Hollywood glamour, Lavatory Project style

Today the Lavatory Project meets The Loo Series is back, with the latest set of photos from Grand Designs Live last May. Today’s design, by Outshine, is full of Hollywood glamour, and the more you look, the more you see.

There’s the obvious black and gold, but there’s also the art-deco inspired wallpaper. But look again, there’s the Oscar, the high heels, the elbow-length gold gloves and the pine tree shaped loo roll holder. That has a touch of kitsch about it, but I kind of love it all the same. That’s not even mentioning the beaded cushion behind the loo (I’m not sure why either) or the bevelled mirror tile splashback or the rose gold taps.

Even the patterned towel, just works doesn’t it? And I bet you weren’t surprised to find the champers there either, although I think there’s much better places to store that kind of item, but it works with the concept.

Even the wallpaper under the dado, has hints of art-deco patterns in the anaglypta-like covering. And every lavatory needs somewhere to hang your evening bag, and camera - especially after all that fizz.

Are you a fan of this look, or not?

Celebrating colour and craft books I've read lately

I love a good book, and I especially love a good book or two for Christmas. For me, they provide the perfect excuse to escape the washing up (it’s honest if nothing else) and provide entertainment if there’s something on the telebox that I’m not that into. So when my presents are plenty of books, there’s little chance of moving me off the sofa for the afternoon, which sounds ideal to me.

This Christmas was one of those book rich Christmases, and as well as the craft books which are later in this post, there’s a couple that celebrate colour and pattern which are quite apt for me. And to accentuate the celebration of colour I’ve photographed all of these on my new scarf, full of ‘my’ colours and handmade by my mum, who’s clearly been paying attention to my posts as it’s finished off with handmade pom poms - I told you pom poms would be big, didn’t I?

Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours

Now this is a fascinating book. As you can see on the cover it’s billed as “The book Charles Darwin used to describe colours in nature on his voyage on the HMS Beagle” - I mean, a book to help you describe colours, really. At the start of the book, which was first published in 1814, it says it has “proper coloured examples of the different tints.” And sure enough a few pages on there are proper examples of greys, blacks, blues and more with names to match.

WERNER’S NOMENCLATURE OF COLOURS

Each colour has a number and a name, as well as description of its make up. For example “No. 9. Ash Grey, is the characteristic colour of Werner’s greys; he gives no description of its component parts; it is composed of snow white, with portions of smoke and French grey, and a very little yellowish grey and carmine red.”

Now I will no longer have the excuse of knowing what colour I’m talking about. And I have the vision of myself carrying this around Michael-Portillo-like (but without the clashing outfits) while on the hunt for the perfect home decor!

Spectrum, Heritage Patterns and Colours

Not content with colour, now I’ve got pattern too. Sheer heaven!

This book, which draws on the V&A collection and comprises patterns that “simply felt exciting” though I’m sure that narrowing the selection down was even harder than choosing the photos for the year book I’ve just finished. The book aims to be “both a compendium of beautiful patterns for inspiration and a functional tool”, and really is celebration of pattern and colour and no doubt, is just a splash in the ocean of the V&A collection.

It covers patterns and colours from the 15th century through to the 21st century, and while I’ve only dipped in and out of this book, I’ve a feeling that that’s something I’ll be doing for a long while yet - I could be a while!

Ah yes - I thought you deserved to see my scarf without it being adorned with a book, fab isn’t it? Strangely though, I almost bought this wool for my wrap, that I’m going to make up as I go at some point. I thought it looked familiar, and more familiar than me just liking it and having seen it before - then it struck me, it was the same as my new scarf…

Granny Squares Weekend, Emma Varnham

I do like a Granny Square, and quite early on in my crochet adventure decided these would probably be my thing, especially for their transportability. I’ve been looking for ideas to take me beyond blankets and I think this book will do just that. I love the bag on the cover - which also reminds me of a patchwork bag I had (and could have made myself) many years ago. There’s coasters, fingerless mittens and even a bobble hat that might tempt me at some point, but not until my current project list has reduced a little.

12 Months of Crochet with Red Agape, Mandy Sullivan

Ah, just look at that creation on the cover. But what’s also great about this book is the lesson in colour which it begins with, as it seems putting colour together to look this good, isn’t that easy. The book’s also split into seasons, so if you fancy a spring project, it’s easy to find just the thing. And funny I mention spring, as the project (apart from the one on the cover) is a Spring Wreath - we’ll see, most likely not this spring, but maybe.

And the blanket on the cover, that’s called the Hexagon Starlight Dancer Blanket and is an Australian summer snowflake, which Mandy assures isn’t as hard to complete as it looks. There’s an autumn tote bag, and a crocheted bouquet. My project list really doesn’t stand a chance, does it?

Modern Quilts, Block by Block, Emily Dennis

There’s 12 quilt projects in this book, and once again i’m a goner. I’ve not even finished cutting out the quilt I started last year, nor even blinked at the ones that would follow and yet here I am planning more. My excuse, well apart from they’re lovely, is that they’re very me. If I ever get them finished my bed will look like the reverse of the Princess and the Pea, instead of sleeping on all the mattresses, it’ll be the quilts on top of me (until I get too hot, and throw them off of course!)

