A conversation together with Miranda

Vibeke: Hi Miranda! I am so happy that you said yes to doing this conversation post together with me. First, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Miranda: Well, I’m Miranda van Dijk, and I live in the Netherlands with my husband and son. I’m the designer and maker of Puur Anders . I create fabric flowers and leaves with (vintage) photographs.

Vibeke: Three words that you would choose to describe yourself?

Miranda: Poetic, dreamer, impassioned.

Vibeke: You are the designer and maker of Puur Anders (means pure different in Dutch). I have been admiring your beautiful pieces for quite some time and I am curious to know the story behind the choosing of this specific name?

Miranda: The idea behind the name is that you can find beauty everywhere. Even in the normal things, they could be right on your doorstep. So common, but so extraordinary. Different. Pure different.

Vibeke: How were the idea of Puur Anders "born" and how where your path from making the idea into reality?

Miranda: Well, it started during my second year of the Styling Academy. I quit my dayjob for this school. I really thought being a stylist was what I always wanted. But what I loved most was the creating process. And doing something of my own and not working for a company. Now I think I’m more an independent artist than a stylist, but then I didn’t realized that. I felt a relief when I graduated and I remember saying to my husband: ‘Finally, I can do the things that I like.’

Between the school assignments I’d already created the story concept ‘Abandoned by Nature’ about the last woman on Earth who is abandoned by Mother Nature. For this concept I crocheted dark rubber flower jewelry. I started selling these items on markets and galleries and Puur Anders was coming to live.

Vibeke: What are for you the biggest blessing about beeing an artist and what do you feel are the most challenging about it?

Miranda: I like the creativity process. At the same time it is the most challenging. It can be a struggle when I have a clear picture in my head and it doesn’t turn out to be. During these down moments I’m starting to think I have to find a decent job. I’ve learned that I have to do something completely different to get my head clear. Fortunately, I’m still an artist. Independent and working in my own home. It is truly me.

Vibeke: Were you a creative child and what was your favourite thing to do?

Miranda: I can’t remember being very creative as a child. What I do liked was playing with the LEGO and Playmobil of my two older brothers. I created complete cities and whole stories. I was always busy changing my room, so maybe there is a bit of stylist in me, haha.

Vibeke: Can you tell us a little bit about how you work?

Miranda: Everything starts in my head after seeing an inspiring photo, magazine or something on the street. Sometimes I make a drawing of the idea in my notebook or make a note. I start collecting information, most of it are pictures to get a complete picture. And then comes the most difficult part, to start making. There are a lot of experiments lying in my drawer, unused. Or I leave them on my workspace. To look at it again and again when I’m not happy with it. I’ve realized I have to share these experiments on my blog and on facebook. Reading positive words about it, makes my heart sing and it is just what I need to finish it.

Vibeke: I LOVE the wrappings you do when one has bought something from you!! is the wrapping something you find especially important?

Miranda: Yes I do. My pieces are mostly a precious gift for someone. I want it to look like you’ve find a little treasure in your grandmother’s chest of drawers.

Vibeke: Are there any other crafts that you enjoy? Maybe there also is something new that you would have liked to learn/explore more?

Miranda: Well, I like crocheting and embroidering, but it is hard to find time for it. I would love to learn screen-printing and sewing. I got a sewing machine for my birthday last year, but it is still unused.

Vibeke: How do you relax?

Miranda: I always create time to be with my son. Playing with him makes me forget about my work. We go out for a walk with his bike or drink some coffee and tea at a nature visitor center here in the neighbourhood.

I have to deal with peaks in my work, like Mothersday and Christmas. During these months it is very busy and I have to work in the evenings. Than it is very relaxing to have a free weekend with my husband and son. Going for a forest walk of have some fun at sea.

Vibeke: What means the word creativity to you?

Miranda: Creativity is finding solutions, having an idea in your head which you can make for real and making things with your hands.

Vibeke: What inspires you?

Miranda: Everything, but most of all nature. Nature is such a wonderful artist. Every leaf is different, every flower has his own imperfections. I can’t get enough also of poetic and dreamy pictures of women in rough and romantic landscapes. I love the combination of these two. My pinterest account is full of these images.
Vibeke: I hugely enjoy your Pinterest, a collection of beauty and inspiration!

Vibeke: I LOVE your online catalogues, so beautiful! I read a quote there: "observing others is finding yourself"...really like these words. Do you have some quotes that you especially like?

