Catching up at 1000£ Bend

About 2 weeks ago, my friends and I caught up at the lovely 1000£ Bend for brunch. I must admit, it was the first time I was there and it was such a delightful place to catch up with friends. Brunch was lovely with a pretty extensive menu. I had the salmon ontop of mash potato on salad accompanied by Earl Grey tea (my favourite!).

Lovely Paulina was also wearing one of my necklaces! She's wearing Beetlebug!

Beetlebug

Overall, it was a fantastic catch-up and I might have found a new favourite place for brunch. And who doesn't love the great idea of using old records as table numbers?

Love,
from me to u.

What I'm loving....

... my wedding anniversary. I'm told the first year is special. I'm also loving that we were able to create little traditions during the celebration. We took inspiration from this cake from Style Me Pretty. Thanks to countless hours of being addicted to Pinterest. ^_-

What else do I love this Monday?
Catching up with lovely friends over the weekend with good food. :) Here's Saturday... :)
Being able to introduce friends and having them get along well. (One of them said I should be a matchmaker, haha)
Meeting my PhD deadlines for publications.
Chocolates from Chokolait.

What are you loving this Monday?

Love,
from me to u.

This post is part of Anna's Much Love Monday.

A little something from me to u.

This is one of my latest pieces that was done for a specific client's request featuring a handknitted piece with original laser cut bike motif, finished off with a mini spanner.

I haven't done many me.u pieces this year due to my studies. As much as I would like to churn out pieces at a more efficient rate, the best pieces are usually the ones where I take my time to think about how every elements come together. So until my PhD commitment is done, chances are you'll see less and less of me.u pieces. I will only take commission work for now. But don't worry. There are still plenty of creativity from me.u. During this time, I'll concentrate instead on me.u textile which are available for purchase via Spoonflower. It's wonderful to be able to go back to my design roots as a textile designer during this time.

And, I'll keep blogging. ^^

Love,
From me to u.

PS. If you would like to know more about the "other" side of my life, you can read a little about my PhD origin account here at From Tweet to Thesis.

Spoonflower's free swatch day - 18th August 2011 (EST)

It's Spoonflower's free swatch day for 24 hours between noon EST on Thursday, August 18, and noon EST on Friday, August 19.

This will be a good opportunity to get a free swatch from Textile by me.u. Read more about the fantastic offer from Spoonflower here.

Love,
from me to u.

I do make stuff, really!

Tea Time - 2 in 1 Brooch
2011 Copyright - jmh / me.u design

After much hiatus from creating designs (wedding preparation, marriage and PhD), I've finally finished some pieces. Yay! I'll be uploading them on my website soon. Meanwhile, here's a preview of one of the pieces I've finished. ^^ Now, back to PhD work again....>.<

Love,

from me to u.

Textile by me.u

Branching out in Blue printed on linen-cotton canvas.

Branching out available in blue, coral and black.

Dashing away!, available in red and yellow. Printed on quilting weight.

All these dots! available in red and green, printed on quilting weight.

Branching out in coral printed on organic cotton knit, and Dashing away! in yellow.

I am really excited about my own range of textiles that can purchased via Spoonflower. A little bit of history as to why this is very exciting for me. I actually graduated with BA in Textile Designs (before I digressed to business, now science hah!), and I used to freelance while working at an ice-cream store then a yarn shop after I graduated. As much joy as I got from freelancing a couple of years back, I was more interested in producing my own stuff (which led me to my business degree) so I'm really excited that a platform such as Spoonflower is enabling my dream of having my own textile range.  So here it is!

Textile by me.u is available via Spoonflower here.

Love,
from me to u.

Starting anew....

I've started a new knitting project.

The pattern for this is 13 stitches on 4mm needles, using Filatura di Crosa Zara yarns (8 ply), knitted in moss stitch. Though it is an experimentation, I thought it is a good idea to document on my blog so I can find the pattern later. ^^

Have you started any new knitting project recently? How do you document your knitting experimentation?

Love,
from me to u.

Valentine's Ideas - Love Coupons

What I love about love coupons is that you can actually personalise it for the recipient. ^^

I made these for Christmas as a present to my husband, but I think it is still a pretty neat and relevant idea for Valentine's Day too.

What are you giving this Valentine's Day to show your love for someone? ^^

Update 8th Feb 2012:
The free DIY template is now available via this post here.

It's new year's eve!

And it is definitely time to do a recap of what has been happening this year!

More Hana brooch produced this year, one of me.u's bestsellers. Available as a custom-made piece, a variety of Hana was created in 2010. It still remained one of my favourite collection to make, where extreme creativity can be used to achieve a match between the design of each piece and the new owner.

My favourite piece for the year was Little Frog. The best pieces are created when I do take a longer time to finish. Why? There are some ideas that I needed to sit on or even source materials for. This piece was only completed when I acquired the vintage button seen in this piece. Oh, and did I mention this piece is modular? That's why I have to sit on my ideas for a while to work out how things can be pushed further.

 me.u had a debut at the Fitzroy Market this year. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a disaster with the Melbourne weather. The other session to make it up didn't turn out well either. For these reasons, markets for me.u plans will be shelved until further consideration.

