Sewing for Home

A lovely little project from Anna Maria Horner's "Seams to Me", handy for my bedroom!

I have had the fabric with the lovely girls on it for so long and never could find a suitable use, but this was absolutely perfect!

sweet cuppin cakes

Baking cupcakes with an old friend- perfect Sunday night! Check out these cute minis we made for an event at the bookshop today, complete with halloween purple and orange icing and ghosty sprinkles! We used the snickerdoodle recipe from martha stewart's cupcake book. Delicioso!

making books

I signed out a copy of Eco Books by Terry Taylor and have been messing around learning about bookbinding and such. This is a little book I made to test out the techniques from a bud light lime case and some legal and graph paper. Very happy with the results, and looking forward to learning lots more complicated techniques! Highly recommend this book, stay tuned for more.

Second Sweater for Knit Class

Here are some photos of the second sweater I made for my knitting class last semester. The top bit is knit on the machine with a mock drop stitch and the circles are all hand crocheted and assembled. Hope you like!

I've just finished this sweater for my knitting class this semester. I am so very proud!

The yarn I used is actually many different colors of donated yarn held together to make a crazy marled effect, and only one extra red yarn is added for the ribbing compared to the main body of the sweater. It was knitted on a hand operated Passap machine and then assembled by hand. Hopefully it will be accepted into the fashion show, if so more pictures will follow in a month or two!

RAFIA!

So, here are the 30 rafia flowers I made for the Studio Tord Boontje exhibit to come next fall at the Philadelphia University Design Center (as previously mentioned in the lace exhibit post). Other students made other components and they will eventually be assembled into big curtain panels and hung over a full wall of windows. I'm pretty excited to be a part of such a neat project, even though these took me forever to finish! But they are done, and are quite lovely, so all is well. One more thing to cross of my list before graduation!

Lykke Li

These are some photos take by a friend at the Lykke Li show in Philadelphia a few months ago. Lykke Li's first album, Youth Novels, is an absolute obsession for me at the moment. Her music? Girly- yes, fun- yes, and definitely inspired. She is like nothing else out there, and is refreshingly different from so many female musicians who care so much more about what they look like than what they produce. Check this chick out!! Photos taken by Aimee O'Neill

A related obsession- Black Cab Sessions is a fantastic site where artists are invited to do short performances in the back seat of a black cab. The creators have chosen excellent artists (including my two favorite Swedes- Lykke Li and Jens Lekman) and the performances are really very impressive- honest and compelling. Very cool idea and executed perfectly!

Moonblood Tees

Moonblood is as hip as they come in Phila, PA! I was lucky enough to intern last summer at Amy Eldon's other business, Printfresh, and purchased some discounted Moonblood tees from her for myself, my boyfriend, and my sister. They are some of my absolute favorite things, so comfortable and perfectly fit with really unique illustrations. Unfortunately they are a tad pricey for my normal range, however, I am sure they are attainable for many. For all the indie-cool-goodness: Moonblood

Collection II

Two posts in one day... but, hey, I'm new at this I'm allowed to be excited!

I've always loved prints and for my second collection I have the perfect opportunity to work on my print mixing... so far only half of one garment is done but pictures of those will surely come!
Here are the print mixes that will comprise each look:

Design Center Lace Exhibit

The Design Center at Philadelphia University is preparing an exhibit all about new interpretations of lace to open next fall. I was lucky enough to be recommended by a friend to help out with one of the projects- creating a gigantic raffia lace curtain designed by Studio Tord Boontje. However, when I tried to complete my first raffia item today (one of thirty I have committed myself to make by April 1) I got a little frightened. So I search around the websites of Boontje and the other artists participating to get a little more inspiration. The others include:

Demakersvan's lovely lace chain link fence, which will be permanently erected along the driveway leading up to our design center

Cal Lane's work which is essentially any kind of old scrap iron with amazing lace cut into and out of it. items include wheelbarrows, oil drums, i-beams (which i desperately want in my life) and shovels

The curator also mentioned a studio which makes concrete coated in special chemicals that are only visible when wet- imagine waiting at a bus stop and as it starts to rain a lace pattern appears in the concrete below your feet! such lovely ideas, all of them...

images are: a Tord Boontje lamp, Demakersvan fence, and Cal Lane shovels