Miranda: I love quotes too, but I’m not really good in remembering them. There one hanging in my living room: "Follow your dreams".

Vibeke: I know that nature is an important thing for you. can you share a little bit about what beeing in nature means to you?

Miranda: Beeing in nature is finding energy and peace. I find it very relaxing to walk down the river only 3 minutes from my home. I need it the most when my head is too full of ideas or troubles. It feels like the river takes everything with her. 

Vibeke: I know that you work with a lot of custom pieces and i would believe that there sometimes are some emotional stories behind many of them....are there a special one that you would like to share with us?

Miranda: Every item is special and sometimes you hear the story behind. Once I made a leaf of a birthcertificate. It was a motherday gift. The paper was very old and full of medical terms and it said that the little boy died direct after giving birth. This little paper was the only proof that this little boy had existed. No pictures, only a name and a date.

Vibeke: I am lucky to have some lovely penpals around the world and especially a couple of them are often sending me the most pretty dried leaves and flowers (i love nature treasures like that). The last leafs i got were some yellow ginko leaves, i love their shape. Because your pieces often consists of leaves and flowers i wonder if you have some favourites?

Miranda: I love tulips, snowdrops and daffodils. I always buy them in the grey months. They remind me that spring isn’t far away anymore. 
Vibeke: I also buy fresh flowers in the grey/dark and cold months so that i get a reminder of spring...it uplifts and refreshes me.

Vibeke: Where can one buy your work?

Miranda: You can buy my work online in my Etsy shop or in my Dutch shop. A couple of stores in The Netherlands sells my work too.

Vibeke: Are you working on any new ideas these days and if you do can you share a little bit about it with us?

Miranda: I’ve had many questions lately for framed work. Not everyone prefers a brooch or necklace, but want it to be an object in their home. I’ve always said no, because of the extensive shipping costs. But it gives so many more opportunities, like a whole branch with photographic leaves. I like the idea that you can have your own ‘family-tree’ on the wall.

I’m also working on new flowers, which you can put in a vase. And on a butterfly brooch. And…

There will be a lot of new stuff this year in a completely different concept. Just wait till spring!
Vibeke: BUTTERFLY brooch!!?? Oh, i can't wait for this one Miranda...*smiling*...

Vibeke: Winter is slowly starting to turn into early spring here in Norway now. I have learned to like winter more the last years but i am passionate about spring......i LOVE spring! What about you?

Miranda: I’m not very fond of winter actually. I love the winter days which are not so cold and with a lot of sun. Yesterday I heard the birds sing in the morning when I woke up. Finally! My favourite season is spring. Seeing the green come to live.

Vibeke: This has been such a lovely and inspiring conversation Miranda! And lastly i want to ask you about what you are most happy about in your life right now?

Miranda: Definitely, my family life. My son and husband. 


Links:
Blog,
Pinterest
and
Etsy.

"spring" blouse, poetry and the scent and taste of apricot and peach tea

aren't the details on my new NOA NOA blouse pretty!? i am going to save it for my birthday celebration later this month...*smiling*...

for a long as i can remember my mother has been a coffee drinker with no interest at all for tea. but the last couple of year she has suddenly started to take interest in it and now she is almost just as addicted to her daily cup(s) of tea as i am...*smiling*.. i LOVE the fact that she drinks tea....those who know me knows how passionate i am about tea.......i could talk about (and drink) tea for hours....*laughing*...i almost have to be draged out every time when visiting my favourite tea store, le palais des thes.
earlier today my mother bought herself a tin with a delicious organic tea that i have just tasted now, it was the tea løv is beautiful. i wish i could buy this one as a scented candle too because the scent from the tea cup is heavenly!!! if i close my eyes i can almost feel the closeness of sunny and warm summerdays....so lovely...

a few days back a dear friend of mine sent me a beautiful poem by mary oliver. because i am a huge admirer of her work i have already read a lot of her poems but this one was completely new to me. no one manages to "capture" me with their words like mary oliver does!

 

SLEEPING IN THE FOREST

-by Mary Oliver

I thought the earth

remembered me, she

took me back so tenderly, arranging

her dark skirts, her pockets

full of lichens and seeds. I slept

as never before, a stone

on the riverbed, nothing

between me and the white fire of the stars

but my thoughts, and they floated

light as moths among the branches

of the perfect trees. All night

I heard the small kingdoms breathing

around me, the insects, and the birds

who do their work in the darkness.  All night

I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling

with a luminous doom.  By morning

I had vanished at least a dozen times

into something better.

