yay for dresses!

i've been snapping up some adorable little dresses lately. the one below is from an italian vintage store in williamburg, amarcord:

i got this little vintage-inspired number in chicago a few weekends ago while on a trip with my mom and sisters. i look pretty cute in it.

new books!

i have been busy with work lately, but i have found a few amazing books:

this one is my favorite.

cool british magazine about textiles.

i will use this book as source material for my next quilt - a hawaiian style baby quilt.

kiva

i saw a piece on Frontline/World last night about Kiva, a person-to-person mircoloan non profit. you can loan a small business owner as little as $25 toward their total loan (usually about $200-1200) and help them provide for their families by improving their business. i first heard about microloans when Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, and it seems like such a brilliant idea. so i joined up right away.

i loaned to Elizabeth in Ghana for her shop.

i loaned to Sakina in Afganistan (her son is pictured here because it is culturally unacceptable for her to be pictured on the internet). She manages her son's store (selling fuel), and provides for her family that way. i found her by searching for women in the middle east - she was the only woman applying for a loan. i'm excited to be helping someone with such a different life experience from mine.

i also loaned to Rasim in Azerbaijan for his welding company and Alougba in Togo for her firewood business. so far, Kiva has a 100% repayment rate; most of the loans will be repayed in 8-18months, at which point, i can loan the money again.

Isabel's quilt update!

so here it is so far. i decided not to go with the diagonal stripes because the colors were getting a little muddled. i'm also going to add a few appliqued shapes, like hearts, rubber duckies, plus signs, that will be in a contrasting color and fit completely within one 4"x4" square. on the back, i'll but some multi-colored prints that didn't fit on the front and some more subtle neutral tones.

floor to heaven

luke and i are looking for a rug to soften the sounds of little puppy feet that emanate from our apartment. this one, by floor to heaven, is inspired by russian folk art. i love it, but it may be a bit to flamboyant for our place (not to mention costly...).

mmm... red velvet cake

anni sent me a picture of the red velvet cake that she made. red velvet cake is my favorite (it used to be yellow cake with dark chocolate icing, but that red velvet sure is tasty). good show, anni! will you make me one for my birthday?
anni used the New York Times recipe (but i think you need to subscribe to TimesSelect to get the article. that's crap). in brooklyn, you can also get amazing red velvet cake from the cake man. two week waiting list, though, so don't wait until the last minute (like we did for my last birthday. that was also crap.)

edward burtynsky

this week and next week are very busy for me while i finish up a deadline at work. not much crafting going on... in the meantime, check out edward burtynsky, my favorite photographer. his landscapes of shipbreaking, abandoned mines and quarries, and the three gorges dam in china are haunting.