Wishing

Things I have been doing:

1. Listening to a lot of Americana, boys-with-guitars-type music, which probably explains the dream I had about cowboy boots - which then in real life were in Scope for only £7. I love it when that happens, it's like the expenditure was fated. OK so they are slightly too big but when I wear them I can pretend I am one of the hipster girls I saw in Portland, Oregon, wearing cowboy boots with vintage dresses and full sleeve tattoos.

I really wish I was back there sometimes, in a painted clapboard house with Mt Hood in the background and writing novels in the local coffee shop. Without all the sad homeless people and drugs of course.

2. Mastering chain-stitch while watching New Girl and girl-crushing on Zooey Deschanel

3. Reading the new Michele Roberts novel, Ignorance. I've only just started, but it reminds me instantly of why she is one of my absolute favourite writers. Her descriptions are as sensuous in your hands as a bunch of tulips.

Reeling

My life at the moment is feeling a bit like these reels of ribbon from that den of temptation, the Berwick Street Cloth Shop in Soho. Organised on the surface - but any minute any of those colourful ribbons could get tangled and knotted and then where would we be?

This rather convoluted metaphor basically means that I have lots of projects on, some secret, some not, but all pretty exciting, and they will be shared very soon...

One thing I can talk about happened over green tea and these rather lovely chrysanthemums, which I didn't notice until later are parked rather incongruously in a pint glass:

At said cafe table a good friend of mine asked me if I wanted to be her bridesmaid. After all the squee-ing I am still feeling incredibly touched and happy, and am secretly hoping to have to wear some kind of satin meringue which I can roll my eyes over but quietly enjoy flouffing around in. 

Small but powerful

Apologies for the blurry picture, but these really make me smile.

Making...

Have been making conscientiously for the Big Project, but let myself have an hour or so off to make this lovely little collar, from a project in Mollie Makes magazine. It was surprisingly easy and I think comes up quite smart. Anything with leopard print is always FTW in my opinion.

I also really like these Vuitton metal collars:

I'm not sure they would be all that comfortable to wear, but there's something pleasingly kinky and sci fi about them. I'm thinking of making a black collar with spikes, in a nod to the spiked dogcollars I used to wear in my gothy days. Apparently there's such a thing as "soft punk" en vogue at the moment, which kind of takes all of the fun out of it.

Went to see "The Artist" last night - it's the story of a young ingenue given her first step to success by a preposterously handsome matinee star during the late 1920s. But he is a star of silent movies and refuses to join in the mania for the "talkies". As his celebrity wanes, hers grows, and it seems like their love can never be.

It's one of the most wonderful, warm, heart-breaking and imaginative films I have ever seen - and the costumes are fabulous. I sigh for the days when men wore top hats and tails and girls styled their hair just so.

New year's resolutions

As well as all my usual self-improving/society-benefiting NYRs, I would like to:

1. Do more of this:

2. And this:

3. Try this:

4. Go here:

5. Have less of these: