Tofu box has arrived!

After travelling across the U.S. in a box, hand carried on a plane from San Fran to NL, my tofu box finally made the final stretch in a kangaroo trolley from NL to Norway yesterday.... my precious!

 Made of hinoki wood, it came with a sieve cloth and bag in white.

It´s very nice and it smells good too.

It also came with nigari, so today I have to get myself some soya and make tofu again.... stay tuned!

I also got this nice soya cup from my mother-in-law, bought in San Francisco. Very nice eggplant motive.

Sunday market / Søndagsmarked

Sometimes I pack all my braided jewelry into a trolley and go off to some marked.
Last weekend I went to Oslo to sell, chat with other designers and make new contacts at the design market at "Blå".
Weather was beautiful, sunshine and not too cold.

This is what my table look like:

 I´ve put a box under the tablecloth for hight. Then there´s some Japanese artifacts, like a cup and a wooden sake cup.

I´m wondering to get a black table cover and also some better displays for the bracelets, maybe a long tube?
Please hit me with good suggestions! I must be able to carry all my stuff in a trolley + maybe an extra bag. Sometimes I have a car, but most of the time I commute by public transport.

I´ve got a couple of frames spray-painted and chinaware to "serve" my bracelets on.

I still need an even better way to display them and make them look their best....

Å, ja: Husk "Håndlaga 2012" - jeg blir veldig, veldig glad for nominasjoner i kategori 5. Link på høyre side øverst.... :)

Håndlaga 2012

Text in Norwegian only!

For andre gang går "Håndlaga" av stabelen og krysantemum design er med.
I år sponser jeg Håndlaga 2012 og har tenkt å nominere flotte produkter i
flere kategorier.
Jeg håper også noen vil nominere et smykke fra krysantemum design i kategori 5: "Smykker" og vil nok være ubeskjeden å gjøre det selv...

Jeg sakser fra bloggen til Håndlaga 2012 slik at alle kan bli inspirert,
og jeg oppfordrer alle design- og håndarbeidsglade til å delta.

"Med dette arrangementet vil vi feire det skapende og engasjerte miljøet av dyktige folk som legger tid og
omtanke inn i sine håndlagde produkter.
Det hele starter med at alle som vil kan nominere sine egne og andres håndlagde produkter.
Det blir åtte spennende kategorier som vi håper vil treffe de fleste; redesign, barn, klær, smykker, 
tilbehør, til hjemmet, bilde og menn.
Produkter til menn er en ny kategori i år!"


Trykk på linken til høyre her på bloggen for å komme til Håndlaga 2012.

http://handlaga2011.blogspot.com/

Kjøp håndlaget!

Happy Valentines day!

In the words of the magnificent Björk: All is full of love....

Lots of love from Linuz

♥

Winter creativity

Custom flower bracelet with sterling silver details.

So I had the pleasure of braiding 2 custom orders this week.
One bracelet with flowers in strong colors and one necklace in soft lilac with dark lilac trim.

I´ve also been inspired by the cold winter weather, braiding in light, soft colors like white, aqua and mint.

Light winter colors. From left: Two shades of white (bracelet in 16-count braid with sterling silver details), aqua/offwhite bracelet, half made, and mint satin mousetail for the next project.

(Mint is the "hottest" color this season, I´ve heard.)

 Custom necklace in two different techniques;  hollow braid with the trim color as a core and spiral braid with 12 threads.

 Lilac necklace with sterling silver details and Swarovski crystal.

Tonkatsu - Sunday fastfood

Well, I didn´t know what to make of that piece of pork in my fridge...
so we ended up eating "fastfood" for Sunday dinner.
In other words, I turned it into tonkatsu, that´s Japanese for schnitzel. And who doesn´t like that?

Tonkatsu
You will need:
A decent piece of pork, your choice of cut.
Flour, 1 egg beaten and breadcrumbs (Panko) on separate plates.

Cabbage, cut into fine strips (and with some lemon juice and salt added).
Rice, boiled.
Tonkatsu sauce (Consists mainly of ketchup. I made mine with ketchup, soya, mirin and sweet soya).

Cut the pork in 1 cm thick slices. Pat lightly to even them.
Del ytrefilet av svin i 1 cm tykke stykker, klapp dem jevne.

Dip the pork in flour, egg and breadcrumbs, in that order.
Dypp i mel, egg og brødsmuler (jeg bruker japanske brødsmuler "Panko").

Make sure to push the pork well down into the breadcrumbs.
Dytt fileten godt ned i brødsmulene slik at det dekker godt.

Fry the pork in butter on both sides until nice and golden brown.
Stek i olje eller smør til de er pent brune på begge sider.

Serve with cabbage, rice and sauce. Some lemon is also nice. Enjoy!
Server med finsnittet kål, kokt ris og Tonkatsusaus (og sitron hvis du vil). Kos deg!

Kumihimo tutorial - square braid - firkantfletting

Kumihimo firkantfletting med 8 tråder

Kumihimo tutorial - square braid with 8 threads

Du trenger til et armbånd: 4 tråder i valgfri tykkelse ca. 75 cm lange, i en, to eller fire farger.

Instruksjonene viser 2 farger satt opp symmetrisk som gir et stripete mønster. Det er brukt satengtråd i tykkelsen 2+ mm, "rattail". Det gir et kompakt og forholdsvis stivt armbånd. Tykkelsen passet i 8 mm endestykker.

You´ll need for one bracelet: 4 threads in your chosen size, aprox. 75 cm (2,5 feet) long, in one, two or four colors. The instructions show a two color braid with symmetric positions that gives a striped pattern. I´ve used 2,2 mm satin cord, "rattail". It fits in 8 mm endcaps. 

Sett opp trådene som til den vanlige 8 tråders runde flettingen. Ps: Bildet viser startposisjonen etter at det er flettet en runde. Når du starter fra begynnelsen vil ikke trådene oppe og nede være krysset som på bildet.

Set up your braid as you would for the basic 8-strand. (In start position the upper and lower threads won´t be crosses like in the picture, that happens after you braided one round.)

Startoppsett.
Start position.

Flytt tråd fra 1 til 7 (øverste høyre tråd ut til høyre over de høyre trådene).
Move thread 1 to 7 (upper right thread down to the two threads to the right).  

Flytt tråd fra 17 til 23 (nederste venstre tråd ut til venstre under de venstre trådene).
Move thread from 17 to 23 (lower left thread up to the two threads on the left).

Flytt tråd fra 24 til 1 (midterste venstre tråd krysser over tråden på toppen).
Move thread from 24 to 1 (mid left thread crosses the thread on top).

Flytt tråd fra 8 til 17 (midterste høyre tråd krysser over tråden nederst).
Move thread from 8 to 17 (mid right thread crosses the thread down).

Flytt tråd fra 32 til 26 (øverste venstre tråd ut til venstre øverst).
Move thread rom 32 to 26 (upper left thread out to left side).

Flytt tråd fra 16 til 10 (nederste høyre tråd ut til høyre nederst).
Move thread from 16 to 10 (lower right thread out to right side).

Flytt tråd fra 9 til 32 (midterste høyre tråd krysser over tråden på toppen).
Move thread from 9 to 32 (mid right thread crosses over top thread).

Flytt tråd fra 25 til 16 (midterste venstre tråd krysser over tråden nederst).
Move thread from 25 to 16 (mid left thread crosses over down thread).

Juster trådene til høyre og venstre inn et hakk på hver side slik at du kommer tilbake til startposisjon (bare med omvendte farger).
Adjust threads on left and right side one notch down and up to reach start position.

Resultatet!

Lykke til......
The result! Good luck....

Lightbox

Let me present my christmas gift from Mr. Linuz: A small at-home photo studio! It consists of a lightbox with changeable backgrounds and two daylight lamps. Perfect for the dark season here in Norway. The box is quite large, so I can photograph much more than bracelets!

After experimenting a bit we realized that we need a better camera... but for now I´m using the old one.
I think the photos are much better already, what do you think?

Here is some of the new pictures of my bracelets, I tried using some Japanese props as well.

New blue flower bracelet.

Preparing for the new year dinner, part 1

New Years Eve is Mr. Linuz´ favorite day of the year. It´s like Christmas to other people, he loves it soo much.
To make him (and me) happy, I always cook a nice dinner. This year it won´t be anything Japanese,
but classic gourmet food.
Look at all the nice stuff we got today! I feel almost embarrassed...
The clams and veal are Norwegian, but we "moderated" ourselves and got Canadian lobster.
We have such great seafood in this country, and I try to eat it as often as I can.

I will show you the results of our efforts tomorrow, but this is the menu:
(Champagne with all courses)

Passion fruit sorbe & champagne
-
Grilled lobster with parmesan & herbes
Pan seared scallops with chorizo and granat seed apple cores
Veal wrapped in pancetta with sweet potato cream, gnocci, chestnuts, salvia sauce and carrots
Comté cheese with cherry jam and crackers
Citrus salad with mint sugar and whipped cream
-
Macarons

My little girl will get the "child menu":

Passion fruit sorbe with strawberry "child champagne"
-
Cod with parmesan crackers
Veal with gnocci and carrots
Comté cheese with crackers
-
Macarons

Welcome 2012!

Look what is soon coming my way:

Oh, today I feel so happy... I just ordered a tofu mold made of hinoki wood.
You can see the beauty here:
Tofu kit at "toiros kitchen"

I´ve looked around for some time now, and this is the nicest one I´ve found.
It´s made in Japan too!

I also got some new furoshiki´s coming from England, can´t wait to see them.

I´ll be posting pictures of my new Japanese goodies as soon as they arrive.
The tofu mold will be taken back to Europe by my in-laws, so I won´t get it just yet.
But I can wait..... and be prepared to get overloaded with tofu recipes!