The Interior DIYer

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Practice pattern – monochromatic afghan

I’ve been dreaming of crocheting a blanket of my own for a ridiculous amount of time. At the moment I’m taking a fancy to ripple afghans and when I saw this pattern,  I wanted it. It’s an old school black and white catalog picture, so you’re meant to imagine all the wild colors, but I wanted what I saw – a strong b&w pattern. So last night I tackled my first blanket practice pattern {with grey in stead of black}. It’s a bit dodgy on the bottom row, but it’s slowly getting better as you go up. I’m quite pleased with myself as I was able to relatively quickly pick up the pattern – although, they’re meant to be quite straight forward, aren’t they … 
I found a gorgeous pattern on Lion Brand Yarn for a Shaded Ripple Afghan, but since the crochet lingo was blowing my previous minimal amigurimi based mind, I went to YouTube for help. The Art of Crochet by Teresa was a phenomenal help to me. Thanks to Teresa, the Shaded Ripple Afghan pattern lingo makes complete sense to me now and I’m ready. So ready that I bought two ridiculous skeins of yarn {see regular skein pictured alongside}.
The pattern I’ll be using is different to my practice piece – it doesn’t have loops in the double crochet increases. Fingers crossed I also learn to tidy up the sides … 
With a strong contrast of black and white, I’m hoping this blanket will turn out to be quite the accent for my apartment. Is it weird that I’m so excited?
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The feeling isn’t mutual

My dad just sent me a link to this video. As you’ll see, Madonna is attending a press conference when a fan of hers hands her a {gorgeous} purple hydrangea. Madonna temporarily forgets the microphone in front of her, which captures her true thoughts of her gift through gritted teeth. Pure classic! All the more for me.

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My inner librarian has OCD

I’m working on beefing up my bookshelves at the moment. When you’re like me and are graced with a touch of OCD, reorganizing things happens on a regular basis. I’ve been reorganizing my bookshelves a lot recently and I’ve also come across a lot of images which are giving me lots of inspiration. 

“There are many ways you can choose to arrange your books: by size, by color, by number of pages, by subject, by your favorite titles, by publisher, by publication date, by date you received your book, or by your favorite genre and then by author {fiction} …” – How To Organize Books

I have quite a lot of books – mostly hardback {there’s something so much nicer about a hardback} so I’m looking to arrange or offset them in a way that shows off our collection.

This first image is full of what I want. A contrast between light and dark, and that dusty purple – I’m really into that shade at the moment. Coincidentally, I’m also working on a painting to hang in front of my bookshelves in a similar way to this one – aesthetically, as well as to hide some unsightly DVD’s behind it. Sneaky. I do like the minimal amount of books/magazines in the background, but in reality I have a ton of them so there’s no escaping for us. 
I do like the chaotic side of stacking books and magazines. Again, it contrasts with the clean lines of the shelves and surrounding objects in the image on the left. Then again, on the right there’s thought and order to how everything is arranged. Here the emphasis is not strictly on the books or magazines themselves. They’re mixed in with other objects. 

Those shelves and more importantly the arrangement. I really like how everything at first glimpse looks a bit reckless  but on closer inspection is tidy and carefully thought out. Plus, that Eames chair … 
If I wasn’t so blindingly afraid of using such vibrant colors in my own home, I would tackle something like this. But I think my guy would be too worried of putting a book back in the wrong place. Hell hath no fury …

This in a way is what I have at the moment – everything organized by height. I do like this monochromatic style of organizing and the different levels of shelving. Everything has a place.
Image sources 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.