Around the block

I loved the bright blue gutters

I wonder if it is as good as the Northcote Social Club in Melbourne!

These two houses reminded me a bit of Holland

I really liked the neat hedge

My dearest,

Winter has actually come here and it has been so cold that I spend most of the time at home. Pumpkin soup and chestnuts are great for a Sunday meal! Yesterday I went for a walk around the block - with four layers of clothes on! - and I really enjoyed myself looking at houses and urban elements. One of my favourite activities, especially in this season when it gets dark early, is to look into windows and imagine other people's lives. You never know what you could find - yesterday there were a lot of TVs on!

Collage

Hey Elisa!
Hope you're having a good week.
I thought you might appreciate this amazing collage art by Javier Pinon.

Knitting

The idea of the patchwork sounds great, Josie, and I love the flowery fabrics, I think it'd be perfect for an outside tablecloth or for a picnic basket!

My latest passion is knitting: I used to do it when I was little, and now I took it up again. It's the best way of spending your time during winter, a cup of tea and chats over the knitting work. To me, it's one of those 'lost' skills that were really important in the past, and now have been displaced by the industrial production. When I went to my grandmother's I found an amazing book from the 50's that explained all the techniques for knitting, and it was so interesting to see how women's habits and written comunication have changed. The introduction of the book said something like 'you should have a break every hour, maybe look outside the window, watch the TV if you have one, or smoke a sigarette'. Where would you find now a book that tells you to smoke?!

Maybe you know it already, but in Broadway Market Rd there is a whole shop dedicated to wool and other fabrics, it's called Fabrications. They have really cool projects and courses going on, I love the idea of gathering with strangers and knit. On this note, there is also a Feminist group in Shoreditch, the Shoreditch Sisters. It is ran by Jazz Domino (the one who's in many Emmy the Great songs!) and the members basically come together to talk about feminist issues, while they're crafting, knitting, sewing. Isn't it amazing?

Patchwork

Elisa!
I found this great tutorial for this nice patchwork throw and I thought you might appreciate all the colour. I'm going to have a go at making one soon, it seems like a really quick and easy summer project, and it will be useful too for hot Melbourne nights.

Fashion Film Festival

My dear Josephine,

Unfortunately the weather here is not nice enough to sit in parks anymore, apparently we will see the first snow on Saturday! Instead, I have been eating loads of clementines, that really mean autumn to me, and been amazed by the amount of brown leaves on the ground all around the city.

I spent the whole afternoon in the library today, and I came across the Fashion Film Festival that will take place at the Tate Modern, the Barbican and the BFI Centre from next week. They'll show rare films from the 40's to the 70's, all linked by the use of incredible costumes. The festival is, on top of everything, dedicated to the ways fashion has been represented in the cinema industry and how it has been popularised and interpreted through this media. It made me think of you. While I'm waiting to go to the screenings, I found some pictures that I really like.

Looking at some of these shots, I realised that Lady Gaga has invented nothing new.

Moulin Rouge, dir. E.A.Dupont, 1928

La Princesse Mandane, G.Dulac (1928)

Salomé, dir Charles Bryant, 1923

Melbourne in the Springtime

Dear Elisa,  I wish you were in all of these photos!
This Spring the drought seems to have finally broken, we have had tonnes of rain, and our garden is growing like crazy. The parks are green and perfect for springtime picnics in the sun.
My current favourite things are:

• the singular apricot coloured rose growing outside my bedroom window
• picnics
• eating chicken salad sandwiches and watching Boardwalk Empire with Josh
• playing stupid games with friends
• nice bars with sunny places to sit
• the sunsets on our street
• sewing new dresses
• having iced tea in Borders with my sister whilst we look at quilting books and plan Christmas presents to make

London: when I think about it, many places come to my mind. The Big Ben, rain, the Thames, but also cupcakes, the hated junction between Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street, and the surreal area of Canary Wharf.

I miss Melbourne very much, though, and even if I spent there only three months of my life, it's a place I'd call home. How many times I hoped these two cities and Josie were closer!

This might be the best presentation for the blog and for the name of it: