Very lovely.

(via ici)

I found this slim bow tie and this lovely sweater. The sweater is loosely crocheted mohair alternating with crocheted satin, with the satin crochet comprising the neckline and border as well.  It reminds me of a more traditional version of what Rodarte has been doing lately- very delicate and feminine.

Instead of reposting the entire article, I will refer you to this LA Times article that I was alerted to today, regarding the new proposed legislation that would require that all products, including clothing, that are being sold for children 12 or younger be tested for lead and pthalates (something that makes plastics flexible).   This includes items at thrift stores, consignment shops, handmade craft shops, Etsy, Ebay, etc.

You can see how this would severely impact charitable organizations like the Salvation Army, The Goodwill, and especially small independent thrift stores…  not to mention people who make a living selling homemade crafts or reselling vintage merchandise online, or low-income families who rely on thrift stores for inexpensive children’s clothing.    If thrift stores could not provide this testing they would be forced to send all of their children’s merchandise to the landfills creating an exponential amount of needless waste.

I understand why this law is important, but it’s most certainly flawed in its lack of specificity.  I recommend that you contact your congressperson  and senators about the “Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act” if this concerns you like it does me…

So this year we decided to make Christmas presents for our families.  My husband and I hand-carved stamps and then decided on three colours to use for our layers, and came up with layouts for each of them.  It was a really fun process…  we were clearly feeling inspired by Native-American patterns.   This is the design we ended up with:

And here’s a glimpse of our process…

Here are a couple of photos from our trip so far… more to come.

1. Me decorating some gingerbread cookies  2. Llamas at a farm where we went sledding   3. Vintage pipe and humidor set found at an antique store by my husband… $20 for the whole thing!  4. Aero, my in-laws 12 year old dog, after eating some snow (a favourite pastime).

Hi everyone! I’m in a remote part of Colorado until the 29th visiting the in-laws for the holidays, so I may not be able to post until I get back.  I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas.

I love this Flickr pool.  Just photos of people’s collections- organized and photographed.  Some are rather insane, but some are very sweet and serene like these.

These are tiny compared to what the photos look like here.  I have been enjoying the photos posted by the Big Picture (one of my favourite journalistic photo blogs) of images taken by the Hubble Telescope.  They really are breathtaking, and you should definitely check it out if you haven’t already.   There’s one every day until Christmas.