(Home) Inspiration 9

This is a bit different from my regular inspiration posts...

Meet Aidan a 5-year old who loves monsters. On September 13, 2010 he was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL). He pulled through his first round of chemo . Unfortunately, he must go through 2 to 3 more years of chemo treatments and everything that goes along with that.

While in chemo and resting at home Aidan has been spending quite a bit of time drawing.

In order to help his family out they started selling prints of his works as well as a few originals on Etsy. All proceeds will go directly to Aidan’s medical bills.

I have been really moved by this story, and a monster from Aidan should really make it into my home, as a personal reminder that it could happen to everyone. And also hoping that Aidan will get better soon.

Knitting + Patchwork I Cushion in Green

I finished a couple of projects over the weekend, one in particular really needed to be finished. One of my friends spent the weekend with us and had commissioned a cushion cover for her new flat (brown sofas, and she wanted a green cushion). The below image set the colour tone she wanted...

In the end I chose the Mirasol Sulka yarn in Thyme (212), and I wanted a pattern/stitch that was both simple but quite effective visually. I tried a couple of stitches and ended with the herringbone stitch. This tutorial is really useful. Once you know it is easy but requires a lot of work for your elbows though. Beware this stitch eats yarn, but the effect is really worth it.

My big issue was to make the cushion reversible. Once I decided that there was too much yarn going into this I decided to go for a geometric pattern at the back. Here is the back (already quilted) on its own. It is my first attempt at this design, so it is not my best effort but you have a good idea of the effect.

And here is the corner of the cushion! it is actually not as bad as other parts of the patchwork. I love the butterflies fabric (I think it is a Michael Miller fabric). The colours are a bit richer than shown on the picture.

I will definitely used that pattern again, I am hoping to make a big wall hanging patchwork for the new house, with a mix of light and dark colours of the same tone.

Home Inspiration 8

Sorry for the silence. I have been on a course (trying to concentrate all day long... I had not done this for a long time), and was too tired to update my blog.

However things are moving with the house. We made the kitchen designer in - whoohoo - the quote for the kitchen - not so whoohoo, and we have agreed (as in M proposed and I finally gave in) that we would keep some wall lights in the main room (kitchen cum living room cum dining room) - when all I wanted was spotlights ..

Here I am trying to find modern wall lights, and ended up on this manufacturer website in Germany. They create patterned lampshades that were inspired by the graphic designer-owners Steffen and Viktoria. A heavy 300gsm+ paper is used for the exterior of the lampshade, acrylic is used for the customized mounting, and polystyrene as a light diffusing inlay shade. Each lampshade is available in different acrylic colors, different papers, measurements and designs, and with or without a light diffusing inlay shade — basically you can customize your very own lampshade.

How great does this look? Not sure about the light it actually gives, but that is not really the point (we are still going to have spotlights).

So many to choose from ... Cannot wait!

Home Inspiration 7

This is really cool... British artist Keira Rathbone uses typewriters, instead of brushes and pencils, to create portraits and drawings.

Keira first started experimenting with typewriter art, when she was in university. She bought an old typewriter, from a flee market, in the hope that she would soon use it to write something. By the middle of her first year at the university, she hadn’t come up with anything to put down on paper, so she decided to use it as a drawing tool.

Fast forward to present day and Keira Rathbone is an established artist with her very own niche. She now has an arsenal of 30 typewriters which she has used to create unique portraits of Barrack Obama, Kate Moss, Marylin Monroe, and others.

She says that she simply turns the roller to move the sheet of paper, and uses different characters to create the shapes she wants. It might sound easy enough, but creating detailed artworks from simple letters, numbers and punctuation is definitely not the easiest thing to do.

I am looking at this magazine cover that would go well on one my walls... A reminder of British Labour foreign policy..

It is finished!!!

I am SO happy to post these pictures... I never thought I would see the end of it, but 15 years later, and here is what was supposed to be my bed cover for my bedroom in France. However in 15 years, well the bed has changed (accomodating two people now) and my bedroom is in the reds and not yellow... So I will focus on the sense of achievement and having a nice quilt to snuggle up in.

I had to hang it on the curtain pole in the main room... Not exactly the best shot but it gives you a good idea of what it looks like (this is only half of it).

What have I learnt?

1. My taste in colours changed, and I am over little flowers print... I am even surprised that my teenage self was into that (clearly showing signs of the countryside girl in me).

2. The purchase of a sewing machine makes my life SO much better. I did everything by hand (all these squares are stitched by hand... that is dedication, and clearly the reason why I gave up). But I finished with the machine within an hour...

3. Buy enough fabric - I need more prep work.. Here is the 'dark' corner. I like it obviously because it accounts for the time that it took to complete, but I can see that it is not ideal if I were to give it to someone (outside my family that is).

All in all, I am impressed with the design I came up all these years ago, and very happy to see it finshed and sitting on my armchair.

Well, once the quilt was finished it was time to move to another project. This is a present for one of my friends. She was very specific about the colour... I am knitting with my favourite yarn, mirasol sulka, with 12mm needles using the herringbone stitch (a real pain, but so worth it). What do you think it will be? She has just bought a new flat...