the shelf above my desk :: a few knitted experiments, father christmas, some random dimension letters {the ampersand being my favorite}, various cards and tags, a sea fan, and a postcard from amy earles.

bulls eye

I think I'm seriously into concentric circles right now. Here are some felt coasters I've been working on. They are one of the many little projects I've started but never finished. The Rick Hards image below inspired me to just get on with it!

some other things that inspire me:
camilla's 2008 calendar now available here
white forest pottery's Apriori Series
Kaptiza's William Morris book

Rick Hards

I'm excited to say that I'm going to be working with artist Rick Hards on a few projects {starting with his website} ... we're working out some of the details and I'll post some updates soon about the progress. Rick is an artist living in Los Angeles who works with tin-types and cabinet cards, and handcrafts his own beautiful frames from mahogany. You can see some of his work at Lisa Sette Gallery.

I'm also helping laissezfaire spread the word about "top 10 new design blogs to watch". Vote for your top 5 new design blogs by October 15th by emailing toptentowatch@gmail.com. This is running concurrently with The Home Rejuvenation's current poll of the 10 most influential design blogs today. See the original post here.

Gray Day

An actual storm is brewing... Los Angeles hardly ever gets rain at this time of year, but it has been gray all day and windy. No rain yet, but I have my fingers crossed. I love this type of weather; it's so refreshing. While these polaroids weren't taken today, they match the colors outside right now.

a good find

I found these colorful fish pins in amongst some boxes that haven't see daylight in years. I bought them probably ten years ago, and had them framed and on the wall. They were lovely like that... might do that again.

Red Day

Trying to catch up with some deadlines... it's non-stop at the moment. My knitting needles have been temporarily abandoned. It was actually chilly this morning, so a nice warm coffee was good to wake up to.


While looking for something else last night, I was reminded of some place mats I made for a friend a while back... this is her lovely dining room (photos by r.a.f).

Today is a red day, I think ... and I just bought these socks.

At the front door

I'm working from R's cabin today - the phone and internet access at my apartment is kaput. This is one of my favorite moments in his house, right by the front door.

mis-match

some of my favorite dishes ... nothing really matches and I don't have a full set of anything, but I try to keep the same colors so it all looks like it belongs ... a happy little family of mis-matched dishes.

Shoes & Peacocks

I made some headway on my shoes last night... I have the right sole's basic shape started, held together right now with elastic bands. I worked a little on what I think I want the leather that wraps around my foot to be like, but it's really too soon to tell. This shoe experiment could really turn out to be a big fat waste of time, but I'm really hope it's not. I'm hopeful that I'll be able to wear these out in public, and that that's not too lofty of a goal.

In other news, a peacock (or rather peahen) has moved into the neighborhood. The first time I saw her (walking right in the middle of the street) I thought it was a fluke, but lo and behold, she's back and may be living in the parking lot behind the apartment. There are a lot of peacocks close by the Arboretum which is relatively near, and I've seen a few now in these parts, but I don't understand why they are moving to more populated areas. The pictures I took are terrible so instead, a piece by Tamar Mogendorff:

out with the old, in with the new

Feeling a lot better today {thanks Su Ling for your well wishes!}
I'm moving on from the hard drive drama and will start work on redesigning my website which I've been meaning to do for some time now.

I have a thing for scale model people - they're keeping me company today

oh and one more thing... I think I have to have these socks.

Laura Normandin

I love this piece by Laura Normandin of WREN handmade. Seeing her work this morning on Poppy reminded me how much I love this image {saved in my 'Images I Like' folder} and her work.

I'm still lamenting the loss of my external hard drive.. countless images {my own and inspirational ones from years of gathering} gone.


To get it all off my mind, I am currently thinking about:
Papa Stour's Bolt Hole holiday cottage {image above}
Norwegian architect :: Wenche Selmer
lovely Japanese shop :: hickory no ki {via labor of heart and hoping for happy accidents}
my new haircut... and what it means to have a fringe again

weekend colors & patterns

R and I were are a dinner party where the wax from one of the candles was being blown horizontally by a fan. I couldn't help but take an image... with my new camera. Finally back in the land of picture taking!



Also some images of the bits of old security envelopes found at my parents' house. I love these patterns.

international postage

A while ago a package from Japan arrived which I saved for the beautiful stamps.

Here is another... i LOVE the little crying broken glass 'FRAGILE' icon.



and another:


Obsessed? Maybe a little... I am going to visit my parents this weekend and will probably rumage through some old boxes of stuff from our past lives. My mother used to collect stamps, and at the risk of becoming a stamp collector (naturally considering my hoarding tendancies) I might have to go through the huge glass jar she stored them in.

lost & found

FOUND :: set of tags I made about 4 years ago. I quite like them... I think I'll make more.

LOST :: photo and work archive (my external hard drive decided to die on me... hopefully I can get someone to breathe some life back into it long enough to retrieve the files.. woe is me.)
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Getting back into the swing

Finally getting back to work after the holiday and this heat wave finally broke yesterday... the image above is from a invite series I'm working on for my Etsy shop. I'll be adding a few items to my shop shortly- as soon as I get a new camera. I've been borrowing one for ages and it's time to finally get my own.

Speaking of new, my new couch was delivered today - it's the Rochelle couch from Crate & Barrel.

I swear I've had my eye on it since February. I heard that they were going to switch the color to something in the "autumn palette" so I decided that the time was right, as this was the color I had wanted.

Next on the list for 'operation apartment make-over' is to reupholster some lovely Morris chairs that have been in my family for years and which I finally had restored. I can't wait to start shopping for some fabric. I am still in love with the 'bead' fabric by hable construction that design*sponge posted about earlier this year.
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