Motivation

Lately I've had the urge to hit the fabric store, but then I look at my pile of unfinished projects and tell myself I have no business buying anything new! In general I'm much better at starting something than finishing and it often drives me crazy. Last week my desire for new fabric for a new project thrusted me into sewing mode. Before setting foot in a fabric store I was determined to finish at least one thing. I made a round cushion that I started a while back and now I'm finishing the Miette skirt, which I started last fall. I only need to finish the waistband and hem so I hope to post that next. It's looking really cute! But until then I thought I'd show you the little cushion.

The Perfect Scoop?

If I had an ice cream shop, I'd have to have a display like this one above! Only mine would read "ice cream" of course. Ice cream and fabric? Yes, please! A perfect scoop indeed. (It appears those are scarves to me, but I'd be happy just to ball up some fabric). And of course my ice cream dress would be the uniform. I wonder if I could have a few made in different colors? Because at the rate I'm churning it out, I'd need a number of different styles. And then we'd need ice cream cups... I think Lois would agree these would complement our cart.

Pastel Pretties

Whew, that was a fun weekend! Selina Lake's Pretty Pastel Style book signing and fair was wonderful as was the Selvedge fair, but first Selina's day! I had never been to Kingston Upon Thames, which is quite a distance from our neighborhood, but one bus and two train rides with baby in tow were worth it. When your toes are almost numb and your skin feels like a tight rubber band from freezing wind whipping it, nothing's better than being greeted with a room full of tea and cake that's coated in soft, sweet colors, filled with flowers, draped in cheerful bunting, and packed with pretty handmade gifts of all sorts. And of course it was great to meet Selina and get a signed copy of her new book! The book is so pretty and filled with inspiring ideas. Here's a peek into my pretty pastel visit...

A Crafty London Weekend

This weekend is going to be packed with craft fair goodness, starting tomorrow with Selina Lake's book launch and craft fair. The Selvedge spring Fair is this weekend as well, actually Friday and Saturday, which I'm really looking forward to. Just check out these exhibitors! And then there's the Country Living fair. I probably won't go to that one as I'm likely to be pooped by then, but if it interests you, it looks like it might be fun. Photos to come...

London Days with My Mom

I had a great time while my mom was in town, but, alas, she's gone home now. While she was here though we had a great time. I took her back to some of her favorite places, Liberty being on the top of that list, and my mom also loved Islington, which is a great neighborhood. In Islington we went to a handful of places but the highlights were Ottolenghi (delicious food), the Camden Passage Market (small but nice antique market though too expensive for me), Loop (a wonderful knitting shop!), and Maison d'etre, (which has the best coffee in Islington and is adorable too). My mom loved every place we went to in Islington. We could have easily spent more than one day there. We also went to Ray Stitch, which is a fabric store and cafe and where I look forward to taking a class sometime in the future.

Sweet Cakes

I'm still loving the recipes in La Tartine Gourmande, especially the baked goods lately. I think I've mentioned that gluten aggravates the hubbers' acid reflux, so we try to go gluten free with most recipes. The baked recipes in La Tartine Gourmande all gluten free (I think so anyway), and delicious! I haven't found a few of the flours she uses in some of the recipes (amaranth and millet flour), though I could probably find them online. I've substituted a bit of something else, another alternative flour, depending on the recipe. My most recent favorite recipe is the lemongrass-blackberry tea cakes. These are so moist and flavorful! I've made them twice. The lemongrass is a great complement to the blackberries. If you make them, do be sure to chop the lemongrass very fine--nobody wants stringy lemongrass in their tea cake. She uses brioche molds for the recipe, but I didn't have those but found some cute flower molds at a gift shop near our house. These are so easy to make, and with a cute mold like that, it looks like a lot of work went into them, but no, they were a snap.

This week I've been sick and soooo sluggish. My head feels like it's deep under water. I just want to ball up in bed all day with a good book, which is what I've been doing when I have time. Right now I'm reading Jane Eyre. I know the general story, but I've never read the book. I'm loving it right now. I don't have a beautiful hard bound version, like these Penguin classics pictured below, but I would like to have that collection one day. Meantime, I'll daydream I'm in this bed above reading the lovely hard bound Jane Eyre. I could use some of that natural light too.

Pale and Interesting

My mother-in-law gave me an Amazon gift card for my birthday. She asked what I'd like, and I told her that I have a ton of books on my wish list and that I'd love to be able to pick a few out from the list. Recently I read about the shop Pale and Interesting on My Black Book. I loved the images and went straight to the shop to see what they had in store. They have great linens, cushions, furniture, and so many beautiful home accessories, and I love the styling and photographs of their products. And I read on the site that they have a book as well. It's going in my shopping cart, and I can't wait to see more. 

All images posted here are from their site and appear to be by photographer Polly Wreford.

