to admit I eat it in huge, tooth-rotting quantities all winter long ON MY OWN. I'm also quite picky about it; I want a full flavour and lots of peel. Outside of the UK (which I called home for many years) it can be quite tricky to find "proper" marmalade - the kind that is not too sweet - and the imported stuff is becoming ever-more expensive. So this year I decided to make my own. But fancy, with pink grapefruit and fresh pineapple. If this doesn't chase away the Winter greys...

This marmalade is heavy on the fruit and light on the added sugar. I used Kylee Newton's excellent book, The Modern Preserver, to learn the basic techniques of jam and marmalade-making.

---

Pink Grapefruit and Pineapple Marmalade

3 pink grapefruit

1 fresh pineapple

5dl water

300g jam sugar

Cut the peel from the grapefruit, reserving the flesh. Remove as much pith as possible from the peel, then slice into very thin strips. Chop the flesh into 1cm cubes, discarding any pips and pith.

Remove the skin and tough core from the pineapple and discard. Cut the flesh into 1cm cubes.

Put all the fruit and zest in a large with the water and bring to a boil.

Lower the heat to add the jam sugar, stir until it has dissolved, then bring the mixture back to the boil. Boil steadily, stirring frequently for 20-30 minutes (or until the grapefruit peel has softened).

When ready*, pour into hot, sterilised jars and seal.

Will keep unopened at room temperature for up to six months, or a few weeks in the fridge once opened.

PLEASE NOTE:

This recipe makes the most of the natural sweetness of the pineapple, and doesn't use as much water or jam sugar as commercial recipes tend to. As a result, the water may separate and pool in the jar if stored for a while. This doesn't affect the flavour at all - just stir it back in before spreading.

*Newton recommends the wrinkle test to check whether a jam or marmalade has reaching its setting point. Place a couple of small dishes in the freezer before you start. When the mixture has come to a rolling boil for the required amount of time, take it off the heat and drip a little bit of it onto one of the dishes. Put in the fridge for a minute or so, then gently push the jam with your finger to see if it wrinkles. If it does, it's ready! If not, return the mixture to the boil and repeat the test after five minutes.

A subtle shift

If I were to mention the dropping temperatures or the dwindling harvest in my part of the world, how many of you would gleefully think of gorgeous woolly sweaters and deliciously melancholic evenings? Would there also be a fair few who, as a new friend lovingly reminded me at the weekend, would want to punch me in the head because EVERYTHING IS DYING? I have to admit that I'm personally ambivalent about the coming of Autumn - I love me some handknitted socks, but I don't relish the November weeks sat desperately staring into my SAD lamp.

What I do love about the shifting seasons though, whether early or late, is the opportunity to take stock. Funnily enough, this is not something I ever feel like doing on the 1st of January. Show me a budding leaf or an emerging mushroom, however, and I suddenly notice what else has shifted. This year, I think it's the kids.

After almost 8 and 3/4 years of parenting, I should know that change comes slowly. Sure, sometimes they make leaps that stop you in your tracks, in a mixture of pride (in the child in question) and shock (at your own inevitable ageing alongside them). The trouser legs that suddenly flap halfway up the calves, vocabulary far richer than it was a mere week ago, a clap-back delivered with a completely straight face. 

Most of the time though, I don't know something has changed until I realise I struggle to remember a time it wasn't so. At some point, I stopped needing to rock them to sleep. "Mornings" no longer start in what is clearly the middle of the night. Somehow I don't just have a little more time to put into the garden rather than into keeping small humans from self-destructing, there is also a kid correctly identifying plants alongside me. 

The current shift is a step in the journey to adulthood (for them) and a life post-tiny-dependents (for us) that feels simultaneously miniscule and seismic. As of this term, I only have one child to collect from school. The older one cycles home by himself now, all of 7 minutes along mostly cycle paths. This new rout‌ine means I add a good 20 minutes to my work day, depending on levels of faffery and general cooperation in the small one. In the grand scheme of things it's such a small amount of time it's almost irrelevant - just enough for an extra cup of tea.

And yet. It hit me yesterday that I have two, maybe three years left of doing any school runs at all. Will there soon come a time when I simply wait for the click of their key in the door, and realise with a start that it was once different? Will I know when they've flung themselves into my arms and tell me they've missed for the last time, and remember to hold on extra tight before they inevitably spread their wings even wider? Probably not. Better have that extra cup of tea. 

---

UPCOMING RELEASES

There's a lot of stock-taking going on at work, too. After half a year spent focusing entirely on magazine commissions, and therefore not being able to show anyone anything for months, so much is being released. More kids flying the nest! Last month marked the release of one of my favourite patterns to date, I think, and happily the response on social media was fantastic as well. 

Kishie Vest

The end of September sees the release of a new garment pattern as well as the start of what I hope will be a long and brilliant adventure for all involved; The first issue of new crochet magazine Moorit, brainchild of the amazing Alyson Chu, will go on sale (and if you're in the UK, you can still pre-order a copy now). I poured my heart & soul into every stitch and every line of this highly-textured, versatile vest (do have a look at how Moorit styled it), so I hope you all fall madly in love with it! 

A summer's work

School summer break 2021 turned, inescapably, into another staycation. [There is a Swedish word for this, too: "hemester", an amalgamation of "hem" (home) and "semester" (vacation).]

With the border to the UK still closed, our second vaccinations not scheduled until the very end of the kids' time off, and being kind of unable to keep up with changing travel regulations in Belgium & France anyway... There is no doubt that, with every month that goes by, the heartache of not seeing family and friends abroad only grows. I don't know what to do with that loss - none of us do.

But if all that sounds very down and pessimistic, in reality our summer was filled with abundance too. A different kind, not one of a carroussel of places, faces, and suitcases bulging with things-we-must-bring-back. We've had to work a little harder to find joy close to home. Another thing I guess many of us have had in common, throughout this pandemic {I saw someone call it The Motherf*cking Panny, which I think is thrillingly accurate}.

We found it, of course we did. Maybe most of all me: As someone who instantly wilts like a sad flower in heat, nowhere is more perfect than Sweden in summer. I've dragged everyone else along, up the trees laden with tiny cherries, into freezing cold lakes, and through forests heaving with both mosquitoes and blueberries. The garden has given us handfuls of sweet peas, French beans and all sorts of tomatoes. The heavy clay sod I got Mr E+L and the neighbour to shift in June? That's now the beginnings of a community garden, a strip crammed with sunflowers and runner beans and insects. Soon we'll dig up the potatoes and foist apples onto anyone who passes.

I'm not always sure that everyone else shares my enthusiasm, equally reserved for fruit picking and the pulling on of knitted socks during an inevitable August (and July too, if I'm honest) cold spell. Although...

Last weekend the 8yo came blackberry picking with me. Or rather, he held the box while I wrestled with the thorns. But at one point he looked around the thriving meadow and said gravely, "Mum, are we in the middle of nowhere?". I laughed and pointed out the noise of the nearby ring road and the 3-minute cycle ride home.

"But is feels like it, doesn't it Mum. All I can see is green and it's kind of magical."

My heart did a little leap.

You get it, I thought. Though I'm not sure whether I can take credit or whether you're just being your usual amazing You, though you might prefer to leave off from the juice-stained fingers and tuck straight into the finished crumble... You know how much this is all worth. And I hope, my lovely child, that it goes some way to making up for what you've lost as well as give you something to fight for.

---

Over the coming two months I can finally reveal the patterns I’ve been working on this year, starting with this piece of bright & woolly bling:

Dawn to Dusk Shawl, out now in issue 139 of Inside Crochet Magazine. Photo taken by my 8.5yo!

Sweetpeas, a pandemic, and running a crochet business

One of the strangest, and trickiest, things about running a business in this pandemic has been the not knowing. Not knowing how to respond, how long it will last, what everything will look like when we eventually emerge. Much like our so-called leaders, I'm making it all up as I go along.

I'm fortunate in that I have very little overheads. I don't employ other people, or hold stock that could go off, or rent premises that have suddenly become unaffordable. Our household doesn't rely on my income; That of my partner has remained stable and enough (what a luxury!).

Nevertheless, this Thing that I created over 4 years ago, which feels very much like an extension of my identity (and which has driven it, in some ways. Who knew that my Queer self would find room to peer out, shyly but very much THERE, from behind all the skeins of fluff??) - I didn't want it to disappear. Knowing what "it" was though, nevermind which direction to go in, was far harder to figure out.

