(Video link here.) On Ambatalia’s blog, we came across this useful little video demonstrating several ways of folding Furoshiki clothes — large squares of fabric — to make carry bags and packages. What the video fails to show is the little revelation that is scattered around Ambatalia’s site: you can WEAR Furoshiki clothes as well. Tied around the waist, they make a swell apron. When made out of beautiful fabric, you can wear them as a scarf. Molly de Vries of Ambatalia designed this “42-inch square everyday furoshiki scarf” from fine Irish linen; it’s washable and meant to be worn “crumply”: read more…
soft
diy: oversized ripped linen napkins
photo: sally schneider
Years ago, we used to scour flea markets for oversize damask napkins that were once a mainstay of early 20th century tables. They’d range anywhere from 20-to-36-inches square. Putting one across your lap at table felt incredibly luxurious: like being tucked into bed while sitting at a wonderful feast.
Over the years, the look of table linens has become seriously deconstructed: we’ve woken up to the beauty of unironed linen, and linens with unfinished hems, because few fabrics look better in their natural state than linen. Now we like to make our own oversized napkins by ripping or cutting big swaths of heavy linen (often bought on sale). The method is simple: read more…
linen flat sheet as stylish bedspread (dust ruffle included)
photo: richard powers
About a year ago, our friend Ellen Silverman came back from France with a beautiful linen flat sheet that she’d seen displayed in a Paris shop. The salesperson encouraged her to buy a king size sheet and use it as a coverlet that would drape on the floor and become it’s own “dust-ruffle”, hiding whatever lay hidden under the bed. It looked so pretty, and seemed like such a practical idea, that we hatched a plot to photograph it; both being so crazy-busy we still haven’t gotten around to it.
So I was pleased to stumble on a similar image buried in a recent Remodelista house tour. This huge flat-sheet coverlet is made of gauze but linen is lovely, washable, comes in a variety of colors, and doesn’t need to be ironed. Wrinkled is fine, as are ripped edges. We’re wondering what would happen if read more…
pretty, multi-purpose find: turkish towels
turkishtowelstore.com
Harriet Bell alerted us to a great find: cotton Turkish towels (we love testamonials from people we trust). She wrote:
I bought two of these about six weeks ago and I’m going to buy more. They are great bath towels, lightweight and wash/dry beautifully. No more terrycloth for me.
No wrinkles. They are incredibly absorbent. Take up little space. I bought red and white ones and the colors have stayed, too! So far we’ve just used them as bath towels, but they’d be great to take a nap on in Central Park or take to the beach. Even use as a wrap/shawl! Our terrycloth towels are lonely in the linen closet.
We imagine they’d make a great sarong, table cloth, curtain… read more…
d-i-y adjustable shoulder strap for your boat bags
One of the people we miss most since we left our old digs is paper artist extraordinaire Matthew Sporzynski, also known as the Couturier de Carboard. (Check out the Pinterest Real Simple compiled of his wonderful paper constructions.) It seems that whenever we ran into him in the elevator or on the street, we’d learn something illuminating. Matthew is endlessly creative and generous and we’ve posted a number of times about him, especially the spontaneous, and always perfectly-timed gifts he’d leave outside our door: stealth gifting. So we were delighted when emailed this picture of his “boat bag workaround”, where he fashioned a leather belt into an adjustable shoulder strap to allow him to comfortable haul heavy gear in his canvas boat bag:
I was rather pleased with a last-minute improvisation I made last week. I was going to a photo shoot at 23rd and 5th and needed to carry a big light box (two hands) and a boat bag full of heavy tools and supplies. I literally thought “what would The Improvised Life do?” read more…
unhemmed (ripped) linen with yarn stitching
We’ve long been fans of unhemmed linen tableclothes, napkins, shower curtains – a rectangle of pure linen just ripped to leave a raw edge *. We hadn’t though of this swell embellishment: the yarn stitching accentuates the intentionality of NOT-HEMMED in a really beautiful and charming way. read more…
gifts + inspiration for bikers (and walkers)
The other day, we stumbled on Dargelos, an online store with stylish, thoughtfully-designed products for bicycle riders (some are great for NON bikers as well). We originally went to the site to check out their Lighting Vest, a hand-netted safety vest made from a specially-developed reflective 3M material that will make you highly visible to motorists (i.e. safe.) It is lightweight, can fit in your pocket and layer over just about anything you want to wear. It’s so great looking, we could imagine wearing it just for the hell of it.
