Get Your Semedaki On

A month of living on garden vegetables and sipping (ok guzzling) wine under a sky filled with a bjillion stars can do things to a girl. For the first week so high on life I could embroider nothing. Then, when I got started all I could do was felt coins of owls with stars and hearts in their eyes. Living in traditional village houses (three weeks sea village one week mountain village) I started to feel domesticated in a way like never before. Some of you may be familiar with the-ahem- 'neo-classical' Greek style of house decorating, placing doilies (in Greek 'semedakia') (σεμεδακια) on the tv and fridge. Quaint eh? Naff ? No! I get it. Its about pride. Pride like I live in this house and I'm going to make the absolute most of my space. No matter that I have this ugly big metal box in the kitchen. Nothing that a bit of embroidery won't sort out. I'm totally into it. Maybe I'll find a way to update the look! Some of you may remember my post about pride. Well now I think it’s a good thing, to a degree. Its life affirming! I guess it takes some time away from the info overload of urban life to realize the heady joys of domesticity. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to stitch something to cover up the dvd player:)

 Washing up is not so bad if you can see the sea...

 A vintage radio from the Folklore Museum in Hora, Serifos.  Nice 'semedaki' no?

 

My grandmother's beautiful village and...

 

Everything is coming up roses

So just before christmas I bought all this felt supposedly to make christmassy tree gifts. If you've been following this blog then you'll know that never happened. Since then I've used the felt to make a skull bracelet, a bunch of owl coin necklaces, a heart tattoo necklace some sailor girl stuff. And I still have loads left, especially black and red. LOTS of RED. To make LOTS of Santa dollies. Yeah I guess that was never really going to happen.

I've been warming to red roses as of late. Our neighbour has a vine full, for which our living room window provides a really nice frame. They're all big and fat and kind of insolent in their slutty deep scarlet beauty. They make me want to reproduce! Felt baby roses!


So I came up with this necklace, just as the roses were starting to shrivel up and back away permanently from the unforgiving greek summer sun. And now its my turn to shrivel up and back away from Athens. You know its time to leave when the highlight of your day is going to the (air-conditioned) supermarket. Early tomorrow morning we will be on the boat to Serifos, so I won't be blogging for some time. But I'll be stitching! I'm so happy. I wish you all a wonderfully *rosy* string of lovely long summer days...kisses!

Back in Black

Sailor J was a macho fellow, foul mouthed and superstitious. He knew as a boy that he was destined to follow the sea.

He wanted nothing to do with women. 'Man's ruin' he always said. Until he was introduced to the lady known as the 'Golden Ant'. She was known for frequenting the seedy ghettos of ports. She was as dirty minded and foul spoken as Sailor J himself. How she managed to make her way nobody knew. She was no prostitute. And she had a mysterious 'brother' who made trouble for any sailor who tried to come too close.

Sailor J drowned himself in gin. He howled in the night like a love sick dog. Why did he have to meet this obscene blasphemous woman? What was he to do?

Finally she took pity on him and took him in. She gave him a necklace as a keepsake. She said 'I am a sailor girl and I belong to the sea. Just like you.'

Take me out tonight

Today I will tell the story of my night life. Actually, the story of my post baby night life, as that can be summed up in a few short paragraphs.

My initial response to any offer of going out is positive. Yes! Of course I would LOVE to come! Especially if its a friend's party or anything put together by Blueworks, the children of Sally Spektra, Rimini or Kormoranos. And then I think...

Shit. Can I do it? I start to do the math. My brain starts to whir. What time does it start? What time will I have to leave the house? How much sleep time does that leave me before I get woken up at 8 tops by my super energetic gleeful child going: 'Its DAYTIME! LETS PLAY' Shit. Can I do it? I don't know...

With clubbing one approach we seem to have adopted is to show up before anyone except the bar staff and wait for the dj's to dribble in. This way you choose from any(!) seat in the place, get to listen to the support and catch the vibe of the night warming up. But its ultimately frustrating cause when it all starts to kick off and it looks like a fucking excellent night, its time to leave.

When the former modus operandi gets too disheartening there is Plan B. Plan B involves sleeping from 9 when the small goes to sleep then waking up at 12 getting ready and going to the club at around 1:30 like a normal person. Except when I do this I am anything but a normal person. I am. completely. insane.

