Cobblestones randomly placed in a grid

(do not remember where I found this image)

Central Park Cobble

one of the fabrics from the Spring 2011 line

Finally the weather is cooperating.

The chill and damp was not too bad in the studio,

aka garage.

Spent yesterday afternoon in the studio

with my mini space heater.

SPRING

Everything will be greening up soon.

Hooray!

I just discovered a wonderful new blog via design*sponge. It is called bbbcraft sisters: three sisters living in three cities who are all creative and have a very creative mother, who must have inspired them along the way.

Here, here to mothers.

I have so many glass jars in my laundry room.

I save them for Christmas presents:

to use as containers for spicy nuts and chocolate sauce.

But here is another idea.

Knit a decorative collar

&

a glass jar is transformed.

Photos from bbbcraft sisters via design*sponge

Swatches from Sonia Delaunay

"If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday."

Pearl S. Buck

Top of the morning to you

Swatch above is from Jennifer Paganelli's new line

Honey Child

I was struck by all the geometric patterns that I am seeing this spring

and then I saw the historic designs from Sonia Delaunay

(see top of blog and below)

on Style Court's blog

[Variation on Design 1355, Designed by Sonia Delaunay (French, born Russia, 1885–1979)

France, 1934, Gouache on paper, Private collection © L & M SERVICES B.V. The Hague 20100623
Photo: © private collection]

This exhibit

Color Moves: Art and Fashion by Sonia Delaunay

opens tomorrow at the Cooper-Hewitt in NYC

click here too

Earlier this week I showed you some of the fabrics for MRR Design's Spring collection.

I mentioned that geometrics are popular in design circles today - to prove my point, check out the boxes by Jonathan Adler at the 2011 NY Intl Gift Fair below - just like some of the geometric fabrics I will use this spring.

And maps, they have been growing in popularity. I have a wonderful collection of maps; the walls in the room that I call my own are plastered with maps. I did a blog piece last year on the popularity of maps and choose a fun map fabric for the spring line and then I found another popular item from the NY Intl Gift Fair - map table from Oomph...

Good things go around and around.

Images above from Good Bones Great Pieces

and just today

Mrs. Blandings looks at all the geometric pillow designs

at John Robshaw

image below from John Robshaw

A few weeks ago I visited my father in Massachusetts.

As I walked to his front door I noticed a large tree limb on the ground;

a victim of one of the blizzards.

On my second walk by the fallen limb, I noticed all the buds.

It was 18 degrees outside; I was shivering and thinking about spring.

Looking at the tree limb, I had a sudden impulse to snip branch after branch with my cold, bare hands and stuff the branches into the back of my car.

To some, I probably looked like a madwoman.

My plan was to force them to blossom at my house.

Instant Spring!

Later I wondered whether the branches would ever bloom since

the limb was severed several weeks earlier.

But the tree was in its winter hibernation.

So I recut the branches when I got back home,

smashed the ends with a hammer to help the branches draw in the water,

and just when I was thinking nothing would happen,

I saw a change.

I was not sure what flowers would emerge from the woody stems.

My father has not lived in this apartment for a long time, so I am not familiar with all the trees.

The apartment building is an old school building that dates back to the early 20th century.

It was converted to apartments years ago.

This tree is outside my father's living room window.

I vaguely remembered pretty flowers.

Now these lovely flowers have blossomed in my kitchen.

Check out these beautiful apple blossoms.

A perfect tree to grow outside a school.

In fact, I have always thought

that my father's apartment was the principal's office,

because of the high ceilings, large windows and steps in the apartment.

(I imagine these steps led to the principal's inner sanctum.)

Makes sense that an apple tree would be just outside the principal's window.

These flowers make me smile each morning when I stumble downstairs

to feed the dog before dawn

and

again

each night when I come home

from a long day,

well after sunset.

The beauty of nature and its power to impress, surprise, delight

is amazing.

Spring is coming

as soon as the floods end...

rivers are raging,

roofs are leaking,

basements are wet

but the grass will be green

and the trees will be strong

and the flowers will be abundant.

Patience.

