Easter crafts and my new bench buddy

Spring is early this year and the cherry blossoms have started since a couple of weeks, even in my own backyard, beautiful!

 

I have knitted a sweater “on demand”.  It is my daughter’s boyfriend Simon who wanted a warm alpaca sweater to use when birdwatching in our cold climate. I knitted from my Alice Starmore book with patterns from various countries and I made a mixture but mostly Norwegian. This is the result:

 

 

 

 

Not long ago I bought a jewellery tumbler and I am so happy with it! Half an hour’s tumbling with a stainless steel mixed shot, some water and soap makes the silver shine with a gloss that is difficult to achieve in any other way. The tumbler reaches every corner and is so gentle that even delicate filigree comes out undistorted.

 

 

 

 

 

I like dragonflies and I know it has great symbolic value in other cultures. Here are a pendant and a pair of  ear- pendants:

 

 

 

 

Other things I have made recently, rings with labradorite and bracelet of chrysocolla:

 

 

 

I have bought soldering clamp strips made of titanium, very neat. You bend it to the shape you prefer and it can be used to hold items in place during soldering. Titanium is a metal with unique features: solder doesn’t stick to it, it stays strong when red. It transfers heat very slowly and it  doesn’t interfere with nearby joints and parts. I have a titanium solder stick which I can hold in one end when red hot at the other end. Very useful when it comes to “pick soldering”.

My favourite art museum in Stockholm: Prince Eugens’ Waldemarsudde has two ongoing exhibitions: its: Grez-sur-Loing – Art and Relations and Björn Wessman, an excellent colourist. GsL was a legendary French village with an artist colony with artists mainly from Scandinavia and Anglosaxon countries in the late 19th century. This exhibition focus on relationships and highlights both women and men, for example the marvellous Julia Beck. Björn Wessman, a contemporary Swedish artist is inspired by the nature in Stockholm archipelago. Many of those paintings have not been exhibited before. These paintings are breathtaking and no photo can show the colours properly.

---