Is anyone else having a dragging your heels kind of week? It’s taking me ages to get the simplest tasks done – I blame this amazing weather. I spent way too much time on the internet this week, here are a few of my favorite gems:

1. Dabito’s blog, Old Brand New, is one of my favorite new to me blogs as he has impecable taste that’s refreshingly accessible and not so obnoxiously aspirational like so many home blogs can feel to me. His home tour on Apartment Therapy is so great and I’m super jealous of his thrifting skills. Teach me everything you know, Dabito?

2. Beautiful, crazy in the best way possible patterns by Catalina Estrada for Anunciaçao. This embroidered dress is my favorite.

3. Speaking of dresses, check out Lissa’s super awesome dark side of the moon dress.

4. A fantastic article about Fiona Apple’s comeback by Lindsay Zoladz. You may know I’ve been an obsessive fan since I was 14 years old, so this struck so many chords. Somewhere in a box is my Tidal CD booklet with all the words I didn’t know underlined, which I looked up in the dictionary.

Have a great weekend, everyone! Super excited to check out the Cai Guo-Qiang show at the Geffen, eat ramen (absolutely required when in Little Tokyo), make Rena teach me all her secrets, and anyone in LA MUST COME to Brian Ferry’s opening at Standard Goods on Saturday night – ok? It’s going to be great, I know it.

Ok, I’m making up for Friday a little late. Did you have a good weekend? I hope so. Internet goodies:

1. A wonderful workspace.
2. Been waiting for these for a while: Light As A Feather, gorgeous new silk scarves from Fieldguided. A perfect photo shoot from Anja and Megan.
3. An excellent use of Pinterest: Hair Chests I Want To Cry On. (via Tamera)
4. Pretty Caitlin Mociun on Backyard Bill.
5. This amazing necklace at Ship & Shape.
6. Has anyone tried out the app Picle? It’s basically Instagram with sound – you take a photo and then record the sound for a few seconds so people can experience them together. I’m not a big app users, but this is such a cool idea.

This week has been insane. It was already crazy when I came across an opportunity that my reaction to surprised me, and my week went from crazy to bat shit. I wish I could say TGIF, but I’ll be working a good portion of the weekend as well. But busy is good and I’m not complaining. I will definitely be drowning my face in a margarita tonight as we kind of have a new tradition of Mexican food Fridays.

How I pulled this post together is a wonder to me, but I found so many goodies during a forced break yesterday around the blogosphere:

1. This dinner in the Smith Tower in Seattle (remember this feature?) in the newest issue of Kinfolk blows my mind. An amazing looking meal by  Molly Wizenberg and Brandon Pettit, gorgeous photos by Kyle Johnson. My grandmother worked in the Smith Tower when it was the tallest building on the West Coast (until the Space Needle was erected), and I’d always wondered as a kid what it was like at the top until I saw that NYT article. What I’d give to be able to show her these photos. And what I’d give to go up there, terrified of heights and all!
2.  Did you know that Moby has a blog about beautiful architecture in Los Angeles? Mad props, buddy. Thanks for bringing this amazingness to my attention, Kelly.
3. Wikipedia hopping and trivia. I live for this kind of useless knowledge. photo by Adam Sharp
4. The story behind Don Draper’s new digs. In related news, I feel better about the Mad Men premiere that almost made me fall asleep after reading these comments and this article. I think Game of Thrones brainwashed me recently into needing constant stimulation and action. And heads being cut off?

Have a great weekend, friends!

Two weeks worth of gems online. I’ve been stock pilin’ them for your enjoyment:

1. Ilana Kohn’s S/S 12 lookbook is HERE! I’ve been patiently waiting for this, especially because Ilana designed all the prints herself this time around, and it does not disappoint. I particularly love the foxtail print and the Clipper dress (pictured) looks like the perfect summer dress. Photographer: Dustin Fenstermacher, Model/Hair & Make-up: Caroline Ventura
2. Incredible: The Northern Lights over an Arctic Volcano. Photos by James Appleton. via Meighan.
3. Do yourself a favor and watch Red Moon, a werewolf submarine movie by the always awesome Sirocco Research Labs.
4. Beautiful colors in India, photographed by Nidhi Malhotra.
5. Save Food From The Fridge is a fascinating exploration of food preservation sans-fridge, elegantly of course. via All The Mountains.
6. A limited edition Scrabble Typography game designed by Andrew Carpenter, initially as a student project. Damn. via DesignWorkLife.

I’m super excited to have a weekend with not one single thing scheduled. Have a great weekend, friends!

Is it honestly already Friday? Perhaps not the best week, but at least it flew by. Thank you for sharing your own thoughts on things that make you happy this week and making me feel less alone in my blahs.

It was a good internet week, I had too many things to pick from today!

1. Michael’s latest portraits are an inspiration to me for my pledge to take more of them myself. Photo by Michael A. Muller.
2.  The Wilder Quarterly (such a great publication) blog is full of lots of gems, such as this tidbit I was not aware of: Over one third of all cacti species are endangered and cacti fall just below drugs and guns as the most popular item smuggled out of Mexico. I had no idea! An important thing to know when purchasing a cactus – was it legally grown?
3.  I don’t often share personal design work here because a lot of what I do is quite corporate and not too terribly exciting these days – but one very exciting project was redesigning Anabela’s wonderful blog, Fieldguided. She was a dream client and I’m so happy with how it turned out, thanks to Geoff’s awesome coding skillz. You can read more about it here.
4. Edits Quarterly is an incredible new online publication of “short narratives in film and photography”. The site is beautifully designed and the functionality is really inventive and inspiring.
5. How great are Sian Keegan’s new bags she’s working on for her shop? A custom bag for my jewelry is my dream someday.
6.  Maria, aka Miss Crowland, has a new custom portrait offering in her shop and used a photo of me as an example of her amazing work, which is really fun. Anabela and Geoff are also in there, so this is the Kate, Anabela, and Geoff edition of Friday Bits. She also previously she used Wendy for her pet portraits, so we are just mugging it up in her wonderful shop.

Have a great weekend, friends.

I had such a great week – so many field trips and good friends and food, I’m hoping to wrap up a roll of film by the end of the weekend to share with you soon. Here are a few things that grabbed my attention this week online:

1. Stunning photos of Sandra’s home in black and white. The texture and richness is incredible, oh how I love when Sandra post film shots.
2. SoHi looks like an interesting, beautifully designed magazine. via September Industry, a great design site that Jessica introduced me to.
3. With her latest project, An Extra Day, Vic continues to amaze and inspire me. On Leap Day she spent the day meeting 24 new people and photographing them.
4. Oh, the Kinfolk dinner in Brooklyn. Oh, oh, oh. I really hope it comes to LA! photo by Leo Patrone.
5. I was asked to contribute to this lovely new project/blog, Something Fine, which is all about first love. You should check it out and submit something, it’s really wonderful.
6. I’m obsessed with this French blog all about amazing nail art – Pshiiit. Heart palpitations, I tell ya. via Alison.

Have a wonderful weekend! Is anyone else in LA going to The Secret Fork? It looks great and I think we’re going to check it out.

What’s this, six items? I couldn’t even find my six-item Photoshop template it’s been so long.

1. A lovely video interview with Dani Griffiths of Clyde by Domahoka. It made me realize that you don’t often get to see smaller designers in motion or hear their voice, and if they don’t have a blog that’s personal, see their face either. One interesting thing in the interview for me was when Dani says that she loves how warm Brooklyn is over Vancouver, BC – that she can stop and have a great conversation with anyone on the street. Could we have had a more different impression of New York? I would say the exact opposite, and for that I love how people interpret cities differently and it makes me happy that someone thinks of New York like that.
2. I love seeing Anabela and her bag contents beautifully illustrated on Natasha’s blog as part of her handbag series.
3. Maggie‘s gorgeous Silver, Ruby, & Violet instrumental music mix is like the perfect mellow counterpart to my upbeat productivity mix yesterday. In fact, I wrote this blog post while listening to it and found it perfect while you’re typing.
4. Bret McKenzie (for those of you who don’t want to have his babies, he is one half of Flight Of The Conchords) talks to Terry Gross about writing songs for The Muppets. Need I say more?
5. Shelter Half sounds like such a great store here in LA, focusing on made-in-America home goods. Must go asap. via Remodelista via Laure.
6. I stumbled across the blog of illustrator Oana Befort recently and I just love seeing shots of her sketchbook. She makes it look so effortless, drawing so beautifully like that! Amazing.

