Hello friends!
What do you think of the new look around here? We hope you like the design changes we rolled out yesterday. Our intent was to make the site easier to browse, to increase the size of photos, to have it be more responsive to the screen size of your mobile devices, and to give easy access to all our past tutorials and sew alongs. And we figured that we might as well throw in all the most recent photos from the Oliver + S Flickr and Instagram feeds. That way you can see everything that’s new all in one place. If you receive our blog posts by email, come over to the website to see what we’ve done. (And if you’re reading this on the web, you can sign up to have new blog posts emailed to you on this page.)
I’ve missed you over the past couple of weeks, and I hope your summer (or winter if you are Down Under) is going well. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet, but we are going to slow down posting here during July and August. Rachel is going to be spending more time with her kids during their summer break, and they are all going to take a well-deserved family vacation. And I have some things lined up that I’ll tell you more about next week. We’ll have something new and inspirational here for you a couple of times a week for the next two months. But don’t worry; we’ll be back with daily posts again in September.
I’ve been missing S since she went off the States with her grandparents last week, but she’s having such a good time with my parents and her cousin that she’s been too busy to be homesick. Which is good, because I’ve been keeping busy too!
My sister and I just returned from our trip to Morocco. As Todd mentioned in his post last week, it’s been a long-time dream of mine to visit. The trip was everything I hoped it would be! More actually. I really enjoyed exploring the city of Marrakech, but it was a bit of a surprise to me how much I enjoyed meeting the people as well. Despite cultural differences (this was my first trip to the African continent and my first visit to an Islamic country, which happened to coincide with Ramadan), we shared jokes and had a lot of fun getting to know the people we met. We had a few real adventures (a couple of would-be tour guides we had to fend off vigorously, which apparently is a common occurrence; a crazy-fun tuk-tuk ride directly through the souks; and an introduction to the man who feeds the fires for the local public hammam 24 hours a day, for about three weeks at a time, living and sleeping in a pit in the ground), and in general just really enjoyed the trip as well as spending time together. I’m so eager to go back, especially now that I understand the culture and feel a bit more comfortable with it.
So instead of Pinterest picks this week, I thought I’d share some photos from our trip. I found it to be incredibly inspirational, and the colors and patterns everywhere were simply astounding.
Weekend Reading
- The fascinating story of the polo shirt.
- We don’t have a TV, so you can imagine my surprise when I stumbled across this interview with someone I knew only as a member of my church a few years ago. I had no idea he was famous!
- Do fashion trends still exist?
- Who would have guessed that choosing to wear just the right shade of green could result in such hilarity! (I have a feeling the Queen was just as amused at this as you and I.)
- On a more serious note, if you or someone you know if grieving, this article will be helpful. (And if you’re not, it’s even more important so you’re prepared when you’re faced with the loss of someone you love.)
- If you’re traveling this summer (or anytime in the future), you might find this website really helpful. How safe is the drinking water?
- If you’re in need of a baby gift this summer, Rita’s baby tie tutorial would be so sweet for a little boy.
- Bill Cunningham. What a wonderful, genuine man. I’ll miss his eye and voice. Isn’t it great that he got to do what he loved right up until the end? (If you haven’t seen it yet, the documentary about him is just lovely.)
- Another wonderful profile and article about the lovely Natalie Chanin.
- The secret of taste and why we like what we like (and how our tastes change over time).
We’ll be back next week with another entry in Rachel’s Drawstring Bag series using the pattern from my Little Things to Sew book.
It looks simply like a wonderful time!! Thank you for sharing photos of your trip and I hope the rest of your summer goes just as wonderful.