Björn Wessman: Chateau Noiret le pourriture Noble. 2011, oil on canvas.

Earlier on this summer I wrote about creative summer space. Enjoying the present, finding creative time and space in unexpected places. Beautiful, creative space that sometimes doesn’t cost anything. Here are some of the highlights from my summer.

This summer I’ve been inspired by:

• An exhibition of Björn Wessmans colourist landscape challenges on canvases on a monumental scale. At Millesgården which is an experience in itself!
• Balcony gardening.
• Connecting with new and old friends.
• Making homemade pesto and baking grape and rosemary Focaccia.
• A retrospective exhibition of  Slas, Stig Claesson (1928–2008), one of Sweden’s most loved authors and artists. At Kulturhuset.
• Taking time offline and quitting Facebook.
• Reading: The Tiny Wife by Andrew Kaufman, Juliet Naked by Nick Hornby, Medicinen by Hans Koppel, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Macbeth by William Shakespeare.
• Swimming in lake Mälaren. Going for picnics and walks.
• The outdoor film festival at Rålis.
• A boat trip to Drottningholm Palace and the Chinese Pavilion.
• Taking a painting course at Gerlesborgsskolan in Bohuslän.

iPhone photography: dusted with snow

It’s like someone powdered the trees with icing sugar. Or dipped them in a bag of sugar. Or poured a bag of flour over the landscape. Or something like that… And it’s breathtakingly beautiful!

iPhone photography: frosty branches

My main focus for January is to create my first design for fabrics based on the Full Cold Moon. I’m so enthusiastic about the whole project and I’ve got such a terrific feeling about it! I’d got the fabric samples and colour chart just before Christmas and only need to transfer the design to a curtain format and adjust the colours so they work for printing on textile before I can have the first sample printed. I don’t know about “only”, but still, I’m so close to being there, and so I was very surprised to find resistance within me! What am I afraid of? The technical process that I need to learn? Getting the curtain dimensions wrong? Is it about putting this project out in the world? Is it about completion and what to do next? About the possibility of failure? Or success? I don’t know. All I know is that these ultra cute cats emerged, at this very time of the process.

Turkish Angora

They’re terribly cute, kawaii, as sweet as sugar, and really not what I consider “my style”! And yet here they are. I thought about it. Then I decided to just let them come. They’re fun and playful and perhaps they appear with ease because I have no big dreams or strong emotions attached to them?! So I’ve been making more friends for the first cat. A family. A collection of cat breeds. They could be a collection of icons or they could be a set of prints or illustrations in a children’s book. Cute as a Button. That’s it, that can be the name for this cute crew!

iPhone photography: pine tree dusted with snow

I’ve been spending more time offline, unplugged. Batching my internet activities three times a week. It’s bliss. Now if I only got round to sorting out my mailbox too!

iPhone photography: snowy trees

And I’m looking for a good recipe for Boeuf Bourguignon for my birthday dinner. I’ll be serving it either with potato puree or Potatoes Boulangères and a green salad. Not sure what the desert or starter will be yet. I’m thinking of trying Delia Smith’s recipe for Boeuf Bourguignon but I’m interested to hear if anyone has any other recommendations?

The Skandia Cinema, Stockholm, Sweden

Yesterday I watched Julie and Julia (here’s a link to the trailer) with my mum. It’s a delightful, witty and sensual film about passion, obsession and lots of butter!

New York blogger Julie Powell (Amy Adams) spends a year cooking and blogging her way through Julia Child’s (Meryl Streep) “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”. This meant that Julie had 365 days to cook 524 recipes from the classic cookbook that introduced the French cuisine to America documenting the process in her blog The Julie/Julia Project.

What I adore about Julie and Julia is the joie de vivre, the zest for life, the passion that infuses Julia! I’m so fed up with artists in film and literature portrayed as tormented, miserable, paying a price, victims of their past or current times, that it was refreshing with the description of Julia Child’s creativity as a passion for life. A joy. Julia loves cooking, she loves her husband, she loves writing, she loves Paris and she loves life. First and foremost. Then she becomes famous. That’s delicious, sublime! As Julia would say: Bon appétit!

Melting butter