Have a great weekend, friends.

A few internet gems this week:

1. I do a bang up job at not being sad that I don’t live in NYC anymore, but I’m very jealous of you New Yorkers who can buy lovely flowers for your Valentine from Amy at Castor & Pollux over the next few days.
2. Remember that wonderful poem that Hila wrote about the new year? Well Satsuma Press turned it into a beautiful print so you can hang it up and be reminded to “stop saying yes when I really mean no”.
3. I skipped Weekly Music this week (seriously all I’ve been listening to is the new First Aid Kit and slowly coming to somewhat shamelessly enjoy the new Lana Del Rey album) so I offer up this beautiful video Joshua from Street Etiquette made for Jesse Boykins III’s equally beautiful song “Light To Dark”.
4. Today is the day – Ilana Kohn for Of a Kind! Does not disappoint.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

1. Brian tweeted about this fantastic film blog, I Love Hot Dogs (best name ever?) and I’ve been devouring every post since last night. I love the mix of very underground films I’ve never heard of and great mainstream films. Plus, a reoccurring feature on film typography is great.
2. Craftcation Conference is a three day indie business & DIY workshop conference in Ventura next month that sounds pretty great, is anyone going?
3. I cannot wait to get my hands on the new Plant Journal. The spreads Natalie posted (via Anabela) have this plant lady slightly giddy. I hear it will be at Opening Ceremony LA in a few weeks.
4. I’m not normally drawn to really colorful design work lately, but this identity design for the Swedish pharmacy chain Vårdapoteket by Stockholm Design Lab I spotted on Design Work Life has been stuck in my head for days. Feeling so inspired to do something colorful now.

bonus for my LA readers: Myrtle is having a fun Valentines Day party tomorrow!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Will started a new job this week, his first 9-5 in years, so we’re settling into this new routine where weekends will be much more cherished.

Though our Seattle trip this week was a tad on the stressful side, I feel refreshed and re-energized to get things done and even managed to catch up a bit on the internet yesterday, so here’s a little Friday Bits! Thank you so much for the comments about the new shop and necklaces, it means so much. See you Sunday? It’s a big update so if you forget and think you’ve missed out, chances are you haven’t, so check back.

1. MCMC Love perfume + an Odette arrow ring for $99 = an awesome combination and deal.
2. This is kind of random, but recently I purchased a pair of Madewell widelegger jeans on sale in their Glendale store for $20 (originally $130!). They are so ridiculously comfortable and are the perfect wide leg/flare. I had them hemmed for $9, so all together a sweet deal. They’re also on sale on their website for a bit more (still a good deal) so I thought I’d pass this gem of knowledge on. Two things I love about them are that they are a bit snug in the thighs for a more flattering fit, and the denim is super soft and light, so they don’t feel really heavy to walk in.
3. The LA Food Swap sounds so genius. I’ve been intrigued since Natalie mentioned it before the holidays. You bring your homemade, homegrown, and foraged creations and swap them with other local people. Thinking about doing it with some friends though I have no idea what I should swap! I do make a mean hummus…
4. A lot of people asked me if I’d share where we went when we were in Seattle for recommendations, but I have to admit that whenever we go the goal is not to explore new things as it’s always a family trip, and this one was even more so because it was such a short trip. I didn’t even get to see any of my friends besides Andrea. But! I did go to Local 360 for the first time and it was fantastic. Delicious comfort food in a cozy rustic setting with big wooden booths, homemade cola and dim lighting – I was really impressed and would recommend it. The mac and cheese! Dang.

Have a great weekend!