I spent a good chunk of March painting frantically, bolted to my chair by severe anxiety. As one event after another was cancelled, as the commissions were retracted and the collaborations fell away, I started experimenting with making tool rolls. As though having something physical to sell might staunch the panic, this feeling that everything was trickling irretrievably through my hands. I realised I am not a professional sewist, and shelved the tools rolls.

I did carry on working on a couple of independent designs, without much conviction but just... Well I just did and did and did on autopilot, for what else was there to do. And all the while, Spring sprung like nothing had happened, until there were handfulls of sweetpeas but definitely no cucumbers.

Then in early May came an email that switched the light back on, as it were. There was mention of "curated content", "specially selected" and "exclusive discount" and for the life of me I couldn't see where the sender of said email was putting in any work at all. In the middle of SODDING PANDEMIC with thousands of people LOSING THEIR LIVELIHOODS. So that was a NO.

Instead, I finally did something I'd been (needlessly, for it was actually very easy) pondering for months: put in place an accessible pricing structure for my patterns. No more launch discounts, instead a maximum price that truly reflects all the work I put in, plus two permanently available discount codes that anyone can use, at any time. To coincide with the new pricing structure I released a new pattern, the Light Falls Shawl + Scarf, and it did well. It made me happy - the design, the collaboration with the yarn producer, how it was received. This is what "it" was. All along.

"It" has been long overdue a re-vamp, too. You know how it is with the Best of Intentions; I hit publish on the first draft of the Emmy + LIEN website four years to just get SOMETHING out there, and there of course it stayed. We still have boxes in the basement, un-unpacked, from when we moved house five years ago.

New logos, new webshop. More prominence for my illustrations alongside the crochet designs. I've got one new design and one re-release planned by the end of the year, and (PRAISE BE) I had a new commission confirmed this week too.

Within a month or so, I also hope to announce a new project that will see me paying forward the many, many priviliges I benefit from.

Stay tuned, and stay safe, dear ones.

For the love of tiny stitches

You might have noticed that, as a rule, my patterns aren't of the quick-and-chunky variety. There's of course the odd exception (to prove the rule or, as my old English teacher put it, to bugger it up), but otherwise... It's lacy mohairs and bouncy 4-plies, a rugged DK at most.

I can't resist the beautiful halo of a thin alpaca, nor the intricacy of tiny stitches. The way lofty sheep’s wool blooms into the smallest of gaps and trap pockets of air. A little puff stitch that sits just so, sometimes concealed in folds of soft fabric only to pop out unexpectedly, delightfully. From a designer's point of view there are advantages too; Given the double-layer nature of crochet stitches, using lightweight yarns opens up possibilities that just aren't achievable with chunkier ones.

I do know that making a project in a lightweight yarn takes time. A lot of time. Often more than I have, too - when I'm making a hat as a gift or a sweater that will be outgrown by my kids in a season or two (if I'm lucky), speed matters. When it's something for me though, something that has to fit perfectly and that I will treasure for years...

It's okay if it takes a while. And it does. A sweater that I'm making as a personal project (as opposed to a work one, which I have to prioritise) can easily take me 3, 4, 5 months to complete. My first sock yarn cardigan took six months, I think? A Spring project turned into Autumn, but it was okay, still just as beautiful the next Spring.

Even if at the time, during the making itself, it sometimes feels like a bit of a battle. My children are almost-3 and 7, which puts them in the "Not Tiny but Still Quite Small" category. They still need me, a lot, and working out what I do and don't have time for is a never-ending brain teaser. I ring fence those 30 minutes at the end of every day with a fierce protectiveness. I'll squeeze in a few rows while I wait for a pot of pasta water to come to a boil, and I probably look forward to the children’s weekend screen time as much as they do. When I can involve them, even if it's just a case of making stuff alongside one another - they paint or build or make puzzles while I crochet - I do. Eventually and sometimes seemingly against all odds, the rows grow into a sweater or shawl.

I don't mean any of this in a "if I can do it, so can you", way. The only person who can understand the routines, needs and challenges in your household is you, especially at in this climate of uncertainty (as I write this Sweden has not been put in Coronavirus lockdown, but it very much feels like it's only a matter of time). Sometimes the only time-investment worth making is Quick and Chunky. But if you're in the mood for a few weeks, or months, of slowly plugging away at a swingy cardigan or a lacy shawl, I've got you covered.

