Destination: Berwick Street, London. The Warp and Weft of Dreams.

O.K. all you textile junkies.

This post is for you.

Printed silks?

Kantha cloth.

The unusual and the handmade.

Ikats and block prints?

My next destination for dress and scarf shopping.

New and vintage trim.

Traditional, ethnic and modern.

All the details covered?

The rough with the smooth?

Tartans and Missoni-esque chevrons?

A place of your dreams?

REAL WOOL FELT!!!!!!!

REAL SILK!!!!  REMEMBER SILK?

Kilim offcuts!  Can you stand it?  Are you spoilt for choice?  Has someone been thinking of you and wanting to make you very very happy?  Yes.  Someone has.  (Ahhhh.....London!)

Variously: Misan Fabrics, Broadwick Silks, The Cloth House

At Liberty. For the Weekend.

The always ORIGINAL.  And the Best.  LIBERTY'S.

I'm sorry to say it.  And it's already been happening for a long time.

At Harrods.  But in the grab for more and more profits, certain shops in London are beginning to resemble shopping in the souk.  Now don't get me wrong.  I adore a good souk.  (Not that I've actually had the privilege to go to a real one.) But In My Humble Opinion, it's happening at the Conran shop too under Jasper Conran's new direction.  All those awful dark glassed pillars filled with bitty overpriced rubbish you can get everywhere else.  (Not what I've ever gone to the Conran Shop for.)  Such shops are getting so crowded you're always bumping into things and in terror that you'll have to pay for whatever you've tipped over.  

THANK GOODNESS.  This has never been the case at Liberty.  And if you are bumping into things and your breath is taken away, it is only in DELIGHT.  It's a souk in the proper sense, because it's colorful and rich, and patterned and alive.  And doesn't take itself too seriously but takes YOU, and your enjoyment, seriously.

It will always be the meeting place I dearly hope, for the brightly plumaged, birds of a feather, to alight.  Doesn't it remind you of a giant aviary for fascinating flitting?

It does me.  These pics from my September visit.  Ooooohhhh!  Christmas is coming to Liberty.  Just imagine!

Hope it was a good Turkey Day!  Hope it's a good weekend!

Thankfulness, National Geographic, The Guardian

Happy Thanksgiving to all you Americans!

 (All photos via The Guardian - the first five are from National Geographic Archives)

What are you eating?  What goodies have you made?

What are you thankful for this year?  And every year?

I made three pies yesterday and gave them to my contractors.  More baking yet to do.

 (Susie Stern, National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest via the Guardian)

It's still early in L.A.

What am I most THANKFUL for just at the moment?

  THE PAINTINGS HAVE ARRIVED IN FLORIDA!!!

Only one person of many many, that my hubby and I have spoken to in the past week at UPS seems to understand clearly exactly why and how they managed to be "Lost" and how miraculously, and so seemingly easily, they are "Found" again.  If someone last week could have explained this possibility and been more reassuring, my last week's nightmare might not have been.  I will only also say:  using social media (or as someone else put it, "public shaming" gets RESULTS!  That IS a shame, if you ask me.)

I am thankful too, for all of your kind and encouraging comments.  They really helped, when things were looking bleakest.

Et bien, ca comme ca.   Hope you have a lovely day wherever you are and that your life doesn't look too much like the last picture!!!!!!  (The sun is shining and it's 80 degrees in L.A.  I am very thankful for that too.)

They're Missing: Inaction (UPS)

UPS picked them up last Friday.

The only computer record that they are prepared to share with me

shows that my Tracking Number was scanned in the early a.m. of 11/20/14 by someone/something in the Hollywood depot.  The record doesn't show my name and address.  Or that of the person I was sending them too.  I spent three hours at the depot on that day trying to get the paintings back.  Once, IF, they ever leave L.A. who knows what will happen to them and if anyone will care?

UPS are telling me they "can't find" my paintings.  I have the clear impression from them that they don't believe that it is cost effective to make an effort to do so.  If I am lucky they will honor my claim for losses.  I'm not optimistic.

What would you do?   And what would you tell the people who were supposed to buy them?

..Dans le Vif

Recently.......

at home.

and in the hood.  Our sweet season has arrived.  We need rain.  But it's sweeter without.  Everything is breathing easier after our torrid summer and fall.

Me too.  Paintings have been sent out to their new owners.  I hope they like them.

London - Flaneries et Leche-Vitrines

Are you coming along with me?  Let's have a wander......

The Lamb, Lamb's Conduit Street "The New Bloomsbury"

History thanks to Bloomsbury

What doesn't change in Bloomsbury or Blighty, at all!

A cheeky blend of the erotic and the ersatz.

Urban apples.  So poetic.  And eternal.  Shakespeare must have known some.

Astier de Villatte at Liberty.  Also poetic and eternal, both, methinks.

Purrrfect.  Marks and Spencer.  Also eternal?  (And ersatz!)

To be tired of London is to be tired of life.  I'm not SO tired yet!  How was your weekend?

(These pics are from my September visit.)

Just Some Things

That I have loved this week.

(Annika Van Holdt via SFGirlbyBay)

Don't try this at home? I did something similar once and on a lovely spring day a giant gust of wind came through my open windows and knocked EVERYTHING onto the floor.  Shattering one or two valuables.  Has this ever happened to you?

(John Singer Sargent)

  What's not to like?  How gorgeous is that dress and the light on it?

(from Robert Frank's "The Americans" - H, for Hollywood!)


And Hello!  Have Good Weekend WHy Don't You?

Remember Janis?

Look

at

what lovely things

she's been doing

over on Instagram!

She looks like she's having fun too! (Love it.)

Grey is O.K. If It's Paris or Picasso

At the end of three weeks of running just as fast as I can

the last two of which have been a little bumpy "en plus".......

(Picasso and dog)

What better respite, solace, and consolation?

(Edith Piaf)

Than the greats and greys of Paris.

(Colette looking out her window at the Palais Royale?)

If you ask Mr. Paradis, outside of home improvement tasks

(Gargoyle, Notre Dame)

I've mostly been as good company as this character here.

Apparently I just need to sit a spell with my good buddies and let a nice glass of wine chase my worries away..........

 LOOKS GOOD TO ME!  (How's your weekend been?)

(Second pic above via The Guardian - one of the many Picasso pictures one of his grandsons, Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, has recently turned over to John Richardson, Picasso's friend and biographer.  All others, via Chamade, Vintage French Photos.)

Thanks to Elizabeth for reminding me I needed some captions.  I woke up Sunday a.m. thinking the same thing!  For more details go to Chamade above.