Passementerie

Getting there

Last night was a sleepless one as yesterday's Sad Baby Syndrome became Sick Baby Syndrome, leading to the cancellation of my planned pre-Christmas trip to Dublin tomorrow.

However, tired as I was today, it was time to get cracking on my Christmas cards.  I don't send many, just to immediate family and friends, but it's important to me that I do.  My mother put a lot of effort into keeping our odd families together, relentlessly keeping in touch with people, particularly at Christmas, and I don't want to let that drop.  I've cut it a bit fine this year for postage to the US, but hopefully they'll arrive on time after I post them tomorrow.

I always send religious cards and for the last two years have bought charity cards - this year I got them at Oxfam.  I have presents to send out as well, but they haven't arrived yet, so I'll cross that bridge when I come to it (or when it comes to me, as the case may be).

Do you send Christmas cards? Tell me about them.  I am very tired and am happy to listen.

Pressing the Mute Button

Although I usually love bold, rich colours, lately I have been more and more drawn to bruised, muted colours - taupe, plum, a variety of greys, oatmeal.  I'm also liking bruised, shabby textures - frayed, but not untidy, silk and wool, worn velvet, battered knits (a fondness for battered clothing has become something of a necessity as my precious Anthropologie skirt gets older and shabbier). 

This keeps me (and my husband) coming back to All Saints over and over again - I find some of their knitwear unwearable, but I love their boldly designed shops, styling and DRESSES.  Their dresses are amazing.

Of course, the fact that I have a wild crush on their male model is completely beside the point.

Yesterday I got to go to Bath again, this time with a group of friends on a hen party - the day was perfect bliss for all concerned (and was my first full day away from the baby!) - we took the train from Oxford in the morning and went to the Thermae Bath Spa for *hours* of heavenly wallowing and steaming before going to the Pump Room for a lavish Champagne tea. 

It was a completely perfect day -  the sun came out while we were in the rooftop pool at the spa and we got to bathe under a clear blue sky with billowing steam only partially obscuring the spectacular views over the city... more champagne on the train coming home and tucked up with John for dinner for our third wedding anniversary by 8pm.  Heaven...

Images from Where the Wild Things Are, All Saints and Lookbook.nu with many thanks.

Transitional States (there's a lot of it going around these days)

From a glimpse of an alluring photograph on one of my favourite blogs, The Paris Apartment, I spotted something I simply have to have... the three volumes of Robert Polidori's Parcours Museologique Revisite, a twenty-five year photographic project charting the renovation of the palace at Versailles.

 

Polidori's complete intimacy with the project and his techniques of choosing out-of-context minutiae to present in his pictures gives us a highly unusual perspective on this otherwise very well-known palace. Having been to Versailles several times, I can't wait to see it through Polidori's eyes.

In case you're not yet convinced, there's a slideshow of images from the book here on the Steidl website and the whole thing can be purchased quite nicely discounted at Amazon.

Images from The Paris Apartment, The Rightness of Wayward Sentiment and Steidl with many thanks.

Some people spend thousands of pounds, dollars or euros on Christmas.  Why not get your mother-in-law something a little smaller and consider this instead?

As if I haven't already got enough to keep me warm...

I am a very covetous person.  I am greedy and needy and always want more (if I wasn't, this blog would probably not exist).  Cosy blankets are a speciality of mine and I have more than I could ever need ranging from my obscenely expensive Atkinson's pure cashmere blanket which is on my bed right now, via the cuddliest, fluffiest mohair, to crocheted ones my mother made for me over the years.

Right now though, I am enchanted by the bold stripes of the Hudson's Bay Blanket from LLBean with its point system of measurement and its wonderful history stretching back more than two hundred years.

 

You don't just have to put them on your bed, or wrap yourself up on the couch as you watch Gossip Girl (and marvel at the fact that somebody thought a third series was necessary) - you can cut them up (!) and use them for myriad decorative purposes.  Forgive me, but I'm going to stick with the wrapping and the cuddling (even if the cushion is very appealing),

Do you have a Hudson Bay Blanket?  Have you ever done anything daring with it (!)?

