I was born in Denmark in Scandinavia in 1958. In August 1988 I left my home country with my partner Peder. We travelled through half of the world to come to Australia three months later. Over the years and at the time of writing we have travelled 40 countries and much inspiration has been gained and many lessons learned. My beanie is like a compass you need when navigating the desert, savannah and tundra even when you are flying high in the sky, swimming deep at sea or walking the streets of the big cities of the world. My” Compass Beanie” comes in handy when you stroll in the big forest. In fact no matter where you are my “Compass Beanie” will show you the way and lead you on the right path.
The four lower antennas symbolises the four directions East, North, West and South. When you put my” Compass Beanie” on your head make sure you have the East antenna in the middle front of your brow chakra. This way you will always know your direction of your travel. No matter which way you turn my “Compass Beanie” will always and instantly tell you your direction. You know for sure that you will always be facing East!
The top four antennas symbolises the four elements, Fire, Air, Earth and Water. Each element relates to a direction. Fire is our survival and is at the East where the sun rises. Air our intelligence is North up high where the birds fly. Earth our prosperity is in the West our Mother Earth on whom we feed. Water our emotional life is in the South deep down in the water holes which holds all life and gives birth.
The top antenna is a satellite aerial handy for receiving information should you need any. The beanie itself is shaped like a felt yurt. The yurt has been used by many nomads all over the world. I saw them in China and knew straight away that I would love to have a yurt at home. So far I still carry the yurt in my dreams but I have lived in tents for 11 years non -stop.
My Beanie is knitted with my hand spun tussah silk. I have added a bit of synthetic fancy yarn to break the beige colour and to give it a fluffy look. The fancy yarn on the silk band which is my foundation symbolises my journey. There is no start and there is no end as the inner spiritual journey as well as the outer physical journey never comes to a stop and no one really can tell where we are heading. As you see my journey is roughed, uphill and downhill, meandering in lush and rich vegetation.
The golden earthy colours are very grounding. My journey takes you to all the waterholes of the world. The green ovals along the thread symbolises each waterhole. There are seven of them one for each day of the week. It supplies you with just enough water to make the journey from one point to the next.
My journey even takes you through the deadest dessert in the world. The “Desierto de Atacama” in Chile where oases are far between and a most welcome celebration to any creature on the move.
Coming back to the foundation and the silk band onto which my beanie is knitted. This is the story: I saw a very beautiful silk wedding dress at a second hand shop one day. I just had to buy it. It was actually just waiting for me to come along. I felt very excited about the dress and guess what! Peder would not even marry me! So what do you do with a wedding dress without a marriage?
Well it took a while to get the inspiration but I had no doubt that the wedding dress could be made into many beanies. Here is one of them. I hope you enjoy it. I enjoyed making it and all my friends had a great laugh as they all think it looks very funny but also beautiful. The majority fibre of the beanie is pure silk.
On the inside of the beanie. You will see round pieces of silk fabric stitched onto the beanie inclosing the stuffing in all nine antennas. These nine pieces symbolises the doors of nine trap door spiders which just lately and during construction have taken up resident ship in the antenna tunnel. Be careful when handling the beanie as rough handling could upset the dwelling trap door spiders. There is no end to my story and my journey as the spiders continue to spin their web while the silk worms are busy making their cocoons for me to spin my silk for the next step in life. Happy Beanie Festival.