Sunday, April 29, 2012

the blanket


The baby blanket is done. It knitted up surprisingly quickly and the wool ('Zara' by Filatura di crosa) is so lovely and soft. I think the colours worked out well. I used this pattern available on the Purl Bee website. I intend to give this to a colleague who is expecting her first child in July. You can't have too many little woolly blankets for a little Winter baby. 


And here are the supplies for my next project purchased from the wonderful The Little Craft Store. It's so nice to have discovered a good craft store not too far from home.

Watching Year of the dog (sad comedy), Half Nelson (Ryan Gosling plays drug addict history teacher), Everything must go (Will Ferrell. Based on Raymond Carver short story) and Seinfeld on DVD + Reading Londoners: the days and nights of London now by Craig Taylor and Sweet peas for summer: how to create a garden in a year by Laetitia Maklouf + Eating quinoa - nutritious and easier to cook on a camp stove than brown rice.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

everything is white and a big apple


The rooms in my house are empty and white as painting begins/progresses.  Its a little odd but I quite like the emptiness of it. It reminds me of this painting by Maira Kalman that I saw in the book Maira Kalman: various illuminations (of a crazy world) by Ingrid Schaffner. I don't know what the painting is called or if it's of a 'real' house but I love the dots. It looks like the house is riveted together.

 

And this is a big apple. It's a Monty's Surprise which, apparently, is a unique New Zealand variety and is the best anti-cancer eating apple in the world. It tastes quite nice - a little bit tart and firm but not super juicy. I'll grate some into my bircher muesli tomorrow morning. And probably every morning for the rest of the week!

Saturday, April 7, 2012

wallpaper

This Easter we've been working on the house. We need to strip the wallpaper from a bedroom and the hallway so that the painter can start work on Tuesday. It's quite a satisfying job in some ways. We've discovered layers of wallpaper under the wallpaper. One room even had wallpaper under the wall lining! I managed to rescue a bit of a particularly interesting wallpaper. It's hard to tell its age from such a small piece. Is it 1960s? 70s?
We'll be painting the bedroom and hallway but I have chosen some wallpaper, 'Mushroom soup' by Ferm Living, for one wall of the pantry.
As our renovation gets closer to finishing I'm afraid life will get more complicated as we squeeze ourselves into an ever smaller space so that rooms can be left empty for painting and floor sanding. But it means we're nearly done. Exciting!

Monday, April 2, 2012

flowery orange vintage


Here are a few things I picked up recently; a couple of "vintage" sheets that I'm thinking of sewing up into pillow cases and another Crown Lynn lidded sugar bowl that will look good next to these. The truly tremendous dahlia did not come from my garden. It was one in a vase of equally tremendous dahlias at a local cafe I popped into this morning.

Reading Maira Kalman: various illuminations (of a crazy world) by Ingrid Schaffner