Not terribly practical if you’re chasing your peas round your plate, but I do like the way these wall plates with holes subvert the whole plate as practical item concept. And look nice too.
All details of British designer Andrew Tanner’s Silhouette plates are here.
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.
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.
So here is the new sofa in situ. It is as comfy as hell, IMMENSELY practical, extraordinarily well -made and we are thrilled to bits with it. Thanks Couch Seattle!
You will note that we’ve also taken your advice – you were right of course – and bought a new rug for that end of the room so that the coffee table sits on it correctly and moved the green rug to the dining area. We also moved the green curtains to that end of the room to give a bit of colour and raised the curtain pole so that they hang better and give more of an illusion of height.
Things Still To Be Done About Which We Need to Talk
– Paint the walls. I have a completely different colour in mind from the last time we discussed this and am going to get samples this weekend.
– Reframe and move the artwork. Commission or buy huge and expensive piece of art (ha ha! – Ed) or at the very least do SOMETHING with the wall above the sofa.
– Replace (or possibly just paint?) the incredibly ugly door on the left which leads straight out onto the porch.
– Do something about the light fixtures, about which we have still done nothing since last we spoke.
– Crochet the sofa a beautiful present.
– Learn how to style photos better and at least smooth down the cushions on the couch before photographing it.
There is much to discuss and much to do. But we are getting there slowly.
The weather is supposed to be glorious this weekend which I suspect will be the Seattle summer’s last hurrah. So we are going to go out and PLAY!
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.
Isn’t this rather gorge? It doesn’t quite fit into our house decor, and it costs an absolute fortune, but je l’adore, oh yes I do.
To me it sort of sums up Britain in a way – different and edgy, fun and funky, a mish-mash of styles, slightly uncomfortable-looking and with a heart of pure unadulterated old-fashioned chintz.
Available at the Rug Company, { via Countryside Wedding}
Or, calling a Spade a Spade
{via Making It Lovely and Whorange}
So, let’s start as we mean to go on shall we?
This bag has been doing the rounds of the blogs in the last day or so. Much as we like an owl motif or two round these parts, and much as I hate to contradict two of my favourite design bloggers, I frankly find this bag both extremely ugly and utterly, bone-chillingly, terrifying.
It reminds me of the ferocious looking plastic decoy owl which you, dear readers, encouraged us to buy, and which was perched on our roof deck for the best part of the summer in an attempt to scare the birds from our cherry tree. I think it worked with the birds – there definitely seemed to be fewer around this year, and it certainly gave me the screaming heebie-jeebies every time I glanced it out of the corner of my eye.
Oh, and if you must buy this bag (and we would encourage you not to) the bag is available here.
We’re off to visit our friends’ cabin in the mountains this Labor Day weekend (oh how painful it is to write ‘Labour’ without a ‘u’ ) so I’ll be back on Tuesday. Next week we’ll be talking about my new knitted cardigan and the new sofa. How can you stand the excitement?
…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.
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.