The challenge of course will be deciding which one, and then resisting the urge to buy material to use.  I’ve a thing at the moment for stars with quilts on.  That said my current favourite is called ‘Hopscotch’ but it’s quite likely that it’s bright colours are swaying me away from the star version, called First Place.  What else I like about this book is the project gallery at its start, which allows me to drool over and compare all of the quilts at once.  What I wish it had though, is the quilt’s names, not just the page numbers on the pictures.  I’m sure I’ll cope though.

Secret Garden, Johanna Basford

This was an inspired present choice by MOH, which is also code for he had no idea what he was buying as I put this in his Amazon basket and he paid for it.  The best kind of presents, well apart from those that come in small boxes from the jewellers.  I like Johanna’s colouring books, and you might remember I met her at an adult colouring evening with Staedtler back in 2016, and she was lovely and quite obviously very talented but totally unassuming too.

And how could I resist a garden-based colouring book, a secret one at that. I hadn’t spotted the treasure hunt element to this, and if I’m honest, I’m still undecided about that. I’m sure I’ll cope, but perhaps I need to sit down and spend some more time using it to relax me after often a frantic day at work.

Have you read any of these, or read any great craft books lately? I probably shouldn’t ask, as I’m sure you’ll tempt me to try a few more, and add even more projects to my project to do list!

Reflecting on my week #68

Brrrr. I’ve pretty much hibernated this weekend just gone and it’s been lovely, work has been pretty full on again and it was nice to just potter about for a bit on Saturday. MOH's work is also full on and he was back at work on Saturday, which is never good, but that said it meant my pottering was pretty much uninterrupted.

By the time he arrived home I was already preparing dinner, a slow cooked lamb shank with cannellini beans. It’s funny how things turn out, all week I’d been saying I’d a few tins of cannellini beans and what could we have. Then I spied lamb shanks in the butchers, after popping in for a haggis for Friday evening, and so one of our favourite dinners was on the menu. I planned to put them in the freezer, but, those cannellini beans were nagging at me…

For a change MOH wasn’t out on his bike Sunday, although there was some time spent cleaning it, so just as it sleeted here we set out to the farmers market in Blackheath village. Our aim was to leave with cakes and it was mission well accomplished with a giant size millionaire shortbread and equally large bakewell slice. In the shock of it all, there were no photos, but they were both very nice.

While there some goats cheese, sourdough, squash and apples also made their way into our shopping bag, and as I’m sure Nigel Slater would agree, they had the making of some very nice meals. In fact the goats cheese and sourdough provided an impromptu lunch, and the squash went very well with a butter bean curry. Although I’ll apologise to anyone who knows MOH in real life, as not only has there been two lots of beans, there’s been hummus and grains in the past week for lunches. I think our fibre consumption must be way above the average, but of course I’m way too lazy to work it out for real.

In other news I’m on the seventh packet (of twelve) of that vitamin D boost, so I’m definitely on the home straight. Do I have more energy? I guess so, I’m definitely less exhausted, although as you’ll know I do like to pack it all in. My hips are generally aching less, so that’s good too, so I’m hopefully that by the time my next blood test comes around my body will have remembered how to hang onto its vitamin D. I’ve also made some diet changes in the past few weeks, not just the pulses, there’s been more nuts (to eat, although I’ve encountered a fair few too) and the kefir yogurt, which I actually quite like, and will keep on with.

Having finally completed my tax return - yay! - my other task for the weekend was to complete one of the three photo books I’d promised myself I would, to bring my year books up to date. That was organised me, but organised me failed to realise that I still have unedited photos from 2016, 2017 and 2018 - oops.

I had fewest photos to edit from 2017, or so I thought - I discovered a batch of unedited photos outside of iPhoto, which I’d clearly moved out at one point to free up space on my hard drive (please tell me it’s not just me that is constantly striving to find space on my laptop).

I’d also forgotten that 2017 was quite a big year for us, and that meant many more photos than usual. As well as our big birthdays and getting our garden ready for our big party, there was also a week in Dorset with MOH’s family, a week in Suffolk and a trip to Porto and the Douro Valley and much more besides. I almost made the deadline for completing my creation, but I realised that as I was halfway through the year with less than ten pages left, it was either going to need many more pages or some refinement. Actually I think the answer is a bit of both - it was a big year after all - and so I accepted defeat and bought an extension to my credit, and so my quest - and the race against the new deadline - to capture our 2017 in our year book continues.

But along the way I’ve rediscovered some great pictures, and some memories too. Unusually this has been a photo-free post up until now, but as I’ve been reliving 2017, here’s some of the photos I’ve uncovered this weekend, which may or may not have appeared on the blog before:

PORT IN THE DOURO VALLEY

SUN AND A VIEW

A SQUASH THAT DOESN’T LOOK AS IF IT DESERVES TO BE THIS BIG

THERE HAD TO BE SOME TILES, WHICH ARE EVERYWHERE

LOOK OUT FOR THESE IN A FUTURE LOO SERIES

…AND A GLASS OF PORT TOO

A REMINDER OF OUR GABION BASKETS?

AND FINALLY DECREPIT, BEAUTIFUL AND FULL OF CHARACTER!

That last caption is quite apt and made me smile when I realised its significance. It feels a bit like me at the moment, somewhere along the way of not doing anything very active at all I’ve tweaked my lower back. Having remembered it’s entirely possible to get a massage in Greenwich in my lunch hour, guess what I’m up to tomorrow?!