rose hip : from Russia with love...

With Halloween and its associated tummy aches finally behind us (too much bad chocolate...), I'm itching to get going on a new project. Despite knowing that I only have a billion other things that I should be working on at the moment, I started cutting fabric today for a new quilted blanket. My inspiration...the fabric from here and a little special something a good friend of mine brought me from Europe this summer: this year's Catimini winter catalogue. Now, for those of you who may not know, Catimini is a French company which produces very stunning high-end children clothing, accessories and bedding - I took a few photos of the catalogue to give you an idea of their look-

As I think you can tell from these photos, this catalogue is absolutely gorgeous! The composition, colors, graphics, patterns and, of course, the children in their many often whimsical poses are remarkable...(I wish I could show you the entire catalogue in this post!) As you can probably also notice, there is a very strong, nostalgic Russian influence in the design of the clothes, backgrounds, fonts, etc... and, well...I love it! Perhaps it appeals to me because of my slavic origins - I am of Polish descent from both my father and my mother's side - and it stirs up childhood memories of being dressed in Polish folkloric costumes which share this same romantic bohemian look (we were dressed in this way for special occasions)...I don't know, whatever it is, it's the inspiration behind my choice of fabrics for this patchwork blanket - you can see some of these fabrics in the foreground of the photos ...doesn't it all hang well together?! The wonderful richly-colored floral is actually from a woollen shawl - I have been collecting these shawls for a while and I've been dying to use them in a project!

Now, in the middle of all this Russian train of thought, I turned on the TV last night and, of all things, I happened on a wonderful, lavishly-set PBS historical docudrama of Katherine the Great, Empress of Russia! While this miniseries is worth watching solely on the strenght of the story of this remarkable woman, the fabulous locations and costumes make it even more enjoyable. A lot of it seems to have been shot on location in Russia in the dead of winter...swoon...So, if you can imagine - snow falling on beautiful palaces with golden roofs and facades painted in vivid colors such as turquoise, green and red...which, all brings me to realize that the Russian look is definitely more of a winter one...and hence, my quilted winter blanket....I hope to sew the top up tomorrow and show you some photos...