New work

Another week (of intense heat, let me add) has gone by. There has been work going around here, but also knitting and my first steps into quilting.

But today this post is just to let you know that I just uploaded some new work into my portfolio: they´re both two new brand identities, which are here and here.

In the meantime, have a great weekend. Stay fresh - or warm, whatever the case may be. I´ll go for fresh, though!

My crafty new year resolutions

One of the things I hate the most is the feeling of not having time to do something and having to postpone it. So this year I decided to get on with my crafty objectives as soon as possible, as if the year were about to end in a couple of months.

Without further ado, I present you two of my crafty resolutions for 2010:

1. Knitting with more than one yarn (and colour).





This was long overdue. It was actually a 2009 goal but knitting projects came and went and I didn´t have the chance to fit this one in. Also, I knit portuguese style (yarn goes around my neck for tension) and thought that it could only mean: huge mess. Well, it isn´t. I think it is even easier than to use both english and continental styles at the same time and I can say that while knitting this swatch I almost got the same speed as if I were knitting with one yarn only. I need to add here, though, that I´m not a speedy knitter nor pay much attention to speed when it comes to knitting; it is only to illustrate how not messy it is.

I´m going to knit a dress to my older niece (so that it will fit my younger niece in a couple of years!) with a decorated yoke. I researched a bit for knitting techniques and decoration design but the pattern is basically a combination of different sources.

This is my Ravelympics project and it is ravelled here. More photos available here.



2. Learning to quilt.





I am a quilting beginner, so I welcome any suggestions or links to useful resources you may know of. I read as much information as I can find on the web and I watch lots of youtube videos. So far, I´m loving it. I started with some fabrics I had at home (used on abbrigate* packaging) but am now hungry for more. I still don´t know what I´m going to do with this small project but I think I want to finish it and it may serve as... I don´t know, a doll quilt? For one of my beautiful nieces? Hmm? We´ll see.

For more photos of this project, click here.

Well, we´re still in January, so there´s plenty of time for new and improved crafty goals for 2010, right? Coming soon, my entrepreneurial goals, though this is a far more complicated topic!

Important: become a bone marrow donor

In 2008, a friend of mine got very sick with leukaemia. In 2009, the son of a friend got sick with leukaemia. The first found her way through with several doses of chemo but the kid is still struggling with it and needs a bone marrow transplant.

Like these two cases, there are lots of them, spread around the world. The good news is we can all register as bone marrow donors and our data becomes part of an international bone marrow donors database. This means that - in the event that we are compatible with someone who needs a transplant - we can be helping someone not only in our country but basically anywhere in the world. This means hope to patients and little hassle to donors.

So, to make it quick, here are a few links that answer most frequently asked questions and addresses to where to register in some countries. Please consider becoming a bone marrow donor.

Bone Marrow Donors Worldwide
World Marrow Donor Association
Informação em português
South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, UK, US

I´m poladroiding anything that appears in front of me

I know the poladroid ship has sailed long ago but I am in utter love with this, it might even be the beginning of an overload of polaroid-like pictures around here. Please do let me know if I use them too much!

This is my adapted version of Saartje´s booties, pattern to be found here. It has transpired that these booties were immediately put to use. I´m a happy (adopted) auntie.

Ravelled here.

They knew I wanted to model my latest hand-knit...

Snow isn´t the most common phenomenon in Portugal, happening every now and then in the north and mountain areas. But I guess someone knew I needed a good background for my Koolhaas hat pictures, right? Maybe not, but who cares. It was a beautiful, beautiful Sunday seeing the snow falling outside and then going for a walk and being a kid all over again. (Any Canadian reading this might be laughing their socks off, but guys, you know, this is more of a summer country than actually a winter country! Do come by in Spring, though, it´s lovely.)

Now I´m back to Lisbon and it´s cold, though not the snowy type of cold, and I´m already thinking about summer, which will begin (for me) next Sunday, back in Buenos Aires. The holiday season goes by too quick.

P.S. Photo above by my sister.

Looking back on 2009

2009 was a good year. Not only did it bring me personal happiness, but it also brought me the enthusiasm to carry on working as a freelancer designer and illustrator. Knitting was a huge part of it, not only because of the creation of abbrigate*, a huge thing on itself, but also because I challenged myself as much as I could pushing me to try and do things I didn´t know I could or knew how to do.

In knitting terms, it meant knitting a huge blanket, knitting a sweater in the round (with cables!), and another one, this time top down, with a zipper sewn in.

I missed my goal of knitting with more than one colour on a given garment, but that I´ll leave for 2010.

For now, I wish everyone as much as I wish for myself: peace and health. For me, though, I´ll add lots of practice on the ability to embrace uncertainty and face change gracefully. I´ll fake until I make it.

Happy 2010!