gifts that keep on giving

Hope you all survived the holidays.

Here's a wallet that I gave to my sister's boyfriend, some very hasty stitching there.

I went home to Stockholm over the weekend & finally, now that I can walk like a (sort of) normal person again, I could get all my stuff with me back to Gothenburg. Among other things, my birthday gift that's been up there since October: the wonderful Stitch lamp!

I sort of have a plan for it, but it's trickier than I though to stitch it so it's probably gonna take a while before it's done.

happy christmas your arse I pray god it's our last (I can see a better time when all our dreams come true)

This is only funny in Swedish.

For visitors who don't speak this great language, I made some artwork that sort of illustrates the meaning of the cross stitch. I wish you all a Merry Christmas.

the pc x-mas x-stitch of 2008

I had planned to write a long blog post about this cross stitch that I've been working on during December. Right now I'm just to tired to do it, but still wanted to get it out there before next year.

So the short version is this: during 2008 the situation in Zimbabwe has gone from bad to... well, catastrophic. I've been following the reports from Zim before, during & after the election in March this year & it feels like the whole country is turning into a black hole, like it's slowly imploding. Zimbabwe was once a prosperous country but years of bad government & raging inflation has left it devastated & unable to care for it's own people. The people who actually tried to do something about the situation by electing a new president, but got robbed of their democratic rights by Robert Mugabe & the ZANU-PF party. Today there is no sufficient health care, hunger & cholera is killing the people, those who dare to speak up are getting arrested & are "disappearing", Mugabe still holds his office & the talks between him & MDC about sharing government have collapsed. The money situation is bizarre, the inflation has reached heights that are pretty hard to grasp. In august 2008 it passed 11 200 000 %. As Anna Tibblin puts it:

In english it's called a quadrillion. In swedish there's not even a word for it.

So, with that in mind I've spent december working on an advent calendar. I used a pattern made from an old ANC poster (which unfortunately didn't turn out quite as well as I'd hoped) & a quote from the anthem of neo-colonialism as I know it: the Christmas song Do they know it's Christmas? by the 80's Band Aid project.

& the bells were ringing out for christmas day

Some Christmas gifts that I've made this year: Two embroidered kitchen towels for my cousin Maja (patterns from Sublime Stitching).

& a sign of affection for Lisa. The quote comes from She's losing it, a song by Belle & Sebastian.

works in progress

Craft night at my place last week:

I think Nadja's revolutionary x-stitch poster will be the greatest thing since sliced bread...

Apart from this I'm busy with life, Christmas prep & trying to keep up with my studies. But last friday I wen't to the release party for Wolfbrigade's new record Comalive & was happy to see that if you look closely on the photo inside the sleeve, you'll see this beautiful cross stitch on the wall! I'm such a groupie.

P.R.D.C.T

Last update before christmas... I'm busy creating magnificent gifts for people I know (or people I want to know) so I'll leave you with this little piece. Patches don't get more punk rock than this.

so this is christmas & what have you done?

It's almost december again & that means Christmas for a lot of people. & these days Christmas = consumption for the greater part of the Western world. Last year the average swede spent 3000 skr (about 315 euro) on christmas gifts. Many of the things that were bought for this money were made in sweat shops in the third world, by workers deprived of their basic human rights.

I think it's time that we take a step back & look at the jolly season for what it is - a time for sensless spending of money we don't have, on things that we don't need. What we need is to realize that the way we live, eat & shop is based upon the work of others & that it's time to pay the real price for it. So, I'm thinking that this year I'm at least gonna try to make an effort, by creating my own gifts (guess what, haha), giving gifts that are activating in some way or buy them att the fair trade market En schysst jul! that takes place at ABF-huset, Stockholm 8-9 of december. I think you should too.