Book Beauty

Two books to look at this morning: The first, "Principles of Pattern", I picked up from the Guild Textile Bazaar some time ago. The second, "Plants and Their Application to Ornament" was an unexpected find in a little boutique in Rathdowne St before a coffee with my friend M recently. I'm hoping that the two together will help me to bridge the gap between my fascination with botanical art and my desire to decorate fabric . . . or at least to take some more small steps in that direction.

In other news, my eye is settling nicely with regular antibiotic drops. If you want a laugh, you can try to imagine a middle-aged, short-sighted woman leaning back in front of the mirror trying to land a drop of fluid into a blinking target a couple of centimetres across!

More is More

I had a precious half hour at a Coffee Shop with a friend yesterday. We'd had a particularly uncomfortable run-in with the automated self-service--there's an oxymoron!--checkout machine and I needed some emotional sustenance. So a triple choc muffin with an Easter egg on top was irresistible.

This pic isn't just a confession, nor an excuse to tantalise my readers:
It illustrates a few of my favourite design principles:

• contrasts: dark and light, neutrals and brights
  
• complementary colours (or nearly)--my favourite, blue, set off with a touch of yellow
• off-centre--I like it better than symmetrical
• and more is more--one of my favourite cook books calls it "flavour layering". So, if choc is good, double choc is better and triple choc is better again. That makes triple choc with a chocolate egg on top just great!