bits and bobbins

playing (literally and figuratively/fashion-wise). it’s my day off, so i am shown here about to go thrifting. now i’m going to attempt to work on some personal projects and clean the house.

-red/gold faux jewel clip ons: goodwill
-red fringed scarf: thrifted in florida
-green and white wrap dress: diane von furstenberg
-white and blue tank (unseen): nanso
-blue and white floral knife pleat skirt: thrifted, thrifttown, SF.
-red tights: H&M
-red 80s pumps: thrifted, thrifttown, SF.
-blue glass cocktail ring: MOMA store
-desperate need for a haircut: necessitated my hair follicles

i’ll admit it and have admitted it before: i find most fashion shows, and fashion show recaps kind of (very) tedious…which is why i seldom post them myself here on bits and bobbins. it’s a once in a while thing, like for instance…now.

why? well, it all starts to look the same to me…and only the very select few say something new or interesting (to me, anyway). when it comes to designers, i know what i like, and i know it when i see it. and i tend to fall back to the designers i know and love best, whose design sense suits me best. i think that’s kind of the key to being secure with one’s own personal style: eventually you come to know who you are and what you like. it’s not that you don’t look around, that you aren’t aware. it’s just…well, you know yourself, and when you stick to what you absolutely adore, it feels natural. i think this may be something that comes with time. but i digress…

every season i check back with eley kishimoto, one of my all-time, absolute favorite design teams (consisting of british-based couple mark eley and wakako kishimoto). they have a graphic, artistic, unafraid, whimsical, girlish, fantastical sensibility that just resonates with me…and those colors! i’ve written about them before here on bits and bobbins; they never ever disappoint. if i could afford a closet full of their frocks, i’d never stop smiling. if you’re so inclined, you can check out their blog here.

a few pieces from their spring 2008 collection that caught and delighted my eye:

carrying on with the whimsical thing…i so love are these select pieces from the spring/summer 2008 collection of french design maven and favorite of mine, sonia rykiel. i’m hugely into knitwear, and the two trompe l’oeil knits below are just jaw-droppingly divine. they evoke the trompe l’oeil bow sweater of elsa schiaparelli…and are just so delightfully funny. that yellow! it’s like pure sunshine. these pieces have an overt sense of play…the complete opposite of the stark, serious, stiff fare in many collections. laugh! smile! it’s better for you. sonia knows that statement to be true, that’s for sure. i can sense it.

seems like it’s been ages since i posted anything i’ve created!

remember the granny square blanket i started way back in june? well, i finished it sometime around the end of august. my memory is a bit hazy as to the exact date of completion, but i’m pretty sure i put it all together sometime right before we moved to our new place. which would mean late august, if my post project calculations are right.

here it ’tis:

i was intending to felt it, but i don’t have a top-loader washing machine available (all the ones in our new building are front loaders…shucks!). so i may just leave it be. it’s seen here on our bed, which was it’s intended destination from the beginning. i am planning on making some pillow-sham type things for some of the pillows and adding a few more bargello pillows, maybe this jonathan adler one. i like how everything else it pretty modern in the area (the bed frame, the quilt, the shelf), with all these hand-wrought touches about. a tried and true to me visual juxtaposition.

overall, i am really happy with how it turned out…and that i had the patience to stick with it and finish the whole thing. actually, admittedly, i was chomping at the bit to finish the damn thing, so obsessed, that any potential procrastination really didn’t figure into the granny-square blanket project at all, okay? OKAY?? (yes, i am a bit type-a.)