Category Archives: LIFE LOVERS

One of the most formidable design pairings of the mid-20th century, Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi founded the radical, controversial American architectural studio Venturi Scott Brown and Associates, also known as VSBA. Working in tandem from 1969 to 2012, they pioneered a postmodern approach to design, believing architecture and urban design should reference the…

A pair of red shoes started this project. I found them on sale of course. They are so cute, so comfortable but also I had nothing to wear with them. Ha! Maybe I should have thought of that first. I usually lean toward minimal and handmade things in my wardrobe. I might lean towards minimalism…

Italian duo Anna Castelli Fierrieri and Giulio Castelli are the faces behind iconic furniture brand Kartell, which brought cheeky fun to the mid-20th century market with vibrant, shiny plastic furniture. They were a formidable design team, she the designer, he the biochemist, fusing his cutting-edge plastic production with her radical modernist design. Such was the…

British-American painter Cecily Brown weaves Purple Sage Linen’s deep lavender shade into her expressionist canvases, letting it form shadowy rivulets of uneasy, hedonistic darkness. Brown made her name in New York in the late 1990s, painting tangled bodies lavishing in paradisiacal gardens with fleshy passages of paint in rich, indulgent jewel tones. Process, she explains…

Linen tanks have become a signature piece in my summer wardrobe. I’m convinced I cannot have enough of these simple, versatile, and breathable garments for hot July days. So, this week, I added another one to my closet, the Phoebe Tank in Ash Linen. This pattern only took 1 yard of fabric and 2 hours…

‘Nothing, ever, is worth closing your heart over.’ Michael A. Singer By the age of 19 I found myself alone in a foreign country, I needed an algorithm to survive the whirlwind of decisions I didn’t know how to make. Intuition became my guide. When something felt right, regardless of common sense, societal expectations, I…

Spanish painter Juan Gris in best known as a pioneer of early 20th century art, spearheading a bright, playful strand of Cubism in France. But for a brief spell, his career took another path, travelling down the route of theatre design for Ballets Russes director Sergei Diaghilev. Under Diaghilev’s guidance Gris produced a series of…

I’m looking forward to share fun ways in which I incorporate new pieces into my closet. My background in design and styling has allowed me to see and play around with limitless ways when it comes to dressing up. When I create a piece, simultaneously I am always thinking about garments I already own and…

Since I left New York City and moved to the French countryside a year ago, it felt like I’ve lived in boots and jeans for months now, renovating my beautiful old house and taking care of the garden, going on long walks in the woods and exploring my new region. So I was very excited…

Salvador Dali, the great master of ludicrous, Surrealist nonsense was a huge admirer of dance. Dali began designing sets and costumes for the Ballets Russes in the late 1930s, around 10 years after the death of its original founder, Sergei Diaghilev, so sadly the pair never officially worked together. But Diaghilev’s formidable shadow still loomed…

Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do.   My name is Sadie, I live in the San Francisco Bay Area with my husband and two small kids.  I work for students with disabilities as an assistive technology specialist and a special education lecturer at a local university.  Before this work arrangement, I was…

I was looking for clothes that could fit me at 28 weeks of pregnancy and that would remain relevant even after the birth of the baby. I saw the ABBEY Wrap Cardigan pattern on the Fabric-store website and thought that was exactly what I needed! The pattern is very easy to understand and has only…

Andre Derain was the the great Fauvist painter who liberated colour, setting it free across his canvases with great swipes, streaks and slashes of unmixed paint. But there is another, less well-known side to Derain; from the 1920s to the 1950s he also turned his talents to the ballet, envisioning impossibly sumptuous sets and costumes…

As someone who has recently dived into the patternmaker side of sewing patterns, I have come to appreciate how much work and attention to detail goes into producing a full sewing pattern package. A few of the challenges in creating a sewing pattern include creating efficient pattern piece layouts, laying them out on different paper…

I am, admittedly, a creature of habit. Once I discover a style that works for me, I just add more of it to my wardrobe. This is exactly what happened when I discovered the beauty of a wrap top! For me, nothing beats the wrap top when it comes to comfort and ease. It just…