Messy Faux Bob Tutorial

Hello lovlies, I decided to do a faux bob hair tutorial today. I always get a huge urge to cut all my hair off and when I have that urge I normally do this hair-do because it's a lot easier and a lot cheaper too!

01. Start by roughly waving your hair, this gives the bob more volume and makes it easier to secure! Then lightly tease your hair at the roots for that extra bit of something.

02. Now it's time to do a bit of rolling, tucking and pinning.

03. Roll hair inward and secure with as many bobby pins as needed!

04. Do the same as 02 and 03, to the back of your hair and the other side.

and voila! That's it, simples. And takes about 3 minutes. Perfect if you're in a hurry!

I'm Finally Back! & My Future Hair Tutorial Ideas

Hey Dolls! I'm finally back to being a full on blogger again (WOO) after waiting ages for my laptop to be fixed, i can FINALLY do my tutorials and all that good stuff. Thank you so, so much to everyone that have stuck by and thank you for having patients in me.

Here are a few ideas i've had for my future hair tuts, i've been doing extensive research on what hair-dos have been making there way onto the runway this year. I love all of these so i'm going to give them a wee go and hopefully help one person out at least :)

Please Let me know anything else you want to see this year on my blog? I'm going to start doing a few more lifestyle posts soon too, so hopefully they will come out ok! Thank you again for being so patient you absolute babes and i'm so sorry for being such a pooey blogger recently, but I am back for good, i'm afraid you're stuck with me!

sunday, snowflakes, sunshine...

yesterday the view was dancing snowflakes when i looked out through my window (made me think of this song), today it is bright sun. my geraniums have started to be thirsty quite often now and many of my plants is bursting with fresh greenness already.
just finished my annabel cardigan, the lenght of the arms ended up being a little bit shorter then what i actually was wishing for because of getting short of yarn (i am re-using yarn from an old knittingproject) BUT i am VERY happy with this cardigan anyway and i know i will use it a lot...*smiling*. Has been a lovely knitting project! I have used two strands of alpakka on this one, it feels light, airy and warm when i have it on.
today i have put on a pretty little pearl brooch on my annabel that i got after my grandmother...it is one of those special things that i have after her...when i wear it it always makes me happy, she was such a lovely women who will for always have a very special place in my heart.

the tea the des alizes is in my "flower" cup today (speeking of tea: brandi is now offering her DELICIOUS tea blends through her etsy...i have been so lucky to taste one of her blends a little while back and i LOVED it), going to continue on my chair-bee-quilt, enjoying the sight of the sun and birds eating from the nutbags we placed out at the feeders yesterday, they are crazy about them...*smiling*...

i know that many of my readers don't have their own blogs (commenting as anonymous). but sadly i have had to stop the possibility to comment as an anonymous here now at my blog because i have been bombarded with spam the last months. i will open for anonymous comments when i have my noa noa give-away's in here so my anonymous readers also gets to enter but i will close it again afterwards.
if you want to comment or get in touch with me you can of course still send to my e-mail address that you find at the contact page here on my blog....*smiling*...

listening to good music, sourrounded by refereshing sunlight, drinking heavenly tea from a very special friend, eating the most delicious tangerines that i bought from the asian store the other day...gosh how i love the taste and scent of them. these days i am re-using some alpakka yarn from a far from succesful knittingproject i did some years back. i am now making carrie's LOVELY annabel cardigan with the yarn, soon finished and i am already very happy with it....i adore carrie's designs, hugely recommendable...*smiling*....

Conversation with Susan

 

Vibeke: Hello Susan. I am so happy that you said yes to having this conversation together with me! I have been admiring your work for quite a while now and i am very excited to get the chance to learn more about both you and your work.

Susan: Hello, Vibeke, and thank you for inviting me to talk about my life and weaving here, on A Butterfly in My Hair.

Vibeke: A little bit about you...what you do?

Susan: I am a design weaver with a weaving workshop and retail store called Avalanche Looms. The store and workshop are on my farm in a valley town, Avalanche, Wisconsin. There are just 10 houses here on the West Fork of the Kickapoo River. Avalanche Looms seemed like a good name, and a little funny. I work by myself, but my store is open several days a week, and people come in to shop, and visit. I like this arrangement very much.

