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Friday was a whirlwind. That morning, I learned that yes, indeed, I would be going out for Halloween that night. And for me, the “night” would start with a thing at the local theatre at 6:25, leaving me even less time than if I were leaving the house at the normal time, like, 11:30. At noon, I went to the fabric store. I spent the afternoon sewing.

My camera battery died before I had a chance to get a friend to take a photo of the full get-up, so all I have right now is this iPhone shot. Here’s a self-portrait I took immediately upon completing the costume:

That’s right, kids, I’m a CHEESEBURGER. Or alternately, a SEXY CHEESEBURGER.

The dress is just a tube dress made of tan-coloured polar fleece. The hamburger patty and fixings are actually a removable belt that ties in the back. The sesame seeds are wooden beads. The tights are borrowed from my everyday wardrobe and the shoes were pulled from my own closet as well. Full disclosure: I basically ripped off the idea from Joy Kampia (I just didn’t have time to crochet the thing!).

I wanted to have this post up sooner but was thwarted by my attempts to embed video on WordPress (still have not solved, despite the use of several plugins).

Here’s what I wanted to say: on Saturday past, Art City and Send + Receive cohosted a workshop led by U.S. art collective Dearraindrop.

We covered a huge piece of white paper with paint, crayons, markers and sticker vinyl. Then we took Dearraindrop’s colour readers, recorded samples of voice, toy accordion, recorders, or anything really, into them and then waved the devices over the colours. The devices read the colours and translated them as sounds, versions of the samples we had inputted, varying pitch and speed depending on the colour. (For instance, we found that waving the sensor over dark blue rendered a sound that was truest to the original sample recording; other colours made it squeak or bellow.)

1. The Dearraindrop Gang 2. Devon & Aaron 3. Mark 4. My part of the mural

Everyone collaborated. Also fun was playing with Dearraindrop’s musical instruments, where you can input sound into the microphone and then mess around with the playback, like on the riotously painted guitar you see my brother playing at the end of the video. (Click to watch.)

I suppose I do have some sort of appreciation for minimalist and/or spartan homes. Ones with lots of blank spaces, clean surfaces and carefully selected decoration, if any. But those kinds of interiors are not really the ones I’d want to create for myself. Some people find lots of visual stimulation in their environments overwhelming; what I love about my home is that I can look up from basically any place I’m sitting or standing and rest my eyes on something colourful, something textural, something interesting to comfort and inspire me.

I’ve really been enjoying visiting The Selby, a collection of photographer Todd Selby’s captures of the urban homes of various artist and musician types. Not all of the interiors he photographs are to my personal taste, naturally (especially not the ones characterized by what I call “Dead Animal Aesthetic”), but the ones that are resonate. The photo above is from the home of Christina and Swaim Hutson, and while I don’t have a glorious collection of vintage suitcases like they do, I do have a similar thing going in my place where I stack up second-hand wicker picnic baskets for storage.

These photographs remind me that you should really do whatever the hell you want with your home, no matter how much design mags and books tell you to clear away clutter on the walls and get rid of your knick-knacks.

I worked away on a few of these this summer and now they’re up for adoption sale. They’ll keep your tête toasty and look really adorable. So far I’ve got one listed on Etsy, but I’ve got red, pink, and brownish models on deck.

I’m also thinking about publishing and selling the pattern for these, now that I feel I’ve refined it. So keep a look at for that, too, if you’re the knitterly type!

This summer, my brother Mark and his lady love Jolene took a trip out west way to Vancouver. I jokingly told them to bring me presents and… they did. AWESOME presents which is why I’m posting them here.

The first my brother gave me last week before I headed off to the lake. He said he saw it and knew he had to get it for me.

It’s a luchador zippered pouch made with pink leather and sparkly vinyl, handmade to boot! Now, if anyone seeing this knows the name of the artist, please tell me. I know it was purchased at the Hammered and Pickled shop in Granville Island but that’s it.

Then Mark said that Jolene also got me a gift, which I said was far from necessary because this pouch was totally awesome. But he said they saw the item and had to get it. And when she gave it to me on Tuesday, I understood.

The pictures of Leslie Hall were Joey’s addition, but the awesomeness of the cup was solely that of its maker. It’s a teal pottery cup with bright yellow swirls and the word shazam stamped into it.  I have no way of knowing if the artist is a Leslie Hall fan — somehow I doubt it, as she’s pretty obscure. Shazam is one of Leslie’s catchphrases and thus has become one of mine. And the colour scheme of the cup, I am just realizing now, is eerily similar to a Leslie Hall poster I have hanging in my home.

Coincidence? Probably.

