We´re moving!!!!
Come with me to my new domain!
Elizabeth Taylor
The most beautiful woman in the world (to quote Charlotte from SATC, and I agree!) died this morning. Ever since I was little I´ve been completely in love with the beauty and glamour of old Hollywood and Elizabeth Taylor was along side of Marilyn, Clark Gable and Humprey Bogart, one of my favorite movie stars. I loved her and Richard Burton together and I was genuinley sad when I learned that they had been divorced...twice.
Luscious Venom
Ok so I just finished my knitwear garment (with the exception of needing to cut some threads that I just noticed on the photos. :) ) The collection is called Luscious Venom and the theme is euphoric love vs the broken heart. I wanted to try to achieve sort of a punky 80´s feel with the garment.
Safari Jacket
This is my safari jacket that I made for Patternmaking for menswear. It looks a little bit funny on the picture since it´s a mens jacket but put on my woman mannequin. Anyway I´m happy with it. :)
And this is what I´m working on today. A punky dress for my knitwear project, with a big tulle skirt (still to be added) and a separate polo collar. Will post more photos when it´s finished.
This weeks...
Mood: Stressed but creative = happy! (with a slight hint of PMS, oh who am I kidding, it´s a big effing hint of it, but anyway...still happy in between the moodswings)
Litterature: Fetish and the art of the Teese, by Dita von Teese, researh for new collection.
Movie: Pirates of the caribbean trilogy has kept me company during the nights when I ´ve been chained to my sewing machine.
Man: Johnny Depp, seriously is there any character that man can not make sexy?? Pirates, Mad Hatters, even a transgender chocolate factory owner has his appeal.
Color: Red and black.
Material: Kntwear and latex.
Hours of sleep: N/A
Slip: That choolate bar on sunday night to keep me happy while sewing all night.
Cultural experience: Trying to fit in a visit to the Future Textile exhibition at the Maritime museum.
Symptoms of broken heart
I´m working on a knitwear collection and my theme is love. Therefor I have spent the afternoon researching the phenomenon that is this mysterious feeling. To me the word love has lost all meaning, I am not a believer. However I do appreciate the idea of love, it´s a beautiful utopia. Perfect in theory, non-existant in reality. (Call me bitter if you will, that is my theory and I´m sticking to it.)
I´ve been reading famous love letters by great writers, (Wow, that Keats must have gotten laid ALOT!) and I must admit I´ve gotten a bit swept away in a romantic haze this afternoon. How can you not be by words like:
I cannot exist without you - I am forgetful of every thing but seeing you again - my life seems to stop there - I see no further. You have absorbed me.
I have a sensation at the present moment as though I were dissolving ...I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for religion - I have shuddered at it - I shudder no more - I could be
martyred for my religion - love is my religion - I could die for that - I could die for you. My creed is love and you are its only tenet - you have ravished me away by a power I cannot resist.
martyred for my religion - love is my religion - I could die for that - I could die for you. My creed is love and you are its only tenet - you have ravished me away by a power I cannot resist.
-John Keats
I´m telling you, A LOT!
Of course you cannot do research on love without studying the broken heart. When I googled broken heart I actually found the following list on wikipedia:
Symptoms of a broken heart:
▪ A perceived tightness of the chest, similar to an anxiety attack
▪ Stomachache and/or loss of appetite
▪ Partial or complete insomnia
▪ Anger
▪ Shock
▪ Apathy (loss of interest)
▪ Anhedonia (inability to feel pleasure)
▪ Feelings of loneliness
▪ Feelings of hopelessness and despair
▪ Loss of self-respect and/or self-esteem
▪ Medical or psychological illness (for example depression)
▪ Suicidal thoughts (in extreme cases)
▪ Nausea
▪ Fatigue
▪ The thousand-yard stare
▪ Constant or frequent crying
▪ A feeling of complete emptiness
▪ In extreme cases, death
Nochevieja
Kvällen spenderades först hemma hos min kära vän Kam med vin och samkväm.
I started the evening at my dear Kams place with wine and good company.
We had some difficulties opening the champagne bottle...
Come oooonnnn.....
Kam gave it a try.
Maybe if we use a napkin...?
Where´s that wine opener??
Yay! Success!!
After midnight I headed off to work and Kam went to a party. Not really sure how the following happened, but one minute I was walking down the stairs at Kam´s house and the next I was sitting on the floor and my foot was hurting like f---. Hm, it may have been slippery shoes, it may have been the cava, it may have been some sort of combo, either way I spent the rest of the night limping around in the bar, although the pain went away for a while after a few shots and a mojito, unfortunately it was only temporary. At around 10 o´clock in the morning we were finally closed up and I could limp home.
