Designer love // Maydi SS16

It has been 2 years and 3 months since my last post. I have been very very bad at blogging. I even put down my knitting needles for a full year. Lately, I have had a burst of energy and I have decided to bring back this blog I enjoyed writing so much for many years.

Knitting and crochet have gone so quickly from uncool to VERY trendy. Everyone is finally realizing how beautiful and versatile these two can be and integrating them into their collections. Tommy Hilfigher’s Ready-to-wear Spring 2016 collection, for example,  is made almost entirely of crochet pieces (That will be for another post).

Today we will be admiring the amazing work of Maydi’s SS16 collection. According to their website, Maydi is a line of hand-knit pieces constructed from natural fibers and organic yarns. The brand  merges contemporary aesthetics with a focus on sustainability and human capital, the timeless garments are made with an artisanal dedication and unwavering attention to detail.

What amazes me about their garment is the simplicity. The filet is the most simple design one can think of in crochet and yet she manages to make it something magical in the SS16 collection. I am not a big fan of the past collections but this one truly does it for me. Magnifique!

 

The Yarn Challenge

Days pass very fast. I have the impression that it has been going faster since I turn 30 and feel like I am running out of time to do most of the things I love like Knitting.

Those three past months in Haiti were a blast but I did not touch a knitting needle thanks to all the great travels and fun with friends. The only time I came close to anything related to my life as a knitter was when I met this wonderful woman crocheting and selling her stuff on a street near my office in Port-au-Prince (photo above).

Back to NY and back for my last year of grad school, it’s time to pick up my needles. This winter, I am challenging myself not buy any yarn and work only with what I have available. This decision is due in part to the fact that I have decided to de-clutter my life.  It felt so great to finally get rid of past magazine that I felt like I should apply the same rule to everything else. And let’s be frank pauvrete oblige I should stop buying $50 skeins.

Carved Musical Instrument, Plaisance du Sud

“Music gives a soul to the universe,wings to the mind,

flight to the imagination and life to everything.”

―Plato

Snapshots: Saut Mathurine, Camp Perrin

Brigot in Saint Jean du Sud

Two weekends ago with my friends, I went to a lesser known coastal area in the South named Saint Jean du Sud.

We tasted a little thing the local call “brigot” which ressembles a cross between a snail and a conch. The taste is very particular and reminds me of scungilli made in italian eataries in New York. As it is custom in Haiti, it was stewed but it still had a crunchy consistency of scungilli in a very spicy red sauce that made us wish we had brought bread.

and this is how we ended up the day…

and eating coconut

Priceless.

The roads to paradise are paved with flowers

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more”
―George Gordon Byron

All the picture were taken in the South Department of Haiti. Besides the last picture, I have no clue what the names of the plants are but they are so beautiful. The last one is Choublak. We use it in Haiti to wash hair and also the leaves as a fever reducer for children. It grows everywhere in Haiti.

Is there such thing as too many mangoes?

I am in any case complaining but my diet is consisting exclusively of mangoes these days. I have so many now that I have no clue what to do with them. How much mangoes can someone eat? I promise in a few days I will post other things besides mangoes

I discovered two new varieties today in an area called Camp Perrin in the south: Mango Zilat (first 2 photos) and the other I forgot the name

That man was at least 65 and he climbed that tree like it was the easiest thing in the world to get me some Mango Zilat

These little men were kind enough to give me a bag full of mangoes to go home and wanted to be immortalized by having their picture taken

The mangoes they gave me