Visual soul food

A relatively new site, The Fox and the Hare, caught my eye today. Gaby and her friends capture artistic responses to collective nouns, and it all started with a skulk of foxes ....


~ I'm sure I'll be going back to visit regularly.

(Image found here.)

Are you worried about the petrol crisis?

... it's a little difficult to explain to non-Melbournites the appeal of Leunig cartoons ... his melancholy and insightful observations have simply been a part of this city's culture for decades.

I also love him partly because he still holds a torch for tram conductors (an extinct species in Melbourne, of which I was priveleged to be one of the last!).

Serendipity

For several years now I've been trying to recall the name of the German company that inspired my love-affair with felted products. This morning I flipped through an old copy of Australian Gourmet Traveller magazine to read a travel article about Berlin, and they mentioned the location of the store Hut Up. That's it!

Yay! So glad to have found it again! I definitely recommend having a browse through their site if you like tactile and imaginative creations ... (e.g: the pod-shaped boiled-egg warmers pictured above, or their cosy teapot and tea/coffee-glass warmers)


I also found these great little placemats the other day at Publique Living via A Room Somewhere.




Cute huh?

Finally, these beautiful sculptures caught my eye recently - a herd of steel horses in Valkenberg in the Netherlands:


Zwitser400400's 'Horses in the Sky' photoset on Webshots has more images ~ so pretty!

Vandals!

I've been admiring my young cabbages as they've grown stronger by the day, and only yesterday I was marvelling at how healthy they looked (having reached a diameter of more than 30cm).

This is what they looked like this morning:



I must say, that was some speedy work - three cabbages gone in one night! Several of my snow peas and sugar snap peas have been similarly munched.

.... sigh ....!

Flickr fun

I've seen the Flickr game in quite a few places lately, so I thought I might give it a go. You can find intructions here and here.


1. Justine Electra, 2. preserved lemons, 3. Wall, 4. Succulent, 5. Louise Brooks, 6. Crafting 365, 203 & 204 - Finishing Teacups, 7. Lapland sky written on the water, 8. Photo laide et sans but (pour les chacaux laids et sans but), 9. Sunshine, 10. Freezing Fog Makes Things Sparkle, 11. You May Say I'm A Dreamer..., 12. ueda girls

One day (maybe when we have a faster modem!), I'm going to treat myself to a whole day of curling up on the couch just drinking tea and browsing through Flickr....

This is .... my favourite travel memory

Ooooh! I have way too many to pick just one, so here are a couple of random thoughts (and please excuse the cheesy 'holiday snap' poses):

One of the most profoundly moving experiences I've had was listening to a beautiful frog symphony as we sat in the dark at the edge of a lily pond, waiting for the sun to rise behind Angkor Wat (in Siem Reap, Cambodia). I can't remember many times when I've felt such peace, or my senses were heightened so intensely ...




Travelling with G is always an absolute joy. We spent the first week of our honeymoon in Thailand gently gliding up the river from Bangkok to Ayuthaya in an old teak rice boat (that usually catered for 12 people) - just us on the boat with two marvellous cooks, the captain and a guide. So dreamy!


We followed this with four weeks of island-hopping and total relaxation on pristine beaches.



On one of our trips to Thailand we met this little guy .... someone had scribbled on his face with a texta, but he seemed pretty cool with it!



Thanks to Hila for this week's theme, and of course to Angela at Three Buttons for hosting 'This is ...' every week!

Desire

Things that caught my eye today:

Selvedge Magazine and their beautiful products
.... one day I'll subscribe (and maybe go shopping!).





Korakot's breathtaking bamboo sculptures and functional pieces.
(Korakot request that their photos not be copied, so I suggest popping over to the website to explore at your leisure)

A tutorial for Japanese sashiko embroidery on the very wonderful Purl Bee site


Inspiration abounds!

Sleeptalk

- a brief transcript from a conversation held last night, while G was fast asleep:


G: Can you pass up the slippers?

J: Sorry my love …?

G: (waggles finger) Can you pick up the skippies and the slivers on the side?

J: ???!! ....

....Yep. Sure. OK darling....

*chuckle*

G: (in a very curt manner) OK. Thanks.
*gentle snore*

New security door

... must be investigated.

Apron swap

This evening I made an apron for an American Apron Swap (am thinking now that perhaps I should have waited to find a different theme, as this one is quintessentially American, and I'm not!).

Anyway, the theme was Independence Day/american patriotic colours/summer picnics. I had fun making a reversible apron - hope my partner likes it!





It's a bit of a shame that the lighting in these pics is so poor - the apron fabric is actually very bright and cheerful.