grapevine wood

look what i got!



i'd been pretty obsessed with finding a big piece of gnarled grapevine wood. searching day and night. well, not quite, but searching ebay whenever i remembered. then, one day last week when i was looking for closet stuff at homesense, i saw it. a huge piece of grapevine wood! at long last!

i really love it.

jon comes home: "what is that?"

me: "i found it!"

jon: "in a dumpster?"

jamie oliver online

i just discovered jamie oliver's online store! (duh me) there is an array of nicely designed cookware, serving ware (i especially like the atwell serving bowl), condiments (special salt, spreads, jam) and books. i've picked out my favorites above, but you can check out the rest here! his site is uk based but does ship to other european cities as well as the us and canada.

closet organization

sometimes the clock strikes midnight and i'm antsy to do something productive instead of going to bed. such was last night. i was browsing the martha stewart website, checking out the halloween crafts and recipes (my favorite holiday) and i found some great tips for closet organization. our closet is c-r-a-m-p-e-d. it functions as my sewing room and steamer/vacuum storage in addition to shoe storage and our clothing. it's tight.

in an effort to try to fit everything hanging on one bar, i tried to weed out anything that could be folded: sweaters and anything jersey.


this is genius. fold t-shirts in thirds (or quarters depending on how deep your drawers are) and file them like a card catalogue, using a small book-end to hold them up. or if you're me, with not a lot of space and lots of jersey, i used stacks of tank tops and other shirts at the back to hold up the stack of t-shirts.


mine doesn't look quite as neat... but i'm happy i could fit more in here! click on the picture to see notes.


i wish i had room to have a drawer like this one from martha stewart. right now it mine consists of a small shoe box. motto: keep shoe and clothing repair/maintenance things together and accessible.


i thought this was an interesting idea. a large cloth napkin with an eyelet in the middle to protect coats and jackets from dust. i can sew, so i might make shaped covers for my coats.


again, i wish i had space to do this! i think it really shows respect for items you own. all my warm accessories (scarves, knit hats, gloves) are in a basket in my bedroom.


the ocd in me loves this. take a picture of what's inside of your garment bags.

so this is what my closet looks like now, even after a bit of organizing last night. you can click on the picture and see my notes.

it needs help. i like things to "look" organized, and right now our closet looks like a big mess. i'm going to ask my dad if he can make me some sort of cubby storage out of mdf to fit below my clothes. neither rod has enough clearance for trousers, which is why i'm trying to fit everything on the top rod and eliminate the bottom one. hopefully then i will have room to fold more things (i still have some jersey dresses in there that could be folded)

hopefully i will have a clean, organized, new and improved closet to show you soon!

last days of summer

the leaves are starting to fall here, and i couldn't be happier. this picture from style.com illustrates one more reason to get white trousers next spring. maybe 2010 will be the year for me!

parisian bagels

in an effort to entertain myself in a way that doesn't include shopping or browsing on the internet, i have turned to baking and reading. do you remember what you did without the internet? i don't. and that bothers me.

yesterday i made granola. today it was bagels. i am quite impressed with myself. i am not skilled in the kitchen, but i pulled off home-made bagels from scratch. they are a bit lumpy looking and most of the holes closed up, but they are bagels!





i used this recipe for "parisian bagels". i'm not sure what makes them parisian, but they are good. next i want to make jam, yogurt, soup, pumpkin pie, and butter.

fall purchases

i've made a few fall purchases so far, and probably won't be making too many more. why? because we're going to paris and milan in january for les soldes so i really need to save money! i'm planning on making a lot of key wardrobe and hopefully some home purchases. a few of these you've seen before, but i was bored today (knitting project hit a snag- literally) so i decided to take some outfit pictures.

sorry for the blurryness, i thought i had the lense right.

i was so happy it was actually cold enough to wear this outfit the other day. all summer i've been "testing the air" to see if it's cold enough to wear my new rick owens shearling. go away sun! i am done with you! it's supposed to be hot here this weekend. ugh.


i finally have a black mongolian fur vest (seems like i've been craving one for so long! at least a year and a half) once i heard zara had it, i practically stalked the store. w/bare arms and w/ new rick owens ribbed l/s tee. i love his t-shirts, and i got this one at an amazing discount.



this has been a repeat outfit in the last little while. long ribbed rick owens tank (mens xs), acne hex jeans, margiela boots, demeulemeester long button-up, isabel marant bag. i usually wear my bird skull necklace but i can't find it right now. i hope i didn't lose it. i hand-stitched a leather cord together as a necklace for the skull pendant, but i noticed the stitch was getting lose.


here's a slightly better look at the new rick owens tee, and a new ro skirt i got on sale too. it's a bit too long so i'm going to have to get it tailored if i don't want it dragging on the ground. i'm not really counting it as a fall purchase, because it's chiffon. maybe i can wear it with wool tights in the fall.


trying it with the mongolian fur vest. santos is curious as to what i'm doing.


hmm, maybe it needs higher shoes. ann d sandals? and a whippet.

so this is what i've got for fall so far:

-ro shearling
-ro l/s tee
-zara mongolian vest
-margiela ankle boots
-helmut lang pleated trousers (these are really hard to take pictures of)

there is really only a few more things i would add if i could this fall:

-long sleeve wool blend ro dress
-another ro l/s tee in ochre brown
-tweed jacket
-leather leggings (i really want haider ackermann ones)
-a sweater or two

now i will be on the rooftop doing a rain dance, wish me luck!

kate blee

thanks to dear ada for posting on uk artist kate blee. i really love the large scale and beautiful combination of colours used in each.



these are tapestries that act as acoustic panels.


this one is my favorite, i love the restrained use of purple at the very top.

new favorite shoes

i think this is one of the smartest shoe purchases i've made to date. the margiela geo-heel ankle boots. they are so comfortable- i mean really comfortable, not just "bearable" i really wish i could afford to get them in brown as well!

so far i'm wearing them with my diet butcher jeans with white ann demeulemeester button-up tunic (sleeves rolled up as usual) layered over a grey ribbed rick owens tank (kind of my uniform for the past two weeks) i tried wearing them bare legged with my acne guide dress, but i think the black looks too harsh against my pale skinned legs. i think they will work much better with semi-sheer tights.

kitchen shelves

i finally filled the shelves we have in our kitchen above the sink. i really like the way exposed shelving looks in some kitchens (with stacks of plates, cups, and serving pieces) but it seemed a bit strange to do that with these small shelves. so i just kept them more as display shelves, and of course to hold my two cookbooks (i should get some more)

top shelf: collection of vessels from sara paloma (i got them when she was having a sale)

bottom shelf: i wish there was a light in there- it looks so dark. owl print from sharon montrose, a gnarled piece of driftwood i found at the dog beach in west vancouver, a soy sauce set from paige russell (i realize i shop on etsy a lot!), martha stewart cookies recipe book (covered in black textured paper), jamie oliver recipe book, and an iron crow i got from a store in vancouver.

our kitchen is new, so it would be silly to replace anything, but if i had my way (and money weren't an object) i would replace the green glass subway tiles with great white corian marble slab backsplash. my dream kitchen includes white cabinets, real wood cabinets, and white marble.

just do it

(pic from nnm)

a quote i like from an interview magazine article. ann demeulemeester on whether she thinks its harder for designers now starting out, than when she started in the '80s:

"It’s never been easy. When I think back on what I did, it wasn’t like I waited until god fell out of the sky to help me. I just thought, If I want to do something, let’s do it. I had a lot of patience and went step-by-step. I made a little rack of clothing and I did it all by myself. I think, theoretically, yes, it may be more difficult to start today with the way things are. But I don’t like to say that, because I believe that if you have something to say, then you just have to do it. Good work finds its way in whatever time you’re in. If you want to start, then start, and don’t find a million excuses not to. It’s always a difficult time. When was it easy?"