While on Dargelos’ site, we discovered many other cool things… read more…
chic, not shabby, drop cloth-draped sofa
On a recent Selby visit, we spotted this fabric-draped sofa in the wonderful home of Hitoshi Uchida-san – owner of J’Antiques Tokyo (check out the full story). The beauty of it is that the sofa is covered with a really big swath of fabric that can bunch and drape luxuriously. The fabric is wide enough to go from the floor in front of the sofa, over the seat, up the back and hang over by a couple of feet – not something the usual 54-inch width of fabric can do. But where do you find affordable fabric like this? read more…
quilts as memory-keepers
Our friend Linnae recently introduced us to Pat Ludwig, a “self-taught quilter” who blogs all of her projects so you can see the full process of making a quilt start-to-finish. Patwig’s quilts are made exclusively from old fabric scraps, including khaki and denim pants, childhood dresses, curtains, neckties, bedsheets, and even seat cushions.
Her two most recent quilts are particularly interesting. They started out as 35+ button-down men’s shirts, given to Ludwig by a woman whose husband had passed away years before. She wanted her grandchildren to have a piece of the grandfather they had never met and commissioned Patwig to turn his shirts into the Nine Patch and Log Cabin quilts.
We love everything about this, from repurposing old materials into fantastic and functional art projects, to the very idea of a memory quilt. Quilts and blankets are attached to so many comforting and visceral childhood memories; having one made of materials that remind you of family or friends strikes us as a powerful way to remain connected to someone’s presence (even in their absence).
stylish d-i-y fabric disguises for ugly furniture
Architectural Digest, New York Interiors, 1979
When You Have Been Here Sometime recently posted some images from Architectural Digest, New York Interiors, 1979, we were struck by this one. Although lamps and pouf and carpet are all pretty dated and rigid, a great idea remains: covering a homely piece of furniture with beautiful fabric. Who knows what’s under the ochre yellow panel? It could be two horizontal file cabinets placed end to end for all we know. Layering fabrics adds substance and a mix of textures and colors. The fabric covers don’t HAVE to be hemmed: intentionally ripped linen can be beautiful… read more…
ikea find: chic black + white pillows
Splendid Willow
We’re always on the lookout for inexpensive housewares that LOOK expensive and stylish. We think these cotton Vilmi Figur pillow covers from Ikea do just that. Throw pillows can be crazy amazingly expensive, so at $10 each (inserts $2.99 to $6.99), these are a bargain (and wash and wear to boot). There’s a jazzy contrasting polka dot version from the same line. read more…
alt plastic food bag solutions: re-usable cloth, mesh, or freeform…?
Ambatalia
For some time now, we’ve struggled with the plastic bag problem. Not shopping bags – we’ve got that figured – we just carry a cute fold-up bag in our everyday bag. We’re talking plastic food bags. What is a really feasible bag for collecting messy things like bunches of grapes, piles of cherries or loose mesclun from the market? It needs to not take much room so we can take a bunch with us on our daily forays out, AND be washable.
We love the idea of furoshiki – the Japanese tradition of transforming a big square into all sorts of carrying bags and packages and are inspired by Ambatalia’s transformations of a big square dishcloth. (We found a trove of simple techniques for knotting and folding cloths online). Still we can’t quite imagine ourselves making bags in the heat of produce shopping. read more…
ethan greenbaum’s concrete block love (and inspiration)
Ethan Greenbaum
Artist Ethan Greenbaum‘s work gave us lots of idea for home works made of concrete block. He has figured out ways to make them seem both light and somehow charming, by using plasticine and colored acrylics instead of cement as grout. Plasticine is a kind of clay that won’t harden so maybe it actually IS a good idea for certain homemade pieces where you don’t want the commitment of concrete, or it’s permanence. We love the idea of painting the cement grouting with Greenbaum’s whimsical colors, to transform a dreary block wall.
We also love Greenbaum’s plasticine-covered block structures; although the always-soft plasticine might not be feasible in the long run, it makes us wonder what would be: what could we coat concrete blocks with to give them a surprising and less heavy look, while preserving blocks’ elemental form ? And his idea of combining blocks of different sizes is a revelation, making us see ever more possibilities for “random” assemblages of concrete blocks as table bases, bed platforms, odd storage units… read more…
t-shirt improvisations (54 of them)
Emily Larned
In Lookbook 54, artists Emily Larned and Roxane Zargham created 54 different improvisations on one XL white t-shirt, using common household supplies (binder clips, safety pins, duct tape) as styling aids. They set serious constraints for themselves: The shirt is never cut or permanently altered, and all the accessories serve a function.
In their singular work, they seek to answer the question:
“What is the most reductive form that can yield the most variety in meaning? Possibly the white t-shirt. Tight it is James Dean, huge it is hip hop. It’s not what you wear, it’s how you wear it.”
They expand the view of what’s possible in the realm of ordinary t-shirt. read more…
cheap + great: bold, geometric pattern ikea rug
Like the website Knock-Off in Style, we love the challenge of finding an affordable version of some great piece of design – not necessarily a “knock-off” but an object of similar lines and intention, that is cheap. We’ve loved this wool Ikea PS Stuga rug (9′ x 9′, $299) from the moment we saw it, but think it’s even more of a value since we saw this printed dhurrie by John Robshaw (6′ x 9′, $795) featured on Better Living Through Design: read more…
