Things I Love Thursday

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The Weekly Dozen Vol. 4

Over the last week I've not had as much chance to get out with my Nikon DSLR but managed to grab a few snaps with my iPhone 5.  We were house-sitting the past couple of weekends in Silver Lake which is an area of East LA and set up in the hills.  We spent most of our time on long walks with the dogs, and cooking.  We are hoping to move this way in the near future so it was great to spend a weekend here living like a local.

The view from the top deck in the back garden {Taken with iPhone5}

Flowers on a walk up in the residential neighbourhood of Silver Lake {Taken with iPhone5}

A hidden door to one of the houses up in the Silver Lake hills {Taken with iPhone5}


If you haven't already got bored of my brunch foods, here is another frittata.  This time I made it with white onions, potatoes, parsley and feta cheese.

{Taken with Nikon D80}

{Taken with Nikon D80}

{Taken with Nikon D80}

Another brunch favourite of mine are soft boiled eggs with Vegemite toast soldiers... {Taken with iPhone5}

Mr Theo Curran {Taken with Nikon D80}

An afternoon sugar hit whilst I'm working {Taken with iPhone5}

Knitted cacti on sale at The Holy Grounds Coffee and Tea {Taken with iPhone5}

Project in progress Hudson Bay Inspired Blanket {Taken with iPhone5}



Hitchhiker scarf {Taken with iPhone5}

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The Weekly Dozen Vol.1

As if one photography challenge a month wasn't enough to take on, I've decided to participate in another.  Cyd from The Sweetest Occasion has set herself a challenge after she recently upgraded her camera.  I'm a big fan of Cyd's blog so when I saw that she was doing a photography challenge called The Weekly Dozen I thought I'd give it a go myself.  

I got a few tips last week from my yarnista friend Evi who is also a professional photographer,  so I'm carrying my camera around a lot more and practising whenever I get the chance.  The challenge only runs until September 15th but I may end up continuing as my photography interest is rapidly increasing.

I'm hoping that as the challenge progresses so will my photography skills. I'll be the first to admit that my confidence levels can be pretty low when showing people my work.  But what I like about putting a challenge like this on my blog is the fact that I (and you) can see how my skills develop.

Don't expect Max Wanger or Bonnie Tsang levels of work, I have a very, very, very long way to go before reaching their incredible ability.  But since this is the first time of shooting without just using 'auto' I'm kinda happy with the results.  

Here is the first instalment of my Weekly Dozen...

The first image is an ode to Evi as this was taken in her urban knitting store Gather.  The crocheted hat was designed by Renaissance who is the owner of Raghouse International.  The pattern will be available to purchase on Ravelry in the next few weeks.  The second image is my current yarn-a-long project: the Medano Beach Bag.  I think the photo really captures the true colours of the bag.  More images of the finished product coming soon!

I love to make a fuss over weekend brunch in our house, and it most often involves eggs in some way like a frittata or pancakes.  Last weekend, I was gutted because we only had one egg left (bad planning) so instead I rustled up a quick pasta using Farmer's Market ingredients.  

We took Mr Theo Curran and his brother out to a BBQ las weekend.  We don't have a back garden yet so when we go somewhere that does, he really likes to takes advantage.  You can see more pics of Theo on Instagram search for #theocurran.

PC and I have a weekly ritual that developed pretty much as soon as I arrived here in November.  Where every Tuesday we take a trip the local Farmers' Market.  We often stop by the fish stall to pick up some clams for linguine vongole but this week I made an East Coast special... New England Clam Chowder. Now this dish is particularly tricky because PC is originally from New England so he has had some of the best chowders you can possibly get your hands on.  As it happens the East Coast boy was pretty happy with the results, especially because it was served in a sourdough bread bowl.

I'm in a bit of a baking stint at the moment too on Sunday I made a blueberry pie.  It's ages since I've made my own pastry but I have a good recipe from one of my Mum's books that never fails her.  It tasted like flakey buttery shortbread, clearly super bad for you but comforting on a dull Sunday.

I have a friend in town next week so with a few days out, hopefully I'll be able to pick up some more good snaps for next weeks Weekly Dozen.

Happy Friday! 

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Things I Love Thursday

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Things I Love Thursday

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White | Grey | Beige.

Back to neutral tones this week, I'm feeling natural materials like timber and soft fabrics like wool and cashmere.  With June gloom hitting LA this week I feel like I want to be wrapped up in a handmade jumper and eat homemade chips with plenty of salt and ketchup (for my American friends, when I say chips, I mean steak fries).  

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Make | Damask Shawl Complete !

It started on February 6th.  It finished on March 27th.  And was blocked on April 26th.  I present to you... the completed Damask Shawl !!!

