Art + Craft Archives - Page 15 of 21

Scribbler on the Wall – Charlotte Mann

September 17, 2009 By Paola 9 Comments

Feeling down because you can’t afford the latest must-have chair, your partner is allergic to the cats you love, or the view from your window is less than stellar?

Why not just grab a black marker and paint the things you crave on your white walls instead? That’s what London artist Charlotte Mann does, which has garnered her a spot on the shortlist for the British Design Awards 2009 in the Surface Design of the Year category.

Image of journalist India Knight’s house from October’s Elle Deco

All other images from www.charlottemann.co.uk

Go Love Your Sofa – Babette

September 16, 2009 By Paola 8 Comments

So here are more details of the present I’m planning to make for the new sofa.

This project has been percolating for a long time, ever since my friend Heidi from Peacock Modern showed me the pattern at the beginning of this year. It’s the reason I’ve been teaching myself to crochet and desperately trying to finish my existing big projects (I’m still ploughing through both the blanket and the lace wrap). And I’ve spent the whole summer collecting Koigu KPM sock yarn – picking skeins up cheaply on Ravelry and scouring and stalking online stores for sales and special offers.

Buying everything online has made for mistakes (which I’ve sold on) but also some happy accidents – ‘ugly’ colours such as mustard and burnt orange –which I would never probably have picked up, but which, in the spirit of Noro, I’ve kept on and which I’m hoping will give the whole thing more interest and depth.

Here’s what I’ve collected so far.

And here’s what they’re going to be.

Babette. How I love this funky modern take on the classic granny square blanket. How I’m looking forward to playing with my own colours to create a harmonious whole. How terrified I am of actually crocheting the thing and sewing it together.

If you too are foolish enough to want to embark on this, the pattern is here, there is a helpful Babette group on Ravelry, and a Flickr gallery full of Babette inspiration.

Go Love Your Room – KenzieKate’s Nursery

September 15, 2009 By Paola 1 Comment

I’m always a bit jealous of fabulous nurseries. For the first year or so of her life when we were in our London flat the Minx slept in with all the mirrormirror stock in our second bedroom – not exactly conducive to beautiful decorating schemes. Not that she really noticed if the truth be told.

This baby nursery is truly stunning – not many people could pull off a zingy green, yellow, turquoise and red colour scheme but Kenzie Kate of wedding blog ‘Something Old, Something New’ does an incredible job.

I think it’s a great idea to do a bright scheme like this, as in my experience most little children are not very fond of pastels and will let you know that in no uncertain terms as soon as they can. The Minx can be very vociferous on the subject of her dislike for baby pink (though hot pinks and fuchsias are another matter entirely). So this scheme should last for some time.

The thing that really pulls this together are all the little homemade touches – the gorgeous mobile, the soft toys, the homemade quilt and art work. I would give my eye teeth to be that talented a craftsperson.

All details can be found here. Found via the gorgeous Helen of Countryside Wedding – ex mirrormirror staffer and soon to be yummy mummy herself.

Engraved Upon My Heart

September 10, 2009 By Paola 1 Comment

Like everyone else in the world, I do like a good Moleskine notebook. Portland-based company Engrave Your Book produces beautiful reuseable leather Moleskine covers, laser engraved with artwork by up-and-coming artists and graphic designers, including Amy Ruppel.

Aren’t these just fabulous? I might try and get some of these in the shop. Currently available here.

Amy Ruppel for Engrave Your Book

Adventures in Knitting – Knitting the Ocean

September 9, 2009 By Paola 6 Comments

The only thing I have really been able to achieve this summer is a ton of knitting. I was inspired by all the fabulous patterns on Ravelry to embark on a cardigan for myself, the first time I’ve knitted an adult-sized cardigan or sweater since I was at college (more years ago than I care to remember).

This Featherweight Cardigan was a really quick, simple and pleasurable knit, particularly as it was the first thing I’ve made out of yarn dyed by a Seattle-based woman who goes by the name of Sundara. The woman is a colour genius and I’ve recently been bankrupting the family buying up her limited edition yarns, but the colours, oh the colours are a-maz-ing. I will blog about her separately as she really is an artist who deserves to be seen by knitters and non-knitters alike.

But I digress. This cardigan was made in Sundara’s soft and sumptuous Fingering Silky Merino in a limited edition colourway ‘Macedonia’ and, with its variegation from dark to light blue with little flecks of pale ‘foam’ on top, it was just knitting up the sea. The photos really don’t do justice to the depth of the blue and how it glows in the sunlight. Full project details on Ravelry as usual.

These pics were taken by my friend Kassandra at Seattle’s Golden Gardens beach on the last beach day before school started. Our kids are rioting gently somewhere a few yards out of shot.

While we’re on the subject of rebooting and reclaiming one’s life after the baby years, looking at these pictures I think I also really need to start reclaiming my body – it seems a bit much to be carrying ‘baby weight’ when the baby is nearly five.