Ouch... :(
Today I´ve spent most of the day resting my poor foot before I`m heading off to work again tonight. I´ve also practised saying I fell down the stairs in spanish in case the customers are wondering about my limping.
Hope you all had a nice new years eve with lots of cava and hopefully no injuries.
Happy new year everyone!
New years eve, the day of hope and resolutions. I never actually make resolutions, because I don´t believe in them. If you really want to make a change in your life, then you just make it, you don´t need a schedule telling you when to do it. Anyway, this year I thought I´d make an exception, however, this is something I would have decided on anyway, the timing is just coincidental, but I will call it a new years resolution because of that. I promise to be nicer to myself, treat myself with the same respect I treat others. I will learn to say no and not agree to go on dates with guys I´m not really interested in. ;) Yes I do that. I have a hard time saying no to people, because I don´t want to offend anyone. This is how I usually end up with a crazy stalker and have to change my phone number.
Anyway hope you all have a lovely ending of 2010. I will spend the evening having drinks and snacks with friends, toast the new year with some cava and then head of to work at 00.30 and serve drinks until 9 o´clock in the morning. Let´s hope I survive until the new year...
New design books!
Yay! It´s like christmas all over again when mr Correos guy comes ringing the door bell holding a big heavy package filled with fashion books just for me!
Utvecklingen går framåt!
”Så blir åldersdiabetiker friska utan medicinering”
Debattartikel i DN om LCHF och diabetes typ 2. Utvecklingen går framåt som tur är!
Ett snabbt referat:
Det är sant att typ 2-diabetes har blivit ett av de största problemen inom sjukvården. I Sverige finns det minst 300.000 diabetiker och ännu fler i dess för stadium, det metabola syndromet. Inte nog med att livet förkortas; de sista åren i livet förpestas av infektioner, kallbrand, andra kärlsjukdomar, blindhet eller dialyskrävande njursvikt. Att den feta maten är boven är emellertid ett av de allvarligaste misstagen inom modern medicin.
Vid typ 2, den allra vanligaste, stiger blodsockret därför att insulinet inte fungerar optimalt. Att kalla sjukdomen för åldersdiabetes är emellertid vilseledande; i dag drabbar denna diabetestyp även unga.
Att det också är kolhydraterna och inte fettet som är boven vid typ 2-diabetes är solklart. Redan 1963 rapporterade läkaren George Campbell att en tredjedel av de indier som emigrerat till Sydafrika för att arbeta inom sockerindustrin fick typ 2-diabetes, medan frekvensen i hemlandet endast var 1 procent. Kolhydraterna är dock inte själva orsaken; annars borde de flesta av oss drabbas. Sannolikt finns det en ärftlig faktor. Men att sjukdomen ger sig till känna när maten innehåller för mycket socker och kolhydrater är gammal kunskap.
Varningarna mot det mättade fettet tog fart på 80-talet när kolesterolkampanjen startade. Amerikanska experter beslöt då att även diabetespatienter borde undvika det och föreslog därför en kost där kolhydraterna skulle täcka det mesta av kaloribehovet. Sedan dess har kolhydratkonsumtionen ökad kraftigt, medan konsumtionen av det mättade fettet har avtagit. Det är just under denna period vi sett den explosionsartade ökningen av övervikt och typ 2-diabetes!
Huvudinvändningen mot LCHF-kosten är att det saknas långtidsstudier. Det är emellertid föga sannolikt att en diet som redan efter några veckor kan normalisera blodsockret och blodets insulinhalt, sänka blodtrycket, öka insulinkänsligheten och minska kroppsvikten utan negativa effekter på blodets kolesterol, inte skulle vara gynnsam på längre sikt.
Det bör också nämnas att det inte finns något kostexperiment som visat att de nuvarande kostråden gör nytta, vare sig på kort eller långt sikt. Råden bygger på spekulationer; ingen har testat om de fungerar.
En korrektion: Det har publicerats två korta, positiva studier finansierade av sockerindustrin, men ingen har kunnat bekräfta deras resultat.
Läs hela artikeln genom att klicka på länken ovan!God Jul!
In Sweden we celebrate christmas on Christmas eve instead of Christmas Day like the rest of the world. This is on TV every christmas eve at 3 pm and i just wouldn´t be christmas without it. So God Jul and glöm inte Kalle Anka!