This past weekend I was at the lake with my mom and her quilting group (or four other members of it, at least) and we had a wonderful time crafting and chatting and eating. Only one person brought her sewing machine — everyone else was too exhausted by the events of a busy summer to contemplate lugging all the necessary quilting paraphernalia. Dale worked on a cross-stitch stocking for her son-in-law, Kathy and Sonja were hand-quilting, my mom was crocheting, and I was knitting (in preparation of a flurry of fall craft sales!). Only Debbie was gleefully machine piecing. She finished 2.5 quilt tops!

Anyway, at one point in the weekend the topic of conversation turned to Etsy, and how I sell my stuff there, and what the site is like. I mentioned I had bought some adorable Japanese prints on Etsy and I promised I’d provide some links.

Karaku Style  (karaku.etsy.com)

This shop has a kaleidoscope of prints, some twee (or, more specifically, “kawaii”) and some elegant. Here’s a snapshot of the shop’s front page today:

These are the two fabrics I ordered earlier in the summer (they came packaged with love and care!). (Click on the images to see a larger version.)

The quality of these fabrics is not quite the same as the quilting cotton you’d find in shops here in North America. In fact, my assessment is that they’re not 100% cotton. But still, how fun!

Karaku is far from the only place to find Japanese prints on Etsy. I have ordered from Talk to the Wind and been pleased (the shop is currently closed while its owner undergoes a move). Another amazing shop for Japanese things is From Japan with Love. This shop has fabric, but also stickers and stamps and packing tape. I purchased some fun packing tape and it never fails to brighten my day and the day of the Canada Post workers who process my packages!

As readers of this blog may know, I recently purchased a vintage electric typewriter. Naturally I began by typing on paper, and I found this highly rewarding and enjoyable. However, given that I don’t make that much in the way of papercrafts these days (I know, I know, unfortunate given my brand name!) I reached for a sheet of broadcloth and fed that through the typewriter. And what do you know? It worked beautifully.

After typing on the fabric, I heat-set it by ironing it face down onto scrap fabric. A small amount of the ink transferred onto the scrap, and a test hand-scrub-wash proved that the ink is pretty permanent, so I feel good about sewing it into projects like this pillow.

I’ve been making lots of patchwork pillows for the Cordially Yours Craft Sale and Rock Show (happening June 25th at the Cavern here in Winnipeg). In the meantime I’ve been neglecting my Etsy shop so I decided to list this pillow and see how it does in advance of the craft sale.

1. Garage Doors, 2. Crates, 3. Fire Esape, 4. That really cool building everyone loves where I definitely do not live

When I went garage saling last weekend I made a number of excellent purchases, but I think none was quite as exciting as this:

 A robin’s-egg-blue Royal electric typewriter with case! I paid $5, though I could have probably bargained down. I was just too excited. The beauty of garage sales is that impulse buys aren’t a problem. I figured that I would buy the thing, take it home, play with it, and if at some point in the future near or far I decided that it wasn’t worth the space it will take up in my home, I could cart it to a vintage shop and sell it for at least what I paid. (Of course, then I described the item to a friend who made me promise to sell it to her in the event I grew tired of it!)

It took me back to my early teen years when my parents sold a beautiful, working typewriter at a garage sale we had for the sum of $1.  I didn’t have the heart protest, because when you’re 13 it’s hard to convince your parents that a modern family home needs  a typewriter. And indeed, in this day and age they are truly a luxury item, rather frivolous. Since this beauty has come into my possession I have realized just how much fun typewriters are. There is nothing more satisfying than hitting the keys, watching the hammers fly up, hearing the little bell that rings when you hit the margin. And then to pull the sheet from the roll when you’re done and see that the hammers have made indentations in the paper that are visible from the reverse side — this kind of tactility just doesn’t exist with computer-processed text. Already this machine has a more creative function than a practical one. That said, I don’t have a printer at home, and it’ll be handy to be able to type up things like mix CD playlists and letters and stuff without having to take them to work to print them.

So we’ll see if my infatuation with the contraption lasts. The last time I made a similar garage sale purchase on the basis of whim and aesthetic it was the purchase (again for $5) of my vintage ’60s Husquvarna sewing machine, which not only looks beautiful sitting on a shelf but (with some repair work) is perfectly functional whenever I lift it down from its perch to use it.

Hand-sewing can be so relaxing. Sometimes it’s just nice to sit and sew things of little consequence — like these matryoshka dolls I couldn’t stop making over the weekend. They’re just motifs cut out of printed fabric, appliquéd with blanket stitch onto felt, sewn together and stuffed.

Matryoshkas are emerging as a prolific new trend in craftiness these days. A while back I was discussing trends in motifs with a fashion-conscious friend of mine. I think there’s a certain amount of fatigue surrounding the nature prints — you know, the deer, the rabbits, and of course the birds. She thought that industrial-inspired prints would come into fashion. Gears and such. But clearly, the matryoskha has arrived!

Check out this sampling of various matryoshka prints on the market these days. I purchased my matryoshka print from starlitnest.etsy.com. I also recently traded with runamok for, among other things, this screen-printed stuffie: