July List!

A little late, but there we go...
From top left, clockwise:

1. Mini-break - Five of us (parents, sister, brother-in-law and I) journeyed down to the Loire recently to participate in a 'Balade Gourmande' - a 5km walk round pretty villages and vineyards, from one local food and wine tasting stall to another, accompanied by various musicians along the way. Got a little bit drunk and a little bit sunburnt and a little bit stuffed... All in all, a good day.

2. Reading list - Spotted this flagged up on the lovely Angry Chicken. It's a handwritten/hand-drawn zine with all kinds of information and tips about "how to craft a sustainable domestic life outside of consumer consciousness". Available here - it looks super.

3. Organic Cotton Sun Dress - from Lav & Kush, available here on Mudshark Streetwear. Gorgeous.

4. Visitor! - this is a picture from my trip to Bangladesh in Februrary to visit my good friend working out there. Looking forward this month to her trip back to the UK. yay!

5. Southbank - for the last few years the National Theatre's held a festival of outdoor free events throughout summer, called Watch this Space. In the past I've enjoyed: circus skills graduate shows after work; a crazy show involving a lot of fire, acrobatics and firemen dancing on podiums; and sitting in a deckchair watching old films and short films projected onto the concrete tower. This year they have a parkour week coming up, so hoping to get down to see some of that. I love the athleticism and grace of parkour, as well as the way it treats the urban environment as a playground.

6. Summer footwear - I like this smart looking flip flop from Melissa Sin at the Inhabitat shop. It's made of recycled plastic in a closed loop manufacturing process apparently.

7. Sunshine clutch - have been eyeing up these Bobelle bags for a while. They're made of eel skin - a a by-product of the food industry in Korea. All BoBelle products are hand made, hand dyed and fairly traded, according to their website. They also have some great looking hand bags and cute coin purses.

June List

June's here! And it's actually sunny, hooray!

So, from top left, going clockwise.

1. I love this ring from artisan look on etsy. Gorgeous

2. Also lusting after the lovely caoba top - another etsy find by Zelaya. It's made of organic cotton, can be worn two ways, and looks perfect for warm weather (apart from the fact that I ban myself from buying white apparel on the grounds that I'm just too prone to spilling things).

3. Hoping to catch the The Photographic Object exhibition at the photographers gallery in its new home. It's one of my favourite London galleries with a constant turnover of small and interesting exhibitions and I haven't visited since it recently moved.

4. I'm sure this golden sands brooch from Calexandra would make everything in my wardrobe look better.

5. Comfy and chic, and coral, one of my all-time favourite clothing colours, this Peopletree bubble dress is another item on my wardrobe wishlist.

6. Having finally managed to keep up regular(ish) running training since January, planning to run a 5K this month, with Sri Chin Moy races in lovely Battersea Park.

7. Cherries have started to arrive on the streets of London and I can't get enough of them. They just taste of summer. I went to my first picnic this weekend just gone and sitting in the sun in the company of interesting people, with a handful of cherries and a glass of prosecco is a good recipe for a Sunday afternoon...

The May List!

May has to be a strong contender for the best month of the year, doesn't it? A teasing peek of summer to come, flowers in bloom, and best of all - not one, but two bank holidays! woo woo! So this May, I am:


Planning to

- Finally get round to visiting the Madness and Modernity exhibition at the always-fabulous Wellcome Collection, which looks really interesting. (picture 1)
- Check out the Slow Food Market on the Southbank this weekend. It promises "40 stalls furnishing a delicious array of artisan food and drink, including rare cooked meats, fresh mezze, salads and sweets such as cakes, pancakes and baklava... and a programme of free access demos, tastings and workshops." (picture 2)
- Start on something from my lovely new Kim Hargreaves book (picture 8), very possibly with some organo-phosphate free and (fairly) local alpaca yarn from the Farm Yarn shop (picture 9)


Lusting after

- This gorgeous gathered print skirt (picture 3) from Sika, who use vintage fabrics sourced from Ghanaian markets to make their fabulous creations. All pieces are hand-made by local seamstresses in Ghana using traditional techniques such as tie-dye and batik and the income received from their sale goes back into the local community.
- Jess LC's handmade State Street necklace (picture 6) and earrings (picture 7) . Classic but funky, they would go with everything.


Looking forward to

- Visiting my lovely friend Shelley in picturesque Devon (picture 4)
- Starting a six-week beginners tennis course! (picture 5)


Hoping for

- Sunshine! (picture 10) - see items 2, 4 and 5 above!!

Picture credits (all from Flickr Creative Commons): Slow Food - Orin Optiglot ; Tennis Ball - StuSeeger ; Totnes - dachalan ; Sunshine - JunCTionS

Objects of my desire

Since coming across these on the Brightside Project a couple of days back, I have been completely enamoured with these gorgeous hunks of wood...



The ingenious idea is a shoe which can be created new as often as you please just by changing the ribbon that is threaded through the base. The base itself is made from sustainably grown cherry wood, and the sole comes from recycled tire rubber.



There are a number of different base options available, and each purchase comes with five ribbons of your choice, although you can use whatever works to tie them up.



I just think they're awesome. Coupled with the fact that 'Mohop' is a totally catchy word, I have found myself more than once in the last couple of days just going 'mohop, mohop, mohop' in my head, a little crazily...



Website: http://www.mohop.com/

And read about the woman behind the shoes in this interesting interview: http://thegreenloopblog.com/mohop-builds-the-american-dream-shoe/237

sewing project one

So it was a sunny day a few weeks back, and I was walking round Chalk farm and stumbled across a sewing shop. A brief browse and friendly chat with the proprietess later and I emerged with a paper pattern and a plan. Only chink in the plan - no sewing machine.

