Where do you keep all of the things you come across that inspire you? I have various places… some things go in boxes and folders etc., but I do love postcards and business cards, souvenirs of cool places we’ve been and reminders of where to re-visit. Sometimes I also like magazine clippings and photos of stuff that looks really pretty or cool or fun.
I keep all of that stuff on a bulletin board right above my desk:
What I’d really love would be a whole wall made of cork-board… (is that plausible, or even possible, haha?)… that way, when I found something new to add I wouldn’t have to remove anything, or squeeeeze it in slightly behind something else (which I do now).
Anyways, I recently tidied up my desk area, as sort of a Welcome 2010, I-Hope-I-Can-Keep-My-Workspace-Neat thing. And Himself hung up my bulletin board, which I moved, with everything stuck on it, from our old apartment.
Anyone have a cool way of displaying their inspiration?
They’re finished! And they didn’t take nearly as long as I’d worried… I started knitting January 6th, which means they only took a month- and I didn’t knit consistently, mostly just on weekends or during down-time at work.
I made them to look like the ones in the Toast catalogue, and I’m super-pleased with how they turned out. They’re basically just knitted tubes, I used dpns because I don’t have short enough circular needles, and I don’t know how to do magic loop.
You can wear them scrunched up around your wrists, or stretched over your elbow. The baby alpaca yarn makes them reallly soft!
Pattern:
- I cast on 65 sts and was knitting with laceweight yarn. Basically I wanted a finished circumference that would stretch around the widest part of my upper arm (for me, this was about 7″). When the armwarmers aren’t being worn, the circumference is only about 4″.
- Then I did k3p2 rib for 47″ and bound off! (The hardest part is making the second one, once you’ve finished the first).
- Voila! Lovely armwarmers to keep my arms toasty at work when I wear short, or 3/4 sleeves (which I nonsensically do in the winter. I don’t know, some of my sweaters have shorter sleeves!)
PS: in case you haven’t read my original post about the armwarmers, I used 2.75mm needles, and Diamond Luxury Baby Alpaca Lace yarn.
Okay, I went yarn shopping with something particular in mind… one skein of something lovely to use for a bow headband (pattern can be found for free on ravelry, or on the original website).
I bought some Diamond Luxury Mulberry Merino in a wonderful teal colour…
And within one episode of The Office (plus some time for assembly), I made this:
I looooove it!!! I want to make tons more. Anyways, if you’re interested in making one, the pattern is super-easy. I used the idea of attaching the two crochet chain bands to a hair elastic (seen here, scroll down for a photo of what that looks like) because I know yarn by itself would just slide right off my head. The elastic keeps the headband snugly fitted to my head. I crocheted my chains to be about 20 inches, including the length of the hair elastic. I think I have a regular-sized head.
Yeah, so I’m just super-excited about it. I can definitely recommend the yarn- the silk/merino blend knits up awesome on bamboo needles (I used 4.5 mm as the yarn label suggested). And since this project uses such little yarn, buying a luxurious ball is totally justified!
Happy weekend!
PS: oh wow, I did not notice that there’s some serious messy-mess going on in the background of the photos… haha I guess it’s time to tidy up!
Hello! This morning I was absorbed by Etsy… several people have been blogging their Valentine’s wishlist, and of course I had to check out every single item I saw… and then that led to the discovery of more and more new things to love… and now I have a wishlist that will last ’til I’m 64. At least!
Anyways, here are some super-lovely discoveries. I am constantly overwhelmed with amazement at the beautiful things people have created! {click on any picture to link to the etsy shop ♥}
This owl ring is awesome & it opens to reveal a locket!
I’ve loved these necklaces for a while now… especially this magpie one (two for joy)!
A cat and a bird– two of my favourite things!
I bought the Tron version of this messenger bag for Himself for Christmas and can personally recommend it as an awesome item. But now I want this awesome Steve Zissou version for myself! (He also does Royal Tenenbaum ones and more Wes Anderson fun!)
Um hi– a kitty holding yarn? On a notepad? Cutest. Ever. (Actually I love everything at this store).
I also thought this painting was beautiful.
I’ve only done lino-cut printing once in art class, but I remember how finicky it was and am amazed at the detail in this knit-stitch print!
I sort of have only a vague idea of how gocco printing works, but I imagine something like this would be impressive to make!
Hello, sweetest buttons ever! Little Russian dolls… love.
This is really perfect for Valentine’s day… or just any day, haha.
And finally, this adorably sweet knit bunny from the lovely Jenny– doesn’t it make you want to adopt it, and a whole bunch of others, and start a bunny collection?
Ahhh, the sweetness. Anyways, I’m still in pyjamas and I really should get started on the day. I have yarn shopping to do!!!
- this weekend, because I don’t have to work!
- on Saturday a brand new yarn store is opening right downtown, minutes away from where I live. Currently I have to drive at least 20 minutes to get to a real yarn store, so this is exciting!!
- I made banana bread yesterday, with chocolate chips. I only had one egg & the recipe called for two, so yeah… I totally substituted “an eggy amount” of water for the second egg… and the middle of the loaf is consequently verrrrry moist. But it’s actually extremely tasty!
- tomorrow is Friday
- I’m close to finishing my alpaca armwarmers
- tonight is 30 Rock night
- I ate french fries for supper
That’s all for tonight; what’s making you happy?
These are my What I Wore sketches from the past week… only three as (i) I don’t seem very inspired to draw what I wore when it’s just something kind of plain and routine, and (ii) I don’t want to force it, because when I do draw I’m really enjoying it.
I really wish I could find my full set of pencil crayons, as using 7 colours isn’t really doing it for me. I may have to get another box.
