In lieu of a ‘proper’ entry, here’s a collection of the interesting and inspiring sites I’ve found over the past few weeks. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.

Art:

• Catherine's Animals
  Catherine Ledner's enchanting animal portraits span a whole range of species, from alligators to zebras. You can view the pictures and order prints from this site. Cow 2 is my favourite, although Ostrich comes a close second.
• Dan Hiller Altered Engravings (NOTCOT)
  NOTCOT's article on Dan Hiller's amazing illustrations of human-cephalopod hybrids. Bring on the tentacles!
• Desiree Dolron
  I keep returning to these outstanding photographs, especially the "Xteriors" series. There is a stillness about her work that evokes old portraiture and religious tableaux.

Fashion:

• Barbican - The House of Viktor & Rolf
  A new exhibition from the Dutch fashion duo - it's a complete collection of their work starting from 1992, but reproduced in miniature for dolls in a "theatrical installation". Sure to be interesting.
• Wardrobe Refashion: Sign Up
  Sign up for this year's Wardrobe Refashion, where you pledge not to buy new clothes for 2, 4 or 6 months. Instead, clothes will be recycled, renovated, pre-loved, thrifted or handmade.

Food:

• BBC Food - Recipes - Best chocolate cake
  Made this for Father's Day and it was a great success. Not too rich for my on-the-fence-about-chocolate mother.

Knitting:

• Handspun Recycled Newspaper Yarn | greenUPGRADER.com
  Use up old newspaper by spinning it into yarn and using it for household projects.
• Twist Collective
  An exciting online knitting magazine to be launched in August. You pay per pattern, giving the designers a better deal (something which I fully support). Some of my favourite knitwear designers are involved. The teasers are very tantalising!

Media:

• The Big Picture - Boston.com
  My new favourite blog. Powerful high-quality photographs of recent news stories. Not to be missed.
• The Incredible Hulk | Reviews | guardian.co.uk Film
  Hilarious review of The Incredible Hulk. Best line undoubtedly "Roth groin area ambiguous." Recommend everyone read this instead of watching the film, which sounds dire.

Misc:

• Your Personality Type: The Reliable Realist
  My personality type according to iPersonic.com. It seems pretty accurate.

Shopping:

• Ruby Emporium
  An UK-based online shop which sells Bésame cosmetics. I’ve been wanting to try these vintage-inspired products for ages, so I may have to place an order.

As the weather warms up (or attempts to) I inevitably start having fantasies about balmy summer afternoons, sipping drinks on someone’s patio, the smell of a barbeque, the sound of ice cubes in a glass, the smell of freshly-cut grass… and even more inevitably, in these fantasies I am wearing the perfect summer dress. This year, perhaps, I’ll finally get there. I have four 1940s-50s patterns secreted away, and I would like to try and make at least one of them this year. (I also said this last year, but never mind.)

When my mind turns to a new interest or hobby, I like to delve into it as much as is humanly possible, so I’ve been looking for interesting and/or inspiring sewing sites. Here’s what I’ve turned up in the past few days:

Sew Retro: I could spend hours browsing through the archives (and have, in fact). It’s a group blog for people who make vintage patterns and retro clothing, and there are a lot of photos of finished garments! Often the pattern drawings are posted alongside the photos, which is very useful - I’m used to knitting patterns coming with several full-colour photographs, so you know exactly what it’ll look like, but when using old sewing patterns you have to rely on the cover illustration. Some of my favourite posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Suzical.co.uk’s list of sewing blogs: Pretty self-explanatory - sewing blogs ordered by their Technorati ranking. I read quite a few of these. A Dress A Day is one of my favourite blogs out there.

U-Handblog: Lisa Lam’s excellent bag making blog, with oodles of free patterns and tutorials (a bag to match your summer dress, maybe?). She also runs a flickr group for handmade bags, and another specifically for bags made using her tutorials. An old favourite of mine!

Vintage Sewing Patterns Wiki: A valuable resource where people can browse patterns and see related blog posts, reviews, and sellers of said patterns.

Flickr Group - New Vintage Wardrobe: In their own words, “a group dedicated to the use of old patterns to make new fashions and vintage fabrics featured in new clothing.” Lots of photos, obviously.