I'd noticed years ago a little shop selling used and new sewing machines, just down the road in Camden. So, fired up with the plan, I hopped on the tube and lo! the shop was still there so I entered and had a little chat about sewing machines.

I almost purchased a second hand toyota, a bulky new looking thing. And then I saw this in the window - a similar model to the machine my Mum got for her 21st birthday which is still running perfectly today.

I asked after it, and the helpful sewing machine shop man told me elna was like the rolls royce of sewing machines. Swiss made, and very reliable. I fell in love. I bought it!

The shop, by the way, was still run by the son of the man who established it, way back in 1936. It was lovely and cosy and they were happy to stay open half an hour after closing time to give me a demo and to find all the pieces and chat about the shop. A truly lovely shopping experience.

Anyway, I got home and I looked at the pattern and it was like trying to read Arabic, so I put it away again and waited until the weekend before last, when I was heading home.

My mum isn't a prolific seamstress but she made her own lime green suit to wear to her first interview, she made all our ballet costumes when we were little, and I remember her in home-sewn clothkits clothes back in the 80s. She knows what she's doing...

And she has this fine sewing stash!

I cut my pattern out of newspaper in case it went wrong, and because I thought if I cut it out I wouldn't be able to use it again. Not sure why I thought this, now I think about it a little more rationally, but there we go. It was quite a lot of work and I started to get disheartened. It had looked like a simple pattern to me and I'd had this lovely idea in my head that I'd just 'whip it up' in an afternoon....

Fabric cut, the sewing began, as did the arguments. I enlisted help, then stroppily refused it as the logics of the pattern frustratingly eluded me. I tried my hardest to be patient, but it is not something I am skilled at when it comes to making things - I kind of want to Just Get Going!

But I was a good girl, and I did lots of pressing of seams, and pressing of this and that (you can see here though where I neglected to cover up my gathering stitches - oops!)

Two days, and a lot of wonky sewing later....

...I finally ended up with something (almost!) ready to wear. So, it still needs a zip, and the bodice doesn't sit quite right. I also can't decide whether to make it a short dress or a long top (it's shown folded under here). I have however, kind of suceeded! Woo!

But now I realise what I thought was a simple pattern really wasn't that simple, and think I need to start off a little easier, really build up the basics.

So, if anyone has any recommendations for good sites with free basic patterns on, good books which will be a reference easy enough to understand for a complete novice, please pass my way!...

the inaugural swap party

So, last Saturday I finally got around to hosting a clothes swap party. I kept putting it off for ages, worrying about how it would work, and whether people would come, and how rubbish my clothes were etc. etc. ...

But in the event, like a lot of things I worry about, it was really very good and none of my imagined problems came to bear...

I forgot to take photos, so I've whipped up some drawings in Excel to illustrate this post (drawing in Excel another pastime dreamt up that Looks Like Work But Is Really Just Me Whiling Away The Time). It's kind of fun!

So, hear's what I learned:

1. You don't need that many people - we were 6 in the end. Out of about 25 I invited, there was a lot of interest expressed, but loads who just couldn't make it and I was a bit worried it just wouldn't work size and taste wise but it was fine and I actually think much more would be a bit of a challenge in terms of logistics - lots of people wanting the same thing for example, and even just the time it takes to look through everything!
2. You definitely want a few drinks and nibbles. We ended up sitting around chatting and eating/drinking for a couple of hours before getting down to swapping. It helped everyone get acquainted and in the mood to run around trying on clothes like crazy

3. It really is satisfying when something that looked kind of ok on you, looks completely awesome on someone else.

4. There's quite a lot of flexibility in sizes. I am currently wearing a skirt whose previous owner weighs about half what i do, but although i have to wedge it over my thighs it fits the waist and is fine. Likewise, some stuff in bigger sizes looked good on the smaller people.

5. Mirrors are good - I could probably have done with another few, and especially a full-length one but we managed with just the ones in the bathroom.

6. It's really true that something you hate someone else might totally love. I put out this old tweed suit kind of for fun, because it looks just awful on me, but both parts went, whereas the cool Reiss skirt I thought would be snapped up noone really fancied.

7. It's a lot of fun - both having the party and having a whole load of new clothes to work into your wardrobe. Definitely worth doing. It's just such a win-win thing. You clean out your wardrobe of stuff that's just making you feel guilty for buying it or fat because it doesn't fit, or just taking up space and getting old. You get new stuff for free and you have a fun night out. Beats shopping any day...

finished! the crocheted scarf

I decided this year to try really hard to make handmade gifts for most of my friends and family's birthdays. I've tried in the past and never really got the planning thing down, starting projects two weeks before a big date and abandoing them eight months later...



Anyway, this was the first project - a crocheted scarf for my mum, following a pattern in one of the Rowan catalogues and made with Rowan's kidsilk haze, which I did vow never to use again as it's so fiddly, but it does make nice and delicate yet snuggly things.



I only just learned crochet, and find it really addictive, even more so than knitting. There's a very comforting rhythm about needlecrafts. I think it's like a heartbeat.



I was pretty pleased with the final outcome. It's a tiny bit doily-esque, but not so much when you scrunch it all up. Also, fitting that my first crochet project goes to my mum, who was the one to teach me, last Christmas or whenever. I just hope she does get some use out of it!



Here's some pics of me modelling it: