six and a half stitches

DOTS

I love my neutral linens, greys, whites, and black. But I also love reds, particularly spots and dots - any combination:: white with red dots, red with white dots. Little dots preferably, but I take inspiration from them all. There is something beautiful and serene about a crisp white fabric with red dots on it. In recent years I have loved a Nani Iro white muslin with red bold dot splodges - pieces of which make there way into various quilts in tiny portions so I can get maximum value out of this precious material. I am down to my last thin 10cm x 15cm strip, and I wish I could get more. When I came across Yoshiko Jinzenji's White Design fabrics, I knew the dots piece, amongst others, would have to come live with me. A vast white background with little teeny dots on it, almost like pin pricks. And then Pia came along, and the vintage inspired smock top I made here, is the perfect pattern for using this material.

Red bias binding accentuates the red dots, and little bits of charcoal grey allow it to be worn with her grey bloomers, red stripey pants, red bloomers and every conceivable permeation in between.

This is the sort of simple crispness I like:: Bold in it's subtlety, detailed, expressive, flowing, and very handmade. It will grow as Pia grows and I relocate a small button at the back. It is both dresslike, and like a top. It is strong, feminine, and girly in a designed manner.

And the little red dots, they just need to be poked by an older brother, they glisten in their sparseness which is totally in scale with a little being. And they call out for more dots please. Perhaps the dots are an antithesis to the straight lines of architectural design I tend to favour - my way of gaining softness against harsh lineated projects.

I keep collecting images of dots around the place: Bikes :: Foliage :: Wallpaper :: Bridges :: Ladybugs :: Assortments :: Lizards and Buttons :: The Flower Sermon.

YOU LEARN SOMETHING NEW EVERYDAY

New fruit (for me anyway) - first time I've seen these in the supermarket. The name grabbed me. The colours got me hooked.
They're lovely.
Lovely colours - especially against Pia's Liberty print bloomers. The interior colour is gorgeous - soft, subtle, yet intense as well. The colours sit so well in late afternoon summer sun.
Lovely flavour.
Lovely Pluots.

THE PROCESS OF BEING FEBRUARY

February is looking like a very busy month socially. It's a little daunting, but it will all be excellent.

:: There's a blog meetup in Melbourne as Nic, Pia and I fly in to eat, shop, chat and catch up with old friends and make new friends as well in a large blog person social outing. Auntie Nic needs to squish Pia. I have 15 gifts to make for each person there. I have ideas. I have process. I have started. The paths I went down with this lot have created other paths, and it's now past midnight and my head is swimming with ideas and I can't sleep. The little black moleskin is rapidly being filled with ideas in simple linear form. I think this blog is turning into the Black and White blog. And I'm actually quite fine with that. It's nice to pare things down to the essentials.

::  On Saturday 24th February at the Prints Charming store in Lilyfield, Kirsten and Cath are very kindly holding a book launch for the Australian release of The Crafter's Companion. Apart from the fact one of my quilts featuring their fabric is on the cover, I also use a lot of their fabrics in all my work, and have been a keen supporter of them for a while. So if you're a Sydney person and would like to come and see the workshop and shop, meet Cath and Kirsten, meet me (!!), buy a copy of the book (with free fat quarter from Prints Charming) it would be really lovely to see you down there to support me, a great book, and a great business.

:: My little boy, my wonderful little spirit, is turning 4. So grown up, yet so naive and so little, but growing taller each day. I have a birthday party to organise, invitations to design and print, cakes to design, and games to create.

:: Backtack 4 is rapidly gaining shape and momentum behind the scenes. We've had a theme set for a while now, and we're fine tuning it before announcing details late February. We'll give plenty of warning here and at the Backtack site. I'm pretty excited by the possibilities of this one, so we both hope we'll get a good response again this time too.

TRANSFIGURED

Where am I? This week I am hiding in corners, darting between filtered lights, catching my breath, trying to keep cool, enjoying smiles and laughs from my children, wondering what step to take next - further into shadow or exposed by the light. There is beauty and joy to be had in both.

As the light refracts off glass, and disjointed pottery in cracked glazes, back onto surfaces where it becomes abstracted and transfigured, I think it reflects my thoughts and demeanour at the moment. Slightly fractured. A whole, but fragmented. Prone to movement as the shadows travel with the sun.

I want to bring this into my work somehow. The work of shadows and contrast and the left over light.

It's been a hot week (although not as hot as Melbourne - I feel for all the pregnant ones !!) so we've been decked out in linen, and kaftan tops, and lightweight cottons. And the house has been filled with natural light and sun that cast great shadows across the walls. Pia has worn this top/dress as she rolls across the floor.

She's doing a great job of picking up all the cat hair along the way.

QUACK

I must give most of the credit for this post to Soulmama. If it wasn't for her gorgeous selection of vintage and vintage inspired smock tops.....well, the following wouldn't have materialised here quite so suddenly.

The pattern I've adapted from a japanese craft book ISBN 4579110544 for the top, and the trusty bloomer pattern that Pia lives in for the bottom. I love it's oversized nature, it's simplicity, and despite the neck being way too large, I like overlapping the opening at the back of the neck and that I can adjust it as she grows. I have more waiting to be cut out. Amanda was right - they multiply.

The ducks and elephant were a lovely find at Top3bydesign (they don't appear on the website though) that I had to buy because they were just too beautiful. The little ducks waddle. 1, 2, 3, .....awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

ONE DAY 8 WOMEN

One saturday. One afternoon. One afternoon tea for 8 friends. One Tupperware party. One very domestic goddess with very organised cupboards coming up. One dark pottery bowl. One dark pottery bowl filled with lemon cantucci, and apricot cantucci. One nice display of food.

One large white platter. One selection of marinated feta and sundried tomato mini quiches.

One white bowl with red floral pattern filled with Galatobourekia (greek custard filled filo pastries drizzled with lemon scented sugar syrup). One sumptuous new recipe to add to my repetoire, and another success from Coffee and Bites (cantucci made from the same book).

One deeper smaller white serving platter. One half white peaches. One half dark cherries.

One small bowl of Cinnamon Maple Ricotta to dip both the fruit and the cantucci in. One swedish bent plywood serving tray.

One happy group of women.

SATURATED

Trying to eat better, live smarter, be kinder. One of my favourite vegetables, fresh organic Beetroot slow roasted in olive oil with whole yellow mustard seeds till the colour seeps out.

I've been uploading a trillion photos onto flickr this week so please check in there for more of everything.

WHAT IS THAT THING SHE KEEPS POINTING AT ME?

Why hello there. We just stopped by to say hello. And now we can walk. And I can see.

I think I told someone that there was no way this blog was going to have Pia plastered all over it.
I lied.

Sorry.

THE PATTERN WAY

A new year should bring with it new ideas, fresh starts, new approaches. New patterns, shall we say, for the way we live. I've been a little lost recently. My life pattern got a little jumbled. Too much static, and I'm trying to retrieve my daily patterns. I've made some changes, there are many more I want to make, but little by little I'll get back to what I believe in, what I did believe in and that which got lost, and what I would like to hold as new beliefs this year.

We've set ourselves a little deadline - to have the house by the water in amongst the trees designed and documented by mid year ready for DA approval and pricing, with a possible build date early 2008. So I've been sketching out schematics (very, very schematic at the moment). Boxes against boxes interconnecting, interconnected, traced and abstracted. Patterns of texture, light, solidity, transparency, strength, and layers of apparent simplicity within complexity, pen on paper and a line of possibility. I love Martha's post this week about a related topic of intertwining - I'd love to take those/these words and turn them into lines.

A new knit project. Always a good idea. Well written patterns by Kate Gilbert.