yellow and tan yarns

One of the most exciting parts of weaving is choosing your yarns. Ahh, yellow, tan and silver... I'll be making a scarf with a basic shadow weave where one color will mimic/shadow the other. It's so easy to fall in love with color combos. Can never get enough of one pop color balanced out by neutrals.

Update: Tadah, the finished piece.. a simple shadow weave, softball cotton yarns, 15" wide x 72" long, woven on a 4 harness counter balance loom. I like to alternate the pattern with plain weave to see what effects I get with the threading. Took about 20-ish hours total. Works both as a shawl in the summer/scarf in the winter. Did not use the silver, but used another light tan.

another herringbone floor

A picture of the soft colored floor pattern from a book about Morocco....

I'm just dying to make herringbone work on the kitchen floor. I know they are meant for grand areas or long hallways... in Morocco.... sigh, we'll just have to wait and see, I guess.

Raymer St and trucks

Also visited some tile places in North Hollywood on Raymer St. where I parked by this line of fabulous red and white trucks. I guess this is the street to go to for tiles and stone counter tops without the mark-ups. Saw some good stuff, but most are from overseas which means it's hard to know what conditions they were made in. This is when you have to decide which shade of green you want to be. Still trying to figure out in which area of the remodel I want to give myself some leeway.

Heath Ceramics

Now that we have our very own L.A. Heath Ceramics on Beverly Blvd., it was a must visit. Heart every color. We toured their factory up north in Sausalito not too long ago. This company was sustainable from the start - from recycling their water, using local materials, and with their factory built using passive sunlight. The way factories are run and how the workers are treated are a big part of a sustainable culture. Still need to visit the Edith Heath exhibit that just opened at PMCA.

blue Intelligentsia tile

Before leaving Mission West tile, I spotted this tile... sooo we had to make an afternoon stop at Intelligentsia in Silverlake to see the full effect, again! Barbara Bestor, who is responsible for this madness, is a genius! She also masterminded Lou's Wine Bar which is also filled with all sorts of prints and patterns.

moroccan tiles

I've been obsessively researching tile lately, for the kitchen... Just gushing over the Moroccan geometric tiles from the Mosaic House which are way beyond my budget... The color combinations are unlike anything you see here in the U.S. I can compare it to looking at fashion. Most of these tiles are hand-painted or actually hand-chiseled then grouted into tile pieces. Crazy. I usually ask where the particular tile is made, so when I did, they did not say Nicaragua or Thailand, but Morocco. Pretty good imitations out there, but really neat to see the real thing. These are phone snapshots of the full color catalog at Mission West Tile.

hexagon and raspberry collage

what a wonderful window collage by patricia urquiola for max mara... i especially enjoy the nubby raspberry and the hexagons in the background. via nytimes blog the moment.