 
Vibeke: When did your interest for weaving start and how long have you been doing it now?

Susan: I can tell you how I got here. More than 30 years ago, my husband and I left our jobs north of Detroit. I was a book editor, and he owned an art gallery. But we were tired of our suburban life, and wanted to live in the country where we could live more self sufficiently, grow our own food, build our house, make our own clothes. We bought a run down, beautiful 100 acre farm in Avalanche, the farm we still live on. We didn't have a clue about what we would do for a living, but we were confident we’d think of something. We had many naïve and romantic ideas.

At first we farmed, until my husband found work he liked better as a builder.  I was at home, taking care of the large garden, the chickens, and some heifers.

I was  also writing fiction, and frustrated with what I was doing. We hadn’t made many friends, or much money, either. I began to think I was a person who would never be satisfied. I was lonely. Though I was still glad to have left our old life behind, the new one didn’t seem so promising.
Then, everything changed.  I was pregnant with my first daughter, and I taught myself to weave on an old Norwegian immigrant built barn loom. We live in an area of Wisconsin settled by Norwegian immigrants, and there are some of these old looms around, built by hand, with trees they cut on their farms 100 years ago. My neighbor had one, and asked me if I would store it for her. We had just built a new workshop for my husband, and I had said I wanted a studio upstairs. I set the loom up there, and learned to weave. Learning to weave is not rocket science, as people have told me, but it was still a  big accomplishment for me.  Having a baby and becoming a mother wasn't rocket science, either, but it was the most important and hardest work I've ever done. 

Vibeke: When you first started with this craft what did you make and how did it develop?
Susan: I started out weaving with rags. I always loved old rag rugs, their soft worn textures, and colors. Rag weaving offered so many possibilities for color, texture and design. And rags are not precious materials. They were available in every thrift shop, or rummage sale.

In the end, I had two floor looms in that studio, my sewing machine, a book press, along with book shelves, toy shelves, a hammock a double bed, a dollhouse, and a little Jotul wood burning stove, with a Japanese teapot on top. When they were young, our three (!) kids, and the dog, and the cat, stayed with me while I wove. It was a cheerful, bright place, and I was so happy to have that place to work. It was a very important change for me, to have a separate studio. I spent at least four hours a day weaving, and I got better at it. I didn’t do so much housework, or laundry, or clean the bathroom too often, because it was out of sight in the house. We all survived. Oh, and I never wove our clothes. Good, because with the little time I had to work on it, we would have been mostly naked.

Vibeke: And how do you work now many years after you first started this craft?
Susan: These days, I like to work on  three looms at a time. I like to start my weaving day on my old barn loom, weaving linen and paper flower weaves.  I call them, transparencies, like the Finnish make. I also call them House Blessings. I don’t change this design, and though it involves many steps, I don't have to think about them, at all. I like to hear the rustle of the white paper yarn flowers, the sound of the brush swishing in the cup of water, that I use to open the yarn into petals, the click of the shuttle,  the swing and thunk of the heavy beater on the old barn loom. It  is very calm, and ordinary. Outside the window, birds fly in to the feeder, and the sun comes in the east window. No matter what time of year it is, I am in my white paper flower garden, with the taut spaced linen warp,  and the simplicity of plain weave. 
 On another loom I may have scarves. I have been weaving a series of inlaid "Cross" scarves lately. The bast fibers, mainly Swedish linen, cotton and hemp are my favorite yarns. I start each scarf with a section of design that I repeat in every scarf, changing some colors. I use some of my favorite designs from the previous scarf in the next one, and I improvise with color and pattern for the rest of the scarf, and so the design transforms.

 On another loom I usually have a rag weave. Instead of weaving rag rugs, though, I've been weaving long bolts of fabric made from rag strips and yarns, with inlays. These are very improvisational weaves. Some of the inlays are rosepath patterns that fill squares and crosses.  With these bolts of fabric I sew cushions, or curtains for my "bachelor cupboards", made from old honey-bee boxes. The inlay squares and cross designs hold many different meanings for me. Sometimes the squares are bee boxes filled with the activity of the hive, or sometimes windows into an imaginative landscape, revealing the pattern that is hidden in the threading of the loom. Once, a square was a television screen with bad reception.  

The cross I weave is a design that has a long history in ancient weavings and not one that I associate with the Christian symbol. Native Americans used it to represent the 4 cardinal directions, which is more what it means to me.  Mainly, it is an easy block form to weave, and I like to fill it with a diagonal goose eye design. 