The thing about hats

I’ve been bitten by the hat making bug. For years I’ve made shawls/cardigans/socks/sweaters - anything but hats, really. And now suddenly I can’t stop. I’ve made nine since September. It turns out hats are quick, fun, and really good for using up odd skeins. Huh.

The impending festive season definitely has something to do with it. “Quick! Gift! Knit!”, I see everywhere, from chunky cables to classic rib to round-and-round-and-round sort of tubes. I get it, I do. Five of those nine hats were not for me or my own kids, not made out of necessity but for the heck of it. And seeing how happy they are, to receive something that is warm, pretty and (hopefully) a good fit has been really fun.

September Hat by Caroline Dick

I’ve even set about designing one. I thought, I only have one hat pattern in my portfolio so far, I was given two skeins of perfect, midnight blue tweed at Edinburgh yarn festival, it’d be good for a bit of end-of-year publicity, etc.

The thing about hats, however, is that they’re like everything else I design. Best not rushed. When I rush, I make mistakes or end up with compromises I later regret.

The thing about hats, whether made for yourself or someone else, is that they’re like sandwiches. They always make the receiver happy, this fact you’ve taken the time to butter the bread all the way to the edges and melted the cheese to just the right level of bubbliness and maybe even gone the whole hog with all the toppings. I ate a rye bread open sandwich piled high with nut butter, apple slices, pumpkin seeds, dates and honey at a cafe in Edinburgh. The equivalent of a perfectly slouchy, nubbly grey hat with a little cable, perhaps?

When I stuck a sample of my new design on my best friend’s head, saw how much she liked it and how beautifully it accentuated her blue eyes… I had to let her keep it. I shared that sandwich with her, too.

So I haven’t released the pattern yet. I’ve made an ochre sample and started another blue one, I’m working out multiple sizes, putting options for both a snug beany and a slouchy hat in… I won’t be able to say, “cast on this last minute Christmas gift!”, but I don’t mind. I like the idea of someone getting to this pattern in the quiet of January, or whenever suits them, of them taking their time over the tiny ridges and delighting in the little puffs that go up and up.

An act of spiritual belly-filling, in the making, the wearing and - for me as a designer - the not-stressing about “keeping up”.

See you in January?

P.S. If you do want to crochet a new hat this side of Christmas, I made some tweaks to the instructions for the Lomma Hat (it’s free"!) so they are easier to understand.

P.P. S. I will also be running a promotion cum fundraiser from 21 to 31 December, so follow my social media outlets if you want to keep an eye on that.

Withdrawal from The Making Things App: A Timeline and Open Letter

In October last year, you might have seen me promoting a new online pattern platform, called the Making Things App, across my social media profiles. It has since become clear that Making Things is not the kind of company I want to be supporting, either personally or as a brand. What follows in this post is a timeline of my interactions with them, and a copy of my letter of withdrawal as a designer on the platform. I am making these public for the sake of transparency and accountability.

To anyone who joined MT specifically to support my work, I appreciate that gesture endlessly and I apologise for the part I personally played in convincing you this was a platform worth signing up to. I apologise if you signed up in the hope of gaining access to more of my patterns. My one pattern will remain accessible on MT for another 12 weeks before it is removed. Whether you wish to end your subscription right now or keep the pattern after that 12-week period is over, please email me to request your free PDF copy, no questions asked.

You also have a right to know what I do with the money I have earned from MT so far. At the end of every month that I actually get an income, I donate to a number of anti-racism educators and other content producers whose work I believe to be valuable.

---

2018

27 August: (In response to an invitation to join MT as a launch designer) Write to CEO to question the apparent lack of representation of anyone other than young white women in the few promotional images/footage available.

28 August: Receive personal assurances from CEO that "Inclusivity is at the heart of everything we do, and the driver for all the decisions we make".

October: Sign up to MT as launch designer, add one pattern, take part in launch campaign.

2 November: Write to CEO to express concern about the lack of guidance given to designers with regards to the MT launch and advertising standards, and lack of transparency.

6 November: Receive a general (i.e. addressed to all MT designers) apology for MT's lack of guidance around the launch.

2019

6 February: Write to Designer Community Manager and CEO to question transparency of an (upcoming) advertising campaign, and also to further question the statement "inclusivity is at... decisions we make" after seeing promotional footage featuring only female, young, thin and (to my knowledge) able-bodied, neuro-typical, cis-gendered and straight designers. Ask what the company is intending to do to ensure inclusivity really is at the heart of everything.