Amsterdam: Made by Hand

Greetings from Amsterdam! I've been looking forward to this weekend getaway trip for a while now in large part because I love the book Amsterdam: Made by Hand. It's always great to have a friend to give you the inside scoop to a city--to tell you the shops you'll like, neighborhoods, nice places to have a snack or just wander, and the second best to having that is finding a book that does just that. That's how I feel about Amsterdam: Made by Hand. Here's a peek into the book. If you plan to go to Amsterdam, and love handmade, vintage, or otherwise unique things, you'll love this book. The photos alone to me are worth the book. Photos from the book are all by the author, Pia Jane Bijkerk. More pictures from Amsterdam coming soon. It's been a wonderful first day!

Beautiful Breakfast

I have a cool husband.  He sends me links to all kinds of neat things he thinks I'd like.  Today he sent me this link, which leads to an article about Jennifer Rakowski's Breakfasts--or rather the pictures she takes of them--and her new book showcasing her beautiful breakfasts.  I usually stand at the counter eating the other half of Lois's banana or some such rushy, not pretty, not sit down meal.  I think her pictures have inspired me to have better, prettier breakfasts from now on.  Or maybe I'll just look at her pictures as I stand at the counter with my half banana.

 

For the Love of Old

 

One book that's been on my list for a while is For the Love of Old by Mary Randolph Carter.  I have a few of her Junk books and love them all.  My mom bought the book for me for Christmas but couldn't wait to give it to me, so she gave it to me this week.  I love it!  The book is huge with beautiful photography, and her writing is wonderful.  Of course it's the stuff itself that I like looking at so much.  The real junky-junk is what she likes--the very chipped and worn, previously loved and discarded.  Someone's trash is her treasure.  Here's a peek into For the Love of Old.

You can see a lot more of her personal style here on The Selby. Be sure to check it out if you like what you see here.  It's a great post with beautiful pictures.

Photography 101

This week I started reading a great book that I bought on Amazon, Understanding Photography by Bryan Peterson.  If you're a beginner, like I am, and want to learn more about the basics of making good pictures, I think this is a great place to start (well, your camera manual should really probably be the first place to start, then this book).  I've checked out a few books from the library and read bits and pieces of some online on Safari, but I think this one is the best for my purposes.  It covers all the basics in a concise, understandable way.  It explains the fundamentals of the camera and how it works, the importance of understanding aperture, shutter speed, and ISO to achieve the correct exposure, and how to use your camera in manual mode properly and effectively.  It also gives you all kinds of tips on how to achieve certain goals like shooting in low-light situations, using different lenses for different purposes, and composing a good image. And it's filled with great examples in each chapter.  This book is not just for people with dSLRs but also for people with digital point and shoot cameras.  The first few chapters might be the most important because they cover how to use your camera's settings (or rather what the settings are and what they do).

If you decide to get this book, do be sure to read your camera manual first and have it with you when you read the book.  You might be a little lost without it.  To some people it might seem like a no-brainer to say that, but if you're like me, manuals are just pretty boring, and I usually toss them in a drawer (or hand them to Andrew to read, who always reads manuals).  I didn't peek into our camera's manual for more than a year after we had it, which was really silly.

Above is one of my favorite pictures even though it's actually not a very good picture.  When zoomed in, it's really noisy (grainy) because I had the ISO quite high, but I still love the colors and the light and the contrast of the metal lockers with the old chair.  It's one of my favorite pictures that I took in a restaurant in Atlanta, whose name I like just as much--Sun in my Belly.

Okay, now go get that book!  Oh, and I almost forgot, Bryan Peterson has a lot of other photography books as well, and what looks like some great online classes through his photography school.

The Home-Maker

 

I love this painting: A Kitchen Interior by Harold Harvey.  It's on the cover of the latest Persephone biannually.  I was excited to receive it earlier this week all the way from Persephone Books in London. It's a good day for a book.  It's overcast and wet outside.  Raining lightly.  It sounds nice and looks pretty.

I'm also sick.  Actually I'm more than sick.  I have a miserable cold.  This is the worst cold I've had in a long, long time.  I feel like my head's going to explode, and I might loose my voice--and quite possibly a lung--with the next coughing attack.  I've reached the stage in my cold where I have those annoying coughing attacks from that irritating, dripping tickle--you know, the kind that make you start sweating and feel like you're going to pee your pants you cough so much?  That kind of cough.  Miserable, I tell you!