Vibeke: Have there been a specific artist that has inspired you and why?
Susan: Pia Wallen, the Swedish modernist who designed the iconic Crux blanket, has been my weaving hero. She said she worked with felt because it was one of the fundamental elements in a sub-polar climate, along with grain, potatoes, salt, herring, wood, furs and iron ore. She called the Nordic countries the Felt Belt. She has also said she is not inspired by nature, but by things made by other people. Folkloristic textiles filled her with passion, and she refined elements from that in her work.  She also felt it was her mission to carry on cultural heritage, develop it, bring it up to date, and to contribute to elevating the status of textile art, shamefully low, she thought, because textiles have always been women’s work.

I felt the same way about making things on the loom, traditional, simple, rustic, and modern. I like to make textiles that meet at the threshold of art and function. That is what I hoped to do, anyway. I am also inspired by things made by other people, old rag rugs and contemporary artists. And I agree with Wallen, that the status of textile art is shamefully low, because it is mainly women’s work. All of my grandparents were immigrants. My grandfather came from Northern Sweden, at the Arctic Circle, and I do think of myself as a Northern weaver.

Much of what I weave comes from a curiosity about the story of their coming to America in the late 1800's and early 1900's. What it must have meant to leave their families in uncertain lives, and not ever to return. Post cards and letters weren't frequent. So many things were never said, or written. How difficult it was for them to live here, once they had made the decision. I have a paper weave called “All My Eggs in One Basket” which is inspired by my grandmother, who had to leave her family behind in Finland, in a terrible civil war, to come here, alone, when she was just 19 years old. How brave, she was. She has not been the only one to come to America to escape a war.

  

 Vibeke: In one of your blog posts you have written these words, i find them very beautiful:

"A rug is a path. It is a record of many choices (color, texture, mood, balance) made by the weaver as she follows her hunches of which is the best way to go, what next, and next, and next. Off of the loom, and on the floor, the rug is an actual path. Wide enough for a person to walk its length, for a moment or two, along the path the weaver made. Choosing to weave rags is also a path."

I have always had a special thing for rags! It is so much history in them. My mom have some of the old rags that my grandmother weaved herself (some of them she made together with her own mother) and both my mom and i look at them as treasures. Do you have a special feeling about rags too and also about the process of making them?

Susan: I’m interested in the paths we all take, the choices we make, and our stories.

A rug is a path. It is a physical record of many choices (color, texture, mood, balance) made by the weaver as she follows her hunches of which is the best way to go, what next, and next, and next. Off the loom, and on the floor, the rug is an actual path. Wide enough for a person to walk its length, for a moment or two, along the path the weaver made. Choosing to weave rags is also a path. I’ve learned to pay attention and trust my eye as I weave.

Vibeke: Other artists that have been an inspiration to you in your weaving life?

Susan: I’ve been inspired by many artists in my weaving life, Chiaki Maki, Reiko Sudo, Anu Tuominen, Jokkum Nordstrom, are some of the artists whose work ignites my imagination. Imagination is the best part of being human, and I believe everyone has an imagination. Our imaginations are meant to meet and make sparks. All of our minds together will bring new ideas into the mix, new combinations. I’m so grateful to meet and know the artists I have found through the internet and blogging. To be able to connect with other artists around the world, as you arranged so well in your Advent project, is simply wondrous.

 
Vibeke: Dear Susan this has been such a wonderful conversation, SO interesting and inspiring! I want to thank you for taking the time and also for all that you have shared here with us. I have always had a love and interest for weaving but now i feel even more inspired and drawn to this craft than ever before. AND i also have to say that i find your work deeply beautiful, soulful and unique....just as i find you as a person too!

Susan: Thanks for the chance to talk about weaving here. I hope that someone reading this may feel more confident to start weaving, if they have considered it. It’s not rocket science. Weaving allows so much to happen. In weave you can build textures, create contrast, blend colors like painting. Color, light and shadow are shifting and dynamic. Appearances constantly change, day, night, sunshine, shadow, liquid, transparent, opaque. Trying to capture this mysterious changing realm, and make it into richness in the surface of a weave is endlessly fascinating. I believe a weave, even a plain rag rug, can be like a poem or a painting, making something meaningful, and possibly beautiful, with what you have.

Links:
blog,
etsy
and
flickr.