Design project
One of our many design projects for the moment is to create a structure and then moulage a garment on top of the structure. The pieces should be able to be worn separately and together.
Mine is a bridal gown inspired by winter, ice and snow, using wire, blue LED-lights and white tulle and cotton organza.
Art in the making, looks a bit strange but it will be fabulous when its finished though. :)
Why carbs are the devil incarnated
There was a very good article in the LA-times last week about carbohydrates and the way they´ve affected our lifestyle for the past 30 years. Since I´m very passionate about health and eating right (well it used to be my job for three years, telling people what to eat and how to be healthy. Ah, telling people what to do, those were the days...) it becomes a natural part of my blog to keep trying to spread the word. Here´s a somewhat shorter version of the article that I hope many people will read and take to their hearts:
Carb consumption has risen over the years. So have U.S. obesity levels.
Most people can count calories. Many have a clue about where fat lurks in their diets. However, fewer give carbohydrates much thought, or know why they should. But a growing number of top nutritional scientists blame excessive carbohydrates — not fat — for America's ills. They say cutting carbohydrates is the key to reversing obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and hypertension.
"Fat is not the problem," says Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. "If Americans could eliminate sugary beverages, potatoes, white bread, pasta, white rice and sugary snacks, we would wipe out almost all the problems we have with weight and diabetes and other metabolic diseases."
It's a confusing message. For years we've been fed the line that eating fat would make us fat and lead to chronic illnesses. "Dietary fat used to be public enemy No. 1," says Dr. Edward Saltzman, associate professor of nutrition and medicine at Tufts University. "Now a growing and convincing body of science is pointing the finger at carbs, especially those containing refined flour and sugar."
All carbohydrates (a category including sugars) convert to sugar in the blood, and the more refined the carbs are, the quicker the conversion goes. When you eat a glazed doughnut or a serving of mashed potatoes, it turns into blood sugar very quickly. To manage the blood sugar, the pancreas produces insulin, which moves sugar into cells, where it's stored as fuel in the form of glycogen.
f you have a perfectly healthy metabolism, the system works beautifully, says Dr. Stephen Phinney, a nutritional biochemist and an emeritus professor of UC Davis who has studied carbohydrates for 30 years. "However, over time, as our bodies get tired of processing high loads of carbs, which evolution didn't prepare us for … how the body responds to insulin can change," he says.
When cells become more resistant to those insulin instructions, the pancreas needs to make more insulin to push the same amount of glucose into cells. As people become insulin resistant, carbs become a bigger challenge for the body. When the pancreas gets exhausted and can't produce enough insulin to keep up with the glucose in the blood, diabetes develops.
Here's how Phinney explains it: When you cut carbs, your body first uses available glycogen as fuel. When that's gone, the body turns to fat and the pancreas gets a break. Blood sugar stabilizes, insulin levels drop, fat burns. That's why the diet works for diabetics and for weight loss.
When the body switches to burning fat instead of glycogen, it goes into a process called nutritional ketosis. If a person eats 50 or fewer grams of carbs, his body will go there, Phinney says. (Nutritional ketosis isn't to be confused with ketoacidosis, a dangerous condition that can occur in diabetics.)
Beyond the fat-burning effects of ketosis, people lose weight on low-carb diets because fat and protein increase satisfaction and reduce appetite. On the flip side, simple carbs cause an insulin surge, which triggers a blood sugar drop, which makes you hungry again.
"At my obesity clinic, my default diet for treating obesity, Type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome is a low-carb diet," says Dr. Eric Westman, director of the Lifestyle Medicine Clinic atDuke University Medical Center, and co-author of the new Atkins book. "If you take carbohydrates away, all these things get better."
As nutrition scientists try to find the ideal for the future, others look to history and evolution for answers. One way to put our diet in perspective is to imagine the face of a clock with 24 hours on it. Each hour represents 100,000 years that humans have been on the Earth.
On this clock, the advent of agriculture and refined grains would have appeared at about 11:54 p.m. (23 hours and 54 minutes into the day). Before that, humans were hunters and gatherers, eating animals and plants off the land. Agriculture allowed for the mass production of crops such as wheat and corn, and refineries transformed whole grains into refined flour and created processed sugar.
Some, like Phinney, would argue that we haven't evolved to adapt to a diet of refined foods and mass agriculture — and that maybe we shouldn't try.
Must have!! Muuuust haaaave!!!!
Spricket24
So funny, I´m addicted to her youtube videos at the moment!