I don't know how Elias can nap like this then *ping* just wake up and go out. I feel like I've been woken in the middle of the night by a vacuum sucking out my brains. In order to feel like I can string a sentence together I need at least two large cocktails. About half an hour after I've finally stopped feeling like Little Miss Demented its drinks up ladies and gents. Time to go home.


SO who's that girl? That's the lovely DJ Girl. The text next to her is from a song in one of her playlists, a Giorgio Moroder classic. I'm most pleased that she has started playing at Grande Dame fridays from 10:00 so I can finally listen to the music I really like in a bar and then get enough zzzzzs to feel ready to face the world the next day. By the way, she also has an excellent craft blog well worth visiting.

Complain as I may I'm still so happy to go out. Even a glimpse of a good party can give me inspiration and satisfaction. And on that note, I wish you all a great weekend!



Psssst. By the way, did you notice I finally figured out how to make words into links? Its thanks to my friend Suzy of Foodie in Berlin. Feast your eyes! Thankyou Suzy.

Commemorative Rainbow Coin

Well of course the felt mint of Athena would have to issue a special commemorative coin to mark the occasion of Athens Pride. I was so inspired to learn about Colour Youth, an organisation providing support for the young LGBTQ of Athens. If you read Greek then check out their website http://colouryouth.gr/

So if you don't know already the parade is June 4th Plateia Klathmonos. I sadly still have no clue how to make a word a link so here is the link for their website http://www.athenspride.eu/ My embroidery skills are improving but alas! My computer skills remain idle.

I can't wait for Saturday! If you live in Athens I hope to see you there:)

The owl with kaleidoscope eyes

Sensitivity has been a real issue in my world recently. I've been contemplating why its considered to be a weakness in our culture. I see it in the playground all the time. Boys especially are not allowed to be sensitive. They are told that they 'shouldn't' cry when someone yanks their toy and makes a run for it. The one who does the naughty deed is labelled as 'lively'.

So I'm venting. My little boy hates having his toys nicked from his hands. He hates being picked up by people he doesn't know very well or like very much. He is sensitive to scratchy things in his clothes, food at the wrong temperature, other people's moods. He is Sensitive.

Heightened sensory awareness is why lots of people take drugs. I have a friend who teaches five year olds who says its like they're constantly tripping. Seemingly out of nowhere, their mood can just flip. Sometimes its hard to tell what sparks them off. It could be something as subtle as a heavy garment making them too hot. We are very quick to label: that child is fussy. That child is shy. That child is a loner.


Then we grow up changing the way we act to suit the majority opinion. But I don't think we should get over any of these so-called 'weaknesses'. I think being sensitive is a strength. The overload of info may be overwhelming sometimes, but when its sorted much has been processed and understood.

So the eyes of my owls this month reflect my musings. I haven't had time to make more because my elbow has been hurting. And I have been reading a great book*. Can you guess what its about?

* The Highly Sensitive Child Elaine N. Aron, Ph.D

toy car love

If you have a small boy, you are probably ridiculously familiar with the film Cars. I must have seen it about 500 times.

I first saw it before I had a baby. I wasn't very impressed. Unlike my husband and brother who were riveted. Despite my lack of interest I pretended to kind of like it and tried not to complain as much as I usually do when I get stuck watching boys films. I still have no idea why I tried to be nice. Premonition maybe.

Because now I love it. I'm not ashamed to say I LOVE Cars. My favourite character is Filmore. He says things like 'I'm not the only one seeing this right?'. He rules. I love him so much, I made a hippie name necklace inspired by him.


I was feeling lazy so I went for Bee (childhood nickname) as its decidedly shorter than my given. The cartoony style reminds me a bit of Beverly Hills 90210 when Brenda found this diary and Dylan and Kelly played the hippies and Brenda and Brandon were squares. Remember? I really loved that episode. Perhaps I should be ashamed of that.

So this May Day* when everyone was picking flowers I was stitching them. The necklace was ready sooner than I expected but if you consider I took my embroidery hoop everywhere even out for drinks its no shocker really. So here's the finished thing. Happy summer everyone!

* check out the flowers and more on http://www.athenspeeps.blogspot.com/ a new blog by Elias Herc and Christina (Monday Wednesday and Friday respectively) showing glimpses of daily life in Athens. I love it.