favorite find: week of 2/16

It was Valentine’s Day last Friday, and we are certainly not the romantic types.  If there was a type we had to assign ourselves to, I’d say J.R. and I are more the sarcastic type.  I reserve most of my fawning-over for kittens, little babies with curly hair and messy mouths and (last, but not least) things I find in my favorite color combinations.

Red, white and blue are one of these – patriotism aside (so many flags to adore in these colors!) I just really, really love the way they work together.  So short of painting our living room like Ol’ Glory it’s nice to know that I can just throw in some accent pieces like this amazing, 1950s-era roller skate box that I found at the Pride’s Corner flea market!  It’s listed in our Etsy shop, so you can experience the thrill of the find, too!

little needles

How completely and utterly satisfying is that?  Finishing a sock in one knitting-sitting.  Sock #2 is on its way tonight, and because I didn’t have size 1 dpns (what?!  how can you even see that small??) these 0-3 months sized booties are more like a 9-12 months, which is fine, because that little incubating biscuit will be able to wear them next winter.

Loving the yarn, too, a sock blend with colors that switch the perfect amount for nice, thick stripes on infant/child-sized socks.

You want to make little booties, too?  Judy Kaethler’s “Cozy Little Toes” is free on Ravelry.

orange you glad

vintage teacup from little eye on etsy

It’s February, which means the only thing sustaining any of us until the first 50 degree evening brings us a downpour to wash all the road salt away is pretty much junk food, our favorite tv shows streaming, and bright pops of color almost constantly.

Even though the fresh, white snow is beautiful (and will continue to get taller and taller and still beautiful after the coming three-day Nor’Easter we’re supposed to get, it’s still white.  So white.  So endlessly white.

I’ve been knitting with bright colors on my needles (most recently:  turquoise and orange) and listing brightly colored objects in the Etsy shop to keep my eyes open.  They’ve put me in charge of revamping the kitchen at work at possibly the most daring time of year for me, colorwise.  I think I’m using Stefanie Hiebert’s retro living room as my color inspiration.  Lunch break won’t know what hit it!

ladies size 7.5 tan/navy gumshoe from little eye on etsy

snowy day, bright prints

Good lord, it’s happening again:  6-10 inches of the white stuff started falling this morning just before I left for work.  It’s an excuse to break out the bison boots again, and actually nice to cover up the muddy patches since there’s two more months, minimum, of winter in the north east.  Better to look at a soft blanket of snow than the alternative.  The picture above is from this afternoon’s sweep-off of the car after leaving work a wee bit early to beat the rest of the storm.  Oh yeah!  If you’d like to follow me on Instagram, my name is littleeyedesigns.

Guess what, I couldn’t help myself when I drove by the deserted parking lot at the thrift store.  I found some gauzy, cotton dresses in pretty prints that are just begging for an early Spring.  Me too, pretty dresses, me too!  These will end up in the shop or on Ebay sometime in the next week, so definitely check back!

duck, duck, goose

There is nothing I love finding more on our thrifting outings than Bean boots.  Growing up in Maine, a pair of weathered duck boots (that is, the rubber moc, the low style) is a badge of honor.

Of course most of the time I don’t find them in my oh-so-ubiquitous size (7.5, message me if you find some!) so they get photographed and put in the shop.  The great thing about them is that they get better with age.  Leather with a patina, rubber soles with character and a color that can’t quite be matched by any factory.

These never stay long in the shop, but do check back frequently as I seem to have quite some luck finding pretty much any size (other than 7.5!) in my travels.

shake shake shake

anthropomorphic oranges, what else?

New energy in the shop!  We rifled through the collection to find some bright sunshine for these dull, gray days.  Found a theme just waiting in the stacks of items waiting (patiently, ahem) of salt + pepper shakers, and we’ve listed three in the Little Eye Etsy shop!  Click on the images to take yourself whizzing across the internet to the listings.

love bugs by Ruth van Tellingen Bendel

It’s hard to pick a favorite, but I think these little love bugs are mine.  They were designed by Ruth van Tellingen Bendel in the 1950s for the Regal China Company out of Illinois.  Ruth cut her teeth as a children’s book writer, but her visual language translated very nicely to seasoning delivery vessels.  Aww, here’s their cute little behinds:

You can see the little holes in their head for salt and pepper to come out of!

picnic in style

These are also from the 1950s, hand painted strawberry blossom shakers, oversized, excellent for a retro picnic or camping excursion.  The paint is in awesome condition, but there is just a little wear on the very tops of the plastic lids, presumably because this is the only part you should wash (or wash insides of globes very careful not to get the outside wet).

Just a little snippet!  We spent some more time in the studio snapping pictures of goodies that will be in the shop soon.