Happy, happy

I wish you Happy New Year 2012!

Hat

Hat, a beret for little Markétka. Casted on 65 stitches, follow up on round needle on 120 stitches, 20 cm, knitting little knots along. Here I am trying to look like an experienced knitting blogger burbling some familiar sounding words. It is not only that I don't know the English knitting vocabulary, I do not have a slightest idea how many stitches I casted on (or whatever) and I don't even know how I succeeded in spreading those little bullets so regularly. It is true, there are kind of holes next to each bullet but it seems that she doesn't care. She said she wanted to wear it sideways, like a painter. I love my nieces, they love everything I make for them.

My brother. Around 1970. Here he was as old as my little Domík is now. The pictures have a strong déja vu for me, although I was not born yet then.

Merry Christmas!

It is sad

1936 - 2011

In newspaper the journalist call him a president and they call an actual president a "contemporary head of the state". I think it is significant. The spontaneous honour and hommage that he receives from people is exceptional.
Pictures, have a look, from the life of V. H.

Cats in a Violin

A book from the library. It came out in 1969. I read in some interview with the poet that he used to make living with writing children's books back in the 1970s and 1980s. And he was not a prominent writer, with a political support or anything like that. Lot of people of letters had an independent path as long as they were allowed to publish. But this money thing - it is interesting and depressing how it is harder and harder to make living in art now, having just one job.

Nativity scene

Improvised nativity scene. Little abstract and that is what makes it. All family contributed. Domík came up with the light. I was proud. We thought we would have it for Christmas instead of our normal nativity scene. Then Domík accidentally kicked it and then he kicked it little more, not accidentally. That was the short life of our new and theatrical Bethlehem.

Advent

Some cookies. I bothered with the icing only this time. The rest comes from, guess where, IKEA.
I met with my cousin there and we had a nice and little hectic chit chat. I am working on some books (for work) and I received an article published in German Zeitschrift, it is part of my doctorate work. I am supposed to finish the school this year, I am not sure about that. I am reading another Fred Vargas. Apart from other stuff, that is more boring.

So I am making this little resume here for you that could be actually longer and might slowly transfer first into more intimate stuff and then into phantasmagoric and surreal ideas.

I will save that for next time.

Hat

We did not go out today. I guess, you can say what I was doing ... and what Domík was doing. The hat is going to be mine.

Celtic oppidum

I guess that pictures of beautiful landscape would not strike you. Even a former Celtic oppidum would not help, neither the rocking stone (roche tremblante) of a supposedly magic Celtic quality (I tell you what, it did not even rock...).

It is little waiting rooms at train stations that deserve your attention. I seriously think that someone should photograph them like a series. They are kind of dried up spaces, a mixture of what things used to be 20 years ago and an endeavour to modernize which usually goes completely wrong direction. My husband liked the wall hangings, so well and badly known to me from when I was a kid. He wants one like that in our kitchen. I like it here on the blog better. I have no idea what the first one represents.

By the way, the walk in the wood and around the oppidum (you could not see it) was great.

Photo /c/ husband

Hold your horses

Hot wheels in the picture is Domík's and mine common project. It is a magazine. a home made one. Domík came up with it. And mummy felt like 10 years old ardent boy working on the picture for his pencil case.

The first picture: Dinosaurs by daddy.

The last: Book by Andy Warhol's mother for her little Andy. I think it is called Holy cats. The picture comes from a bizarre book on Warhol's relation to his native country and his family. I recommend. But you have to wait for the English edition.

Other than that:
I recall last year and our Christmas preparations. The little guy was ill and we had a lot of time to plan. We made gigantic gingerbread house. This years is different. I have more of interesting work and sometimes I enjoy it. I do not know yet if we pass this Christmas at home or in my parents' house. I can still make some gingerbread cookies. But before I will make three Wiener Schnitzles and we head off away from the town tomorrow for the walk in the wood (and in the fog which is actually smog - but not in the wood, right?).

....

I have a cold. It is annoying. I also got a bouquet, how beautiful! And a T-shirt and a handmade dinky minimalist book from Domík. It contains a spider, his drawers, a suitcase and a guitar. I ll show you later. But the most beautiful present was Domík's congratulation whispered in my ear. Something in between of what they taught him at school to say for their friends' birthday and what he wanted to say from his heart. Yes, I dropped a tear.



First picture: I am finishing some leftovers.

Yey!

I thought that I had made well enough puppets to put together a photo shoot. In the end it is the little guy who turned out the best. He likes robots. I sew one for him, it is the guy with a square head. His favorite. Mine is the doll, one of the first achievements after I started goofing with a needle and fabric again after some 15 years of a break. Oh, and talking about sewing, check out the little guy's lovely baggy shorts with front pockets carefully worked out in checkered fabric. Japanese sewing book.
On completely different subject: I am going dancing tomorrow night. Yey.

