The next shop update will be Saturday, November 19th at 10am PST. A preview will be up on Friday, I’ll remind you here + in the newsletter.

The amazing dresses featured above are from the Ermie F/W ’11 look book shoot that went down on Monday. More photos coming soon, I was so excited to take part in this! Already decided that dress on the left must be mine.

Photography by Kate Miss
Model: Melanie Nakaue
Styling: Dodge/ Miss/ Nakaue
Textile Designs: © Jennifer Parry Dodge 2011

dyeing yarn | couscous soup | easy cookies | picnicking with Henry | gratuitous belly shot

Will wrapped up another five-day infusion cycle this weekend, and I have to admit that between that and everything on my plate, I feel as though I’m on the brink of burning out. I haven’t had a day off in weeks, and my to-do list goes nowhere – there are not enough hours in the day. When Jamie and her lovely family came through town and asked if I wanted to have a picnic with them, my first instinct was that I didn’t have enough time, but I realized how much I needed an hour or two of just sitting in the sun doing nothing more than having good conversation and watching a cute baby be fascinated by grass and plastic cups. I took a step back to make cookies and dye yarn and try to have a few moments that vaguely resembled a traditional “weekend”, ha. I decided that I won’t take on any new projects til the new year, just wrap things up on my plate now and focus on jewelry and taking care of Will, whose energy is up and down. I’m not the fantastic project juggler I used to be, it’s impossible when your mind is so full. And that’s perfectly ok. Saying no is totally ok.

I also have to take a moment to express some gratitude for the amazing friends and family who have sent us care packages lately and weekly emails to check in or just share a funny story or video (my dad could start his own tumblr of cat videos now). We are so ridiculously lucky to have people like you in our lives. You keep our spirits high. Just five weeks left, we can do this.

I was waiting til things had calmed down to sell these, so because I am A. very bad at math (like, whoa) and/or B. the fundraiser was so chaotic it’s not unbelievable that something like this would happen, I somehow have a lot of extra Pink Mountain Circle prints. I have no idea how I printed so many extra. That paper is like 100 million dollars a sheet and a set of ink is the same price as a new printer so clearly I’m really good at fundraisers. But hey, your gain as I knocked the fundraiser price down over in the Etsy shop. They would make an excellent holiday gift, if I do say so myself.

UPDATE: Sold out! I will not be stocking anymore. Thanks everyone.

I’m so fascinated with Lana Del Rey. Watching her sing makes me slightly uncomfortable (I can’t figure out what it is, it’s like a little girl trying to make a sexy face?), and reading interviews with her increases that unease (lots of questioning about who she is exactly and what role she plays in her music), but holy cow, that voice. I also really like these weird lo-fi videos of random clips. It’s totally possible that you’re very familiar with her and done seeing as these videos have millions of views, which makes me wonder why it took me so long to find out about her. Thanks, Micah.

A better look at new woven necklaces that will be for sale soon (Sometime next week? Still deciding on the exact date, I’ll say soon.) Vintage ceramic beads woven with cotton thread on a solid brass chain. I’ll take a photo of me wearing it for the shop update, but it’s about the same size as the brass drops necklace. They will be $50. (edit: my math was a little off on that price before, sorry.)

I’m going to be doing two shop updates before Christmas.

I recently made the decision to up my necklace making and take on less graphic design jobs. I don’t know how it will go or how long it will last as I get burnt out easily, but I’m going to give it a good try, at least for a couple months.

But the moment I got back in my car I knew I would never see him again, ever. It suddenly seemed obvious to me that the whole world, especially Los Angeles, was designed to protect me from these people I was meeting. There was no law against knowing them, but it wouldn’t happen. LA isn’t a walking city, or a subway city, so if someone isn’t in my house or my car we’ll never be together, not even for a moment. And just to be absolutely sure of that, when I leave my car my iPhone escorts me, letting everyone else in the post office know that I’m not really with them, I’m with my own people, who are so hilarious that I can’t help smiling to myself as I text them back.

Loving every bit of Miranda July’s new book, It Chooses You, which includes interviews she conducted with people she met through ads in the PennySaver while writing The Future. Being my absolute favorite movie in quite a while, I love getting a glimpse of her thought process of character and plot development. You can read some excerpts from the book in The New Yorker here.

bonus: cats all over the cover and overall, a really well designed book.

A well-balanced weekend of grueling work to finish a never-ending project and leaving both days for something fun. Lunch at Umami with some fellow LA bloggers with Warby Parker while they were in town launching their line at Confederacy (I’m not normally an event with strangers kind of girl, but WP is hands-down one of my favorite brands), and craft night with some old coworkers. I also drank way too much coffee, bought a much needed space heater (It dropped to 45 degrees and there’s no heat in this poorly insulated apartment!), and the day finally came to shave Will’s head. He’s been so healthy this past week I nearly forgot about the situation at hand. A life as normal kind of week.

It’s been a while, Friday Bits, but here’s a few things that caught my eye this week!

1. A drive through the Cotswolds at sunrise. I met Siubhan when I was in London and have been obsessed with her lovely blog ever since.
2. I’m super excited that Michael Pollan’s book, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual has been re-released as an illustrated guide by none other than my hero Maira Kahlman. It looks fantastic.
3. Ebony always keeps me in the loop on awesome washi tape stuff in Japan. This mt tape installation is no exception.
4. Speaking of awesome books, Brian W. Ferry (another awesome person I met in London, I had no idea this post had a theme today) just released his first photography book, Quality Of Life, which is no doubt amazing if it’s at all as inspiring as his blog is.

Have a great weekend, friends.

I’m always a sucker for awesome ladies with a pretty set of pipes.

(via Frolic!)

(thanks, Lauren!)

(via Chris)

As some of you guessed correctly from my wordless peek, I recently took a casting class. I signed up through LACC because it’s just a few short blocks from my apartment and I’ve always wanted to learn how to carve wax. But the class ended up being more focused on the casting process with little instruction on wax carving and at an artist’s studio in Echo Park (one of those amazing LA craftsman’s on the top of a hill that make you jealous to the bones). I really wanted to focus more on the wax carving since I will never have the means to cast things myself and I’m more of a designer than a fabricator, but it was really great to learn about the process and I came away from the class with two wonderful, imperfect brass beads I made. I was making them down to the wire due to the class being so tiny and sharing the tools and instructor’s help was a struggle, so I didn’t get to polish them, but I’m more of a non-shiny person anyway.

I would really love for these to eventually join my line to compliment my brass drops, but I want to re-carve them to be a touch smaller and perfect the shapes, and then I have to find someone to produce them for me, which I know close to zip about. So, someday, after more research. Wax carving is pretty great though, my mind races with all of the possibilities! I’d love to re-make my brass drops myself as well as they are difficult for me to procure and are sometimes in poor shape when I buy them. Things! So many things in my never ending bucket list.