As we all know, rain can be gentle and nourishing, or nasty and mean, as New Yorkers with a shut-down subway system experienced today. Hanna of Bitter Sweet used this theme to knit up a couple of fabulously expressive Rainyclouds!
Her “bad” rain:
And her “good” rain:
I am so impressed by these!
Hannah is quite the designer herself— check out her great (and free!) knit and crochet patterns. They’re mostly food-related, and totally adorable.
Any idea what’s living under your fingernails?
This is the first “human” bit that I’ve ever knitted, and I think it came out fairly well. At least well enough to be mildly revolting.
What’s lurking below the nail will be revealed a little later.
DOMA is an Argentenian art collective after my own heart. Their toy series Acid Sweeties, released earlier this year through Kidrobot, is exactly what I would make if I made plastic collectable toys.
Here are some of my gotta-have-em’s from the series:
Sicky Barrel
Elegido
Mr Earth
Frog Guy
The toys are $7.95 for a blind box (you don’t know which you’re getting), so I recommend buying at least two at a time to avoid disappointment. (There’s always one or two in any series that you don’t really want.) But this is an overwhelmingly great collection—I almost wish it didn’t exist so that I could come up with all of them myself. Oh well.
If you happen to be in the Berlin area, check out DOMA’s work at Planet Prozess, which runs though August 19.
Lately, I’m finding economics endlessly fascinating. No, really.
Maybe it’s because I never took a course on it in college, and so never had to memorize index funds and complicated formulas, but “The Financial Page” is quickly becoming one of my favorite sections in the New Yorker magazine. (Here’s a puzzle for them: why do they publish every week when they know that everyone has at least two unread New Yorkers sitting in a pile somewhere at any given time?)
On Slate, I head straight for Tim Harford’s pieces on finding economics in action outside of Wall Street, in which he calls himself “The Undercover Economist.” So I was excited to find that he’s recently written a book with the same title, made just for mathematically-disinterested econ amateurs like me!
I just finished reading it, and I must recommend it to pretty much anyone, except maybe for econ people who already know what they’re talking about when they discuss free trade or why coffee at Starbucks costs so much while coffee growers are paid so little. Harford even almost makes a convincing case of letting economists run the world—maybe this wouldn’t be such a bad idea if people were inherently rational beings.
In any case, Harford is great at explaining the economics behind everyday human interactions, as well as basic questions about the world: why are some poor countries getting much richer than others, why is traffic so terrible in some cities, and why do I buy the most expensive drink on the menu at Starbucks? (He spends a lot of time on Starbucks, and I spend a lot of time in Starbucks.)
So kudos to Tim Harford. Thanks to him, pop economics is quickly becoming the new pop science!
I mentioned the husband-and-wife art team APAK recently in conjunction with the Summer Santuary show at gallery hanahou. Looking around their website a couple of weeks ago, I found this unbelievably adorable piece by them that I’ve been meaning to share for a while:
They made it for a bird-themed show last month to benefit the Portland Audubon Society. How tweet—I mean sweet!
If you’re not in the market for pricey one-off birdhouses, then I recommend checking out APAK’s Etsy shop, where they sell the most irresistible prints and cards. Like this one for $4:
Too cute!
I have been blown away by the amazingly inventive twists and interpretations that knitters have given to Mochimochi Land patterns. Here are a few that I’ve noticed (and loved!) recently:
A rarely seen one-horned Hrumph cleverly made by wordgirrl.
An awesomely textured Bob made by FillyjonkKnitter.
This special black police gun was made by ax174 as a (modified) test of Luvgun. (This much-anticipated pattern is coming soon to the shop!)
babard04 made this husband-and-wife couple “interpreted” as Grass for a most unique wedding gift!!
If you have any toys made from Mochimochi Land patterns that you’d like to share with the world, please put them on the Mochimochi Friends group on Flickr!
Watch out for the Ninja Bunny! He’s very sneaky and covert. In fact, he’s got a very sneaky and covert operation planned for this week. If we’re very quiet, we may be able to catch him in action soon….
Update 8/3/07: I’ve decided to keep Ninja Bunny’s covert activities under wraps for a little while. But he’ll definitley reappear soon as a pattern in the shop!
This is Puffy. Puffy spends all his time tainting rivers and causing asthma, but he hopes you won’t hold it against him. He comes in a variety of colors and smells, so collect them all!