Ill (meaning ill)

I got so ill this last weekend that I could not go back to Prague with my family. The guys went by themselves, they liked it more than they had expected, and I stayed at my parent's house. My dad was taking care of me. He cooked, made tea and kept telling that I should see the doctor. I had fever! On the last day of my quiet refuge I went with my dad to collect moss for the Christmas nativity scene. How romantic! It needs to be done by this time, before the snow starts falling. I felt somewhat rustic as I was divesting the soft moss carpet from the rocks, feeling little tiny roots tearing off the stone. I did not mind the natural dirt and mess of rotting tree needles, leaves, earth and dew, all crunching in my fingers. As a kid I used to be disgusted!

Head of a bear

Little guy said the other day: I need to close the door so that I don't hear the little puppets.
What little puppets? I said.
They run around in the hall way and they disturb me.
???
He noticed that I kind of liked what his imagination brought up.
They come out at night, he continued, and they look at our stuff.
They don't hurt, he assured me, they take care of our things, they watch them.
So why do they disturb you then?
I don't like hearing them, he shrug his shoulders.

(I am not surprised. I am glad I do not hear them)

He has also shown me repeatedly a head of a bear sticking from things piled up in our spare room. He was pointing in the clear air insisting that it was a bear's head. It was probably his mommy's anger which materialized and hid in a dark corner.

I am glad I am not a kid anymore. I need to take that bear's head and puppets' pitter-patter into my heart.

What next?

My husband asked me to knit him a sweater. He actually does not care about me knitting a sweater, he would like to have a colourful splashy sweater that would be hand made. Probably hand made for him by his wife. Maybe he does care about that. He has made few designs. He is good in that. This one, the lower one, has come out from some doodling with the little guy. I really like it, although it looks like a view of a crazy knitting project with yarn and knitted pieces than a real pattern. But it can work as a pattern too.

Talking about patterns, I recall those that I made some twenty years ago and kind of laughed at them at this blog some time ago. They are very 80s, abstract, colourful and angular. They start growing on me. Have a look.

Art therapy, again

Relieving after many days of work. The work continues but without catastrophic deadlines. I bought Domík a "book of works", this is what he calls it, it was Fuoriborgo's influence when she wrote about it. It has many nice techniques that my kid can follow, I think he will use the book even when he is older. This collage is one of the "works" that came out of it. Ours is nicer, I need to say. I helped Domík, I need to say too. Well, Domík helped me. We took turns in cutting, sticking, deciding where goes what. I do not need to hide that I like this kind of work, it is a therapy.

Bonnard

I like the colors. And the composition. The view out of a window and little pieces of what is going on inside. I wonder what I would think of those paintings if I was their contemporary. Whether I would have thought that the novum in them was unbearable.

Pictures from Bridgeman.

What did we do in summer?

I guess, I owe some explanation on the pictures from the last post. We went to a little summer camp, private and cozy, at my friend's. Lot of kids, kittens, dogies and a teacher for the kids. It was nice but we survived only two days. We went on to see the cousins. We actually did a big route at the time. Berlin - cottage - cousins. We had a lot of time on the train together. It was a good summer. Now it almost does not seem that I was busy working.

Much

There is not much going on on this blog these days. I cannot say that the real life is more interesting either.

Cute and goofy

It was Domík's first summer holiday. He LOVED being with mummy and daddy almost all the time. So much that he cannot wait to be in the kindergarten again. He dreams about his teacher. He says that both of his teachers are young, they are the same age. In fact, they are 20 and 50.

It was also my first working holiday. I have been missing the heavenly and blissful time on maternity leave.

New stuff

I have a new wooden necklace and the little guy has a new teddy bear. I made it. It looks like a voodoo sculpture, it was quickly sewn together. But it is cute.

Vavřineček

I wanted to see this for long. It is not a performance for tourists as it may seem from pictures with those strangely dressed up people, it is a real life, or more accurately a living tradition: a pilgrimage to the St. Lawrence's church in the Chods' country in Bohemia. I think this is the last area in Bohemia where people have been wearing their folk costumes for church festivities without breaking the tradition. People used to wear folk costumes there even during week days still back in the 60s. They were more simple, of course, the skirts were pleated, women had short blazers or whatever the right vocabulary is, and wore black scarves similar to those in the pictures. I actually remember women in their daily folk costumes on a square in the town where I grew up. I grew up pretty close to the Chods' country. Nevertheless, I learned about the pilgrimage to the St. Lawrence from TV, two years ago. Such is a paradox of my longing for more authentic ethnographic experiences.