happy birthday mom

happy birthday today & tomorrow - she's a leap year baby.

post-cure

 i won free tickets from the CBC to see leonard cohen when he comes to london in may, and  i think this excited me so much that i exposed the images on one of my screens backwards, and then had to strip, re-coat and re-expose.   we saw mr. cohen when he came out to halifax last may - i was at the one of a kind show, and ted waited in line for hours and hours to get tickets.  it was wonderful, he is so gracious.

above are the properly exposed screens for the farm pattern i wrote about earlier, sitting in the sun to post-cure after exposing [the first cure] and washout.  

this is the side yard, and the yards of the neighbours, as seen through one of the screens.  i had hoped to print this today, but managed to throw off the bobbin timing on my wonderful old brother industrial. i tried to repair it myself, and then tried to find help on the internet, without success.  i took the recommendation of linda, and called coolen's sewing machine repair on hamilton road.  tom was great - he came out and showed me what had gone wrong, and then adjusted just about everything that one could on a machine, and it was a great learning experience for me.  

i print all of my labels on coordinating fabics, so that they blend in with the garment and keep with the overall feeling of my work.  they are a bit of a mindless task, and i usually print off a lot of them and then fold and sew around the edges.  i like the long string of labels at the end of the task - they remind me of bunting.

on a silly note, we are finally finishing unpacking.  there were some problems with the house that weren't resolved when we moved in, and the landlord was, i'll say reluctant, to be overly kind to the man, to do the work.  we put off unpacking a lot of our things, as we thought we might have to move again.  ted got down to all of those horrible boxes that are always left, the ones full of all the little things thrown in desperately at the end of packing.  above is a photo of a small cooler i packed, with the most disparate contents: a jell-o butterscotch pudding cup [i had my wisdom teeth out two years ago], a toothpick holder and part of a sugar shaker, seed packets, neon Wayfarers, a salt-rock candle holder from sarah & jeff's wedding, and tart tins.  we were so tired at the end of packing, i don't know how we made the drive to ontario!

to a good home

while most of the work that i make is produced on a limited basis [because it's really just me, doing everything], there are a few items that i have that are one-offs, like the quilts.  they are a collaboration between my good friend, and mother of two of my best friends, linda.

  i love just having them around, they are such beautiful textile works; when they sell, there is a little piece of me that is sad to see them go, but also glad that they are making someone else very happy.

i've also been thinking of selling some of my hand-dyed and printed fabrics.  i regularly read the blog of a new textile printing company, Ink & Spindle, which is a collaboration of three ladies from Melbourne, Australia.  I am very envious of their very long print table.

happy birthday to my brother colum, all the way over in japan.

success

i won a phaelenopsis  orchid at the orchid society of halifax' annual show, way back in the spring of 2007.  it made the long drive from halifax to london, crammed somewhere in the depths of that very big truck.  it was in full bloom when i won it, and hasn't bloomed since. 

   

 i like to think that i have a green thumb,  but always manage to kill the orchids that i purchase.  i once was having moderate success with a pair that i bought at the orchid show in 2006, and then brought home another one, only to have it infest everything with scale. 

  after the busy christmas show season, i came back from halifax to a flower spike on the plant on the right, above, now almost three months in the making.   i hope that i don't kill it with excitement [the cymbidium orchid in bloom, on the left, was a valentine's gift from my mom].

did you know that vanilla is from an orchid?  i just found it here on wikipedia. 

pattern work

working out new repeating patterns is always a very long process for me.  it usually starts with a small idea, and then i'll spend a few weeks thinking about objects related to that original idea.

  my fella is from rural southern ontario, and last month we went to visit his family for a few days.  it was a bitterly cold weekend, but the view of all the snow on the farm fields was beautiful.   this visit resulted in the idea for a new pattern, based on the farm.

  i draw the patterns over and over on tracing paper to decide placement and direction of the pattern, usually changing things several times.  i try to leave things for a few days before going back to them, to give myself time to consider the effect of the changes on the overall pattern

a very exciting day

tomorrow [wednesday february 11th] a lovely friend of mine will be appearing on the martha stewart show.

michele saint onge was my studio mate in halifax, and designs wonderful prints and portraits.  you can find her website here, and her new turorial blog here.  it has great info on setting up a screenprinting studio at home.

the martha show airs in canada on the cbc, and i believe it is on at 1 p.m. 

tea towels

i've been printing and sewing up some more teatowels, in new colours and also using some floursack that i purchased.  i like the floursack because it is already a good width for making teatowels, so i only have to hew two sides instead of four.

 i am now packaging them in pairs, with one being a repeating pattern and the other a motif/image related to the repeat.  the 'teacups' pattern has a new motif to go with it - the spray that i drew to print on fabric panels to my show booth [yellow image above].

  the little hang tags in the corner have changed a bit, as well.  i finally found 100% cotton tape, and i'm printing it with the business name.  its an improvement over the ribbon i was using, and fits in better with the natural materials that the teatowels are made out of.

window shopping

etsy makes this all too easy, and i've spent many days looking at wonderful things rather than making.  here are two of my favorites.

these are letterpress cards by sarahparrot, you can find them in her shop here. 

i love letterpress printed goods - they are so tactile.  and peonies are just such a great flower.  i am still hoarding the peony stamps that canada post put out last year.  can you see the faint outline of the peony that has been printed without any ink?  lovely.

the 'beardaclava' by freight.  the mustache is detachable, for those days when you just want a beard.  they also sell mustaches individually.