I was on some errands in the city on the weekend and decided to take a short cut through the Strand Arcade (always a bad idea) and decided to pop into Belinda’s little sister store The Corner Shop.  Who should I see there but the amazing fiery red shoes from Belinda AND at a drastically reduced price!  Before they could growl at me they were on my feet followed by a quick transaction, in my hand and out the door.  Who cares what I will wear with them – the shoes are the main attraction here.  What do you think?

Who designed these little monsters?  Well, they hail from New York label LD Tuttle and were created by Tiffany Tuttle who honed her designing skills at Givenchy before starting LD Tuttle with her husband a few years ago. She has some really interesting designs.  Take a peek at these wild shoes in her SS 2011 collection.

I finished a stripey crochet rug I a while back based on Lucy’s striped granny rug on the Attic24 blog.  Here’s how mine turned out (in all its Hipstaprint glory):

 I originally planned to make this for my daughter but she thought it a little bright for her liking when I was making it.  Since I finished it however, she has decided that she likes it, but I am holding out as I think you should love the rug from the get-go and besides I want another project to start.  

 
So, this time I am going in the complete opposite colour direction.  I found this picture on the internet and really like the monochrome look and feel of this rug and have decided to use it as colour inspiration for my colour minimalist daughter.

This one is knitted with the odd crochet square but I am going to do a combination of plain and striped granny squares with plain treble stitch squares.

I’m not sure how it will turn out but the colours have been chosen and a few squares have been finished and so far it’s looking OK…

Like many people, books have been an integral part of my life and a few of them are part of my most treasured objects.  Our home is filled with books and this is my favourite bookshelf in our Sydney apartment – it always makes me feel happy to see it when I come home. 

I also love checking out other peoples bookshelves to see what books they have and its fun to try and work out what it says about them.  Books on shelves can also make a statement in a room and I found this great pic of Karl Lagerfeld’s library on the New York Observer…

Wouldn’t you just love to spend an afternoon or 2 in that library checking out what Karl has on his shelves (not to mention sitting on the 10 seater sofa)?  Whilst many may say the book is dead and the eBook is the future – I can’t imagine my future without these literary treasures of stories, adventures, information, beauty and life sitting on my shelves….AND if you need ideas for how to stock your shelves – look no further than this little video for inspiration… enjoy!

I am also inspired by Christopher Kane AW 2011 collection.

Granny squares are everywhere – even on these Hotel Bondi Swim one piece….
Not sure if they do it for me – but nice to see crochet is influencing all manner of objects

from “Mrs Jack” by Louise Hall Tharp

El Jaleo by John Singer Sargent

I was cleaning out a cupboard and came across this poster of the John Singer Sargent painting El Jaleo.  Like most posters, it is a mere representation of the original painting.

A few years ago I  was in Boston for a course and caught up with  friends I hadn’t seen in a long while.  We spent a great weekend catching up (and dealing with the shock that our kids were now teenagers).

Mrs Gardner in Venice by Anders Zorn

While I was there, Jo took me for a visit to her favourite museum in Boston – the Isabella Gardner Stewart museum.  From the outside this building looked rather mundane and box like and revealed nothing of the wonders inside.

Isabella Gardner Stewart was an unconventional woman born into a wealthy family in 1840.  She married well and discovered a love of travel and art  and collected beautiful works on her travels to Europe and the middle East in the late 1800s.

After her husband died in 1898 she started work on her home/museum and modelled it on 15th century Venetian Palazzos.  Isabella wanted a museum to house her treasures but designed it as a palatial home rather than a gallery and filled it with the art works, furniture, tapestries and treasures from her travels.  When it was finished she welcomed many artists, performers and scholars to stay with her and was a patron to many including the fabulous John Singer Sargent.  She left the museum to the public with the instruction that the current collection must remain in the state it was in upon her death, with everything arranged according to her stipulations.

To visit is a wonderful journey and an intimate view into the life of a rather strong and passionate individual.  As the museum website states, it…“is the only private art collection in which the building, collection and installations are the creation of one individual.”

The magnificent El Jaleo is positioned in an intimate space just before you leave the museum and leaves a lasting impact.  Go check it out if you are ever in Boston – it is one of a kind…

I was thinking about a couple of unrelated things today and realised they had a connection.  First off, I have been sorting out a new abode for my working week in Sydney.  This has involved ransacking our home for bits and pieces to make the new place feel more like home.  I came across this Kodak box during my search and it conjured up many precious memories.  This was my grandfather Poppy’s Kodak instamatic camera and proudly purchased during one of my summer holiday stays in 1967/68.  He and I spent many hours going for drives taking pics of each other to see how this new camera worked.

Looking at his pics, with a critical eye, you can tell Poppy wasn’t much of a photographer, and he had a thing about making me face the sun when taking my picture so I am squinting in every single one.  However, when I look at his photos they tell a story to me and my favourite is the one on the right where I just make it into the frame.  I can tell I am going through my Mexican/Native American Indian phase because I was obsessed with those cultures around that time (the plaits give it away).  I wasn’t a typical ‘blonde hair/ blue eyed’ Aussie kid and identified with people whose colouring/looks were similar to mine (I also had a Spanish, Italian and Tahitian phase).

This morning as I was having a quick look on WordPress’ Freshly Pressed and came across this great blog post on 5 Tips for Taking a Really Great Travel Portrait

Image from Wanderlust - Notes from a Global Nomad blog

The images in this blog are compelling and I have always wanted to take images like these on my travels.  However, I always feel a bit shy about poking my camera in someone’s face and  wondered how great photographers g0t those images.  There are some great tips here, especially on how to build a connection and get a beautiful image that tells a story (it’s all in the eyes – and nobody is squinting into the light here Poppy).  I cant wait to go on the road and try them out for myself.

My grandfather’s wonky photos are important to me and, whilst they cant compete with Wanderlust’s beautiful images, they contain similar elements.  A connection, the background and people in them tell a story about a happy summer spent in another time and place and, you know,  I think they show Poppy’s skills as a photographer improving too.

Here’s how mine is looking …

I am loving this!  Just spotted this on the FastCoDesign website – a sideways library cafe in Manhattan.  It’s called D’espresso and its close to the New York Public Library (hence the library of books influence).  The “books” are actually tiles with sepia coloured prints of actual books from a real bookstore.   This is definitely going on the New York List of things to do.