I have a new obsession, felt. To be honest, it has been going on for a while. My sewing machine skills are not very developed and I have resorted to making pillows with the felt I have been hoarding. This design was developed around antique/retro buttons that I had purchased at my local craft store, Sew Crafty .

The pillow below is one I made for my cousin Katie, so it is known as the 'Katie' pillow.

"Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together" -Marilyn Monroe

I think it is time for me to try to pick this blogging thing up again. My Internet favorites tab is getting extremely full with inspiration that I have been hoarding over the past few months.

Louis Kahn is probably one of my favorite American Architects. His story is very compelling and I appreciate the simplicity to his exteriors as well as his attention to detail in the selection of finishes on the interior. I have only experienced two of his masterpieces so far. The Kimball Art Museum in Dallas, and the Yale Library in Connecticut. Both of them left a strong impression on me, they are among the few buildings that I have walked into and in some weird way felt a strong connection to. On my list is the Salk Institute in La Jolla California and The National Assembly Building in Bangladesh. Watching the video below continually inspires me and feeds my desire to travel to India to see this (and while I am there, the Taj Mahal) one day.

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

More videos here

Other happenings: college football has started, I have once again become a Starbucks customer (Pumpkin spiced lattes are in season), I am extremely excited about my course at Rice beginning in a month, and I am more than ready for the fall season and weather.

"people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness." Breakfast at Tiffany's

I have this list of things I am trying to do to meet guys around the wonderful city of Houston. The list of things are more like thoughts to entertain my mind, but it does give me some sort of purpose to mundane tasks. I also absolutely love the idea of the potential to surprise myself. One of the ways I am trying to meet guys is at the grocery store. As you can guess, this idea has not been very successful. I am struggling with my boldness and I have had a number of critical people scoff at the idea. Lucky for me one of my best friends/co-worker has made it her duty to feed my hopeful romantic ideas and sent me this article. It is good to know that chance encounters, like finding your match in the grocery store, really does happen. So if you see a lonely girl waiting patiently at the door with an umbrella waiting for that hopeless man to come along, watch out, it just might be me.

"If love is just a game, then how come it's no fun? If love is just a game, how come I've never won?" -'3 Atoms and a Molecule'/Noah and the Whale

Why do such beautiful moments like this give me chills?

(video from lablogotheque)

A clip on one of my favorite groups, Noah and the Whale. It combines two of my favorite things-music and public transportation. My favorite part of this video is on the subway when camera pans to the scenery outside as well as the girl totally rocking out in the corner.

(lablogotheque)

(visit here for another wonderful video)

"If it was easy anybody could do it.If it was easy, I'd be coaching the Swedish bikini team and I'd have them coming out here to do all this."-M.Leach

Making a gingerbread house with cousin Meagan.
Products of the 1st Annual BYOP Carving Fiesta.
Some of the carvers.
Hard at work.

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." -T.S.Elliot

It has been a while.

Life...ahem...work has been a little time consuming lately, leaving me a little frazzled and brain dead by the end of the day. I have not had much time to post things I have come across, much less even read up on what is happening in the design world. I feel so out of touch. Luckily things should slow down after two weeks.

To add to the craziness, I signed up for a continuing education class at Rice. I am totally loving it, especially the professor that teaches it. The class is a basic review on grammar and sentence structure. Grammar is an area that I have struggled in my entire life. If I ever want to chase my aspirations of grad school in the future, I know it is something I need to improve. I do not know how much I am retaining but I find it fascinating diagramming out the sentences and identifying the subject, verb, direct object, conjunctions, indirect objects, etc, etc, etc. I think my favorite thing to identify are the (prepositional phrases). I have come to realize that there really is an art to constructing sentences. Writing sentences is like designing. It is up to your own desires to create the pattern, emphasis, and concept and depending on your method it can turn out convoluted and disastrous or cohesive and functional.

Until I come across new inspiration...and free time...here is an image that I am absolutely in love with. It is clever. I like to think that it was not planned, just a happy coincidence that someone with a creative eye happened to capture.

(sorry I cannot remember where I came across this picture)

I want, I want, I want!

Aren't these divine? They are like a classic sports cars for your kitchen. So sleek, so beautiful, so sexy!




More appliances to lust over here.