Images from LLBean and Re-Nest with many thanks.

New beginnings (soon)

Today is the 7th of December and 2010 is nearly upon us now.  What will next year bring for you?  Are you making any changes, small or big?

I must tell you that there are some very big changes coming here on Passementerie, but what they will remain a secret until January.  You won't even recognise me!

I have been a very bad blogger this week, I think.

A cranky, teething baby has meant that I have had very little time for anything other than carrying her around and keeping her mind off her gums, which is not an occupation that dovetails even slightly with writing glittering prose, I'm afraid.

Bear with me and normal service will resume shortly.

In the meantime, I took the plunge and got highlights yesterday.  Less Serena van der Woodsen, more Maryna Linchuk (left), which is still lovely, but not quite what I had in mind.  The stylist offered to brighten it a little more next week if I'm still not happy, so we'll see. 

At any rate, I still feel quite glamorous - I haven't had my hair properly "done" beyond a trim in quite a while. Between that and having my eyebrows threaded last week, things are starting to look a bit smarter over here in Passementerie-land.

Even if you don't like them very much...

...that is to say, babies, watch this trailer.  It's wonderful.  I can't wait to see the movie next year.

New Adventures in Radley

I have some bad shopping habits.  One is that I am extremely conservative.  No - really, I am.  I tend to stick to a small number of tried and tested brands and forget to ever look elsewhere - you must have noticed.

So I'm turning over a new leaf.  I am opening my eyes (and purse?) to other brands and though I would start with someone that people have been on about to me for as long as I can remember - Radley.  What a nice surprise!  I had a vague impression of a little dog motif and not much else, but their current range is heavenly - the softest leather, the prettiest colours (and isn't that a great navy on the Westbourne bag above? and don't get me started on the pink of the Saville Row...) and the sweetest accessories.  Manly it is not, but completely adorable it most certainly is!

Looks like I had better go off and edit my Christmas wish list to include that little key chain fob, no?

www.radley.co.uk

Are there any brands that you have ignored that you have suddenly realized are wonderful?  Share! Encourage me in this new adventurousness!

Mama India, Wandering Child

 

My dear friend Rachel is traveling in India with her baby, Arun, for the next three months and wonderfully, she has decided to keep a blog called Mama India, Wandering Child about her experiences.  Rachel has lived in India before, and moved to England with her husband for a year to have her baby (he's exactly a month older than Beatrice - we met at a childbirth class).  Now, leaving me sick with jealousy, she has bundled her little family up and headed back to southern India for a while.  

Rachel is a professional photographer so I am especially excited to see what she will show us from Tamil Nadu over the coming months.  If you would like talk to her about doing something specific for you or just cheer her on generally, you can contact her here.

You can follow her tale on Mama India, Wandering Child.  The wonderful artwork on her blog is by Jenny from Dancing Elephant Studio.

Do you remember this?

I think I had The Baby's Opera when I was a child, or rather my mother did.  It was brought to my attention by chance yesterday and after looking it up online, I found that I remembered some of the illustrations very well.

I don't think we could have had a copy of the original illustrations though - I couldn't really remember just how the pictures were as familiar to me as the nursery rhymes themselves and my mother isn't here any more to ask.

 

So in the absence of my mother, I looked up the artist and it turns out that it is no surprise that I remember his pictures so well - Walter Crane's contribution to the imagery of childrens' nursery rhymes is so profound that we all probably seen his illustrations everywhere when we were growing up, particularly if we were lucky enough to have books or pictures belonging to our own mothers.  A part of the Arts and Crafts movement and student of John Ruskin, he was a dedicated socialist and follower of William Morris in his desire to bring art to people of all classes.

 

His desire to bring art and beauty in to the lives of those who could not normally afford it led him to design pottery, textiles and wallpaper - including some specifically for childrens' room, and he was the first president of the Society of Designer Craftsmen, the largest and oldest multi-craft society in the UK.

I remember now.  I had a series of framed Crane prints on my bedroom wall - they are probably in my father's attic in Dublin today.

See how much can come from a picture, just one square inch, spotted in a look book?  Can you remember a detail like this from your childhood?