New shapes for memento and inspiration boards

Sunny Goode's fun new memento board above

Makes you want to forget the ho-hum square or rectangle

Why not get out your jigsaw and cut out a wonderful shape

like the mirror above?

Photo via Stylebeat - Mr Brown's booth at NYIGF

More fun new shapes

check out Sunny Goode's blog for the how-to

Ideas are percolating in my head

with all the info from the NYIGF scouts

like Marisa at Stylebeat

and my friend Robin from Seabeans Studio

everyone who reads this blog knows that i am a

huge fan of maira kalman, so i am sending you

to design sponge for a wonderful interview:

what's in your toolbox. enjoy. click here

Fit for a queen...we all should feel like a princess or a queen

another wonderful fabric for Autumn 2010 collection

Do I dare put myself in the royalty frame?

I think not; but dear miss is perfect as a little princess.

This new frame reminded me of the

fun bicycle ringer on the

fancy fat tire bicycle

that I posted about here

which I saw on SlimPaley.com here

AND it reminds me of another new

frame for the Autumn 2010 collection

remember the bike and basket full of fabrics above

so a nice combo - bike, flowers, crown

new frames - bike, flowers, crown

perfect for any princess or queen

Great screen in Bunny Williams's office (photo from Habitually Chic)

I think need to buy a jigsaw so I can make fun new shapes for memento boards.

I am not what people call a helicopter parent. I just miss hearing about the daily doings from my daughter who went off to college two weeks ago. So I read the online campus newspaper to keep up with the action. I watched a two minute piece on the freshman convocation, class of 2014; the band played, the President spoke, the glee clubs sang, and my eyes welled up with tears.

The President of the college urged students to leave their “comfort zones,” and take risks. The purpose of your education, she said, is to make students familiar with the process of exploration and the mistakes and missteps that accompany it.

She went to say: “Find that part of you that will take a chance on an idea or an ideal, the part of you that is willing to fail … Our job is to help make this willingness for risk and invention become second nature to you, so that your idea of success includes some failure, so that you allow yourselves to become uncomfortable as you try new things.”

I love this advice for young people. You never know what you will find out about yourself or your world unless you just go for it...explore new territory... dig deep ... take a leap ... the net usually appears and if not, well you learned something. To our next group of leaders and doers. Cheers and hurrah! xo m

Writer's Almanac reports: It's the birthday of economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen, (books by this author) born in Cato, Wisconsin (1857). He was an economics professor at the young University of Chicago when, in 1899, he published his book The Theory of the Leisure Class,in which he coined the phrase "conspicuous consumption."

Veblen used the term in a sentence of his book like this: "Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure."

There is not too much conspicuous consumption these days - the pendulum has swung dramatically: so many are just trying hard to get by.

The Writer's Almanac is a wonderful way to start your day - so many things in life are free - read a poem, listen to the birds, watch the trees move in the wind and feel the sun on your face - now that's a great start to the day and it did not cost a penny! Enjoy your weekend.

Imagine my surprise when I opened the wrapper of the latest

World Of Interiors

Right there, smack dab in the middle is a "mood board"

chock full of images.

Just like the boards created by mrr design (aka marnie)

except that this collage is pinned on top of all the ribbons.

This photo is called Trinity collage:

"a couture mood board" by Christian Lacroix

in his 1980's studio.

Lacroix wanted to "produce out of nowhere something that not been seen for a long time: a new haute-couture house...Lacroix adopted his usual manner: graphically, 'graphomaniacally' you might say, issuing ideas, cuttings, torn-out pages and suggestions, which all contributed to a gigantic collage that summed up his idea of the place."

Why not put your ideas out there too.

Fill a gigantic "mood board"

Let the images inspire and motivate you.

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.^®

The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor is one of my favorite sites. Every morning I am greeted with a poem and then a few interesting stories about authors. I highly recommend this daily morning ritual - what better way to start the day... a few of the poems have made it to my office wall... a little inspiration goes a long way.

And here is another daily read via little augury - read this book in daily installments courtesy of Diane Von Furstenburg ... no excuses for not reading a book - just catch snippets at your desk while you are reading other e-mail - it is like a piece of candy...