PS: I was at the grocery store today, and I coughed up $9.99 for a plug-in “scented oil” air freshener by Febreze. Has anyone tried these? Holy smokes, I got the vanilla one, it has two scents: Vanilla Refresh & Vanilla Bean, and I put it in our small ensuite bathroom and I swear I can smell it all the way down the hallway! I’m in the library right now, which is a room and a hallway away, and I can smell it. It’s amazing! Well worth the (seemingly) exorbitant price. Seriously, I love it!!
I painted some more yesterday…
The purple from a tube really helped me get the tree colour right… and I’ve started adding some leaves and flowers too.
Today will also be another baking day. The banana muffins I made (from my Nigella book) are gone, so I have to replenish the supply, as I’m growing very used to lovely muffins for breakfast & snacking. In fact, I may not actually leave the house today. Perhaps it will be verrrry lazy.
The spring Cath Kidston catalogue arrived yesterday (surprisingly, as I didn’t order anything from the winter one, and I figured they’d stop sending it overseas just for me to browse through it!)– I am in loooove with
And pretty much everything in the whole catalogue. However, once you factor in shipping to Canada and the exchange rate (plus the scary duty charges you may or may not have to pay once your package arrives… once I ordered yarn online and thought I was getting a super-bargain, but the delivery lady made me pay so much duty it was hardly worth it!) I can’t really afford the splurge at the moment.
Have a lovely rest of the weekend!
*Disclaimer: today I learned how to type a heart symbol, which I thought I couldn’t do from my laptop because it doesn’t have a number keypad… (*blush*)… turns out, all I have to do is press the “fn” key + alt + the number “3″ function, which is actually my letter “l”. I just thought I’d share this in case anyone else was like me and thought it was too difficult to figure out, haha*
Yesterday, I painted! It was a momentous occasion, as I tried out my lovely french easel (thanks, love!) for The First Time, and opened my acrylic paint set up, and actually was brave enough to use some of the Brand New Brushes! If you’re anything like me, you might save up your new brushes for a long time before trying them out… and keep using the old ones because you don’t want to spoil the pretty new-ness of the new ones. Well, it was worth it, because the new brushes are l o v e l y. (Refraining from typing more hearts here).
It isn’t finished or anything, I totally ran out of white since the set I was using had a tube of white that was the same size (small) as the coloured tubes… and I’m a non-saturated painter– I love mixing white to get lighter tones. I sort of had Alice in Wonderland in mind (there’s been a lot of cool Alice-inspiration on weheartit.com & I can’t wait to see the new movie), and also I just love birds and owls and hearts. The hearts are going to be balloons, actually. I guess I have love on the brain!
In this picture you can see a bit more of my easel:
It’s super-cool. I just set it up in the library, put windows media player on random, and had fun. The whole easel folds up on itself to become a portable rectangular box-structure, the legs attach to the sides and everything.
Today after work I went to buy a 200 ml tube of white paint, and also a tube of purple: even though I love mixing my own colours, I didn’t have the proper red + blue to mix the shade of purple I was trying to get… so I bought “light lilac” I think, which sounds lovely.
Anyways, just in case your cuteness quota hasn’t been filled for the day, look at this:
Yes. It is preciously cute. And then, since there is nailpolish in that photo (in a shade I’m not wearing), what do you think of the colour I am wearing?
It’s a sort of coppery-purple, if that makes sense. I had been wearing a really pale pink, similar to Essie’s Ballet Slippers (which I almost bought, but then went for the much cheaper L’Oreal version!), but I really like this new colour. (Rimmel Hard Edge, if you’re interested!)
Well, I’m soon off to do some late-night grocery shopping with Himself. Goodnight!
So I decided I have to start sketching and painting more. Did you know, when I was still in uni, I painted a lot… and I sort of stopped for some reason, being uninspired or something, I don’t know. I think even though it’s already mid-to-late January, making more art will be another resolution for 2010.
Then I came across this flickr group (as seen on notebook doodles) and was totally inspired! I love drawing clothes… and I think it’s neat to document what you wear– I love seeing people’s photos, but these drawings made me get out my sketchbook and pencils.
I started with this weekend (skipping Sunday, as I spent the morning in pjs and the afternoon at work), and I got around to colouring them today (although I seem to have lost my good set of pencil crayons, i.e. the ones with more than eight colours, haha, so I had to blend…)
Here they are, from Friday to today:
I won’t be able to keep up with drawing every day, but I hope to do several outfit sketches a month. And I found my lovely wooden easel (which Himself very generously gifted me with a couple years ago) and acrylic paints (I do love oils, but the ventilation in the apartment wouldn’t be enough to paint indoors)… now all I need to do is figure out a way to keep Leela-cat from “interrupting” me while I paint!
Oh, and P.S. I also made blueberry-lemon muffins… using Nigella’s recipe for lemon-raspberry muffins, but I only had blueberries! I haven’t eaten one yet, they’re probably cooled by now though– yumm!
After reading a super-cute post about collections over on a beautiful mess, I thought I might do a show & tell about some of the things I collect. I’ve always been a book-collector, and I’m awful for buying multiple copies of the same book just because they have different covers. Penguin publishing knows how to get money out of me, as they periodically re-publish classics that I love, and every time I think the cover can’t get better… it does.
But aside from books, I also started collecting white dishes in the shapes of animals (which I’ve mentioned before when I bought the birdie salt & pepper shakers). It started with an elephant teapot (which is actually sort of an ivory colour) and then just kept going. I’m sure Oprah has caught on to this “trend” by now, but I’d just like to officially declare that I started my collection completely independent of any celebrity.
And now, some pictures!
Yes, the cow currently holds pens since I already have a cat and elephant for milk and cream! Has anyone else seen any unusual white animal dishes? There is a camel teapot at a kitchen store in town, but it’s not that cute… plus I’m trying not to just keep buying teapots with reckless abandon. You know how it is…
