Hammerpress

My favourite letterpress studio, Hammerpress, has come out with their 2012 calendars. I am in no hurry to start thinking about the impending 2012 but these are pretty magnificent.

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I just wrapped up my last show of Fall today. Phew. I have a bit of a break now until mid November - except it is not much of a break because I have signed up to do six Christmas shows this year and I have a whole new company to launch next month. I usually find it hard to motivate myself if there is not a tight deadline looming so I am hoping that these next few weeks I will find it in myself to be totally driven and get lot's done well in advance.

This year I have been trying to change the face of Grace Design, bringing in more of the kinds of things that inspire me currently like First Nations culture, tribal motifs and elements from nature. The above photos are a few of the photos that have inspired me as I was pulling the look and feel of my booth together in the last few shows I did. I am always collecting so I have tons of sweet little treasures from nature in my home. I brought in tiny wooden bowls and used them for display, filling them with shells, stones from Vancouver Island, pine cones and citrine crystal. I also brought in many pieces of driftwood and painted some myself which is a bit of a trend now and a look that I absolutely LOVE. I made my own mobile with found feathers and driftwood and I also visited some antique stores a few weeks ago and found some awesome old wood boxes and furniture. So, overall I am really happy with everything. I was able to bring it all together relatively cheaply too which is always a plus.

I have to admit that I have found the whole feathers trend to be rather annoying this year. I know it is a bit hypocritical of me as in past years I was all over it like white on rice but when I started to see it being sold on such a mass scale all I could think about was those birds. Seriously, are there a lot of bald and battered peacocks in China right now? It makes me sad. So I've stopped buying and/or wearing any more feathers except for a few found ones I have around. I prefer to immortalize their beauty in the form of screen prints!


Bye for now, XO

Recap and Happy Fall

Wow, what a week. It has taken me a week to recuperate from the craziness of the past few shows and now, the rain has won, I have aborted my mission to run errands today in favour of sitting here with a delicious drink and some catchup time.

Last weekend was The Queen West Art Crawl and once again, the weather gods were kind and the sun shone all weekend. Monday it pretty much poured all day so I feel very fortunate. That show was crazy and I am so glad it is over. I thought I could do the show AND go to a music festival, 300km north of Toronto, all in one weekend. I did it but it wasn't without its intensely stressful moments. For example, the wind kicked up and the entire tent completely uprooted from the ground and blew backwards. STRESS. STRESS. So, ya. The good part of that was that eventually the tent was secured and I was left to enjoy the crisp freezing cold northern air for an evening. Fresh fresh air, stars, forest, dew frost, amazing art installations in the woods, glorious music, friends, huge campfire - it was pretty awesome and worth it I think. Even if I couldn't go to bed until sunrise because my tent was covered in frost.
    

Another big development is that I graduated from the program I was taking, a small business training course, and will be launching my new company, Crafting Your Success in mid October. CYS is a service and resource for craft entrepreneurs that will sell graphic design brand packages as well as e-courses for Etsy sellers. I can't wait to show you all what I have been working on!


So, I have a lot of work before me. I have postponed the photo shoot for what was supposed to be a fall collection until mid October. I have tons of new fabrics on the way from Japan and have decided to wait so that I can incorporate all of the new stuff for Christmas. So, sorry if you were waiting to see some new stuff but it will be bigger and better in late Fall.


That is about the bulk of news in my court for now. Have a great weekend everyone! XO

 

Some photos from Cabbagetown this past weekend. Even though it was an extremely hectic weekend and even though I spent three days recuperating from the fact that I had to get up at 4am on Friday to go and get a spot in the park - I am very very happy with how the weekend went. I had a great show and so many people came to visit, the weather held out and I had the most wonderful location, right next to a great big oak tree. Beautiful. I almost cancelled but now I think this show will become part of my yearly roster. Gratitude!

This week is proving to be just as hectic as last, started off with a bang with a big presentation of the new company I am starting to some Toronto entrepreneurs. (more on this later!) Needless to say, I did not get much sleep over the weekend or any night leading up to this but felt good about it afterwards...and especially relieved. Next weekend is The Queen West Art Crawl, another great show.  I will only be there on the Saturday as I am heading up north to one of my favourite events of the year - The Harvest Festival. I almost decided not to go but a friend offered to take care of my booth on the Sunday so I was able to make it happen. So, if ya wanna see me, come on the Saturday! I will post the details on Facebook, later in the week. Have a great week y'all!

Etsy Love Friday

My little Etsy find for this week is QooQoo, out of Latvia. I saw one of their dresses featured in an Etsy email yesterday and immediately my radar antennae went up and I checked out their shop. Oh my god, I love this stuff! I want to get a few pieces but wondering if I really have the courage to bust out in one of those slinky dresses? I love the thigh high socks, think it would be a great fun way to bring colour to a blah winter wardrobe. The girl who runs the company is a graphic designer which explains the very graphic nature of it all. What do you think? I also love her photo shoots in the forest. Fun all around.


I am in the country now. I've been opening the windows wide to listen to the crickets as I fall asleep at night. Oh ya and the sound of construction next door in the mornings! I am hoping they will take the long weekend off. Geez. I've been busily sewing tea cozies and bags up here, yes I brought up my sewing machines! 

Have a great weekend everyone! XO

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Some of the most beautiful and interesting quilts I have come across.

Last night was my first dyeing disaster. It all started off well, a pot of Cutch on the stove, producing some gorgeous caramel shades on cotton. Everything was going swell and then I added some iron to try and attempt chocolate browns. Oh. my. god. I will never add iron to anything again. BLACK EVERYWHERE. At first I thought the fabrics were interesting, I was getting a marbly mixture of blacks, greys and caramels on the fibre. But then, everywhere the liquid dripped, stained. I transfered the leftover dye to mason jars and there is now black stained counter tops, floors and the side of my cupboard. The bathroom tub, my hands. Oh my god. To make matters worse, the fibre that had the iron in it was hanging too close to the fibre with no iron and I now have black spots on some of my precious cutch cyed scarves. Oh my god. Live and learn I guess. Live and learn.

Happy Monday Friends! It is getting much cooler here in Toronto, I know lately I have been piling on the wool blankets at night and summer is almost over. I can't believe it! Next weekend I will be heading north to Collingwood and then camping to Tobermorey for a little nature therapy before it starts to get really cold. This past weekend was a strange one for me. I attended the funeral procession for Jack Layton which was incredibly sad but also uplifting. On top of that, I've been glued to the news of Hurricane Irene as my mom lives in North Carolina and was right in the brunt of the storm. She is fine, thankfully as she is inland but said it was pretty rough with lot's of trees down around her and power outages. 

This will be a very busy week for me as I am preparing for both The Cabbagetown Arts Show as well as The Queen West Art Crawl in September. The photos above show some of the things I am working on; Some new pillows in the shop, they are made from a vintage Japanese kimono but look very African in appearance. I love them and hope you will too! Unfortunately, I won't be able to get all of the Fall stuff professionally photographed until the end of September so I will be slowly photographing and uploading things on my own over the next few weeks. The second photo is of some new natural dyestuffs I received in the mail, Logwood, Black Oak and Cutch. I have been prepping all of the fabrics and can't wait to finish the new bags and scarves I will be making with them.

Enjoy your day everyone!