Wednesday, August 19, 2009

On the way to...







library.

This is the shortest way, through the baroque palace garden in the center of Prague. It showed up that Dominik is frightened by the peacocks, he was hanging on my leg anytime I took a picture. Taking photographs I couldn't resist and took few typically touristy pictures there.

The library is hidden in a courtyard of one of the palaces, it is a specialized library and there is never anyone there. They were just waiting for Domik there! The lady pulled out all her teddy-bears that her grandchildren had supplied her with and was very cute with Dominik. What a beautiful life, everybody treats him so nicely, why it doesn't go on like that the whole life?

And I put this bag in the shop. I notice that it kind of corresponds with the upper picture of the architecture.

Friday, August 14, 2009

All different stuff

Something I have been messing up with lately - embroidering birds. I have more of them coming up, this one is finished completely, ready to go in the world. It is a little change of direction in my embroidering for the shop, although I didn't abandon sashiko forever. I will see where it will lead me. The following one I made is little bit better done, I improved but I like this one how it is imperfect. I call him a bird - molecule.

A book I made for Domik. It is still under process. He helps me with it, to shape paper and glue it. I like these two very early pictures the best. With the others that I didn't take a picture of you can say I too much concentrated on having it cute and nice.

Sweater that my niece's grandma made for her. It is all from leftovers and they both consider it a sweater to be worn inside, a play sweater or good for house work. Which is a pity. Some of the yarns are tough when you touch them, but visually, this sweater HAS IT.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Film knits

Volver is a nice film but lets talk about sweaters that play in it. Film from the perspective of its sweaters:
Lace sweaters, exactly the same as Penelope wears in the film, are something I refused to look at already by the time when I was a teenager. It was a big knitting hit.... for grandmothers who liked to perform their knitting skills and would then pull them on their poor granddaughters. It was the 80s and this kind of romantic was just exactly passé. I would see these sweaters everywhere, especially on older women, and then, like I said, on few girls who didn't resist successfully.
Only recently I started to notice them with a little fresher eye, again on older women, this time on those who haven't changed their style since the 1940s. (That can happen here.) The way they look so odd, they resemble something of the elegance that I connect for myself with Vienna around 1900. Suddenly it has nothing to do with the ugly acrylic sweaters of indefinite style and color from the 80s. I decided to look more into lace sweaters.
(Of course, lace sweaters always existed, it wasn't only just when I was a teenager when they knit them. Some people like only those and they can make pretty ones. Unfortunately, my attitude towards them had been determined in a kind of an early age that generally predestines our likes and dislikes.)
I didn't have to wait long to be totally convinced about their beauty. (Well, I still think they are weird, but it is not necessarily negative.) Penelope wears at least three different ones and the fact that she is pretty is a part of the beauty of the sweater. Her film mother, also pretty, wears another one.
Now it occurs to me that the way the story is built up, these romantic, very feminine sweaters have their place in the film. There are only female characters there who solve their problems (with men and other usual stuff) within themselves. The film has a nice texture and is visually pretty despite there are creepy things going on. And colors have their meaning in Almodovar's films, so in this sense, red could have to do with a murder and suffering whereas the nice green cardigan in the final part is like a reconciliation and new beginning. I am dreaming.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Thanks to Sew Mama Sew Visitors

This is a thank you post to everyone who left comment on Sew mama sew blog where one of my bags was featured yesterday. They all made me happy.

I made kits for this sashiko bag if anyone wants to give it a try.


Domik and I spent few days at my friends cottage. Grass you can run barefoot on, open views into the landscape, raspberry picking, nuts cracking, kids having fun and arguing at the same time, deep sleeps at night in complete dark. Flies waking me up in the morning and liking me. Sitting with girls-moms at night and enjoying time without kids. Domik asking me to go back to daddy.

Saturday, August 1, 2009