to umbria

I am off on holiday tomorrow - to Umbria, Italy - for one last glimpse of summer.

wish list: mustard yellow, olive green, cobalt blue

Beams Plus Cable-Knit Merino Wool Vest from MR PORTER.
Vessels Loden Velvet & Grosgrain Trim Slippers from Stubbs & Wootton.
Beams Plus Panelled Wool-Blend Cardigan from MR PORTER.

autumn knitwear

Summer is fading, autumn is on its way. This means only one thing. Knitwear. Thick, heavy jumpers and cardigans in soft cashmere and scratchy wool. Round necks, roll necks, shawl collars, deep pockets, leather buttons... Of course, I prefer my autumn knits to be the colour of winter fruits and vegetables - pumpkin, blackberry, or jewels - emeralds, rubies... These are two good new additions to my wardrobe.

i am listening to...

Hailing from Copenhagen, Agnes Obel makes sublime music, elegant and haunting in equal measure. She's won handfuls of awards in her native Denmark, but I think she's relatively unknown in the UK, which is a crying shame... Riverside is my favourite track from her 2010 debut record Philharmonics - watch the video below. Her second album Aventine will be released on 30th September.

dionysus

A very quick sketch that I did of Dionysus (or Bacchus if you're a Roman), son of Zeus, god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy.

thursday afternoon

Late on Thursday afternoon I decided to take a trip to Trafalgar Square, first stopping off at St Martin-in-the-Fields. What luck! There at the back of the church was an an orchestra practicing for a concert. I joined a handful of people - old women, teenagers with backpacks, tourists with umbrellas, business men in suits, sitting in silence in the wooden pews, watching and listening.

The early evening light streaming through the windows was spectacular.

Afterwards I spent an hour or so in the National Gallery, a place I love to go and get lost in every now and again. Such a calming experience I always find - all that cool marble and dark wood really soothes the soul. Here's poor Saint Sebastian, early Christian saint and martyr as depicted by Matteo di Giovanni.

design icons

John Lewis recently got in touch about a special design timeline they've cleverly put together, in celebration of this year's London Design Festival. The interactive timeline above takes you on a design journey, charting some of the world’s most iconic furniture designs of the last 70 years, from the Anglepoise Lamp through to the Magis Bombo Bar Stool. The collection includes designs which continue to stand the test of time, together with more recent objects destined to be future classics. I think it's all rather fun... In particular for me, having recently picked up a battered old orange Anglepoise, it's interesting to learn more about the historic story behind the brand.

Brought to you by John Lewis.

new colour

Tomorrow, Farrow & Ball will officially add nine new colours to its well-established range. I like these four the most: top left: Stiffkey Blue No.281 - reminiscent of the colour of the mud found at Stiffkey beach, Norfolk. Top right: Nancy's Blushes No.278 - named after a mystery Nancy, so charming, my favourite of all nine I think. Below left: Mole's Breath No.276 - the colour of a mole’s coat, of course... Below right: Wevet No.273 - named after the old Dorset term for a spider’s web. (Oh, what a brilliant, brilliant word! I can't stop saying it.)

Discover the rest of the 2013 range here.

the goldfinch

This book is the sole reason I have not left my house in days. Two decades after Donna Tartt soared to literary stardom with her debut The Secret History, the reclusive author's third novel The Goldfinch is, 153 pages in, absolutely sublime...

Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, and down the years clings to the thing that most reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. As he grows up, Theo learns to glide between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love - and his talisman, the painting, places him at the centre of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.

at home: part one

A glimpse into my home... I bought the wooden desk off of a young Islington couple - I picked it up from their house, just down the road from The Duke of Cambridge, a favourite pub of mine. I was completely adamant that I wanted an old school desk. The lid lifts up in two parts and it's covered in scribblings, scratches and gouges. It's quite small but pretty perfect. I bought the purple crystal in Devon a long time ago and the two tiny Dutch candlesticks were given to me by a friend who was living in Amsterdam at the time. I bought the old embroidered Royal coat of arms patch on eBay and the figurine of Michelangelo's David was picked up in Rome during my teenage years. The perspex photo frame was made at school, when I must have been about thirteen or fourteen; it contains a snap from a holiday in France. I can't help but surround myself in objects that I've collected over the years; most of them have little value and are possibly a bit ridiculous, yet I wouldn't have it any other way. The etched tumbler and footed mug both came from Ben's shop. They are useful, perfectly formed things. The lavender on the other hand is clearly past it's prime... I need to find an interesting new plant for the forest green Kew pot.

