Holiday!

We´ll be having a winter/summer vacation split between two continents until the beginning of September. Please come back then!

Winter part will be spent here:


And summer part will take place here:



Shop orders made during the break will be dispatched on September 8th. Thank you!

Until then, stay well!

Some good news

In April 2007 I moved from Lisbon to Buenos Aires to come and live with my then boyfriend, now husband. Portuguese like me, he had been relocated to Buenos Aires the year before and, really, travelling back and forth between two continents wasn´t very comfortable for anyone.

When I left my design studio in Lisbon I thought that this was the perfect time to start to invest a lot more on illustration, something I always wanted to do but never got the time to, because of all the design work I was having. But one week after coming here I fell ill and had two weeks in hospital and about five months of recovery. It was a very hard beginning of our life together and of my new professional life in another country (or continent, for that matter).

In early 2008, I really can´t remember why, I felt like relearning to knit. I asked my Mom for the basic instructions - I had to refresh my memory and recover all that my grandma had taught me over 20 years ago. What I never thought - and couldn´t imagine in my wildest dreams - was that knitting would change my life here, for better.

(to be fair, knitting, painting and joining german classes were crucial to my adapting to the city and to getting to know people and make new friends.)

I joined ravelry and then a couple of groups, one of them of knitters here in Argentina. It took sometime before we got together but in March this year we finally did.

That´s where I met most of my knitting friends today, and specially my "partner in crime", Joji.

And this brings me to the good news: we decided to start a small venture together, which will be launched in September (hopefully). We´re joining forces and skills to build a sustainable, mom and earth-friendly business, which we hope and trust will succeed.



Isn´t this yummy?

Until the day we can launch it publicly (a couple of legal matters are still pending), I´ll leave you with some pictures of the backstage of our photo shoot last Wednesday.





We´re having lots of fun (and hard work too) putting it all together and we´re hoping you´ll enjoy it too.

After the flu hiatus...

After a full month of flu hiatus, painting classes have resumed. We´re now painting a fixed, standing pose. after the first two-hour session, I had the model pretty much on canvas:




So, on my second session, I wanted to focus on working on the background, something I tend not to work on too much. I´m not sure if it is because I like simple backgrounds, or abstract backgrounds, but it´s usually something I don´t explore that much. During quick pose exercises I usually work out a tiny, undetailed stroke that somehow suggests a context, but that´s mostly it. This time, though, I wanted to focus on the background, as I felt the figure was pretty much done.

After the second session, it looked like this:


I still want to work on the background as I feel the painting to be unfinished. Any ideas?

Enchastrating: the result

Some weeks ago I posted about a yarn hand-painting session. Last Saturday I finally made it to the meeting at Virgi´s and was finally able to see how it had turned out after dry. The blue colour washed out a lot, leaving a very light blue. Although my colour universe is way more saturated than this, I´m very happy about the result and looking forward to actually knitting it.

I don´t think there´s a yarn hand-painter waiting to be discovered in me, but I had a lot of fun doing it and I think that the fact that the coulouring was made by me will increase the pleasure of knitting.

Another week

Whew, another hectic week! I think that´s because vacation time is just around the corner, right? Work commissions and meetings with potential clients have been pourint in (and I´m certainly not complaining!) and then there´s all the other things I want to do as well.

Still the week started like this:



...followed by four long hours waiting at the police headquarters for whatever documents that were needed. This is a long and funny story, and if you understand portuguese, read it here.

Then, on a very good note, we had a birthday boy here at home. As usual, giving gifts to him is no easy task so it took me about a month of thinking, searching and actually buying and making things. I found him an old pasta-cutting machine, made of iron, I believe and fully functioning (mechanical things keep beating digital ones in longevity).



And then the mystery sweater I had to sneak-knit:



He loved both! And the great sport he is, he was totally fine trying on a work-in-progress sweater, needles and stitch holders and all. (I´m relieved that the sweater fits.)

And now, back to work. One more week to go and then... holiday!