It is by far and away the most difficult and challenging project I've done to date.  I definitely didn't realise what I was getting myself into but glad I stuck with it as the result is pretty damn good!  I completed the project along with 3 lovely ladies: Kim, Beth and Evi.  Evi owns the awesome knitting store Gather DTLA where the project started as a Winter Knit-along.  We have now started our Spring Knit-along which is the Medano beach bag. Mine is going to be blue and white striped with random stripes of coral.  I am trying the continental method of knitting so it's taking me a good while to get used to it.  I don't think it'll be quite as taxing as the shawl but I think it will still take me the full 7 weeks to do it !

The progress to far . . .

You can see more photos of the shawl and my other projects on my Ravelry page and also Follow my blog with Bloglovin !

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Week 15 | Juggling Jobs

So, it's Monday again and I feel in a bit of a funk!  I can't work out why which is possibly more annoying than being in a funk itself.  The good news is that I have a lot going on this week so I'm putting my morning funk down to the typical Monday blues!

I'm continuing to work with the ladies again this week on the event space project. Last week, I concentrated on the internal elevations and visuals, and this week I am looking at the exterior of the building.  I really wish I could share some of the stuff that I have been doing, but as with most projects in their initial design stage, its all 'hush hush'.  It's fun stuff though, let me tell you !

This week is also the start of the 2nd annual Yarn Crawl LA!  I'm really excited because I've been asked to help out at Wildfiber in Santa Monica on Thursday morning.  There are some really great girls that work there, so I'm super pleased that they thought of me when they were looking for people.  I will also be heading down to Gather DTLA to help out on the Thursday night and also on Friday.  Skuli, the little sheep-like dog is being sheared for the occasion.  Evi, Skuli's Mum and the owner of Gather, is planning to make him a little sweater when she has enough of his hair to spin into yarn.

Recently I've become increasingly obsessed with painting.  And painting pretty much anything I can get my hands on.  Yesterday, I painted some pine cone tips that I'd collected a few weeks ago.  I remember as a kid spray painting cones gold for Christmas, and even though I do have a love of gold, I wanted to do something different with these.  So I painted one in a bright turquoise and white and the other in mint.  All of which are colours that I'm loving at the moment.  The acrylic paints were bought at Pearl art supplies.  

I'd really like to have a go at creating some proper artwork on canvas. I'm currently looking to do a part time course in acrylics too.  I have seen so much inspiration on the web of things I like, and abstract art is mainly catching my eye at the minute.  Here are a few of the pieces that have featured in my pinning of recent...

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More men should Knit !!!

This is possibly one of the best things I have seen in a while: Paul Rudd... knitting!  I'm sure this is a super old (and pixelated) photo but it was posted on Do Ewe Knit's Facebook page today and I just had to repost it.  

What a better way to start the weekend than seeing the super talented, super good looking Mr Rudd knitting away!  If only more men could be encouraged to knit :)

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Make | Damask Shawl

I have a serious project on the cards this week that I am aiming to get finished by Wednesday (tomorrow!!! aaaarrrrgh!!!).  For the past seven weeks, I have been working on a knitted lace shawl as part of a Winter knit-a-long at Gather DTLA.  It has been a seriously steep learning curve as it is my first lacework project and has been super difficult to do so far.  I have had a good few mishaps along the way, but if nothing else, it has taught me how to be more patient!  I have really enjoyed my time with it so far and the final finished product will , undoubtably, be beautiful.  I don't think I really realised what I was getting myself in for when I signed up for the class but I'm so pleased that I did.  I have made some lovely new friends (including a puppy named Skuli), discovered a new part of LA, learnt a new way of knitting (by following a pattern) and also gained a better understanding of basic knitting itself.  As much as I have wanted to rip it out and re-start the project several times, I'm so glad that I've had my little angels on my shoulder telling me not to (thank you Evi and PC!)  I'm really excited for it to be finished so that I can move onto a new project and start the next knit-a-long.

See below for more progress photos

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Happy St. Paddy's Day

For PC's birthday, I did some secret knitting and made him two golf club socks in his favourite colours:  green and orange for the Irish flag.  For the green colour, I used Manos del Uruguay silk blend #3204 and for the orange, Noro Cash Iroha #116 Lot E.  I'm not sure that these are available on their websites, but you can get them from other online yarn stores.  I got mine from Wildfiber in Santa Monica.  The pattern I used is from Purl Bee.  There are supposed to be 3 in the set but I haven't got round to knitting the driver yet (the biggest).  I also still need to weave in the ends of first two.  I'm running out of the green yarn, so I will need to buy one more skein and possibly another skein of orange, but I won't know until I start knitting.

See below for more images and link to pattern.

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