February 2008

February 27th, 2008

On colour

I’m not making much at the moment. Putting fabrics together and looking at them. Yes. Washing, sorting, clearing. Yes. That also. Thinking about combinations. Fabric synergies. In aromatherapy, two oils together, combined, can have a far more powerful healing effect than the two oils used separately. It’s a chemistry thing.

Recently I bought some Lotta from Leslie. The yellow seems to have captured my heart. All-encompassingly. It could be a serious possibility that this is the nicest fabric I’ve ever come across. Really really truly. The brown is rather gorgeous. But it’s the yellow I adore.



This morning I went back for this one, this one and this one. It’s just so jolly great. Really jolly great. There’s one piece of the brown left – it is such a beautiful texture, and colour… and the shipping is most reasonable.

The other colour I’m daydreaming about is emerald green. Deep, mysterious, lovely, Cheltenham Beach on an overcast day, magical, sublime, exquisite emerald green. Oh I love you so. You will be delicious with my yellow lotta skirt you will. You’ll make the perfect double gauze dyeing project. Now, I mix you with Neroli and share you around. One day I’ll make shoes in you and wear them forever.


picture from Travaux et Mode

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February 21st, 2008

Today I love…

Notari twigs fabric from Reprodepot. I’ve just got it off the line and it’s washed up absolutely beautifully. And now I see they’ve sold out in the natural. Strange. Things have been selling out left right and centre of late.



Kaffe Fasset shot cotton. Wonderful and lovely all at the same time. This yellow is most marvellous also. I’d had mustard and ecru in my basket for obviously too long, and they were sold out when I went to buy them. It took at least another hour to decide on these.



Robe Rouge and Travaux et Mode. These I can happily say are not sold out.


Robe Rouge is very simple, linen, crisp and clean.



Just a few simple designs – dresses, pants, tops – to keep one well wardrobed.



Travaux et Mode on the other hand has just the one simple skirt design, with many groovy ways to dress it up. Using applique, embroidery, colour and texture there’s an entire wardrobe of skirts in this little book. There’s a white horizontal pleat skirt, a shoe skirt, brightly coloured arty ones, subtle earthy ones. A multitude of skirts for people who like a bit of fun with their fashion.



44 times two – Alison‘s and my new online art exhibition. Gosh it’s good to be photographing again – actually getting the camera out when I see something great – something I’ve not really been doing these past few months. I’ve had so little time. We post twice a week – Mondays and Thursdays. A new diptych up today. We’re really having fun with it.

And finally, today I also love laundry baskets.

Kevin came home one day this week announcing that Lee’s cat had become trapped in their neighbours house just before the neighbours had gone on holiday, and the cat was yowling from out the upstairs window, so Lee went and got a ladder and climbed up, laundry basket in tow. The cat happily jumped into the laundry basket and the resuce was successful.

Last night Oscar was stuck up on our roof. Rufus obviously hasn’t shown him the way down yet. No amount of coaxing could get him to go to Kevin, teetering atop our outdoor table, arms eagerly outstretched. Half an hour and many mosquito bites later we remembered the laundry basket story. Oscar happily obliged and was down in seconds. This is a rescue operation I can now carry out single-handedly without needing a tall person. A good thing because Oscar was stuck again this morning.

Hooray for laundry baskets indeed.

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February 19th, 2008

London here we come

Tickets just booked for May 31st.
One way. Back home. (We have two hometowns).

Just how much longer can I contain my excitement?
If I count on my fingers it’s only three and a bit months.



View from Waterloo Bridge Jan 2006



Kevin, Waterloo Bridge Jan 2006

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February 18th, 2008

Two things



1.
A new site launched today.
A collaboration.
One half’s me.
It’s called 44 times two.

I’ll write more about it later.
I don’t know what to say right now except it’s rather exciting to be doing this.
To focus on photography again.

You can read more here. And here.
Those are much better words right now.

2.

I’m considering an invite-only bloggers-and-blog-readers-fabric-and-books-sale at my house (in Auckland) one Saturday afternoon – probably March 1st or 22nd. If you’re interested please leave a comment or email me.

3.

Thank you Di for my lovely award :) I am thinking about mine and will be here with the a+b webbies very soon!

4.

I can count.

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February 11th, 2008

In freefall

Our worldly possessions are falling out of our lives.

Piece by piece. Photographed. Bid on. Sold. Packed. Walked to the post office. Bit by bit. I’ve been falling out of my body too a bit of late. Which means I need to go for more walks on the beach. I’ve made a point of not wearing shoes most of the summer. Gone is little ms 37 and a half model feet charles jourdan karl lagerfeld versace casadei robert clergerie bally miu mui. I still have them all. They shan’t be marched out of the house under any circumstances. The campers might.



Yesterday I was organised and packed up all the items that had just finished, waiting for addresses and payment. All done. Then to make moisturisers. Failure to write down a change in recipe last time led to an extra three hours of holding arms out at 90 degree angle, thermometers in hot oil and water, ensuring nothing goes over 67°, ensuring they’re mixed when at exactly the same temperature. Then mix the new thick mix into the original liquid mix. I’m happy I ended up with double quantity as opposed to a runny disaster. Plenty now for orders, shops, craftwerk next weekend.

Saturday we meandered about Newmarket. Nuffield Street. Into Nest to look at Habitat. Kikki k to look at moleskines. Try on prada frames at occhialli. I like the clear horn rim style. Window shop at birkenstock. Mine hurt my feet. Avoid trelise cooper. Rumours of a fabric sale at karen walker were true.



This all rather reminds me of when I worked at Cobalt in London, a branding agency. How people define themselves by the brands they choose, the brands they don’t choose. So many different combinations of brands maketh the different people. When I was in Brazil, Zoe7 talked about how each person takes pieces of information, of teachings, to create their own philosophy, a religion of one.

Which reminded me today of my imaginary project in London, where I wanted to get random people from the tube and create a poster for each; a picture of them in the middle and eight floating bubbles of important things in their life. When you think about all the experiences and all the time that’s elapsed in that person’s life it’s so incredible to think of all of that in one person. It seemed appropriate on the tube where other people are merely obstacles to be moved around, beaten to a seat, overtaken, avoided. Flickr came along a few years after that thought and I thought, well hey, that’s a very large version of that idea.

Other things in freefall: my brain when I had to do hard recipe maths and backward calculations yesterday. Enter nothing in brain. White hazy noise. Then the answer appeared out of nowhere.

Perhaps more white space in brain time stops the falling out of body thing.

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