8 February: Receive a personal video reply from Designer Community Manager containing:

• assurances that transparency in MT's advertising campaigns was a given

• an explanation of the promotional video being the result of who responded to a reach-out by MT (which begs the question: but who did you reach out to and, if you reached out to a diverse audience, why did such a narrow subset feel able to respond to you)

• assurances that MT were having internal conversations about how to best use that content, alongside a general awareness in the team that this was long-term "work that has to be done every single day"

• request to allow MT to continue to "do the work" and create new content around its core values

At this point I stopped engaging with the company. I was invited to discuss the points in my 6 Feb email further in a video call, but due to us being in very different time zones we were unable to find a time where we were all actually awake and working. I didn't think it would be fruitful to carry on trying to get my point across in emails, having been told this was not the preferred method of communication. I spent the next month or so pondering how to go forward, but did not prioritise it over other work and personal commitments.

During the weekend of 16-17 March I learned that many other designers as well as customers had attempted to raise similar concerns with MT, and felt equally unsatisfied with the response. Further, BIPoC designers on the platform made it clear they had been made to feel unwelcome and unsafe.

Both as a result of my own dissatisfaction with the company and as a demonstration of my solidarity with former MT BIPoC designers, I have decided to withdraw from the MT platform. Detailed reasons can be found in my letter to the MT CEO below.

---

“Dear Megan,

Below you will find my reasons as to why I chose the “remove” option on the registration form. As you say you welcome feedback, I felt it was important to make these clear.

1. Mismanagement, Inconsistency and Lack of Professionalism
You (I am addressing this to you, as CEO, and because I am no longer certain who actually forms part of the MT management team) have demonstrated a worrying inability to manage such a large and public platform.
From presenting unrealistic potential earnings to launch designers, a botched launch that saw many designers being attacked for joining MT, promising features to customers and designers alike but failing to deliver them, to insisting on a top-down management style in which you refuse to engage meaningfully with the very people you claim to be building a “community” for/with...
It all speaks of incompetence, inconsistency, and inexperience.
It reflects badly on you, but also on the many designers that put their name to MT.
So, to put it quite bluntly, as a designer I am no longer willing to put my own time and energy into supporting a company that is badly run, despite any financial reward I might gain from doing so.

2. Structural Racism
I have seen your statements dated 27 February and 18 March. It is a case of too little, too late. You were given ample opportunity to “do better” months ago.
I myself raised the lack of representation in your work in August 2018 and again in early February this year. In neither instance did I feel my concerns were adequately addressed.
In addition to this and more importantly, in the last 24 hours it’s become clear that many BIPoC designers were made to feel unwelcome and unsafe by MT, and that several members of staff who attempted to improve representation in the last two months have since been laid off.
You didn’t need to appoint an external BIPoC adviser with an impressive CV. You had all the advisers you needed right under your nose: the many BIPoC designers who have put their own time and effort into supporting the MT platform.
You’ve let those designers down, and you’ve shown yourself to be incapable of taking responsibility for the inherent, structural racism that comes with owning a company as a white person. You’ve failed to understand that creating a “safe space” for BIPoC goes beyond who you may or may not be as an individual, beyond using a few promotional images or PR statements with assurances that all are welcome. It goes to the very core of the company ethos.
As a designer and as an individual, your company does not possess an ethos I am willing to be associated with.

In the end, what it comes down to is trust. Had you proven yourself to be trustworthy by adopting the grass-roots style of management that this kind of community-built platform actually requires, I and other designers/customers may have felt more inclined to put down any concerns to inevitable teething problems. We might have agreed that, yes, making meaningful changes to the very structure of the company takes time, and goes beyond putting a few BIPoC faces on a website in the name of diversity. We might have actually given you that time. My opinion is that you squandered the opportunities you were given.

Eline Alcocer @ Emmy + LIEN”

An Autumn {love} Story

The coming of Autumn always causes a feeling of melancholy in me, so profound I can almost taste it. It’s a kind of delicious flavour. There is something indulgent about savouring memories of long, warm summer days, feasting on the last bursts of colour, and not being able to help but feel a bit sad when the last of nature's bounty has gone. It is, after all, just so more-ish.