Flickr Group - Vintage Apron Patterns: What, you never imagined yourself baking cakes wearing a sweet little flounced apron to protect your (immaculate) dress? Must be just me.

Flickr Group - Vintage Patterns: For sharing and viewing the envelope art on old patterns.

Now, with all these resources at my fingertips, I can hardly fail! (Famous last words.)

A new and relatively demanding job has kept me away from things, but I’m settling into a comfortable routine and am slowly beginning to get back on top of my commitments. I think it’s good to have one’s life shaken up a bit, but initially it’s a bit of a shock to the system. I’m enjoying the challenge (I don’t mean that in a PR-veneer type way, it’s actually rather fun!) but the weekends really can’t come too soon.

The typically unpredictable weather means that layering is essential, so I’m still plodding along on my Darcy and I’ve started a new cardigan from the same book (Kim Hargreaves’ Heartfelt) called Faith. I don’t think the photos in the book really did it justice - I wonder if it’s a little large for the model, actually - but once I’d seen naganasu’s beautiful version I knew I had to knit it.

I’m not the biggest fan of RYC Bamboo Soft, the recommended yarn. I mentioned my problems with it in an earlier post, and I wasn’t convinced it would hold up very well in a big, fairly heavy cardigan. The colours and price weren’t ideal, too, so I went for a soft cotton yarn in Garnstudio’s Safran. It’s very soft, the colours are to die for, and it’s not too expensive. It’s a dream to knit with: very smooth and not at all splitty. I chose the brightest turquoise they produce, and it’s so vibrant it practically glows. See for yourself:

To counter this eye-searing project, my Darcy jacket is quietly growing. The texture is delicious, and the gentle dove grey a pleasure to look at.

I promised photos of the mirror, and here they are! Please pretend that my hideous lilac walls are some other colour. (I do this all the time.) The mirror doesn’t match, but then nothing in my bedroom does… however, it’s easier to store it on the wall than anywhere else.

Recently I found out about Oxfam’s giant baby blanket campaign, and I’ve been knitting some squares to send off. You can read more about it here and here (Ravelry group here). It seems really worthwhile, and I hope they make their target of 250 000 squares. (I do not, admittedly, envy the task of the people sewing them together!)

I’m really looking forward to Kim Hargreaves’ new summer collection, “Nectar”. Looks like it’ll be released soon!

It’s amazing how some things can seem like a terrible chore until you discover a Motivating Factor. Today I had just such a perspective shift. My bedroom is in a terrible state, with books piled double and triple on the shelves (to say nothing of the floor), cupboards filled with rubbish and old junk from when I was younger, stuff that should be in the cupboards sitting out and gathering dust - I’m sure you get the idea. It is an unholy mess.

Yet despite my obsession with neatness, this mess is not the sort that’s easy to tidy up. Big decisions have to be made about what will go, and what will stay. Any attempt to sort through the junk (or indeed the books) ends up in a fit of nostalgia, either painful or reflective. It isn’t just rubbish, it’s sentimental rubbish, which makes it harder to deal with. There’s also a lot of it.

So, when I heard about some family furniture that was potentially up for grabs, and heard that a chaise longue was among the offerings… well, my heart went pit-a-pat, frankly! I love chaise longues, and I think I love the idea of them even more. In my mind, they should be covered in cushions and perhaps have an elegant shawl draped over the back, the perfect seat for a lady of refinement to sink into with a book. (Yes, I’m romanticising this to a ridiculous degree.) I was determined to have it. However, there’s a problem of space, and long story short, the furniture will need some serious rearrangement if it’s to fit. To do that, I need to tidy, big time.

‘My’ chaise longue doesn’t look much like this, but it’s nice, isn’t it?

The task doesn’t seem half so bad anymore, though. Not when there’s a chaise longue as a possible reward. (If it fits in the room/in the car/through the doorway…) My fingers are crossed. I’m going to work hard. It will fit.

I also have a new mirror, from the same source. It’s very ornate and really… well, let’s just say it has candlestick holders. It’s rather fabulous. I’ll try and take a picture soon.