I sound like Marge Simpson, and I look like a smurf in Andrew's big ol' blue fleece robe.  Mama smurf. He doesn't wear it because it makes him sneeze for some reason, so I wear it instead.  I have my own robe, but I prefer his.  I even have a new, cute robe from Anthropologie that he gave me, and for no occasion, just because (it's this one).  Very sweet, he is.  Maybe he's just tired of seeing me look like a ridiculous smurf in his (even though he tells me I look cute in it, which I don't believe).  But his big blue robe is just sooo snuggly.  And the pockets are big enough to neatly hold the roll of toilet paper I carry around with me so I can blow my nose every 5 minutes (I've used up all the puffs so I've had to resort to TP). Something about schlepping round like this makes me feel like Charlie Brown.  So, you can probably see why it's a good book day.

One book I bought in London at Persephone Books was The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fischer.  I'm actually finished with The Home-Maker and onto another book, but being in a book mood reminded me I haven't mentioned how much I liked it.  I really, really liked it.  I can't say it would make a top 10, but it's very good.  I really like domestic novels and this one is a really good one.  It isn't for everyone, though.  Or, I should say, you can't give this book to just anyone.  You'd have to be careful about who you give it too.  Once you know what it's about, you'll understand.  It was written in 1924, but the themes are still so relevant today.  It challenges the traditional idea that mothers make the best home-makers--and should be happy doing so--and it explores what happens when a husband and wife change roles.  I like so many things about this book, but maybe especially how well Dorothy Canfield Fischer shows you the world through a child's eyes.  It's a good read.  You can find out more about the book here.  Time for me to make more tea and smurf up to another book while Lois finishes her nap. (Cough, cough. Blow nose. Repeat.)

London Guides

Over the weekend we went to the Tate and wandered around a few neighborhoods. One neighborhood was Islington were we had a great lunch at The Elk in the Woods, a restaurant I read about in the Lo-Fi London guide from Notes by Naive. She's compiled an extensive list of great London shops and restaurants, and a few museums and parks as well. Her guide alone could keep me busy for a year, but add to it Lynne's guide for Design Sponge, Victoria's London adventures, The Traditional Shops and Restaurants of London (my favorite London guide book), AND a long list my friend Noa made (who used to live here), and I might need a few years to cover it all. These guides overlap a bit, but I think they're all great, and I highly recommend them if you're making a trip to London anytime soon.




All images from The Traditional Shops and Restaurants of London by Eugenia Bell; photos by Phil Nichols.

Persephone Books

Yesterday was a beautiful day in London. I decided to stay around our neighborhood and explore close to home. I don't think we could have picked a better place to stay. The neighborhood, Holborn, has everything we need and a lot of wonderful extras. We have a park at the end of our street, tube and bus stops nearby, a nice grocery store, and the main street in our neighborhood, Lambs Conduit, is lined with terrific shops, restaurants and cafes.

One of the great shops in our neighborhood that I was looking forward to is Persephone Books. Their books have the same uniform and distinct grey cover, but the interiors of the jackets are a surprise burst of color and pattern. The interior of each book is a textile print of a fabric from the year the book was written. They specialize in publishing books of lesser-known women writers from the early to mid-twentieth century and currently have 83 titles in their catalog.

The bookstore is cozy and welcoming with vintage treasures in their merchandising.





The bookshop is also filled with fresh flowers.

If you need a quick gift, they have books pre-wrapped in bright pink paper, accompanied by a bookmark with information and the fabric design corresponding to the book's interior. I bought The Blank Wall for a friend, un-wrapped though so I could read the first few pages to see what I might think of it, but now I want to read it myself first! I read the first few pages and am already absorbed in it.

It looks like it would be a nice place to work, too.

And around the corner is a new coffee shop, The Espresso Room--a great place to go after buying a new book. I have a feeling I'll be spending more time at these two places.

Food for Thought

Today I found a treasure of a book at the Goodwill while stopping in for a few minutes with my grandma. It's The Horizon Cookbook and Illustrated History of Eating and Drinking through the Ages by William Harlan Hale. At first glance it reminded me of one of my favorite books--Art and Wonder: An Illustrated Anthology of Visionary Poetry--so I was drawn to it immediately. This book, though, is all about food. Since Lois was born I find myself thinking about food often and in a way I didn't before. When I refer to my baby feeding chart (at 4 months begin cereal; at 7 months begin yogurt; at 8 months finely milled meats), I wonder what people did hundreds and hundreds of years ago when they didn't have the handy Earth's Best feeding chart and a Whole Foods down the street. I know women nursed much longer than most women do now, but children had to start eating food at some point, and I'm sure mothers didn't always have many options. I'm so grateful to live when I do--a time when I don't have to grow or hunt for my own food to survive. This book takes you back through history when people did. From the evolution of markets, to the search for spices, to the bottling of bubbles, to the art of porcelain, to the ceremony of dining throughout the ages, this book is a gem for anyone who likes history, art, or food. It also has an extensive recipe section in the back. Most of the images here show pages with artwork, but the book is filled with more text than art. So far it's a scrumptious read, especially for the thrifty $2.50 price tag. You can click on the images to view them larger.