I’ve been hampered in my efforts to exercise recently by lack of time and crippling plantar fasciitis -an excruciating pain at the bottom of my foot, which I think has been indirectly caused by twisting my ankle very badly a couple of years ago. At the moment the best exercise for me appears to be yoga, so I’m committing to doing a bit of yoga (either a class or a video) every day for the rest of September. I used to do quite a bit of yoga before the Minx was born, and it’s horrible to realise how inflexible I’ve become.

Little Bo Peep

August 13, 2009 By Paola 5 Comments

Funnily enough one of the things I miss most about England is sheep. There is something so very quintessentially English and homey and comforting about a windswept hillside dotted with fluffy white blobs – a sight I don’t think I’ve ever seen in America, the land of the cow.

Lamb here is an exotic meat – tucked into a corner of the supermarket at the end of the huge counters displaying every possible cut of beef, chicken and pork, and viewed with some suspicion. It’s rarely on the menu in restaurants, I’ve never had it served by American friends in their homes, and a waiter once told me that I may not like a lamb dish because the lamb taste might be ‘too strong’.

Anyway, I like this story, because it is so very English, so very charming and so very sheepy. Vegetarians may be aghast to note that not only did sheepbreeder Louise Fairburn make her wedding dress from the fleece of her Lincoln Longwool sheep, but she served lamb from her flock to her guests.

Full article here, {via Rose-Kim Knits}

And speaking of owls…

August 11, 2009 By Paola 1 Comment

…I’m very much loving the new bamboo owl mobiles from one of our favourite suppliers Petit Collage.

For UK peeps we also have her beautiful wooden owl collage for sale on mirrormirror.

Lorena at Petit Collage has also brought out a couple of fun owl-y packing tapes

Must think about getting all these in the shop.

Wise Guys

August 7, 2009 By Paola 2 Comments

We all loved the Mibo Beetle stickers I blogged about earlier this year (and no, I haven’t yet done anything to personalise the car) and today I found out about another cool idea from the Mibo website – downloadable, print-at-homeable OWLS.

The Minx and I will be making these on Monday after we return from camping. That is if our fingers can move for the chilblains and frostbite – after last week’s record high temperatures, temps have plummeted this week and the weather forecast for the weekend is awful. I will be attempting to blog my camping experiences from my new iPhone (the silver lining to my car being broken into on Tuesday).

Speaking of iPhones, has anyone get any favourite apps they want to share? Either for me or the Minx? If you have a pre-schooler about the house you could do much worse that to download Smacktalk.

River Mirrors

August 6, 2009 By Paola 2 Comments

I’m sorry and I’m enjoying life in the US more than I ever thought I would, but from a design perspective I still wish I was living in the UK, there’s so much fabulous stuff coming out of there.

A case in point are these spectacular ‘River Mirrors’ by British artist and designer Caryn Moberly {via The Art of C}.

Each River Mirror is created from beautiful pieces of burred elm and resemble water flowing between the natural banks of a river. Caryn uses the natural undulating shape of the tree to form the ‘river banks’, and so no two mirrors are the same.

I find the choice of wood particularly poignant – as a very young child I lived close to a stand of magnificent elm trees and remember feeling quite overwhelmed by their height and majesty. It pains me somewhat that, due to Dutch Elm Disease, it is unlikely that my daughter will ever see a mature elm tree in all its glory.

Adventures in Knitting – Blocking and Stitching

August 6, 2009 By Paola 2 Comments

I’ve just finished knitting a cardigan for me – the first garment I’ve knitted for myself in about twenty years – of which more anon when I’ve taken some pictures.

In the meantime, though. I decided that I really ought to focus more on finishing off my Interminable Blanket, as I’m getting so bored of having it hanging around. I’ve been gently knitting up squares in the background – I’ve decided to make it 5×4 squares instead of the original 4×4 in order to make it a bit more practical – and recently decided to bite the bullet and start sewing them together.

The first order of business is blocking – washing the squares and pinning them out to stretch them. I wish I’d done this a bit sooner, as it is so inspiring when a screwed up bundle like this,

turns into lovely smooth even flat squares like these

I then took my courage in both hands and started sewing. Sewing and me have developed a hate/hate relationship over the years, so I was by no means convinced that I’d be able to come up with a neat enough seam, given that the seams on this project are pretty visible. But after several false starts and lots of undoing and redoing I’ve come up with some seams that look pretty good to me.

Here’s the first row of five blocks all sewn together

And here’s a close up of the stitching

I’m hoping that the edges will unfurl again as I sew the strips of blocks together and add the lace edging, though the whole thing will probably need another blocking when it’s done.

All the way through this I’ve not been sure that I’d be able to sew it together well which I realise now has been somewhat demotivating. The knowledge that I can actually do it AND make it look good AND that the process isn’t even painful has made me set to like a thing possessed. I’m hoping to have this finished this month, only about five and a half years after I started it. I do wish I liked the colour more though.