Greece - Buttons from driftwood and bracelets from Palo Santo

My cardigan is almost finished, for weeks I've been thinking about which buttons to use. Neither in Tunisia nor in Italy have we passed any button shops. Somehow it's not so easy to find good handicraft shops. Everywhere only patches, plastic buttons and acrylic wool. Not really my thing.

Finally, I knit slowly. Very consciously. Knit only Good wool, without toxic dyeing and above all Without mulesing. I love the slowness of needlework. I take my time, like to undo a few rows and start again from the beginning. Neither when I'm knitting nor when I'm reading do I like it to be over. I read for the sake of reading and knit for the sake of knitting. Actually, the end of a book is always a disappointment for me because the fun is over. It's the same with knitting: The haptic pleasure of the wool threads gliding through my hands gives me more pleasure than "finally being finished".

So I sit on our terrace in Koroni and enjoy every stitch on my needles. But my thoughts revolve around the buttons. That's when Roland comes to mind. Roland has also arrived here in Koroni, in the truest sense of the word. He's a guy you just have to like. He shares my love of lots of coffee, our mutual love of Koroni's best chocolate cake and he has a very special approach to trees, woods and their processing into jewellery. And we are always in such precious conversations that resonate with us for a long time.

When I ask Roland if he would like to talk to me about buttons, he comes straight to us. In his luggage he has lots of driftwood, pieces of bamboo and fragrant Palo Santo wood in his treasure chest. Instead of carving, we first have a sniff.

Palo Santo, the sacred wood from South America, has a centuries-old tradition in spiritual cleansing and the well-being of body, mind and soul. The oil it contains is said to have a stress-relieving, harmonising and relaxing effect. Research with Palo Santo has also shown that it has a cleansing and energising effect, which it shares with sandalwood from India.

I choose a beautiful piece from the driftwood for my cardigan buttons, he saws everything to size, I sand the buttons with different papers so that they don't destroy my wool. In the end, they are very individual hand-flatterers. Roland then takes care of the holes again, I do the fine work. The finish is done with an oil button massage. This gives the buttons a nice shine and, funnily enough, they now match the colour of the jacket even better.

But since handwork is such a beautiful thing and you can't really stop doing it, we are allowed to grab a few beautiful pieces from the Palo Santo box and file them into shape. Gerd and I get fragrant bracelets that we will forever associate with our weeks here in Koroni.

I think I could become a knitting, crafting and writing drop-out. I just need a patron or a patroness. Volunteers ahead!

Oh, and since there is power in rest, I put the buttons on the now finished jacket, but haven't sewn them on yet. That's called anticipation management!

By the way: The wool is from Rosy Green (a dream!) and the pattern an inspiration from Xiaowei Bourdet.
Here is the philosophy behind it: https://rosygreenwool.com/de/gots_production
Great video on the subject: https://www.planet-wissen.de/video-wolle–vom-schaf-to-pullover-100.html
Topic Mulesing (not nice at all!) https://www.peta.de/themen/mulesing/
I don't know if this is advertising or not. I like to buy this wool often, but I don't get anything for mentioning it here!

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Merci for "travelling with us

We are thinking about taking another break from travelling in the summer and visiting our families in Germany and Switzerland. One of the ideas is to organise a Lecture about our long journey to the Persian Gulf to prepare. If you would like to, what would interest you the most? We will also tell stories here that don't find a place here on the blog. We're thinking of the Bern and Berlin area - simply because we have family there. But other places are also conceivable. Feel free to write to us.

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