My recipe for for dealing with the sadness is warmth. Steaming soups, sourdough toast, melted butter for our bellies. Wool, wool and more wool over our shoulders, hands, heads. I unwrap all our jumpers with a sense of importance, and the kids just think it's funny to try on all of last year's hats at once.

Usually Autumn is brief here; King Winter comes swiftly and mercilessly, stifling everything for almost 6 months. But this year has been strangely warm, and so at the beginning of November, when I would not expect there to be a single leaf left anywhere, I found myself with the chance to photograph a new design outside.

Not inside, struggling with the lack of natural light and wracking my brains for appealing props, but out in the soft glow of the Autumn sun and marvelling at how much there still remained to enjoy.

Well, photograph the new design was the intention. I got distracted by the model.

With two small children and two jobs, life is full. Very often good-full but also challenging-full, and in either case there is very little time or space for us to just be. Ourselves, a couple.

Even this session was typically rushed; We wolfed down our lunch at a local cafe, spent just half an hour messing about with light and leaves and sleeves. Then it was straight back to work before the evening shift of dinner-bath-bed-COLLAPSE.

It was a nice half an hour though. Full of soft light. Of observing and connecting, however briefly. Of remembering a Before, with melancholy. For just a short while, all the drudgery, loneliness and friction that inevitably make up the darker side of an intense relationship sort of faded into the background.

I can't believe it's been 10 years since he wandered into my office 5 times a day, under the pretense of needing to use the photocopier. He's a good 'un, my husband (and he's hot, in my unbiased opinion). Although he wouldn't give me back my cardigan.

New brushes

For my birthday this year Mr E+L said he wanted to buy me something at the art shop. It had been years since I last picked up a pencil but then, a month or two ago - in an ongoing attempt to chase away the fog of PND, to connect with the increasingly recalcitrant 5yo in a shared creative way, to just give in to a very ancient-feeling itch, I don't know - I suddenly started again. So he said, do you need any new materials?

Proper paper and paint brushes, I replied. Off we went one afternoon (because I had to choose myself), and the buying was so very, so hilariously, representative of where we are now: 

A week late  (because the biggest boy had us all marooned at home with chickenpox on my birthday itself), two small children, bribery snacks smudged into the corners of their mouths. As soon as I walked into the shop it felt like all the ones that had gone before: a treasure trove of smells and textures, instantly safe. Except previously I'd always been alone, and now there were three other people with me, two of whom couldn't wait to discover. Less doable for the small one (not that he didn't try, swipey hands at the ready), but the big one was enthralled. I set him to work with the paintbrushes and water at one of those Japanese calligraphy practice tablets while I tried, as quickly as baby-time allowed, to think.

It was rushed, infuriating, funny, exhilerating to share "my" space with them. I came away with three beautiful new brushes and a fat pad of paper. Oh and a set of watercolour pencils for the Bean. He's since drawn a whole series of alien busses with them. Because, why not?

As for me, I can't tell you how good it feels to draw again. I hadn't realised how much I had missed the timber smell of pencils or the touch of the paper, until they were in front of me again. It's almost like an awkward dance of courtship: I know you deeply, but I've lost the fluency and confidence with which to handle you properly. The only thing to do is practice. 

At the moment I'm using Derwent Inktense pencils - you draw and then go over them with water. I'm sketching new designs in them, but I'm also doing lots of colour studies. I feel a great need for coherence, right now, and I feel my portofolio so far is all over the place. Which I have been too, of course (5 countries and 2 continents in two decades!) but now it's time become more grounded. 

This is what came out for the rest of this year's new releases. I'm surprised at just how "grounded" - soil, earth, foliage with a splash of sky - they are, but I think I like them.  The idea for the little colour cards, by the way, is one I have unashamedly stolen from Ingrid at IngThings, one of my favourite blogs and corresponding instagram accounts. A while ago she was selling the cutest sets of them in her webshop but, having failed to secure one, I decided to make my own. They're very addictive to do.

So now I'm using these cards to help me plan what I hope will become something akin to a collection. The fibres I'm working with don't match the current season (always two ahead, as a rule), but I feel that come winter the pretty pinks and lilacs will serve as good reminder of what inspired me, this beautiful but uncharacteristically warm spring (has the weather been as crazy where you are? We are heading towards drought, in Sweden of all places).