The colour of the year for me was definitely mustard yellow. I fell in love with anything mustard yellow. Two major scarves were knitted. My yellow mustard scarf and my pink scarf.

2010 was the beginning of freebies from me.u. The first ever me.u give-away started for Christmas. Two sets of necklace from Animals of the Forest were given away with a special me.u original Christmas bauble. Also me.u original free gift tags template was made available this Christmas. Look out for more freebies in 2011! 

 This year was certainly an interesting year for me as there were definite highs and lows. 2010 started with a major personal low when I had to go through a trying time. However, due to that personal experience, I became more philosophical about life in general. Life indeed do go on...:)

 Photography by Jave Lee 

This was also a year of weddings! I attended many weddings this year. First and foremost, the wedding of one of my best friends early in the year. Then followed by another two weddings and finally it was my own wedding! We had a weekend wedding on the 2nd and 3rd of October. It was a wedding 1 year in the planning from engagement shots, colours to the invites. Next year, read more about how I put my wedding together. Although, when the whole thing was done it was kind of bittersweet...ah well...there is always honeymoon planning next year. :)

All in all 2010 was an interesting year for me.u and for me personally. I do hope 2011 will bring more exciting things. Happy New Year everyone and all the best for 2011!!! ^^

Have you got all your Christmas gifts ready?

Christmas is about 7 days away, have done all the Christmas shopping that you needed to do?

Complete your gift-giving with these free me.u gift tags!

What do you need?

Scissors

Hole puncher

Just download the template here and cut around the dotted line.

This template is only for personal use only. Should you wish to re-distribute the template, please link to this blog entry instead of linking directly to the pdf file. Thank you and enjoy!

Have a lovely Christmas from me to u! ^^

All scattered about...

Scattered - Copyright 2006 - jmh (me.u)

... would be how I described my path in my career. I started off being a textile designer but with serendipity at play, I'm now doing my post-grad in a completely different field. Obviously though the passion for pretty designs is still in my life, hence the inception of me.u (and all that other shopping obsessions). 

Going back to my roots as a textile designer (that 4 year degree should be worth something!), I'm happy to announce that I will be launching my own textile collection...yay~!

Once everything comes into place, I'll update you again. Meanwhile do stay tune! ^^

PS. The me.u facebook page has reached 100 likes... a give-away is coming soon to commemorate this exciting event. Again, keep a look out for it! ^^

Been busy preparing for this...

When it should have been about me....

...why is it always about you? Another piece, part of the Words series.

What about...

.... me? This is part of my Words necklace range. Look at Another Love necklace piece here which is part of the same range. These will be available at the market in September. More details about the market will come soon. :)

Little Frog

There was once a little frog,

who lives by a little pond in the forest.

He jumps from log to log,

looking for love the fairest.

One day he saw a flower in the fog,

which he thinks is the prettiest.

He then decided to this beautiful flower,

he shall profess his love, oh so earnest!

------

This me.u piece is a modular brooch I made from glass beads, wires and a vintage button. Hope the new owner loves it as much as I loved making it. ^^

A gallery of Hana's

Hana was one of my most popular collection. The pieces in this range are custom-made. The client get to choose which flower and I work with the basic flower to create the pieces. I've just realised that I've done a couple of this theme and I've named them differently. I just never really told anyone what I call each piece, so I thought I'd take this moment to highlight each Hana.

1. Hana Brooch - The first piece in the Hana collection.
2. Luxe Hana - This second piece is adorned with semi-precious stones, the Rose Quartz.
3. Purple Crystal Hana - Although the flower is similar to that of the first Hana brooch, this piece is finished off with a simple purple heart crystal.
4. Vintage Hana - The highlight of this piece is the vintage button. 
5. Avant Garde Hana - This piece has a 'tighter' design in comparison to the other Hana's. I wanted it to be very simple but with impact. The line work with the wiring is a bit more artistic and the colours very minimalistic.

Words...

They were once alphabets, random letters scattered across my work table. Then they became words. These pieces from the 'Words' collection will be part of the things that I'll be bringing to the market. What market? Stay tune as more details will be revealed closer to the date! ^^

Come sailing with me...

Come sailing with me (AU$38) available @ http://www.me-u.net
(http://meu.bigcartel.com/product/come-sailing-with-me-cufflinks)

Come sailing with me on a journey that is my PhD studies and my wedding planning. Some people said if you want to complicate your PhD, you should get married. And I'm going to do just that. ^^

I haven't been blogging much as I've been pretty much occupied with my studies... I'm happy to say I did make my debut as a research during a conference late last month. While it was nerve wrecking, I must admit, I actually did feel like a real researcher. I guess after at least a year of being an assistant, it feels different to be able to present as the lead author. I think I will continue to be nervous when faced with such situations, but I'll persist. ^^

Weddings...weddings... I must admit at the moment the whole wedding things have been fun. I guess it's because T is the type of guy who enjoys the process of planning a wedding, so he's very involved. Which is nice, because at times I can get him to do stuff, while he lets me do all the fun bits like trying on dresses, colours etc...

I just hope things continue to look up the next year. Can you believe it? It's already December.