My bedlinen came from Toast. Mismatched, of course. The copy of Dracula, with its perfect bright yellow cover, was given to me a few years ago on my Birthday.

This is one of my all-time favourite paintings. Jeune Homme nu assis au bord de la mer, figure d'étude by Hippolyte Flandrin. I bought at least five postcard versions from the Louvre many years ago. I rediscover one every now and again, in a box or used as a bookmark in a long forgotten novel. I pasted one up on my wall.

I bought this Welsh tapestry rug from Toast, once again. It was hand loomed using British wool by the oldest working woollen mill in Pembrokeshire. It glows golden in the sunlight. I love the colours so much - olive green and oatmeal. Resting on top: a pair of tattered but much loved plimsolls.

tales of us

English pop outsiders Goldfrapp will release their sixth album on Monday 9th September. Tales of Us is the band's most conceptual record to date and the result of a two-year creative process. I'm practically in love with the track listing. Doesn't it read like a long lost dream?

Jo
Annabel
Drew
Ulla
Alvar
Thea
Simone
Stranger
Laurel
Clay

The project's release will be accompanied by a series of short films for five of the album's ten tracks, co-created by Goldfrapp and directed by Lisa Gunning, a feature film editor and Goldfrapp's partner of several years. A complete film compiling the five clips is also scheduled for cinematic release later this year. Watch the video for Drew below, and then go here to watch the video for Annabel. Both are bewitching, haunting, beautiful... I can't wait to see the rest.

saturday supper supplies

We had ten or so friends over for a late summer dinner on Saturday evening. To prepare, we woke early and headed over to Spa Terminus in Bermondsey (which I've written about before, here). After the very best croissants and coffee from The Little Bread Pedlar and Coleman Coffee Roasters, we headed over to Fern Verrow and picked up supper supplies. Fern Verrow is a sixteen acre biodynamic farm in the foothills of the Black Mountains ran by Jane Scotter* and her husband, producing seasonal vegetables, fruit, flowers, herbs and meat. Every Friday Jane handpicks the very best that she has, packs it in her van and drives through the early dawn to Spa Terminus, where she sells it to hoards of loyal customers. We bought peaches, tomatoes and shallots and made a salad, which we served with the most incredible Parma ham and mozzarella from The Ham & Cheese Co., which sits under a railway arch next door to Fern Verrow.

*We took photographs of Jane, along with her colleague Katherine May, for the Toast autumn winter 2013 Nourishment project. The project involved us scouting out and photographing twelve people, men and women, all of whom in their various ways work with food and all of whom are passionate about what they do. Discover more here.

death in venice

We listened to music from the 1971 adaption of Death in Venice on Emily's lovely old record player one evening last week, whilst cooking supper for friends. Shockingly, I'm still yet to see the film, and I keep dipping in and out of Thomas Mann's original novella. I must set this to rights very soon. I'm also a little irritated that I missed out on the ENO's production of Benjamin Britten's opera, which was staged at the Coliseum earlier this summer... It looked wonderful... Alas!

from the vaults: the glens of antrim, 2010

Three years ago this September, we visited a friend's aunt at her home in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. We spent three or four rainy days walking through fields, eating figs, leeks and sweet beetroot from the garden and foraging in forests for berries and mushrooms. In the evenings we played board games by the fireside, roasted potatoes and drank pints of dark, velvety Guinness - I mean, when in Rome...

palm tree cushion

I'm making new things at the moment, with a focus on fabrics and objects for the home. I'm starting with cushions... To make this one, I had some soft pink Swedish linen embroidered with a palm tree (developed from the original sketch of mine below), which I then turned into a cushion cover. Pink and green: my ultimate colour combination - raspberries and pistachios; broad beans and candyfloss (ok maybe not so much). I plan to experiment with different motifs and colour combinations, so please do watch this space...