This is the kind of business I love to support; a business that gives back. The founder is an artist and an educator. All her knitters are from Peru. Read more here. It is a wonderful story of building a business an helping others.

mollygoggles was at the recent Church of the Redeemer Christmas Market in Chestnut Hill. I was there too and could not resist the beautiful scarf below.

I love my new blue scarf and I have been wearing it every day. It has been very cold in my neck of the woods and we just got a lot of snow. It looks beautiful.

jar of goodies

do you remember the magical thinking jar from my February 2009 post?

click here

the idea came from inchmark

here is another version called:

moments in a jar - click here to see the interactive feature -

it is fun

saw it this morning via swissmiss

which was named one of the best design blogs

by the Times - UK

hooray for #14

i love swissmiss!

more goodies

I saw this very nice arrangement on eddie ross's blog

and

loved it.

So I took a walk to collect some material

to make my very own

but the field had just been mown.

and the pickins' were slim.

Here is what I ended up with - ok but not great

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

I believe this.

The Gotham Book Mart was famous for its literary eminences. A December 1948 party for Osbert and Edith Sitwell (seated, center) drew a roomful of bright lights to the Gotham Book Mart: clockwise from W. H. Auden, on the ladder at top right, were Elizabeth Bishop, Marianne Moore, Delmore Schwartz, Randall Jarrell, Charles Henri Ford (cross-legged, on the floor), William Rose Benét, Stephen Spender, Marya Zaturenska, Horace Gregory, Tennessee Williams, Richard Eberhart, Gore Vidal and José Garcia Villa. (Photo: Gotham Book Mart)

So many books, so little time

Years ago I read this wonderful quote at the Gotham Book Mart in Manhattan.

I loved that book store.

The shop was stacked floor to ceiling with books, manuscripts, literary papers

and was a haven for book lovers for 87 years

until its inventory was sold at auction.

There had been a series of unfortunate events that led to its downfall

click here for the story

But the generosity of one anonymous person, who bought the inventory from the landlords,

was amazing; he donated the collection, worth several million dollars,

to the University of Pennsylvania.

A great ending to a sad story.

Second and last owner around 2006.

The original owner died at age 101 in 1989.

Last night at my book group - we have been meeting since 1998 -

well we were talking about a lady in the neighboring town who started reading a book a day

on October 26, 2008 followed by a brief review on her blog

and then she would start again.

Check out this NYT article

and now take a look at her blog.

So Many Books, So Little Time is more my speed.

I can't imagine reading a book a day.

Each time book group day comes around I must "power read".

since I fall asleep as soon as start reading in bed at night...

I wake up early on Sunday and plunk down on the cozy couch and read all day...

phew... I finish in just the nick of time too.

So glad I do finish (most of the time) because book group is rather dull if you can't contribute...

But there is no way I could read a book a day for 356 days...

simply too many books, too little time

So here, here to Nina Sankovitch!

and thanks to Nina's blog my reading list is chock full of new titles

and

will be a wonderful source for books to listen to while I create in the studio...

Last year I provided you with a run-down of my reading & listening lists here.

More to come from the last 12 months.

I was reading back articles in the Times this morning and came across this wonderful article about David Hockney - a favorite of mine. I encourage you all to read it and watch the videos that appear along side. Then, if you are in NYC in the next couple of months, you should check out his show of the landscape paintings. I remember being enthralled with him 25 years ago and tried to imitate his art with photographs and collage. It was fun - not as successful as his work but that's ok - I enjoyed it.

Check out the article here

28 of these paintings will go on view in New York in a two-gallery exhibition at PaceWildenstein, both in Midtown and in Chelsea, through Dec. 24.

no, you did not land on paris breakfasts

just couldn't resist posting this delicious tarte

lunch on saturday

after the wonderful vermeer exhibit at the met

later in chelsea

on the high line

the transformation of the old rail line was terrific

the old nabisco baking company buildings

miss is thought these window panes looked like paint chips

nicely framed hudson view from the high line

the sky was the most amazing blue

the breeze was just right

and the sun was brilliant

a beautiful day