Archive for the 'i heart' Category

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GUILTY GOSSIP

Published on September 9, 2008 in i heart. 14 Comments Tags: gossip girl, NYC.

Gossip Girl, originally uploaded by Rachel_2007.

There have been many teen dramas in my life – Party of Five, Roswell, Dawson’s Creek, Gilmore Girls and Felicity, to name a handful.

I tried really hard to resist watching Gossip Girl when it came out. I hardly have time to make that kind of a regular commitment to television anymore. But curiosity won out partway through the first season and now I’m hooked.

Last night I watched the season premiere for Season Two on my laptop. (I downloaded a copy since I missed the day that that it aired) I greedily enjoyed every minute of it and simultaneously scarfed down three freshly baked Pilsbury Cinnamon Buns. (If I’m confessing, then I might as well be completely honest).

If you don’t already watch, maybe you’ll be intrigued by the following:
1. bitchy rich girls (that you love to hate, but secretly love)
2. wicked fashion and styling (where can i find that cute green jacket?)
3. it’s shot on location in New York City (love love love)
4. it’s trashy and girly and completely fluffy
5. little ‘J’ (Jenny) is an aspiring fashion designer, so there is some minor crafty content

The best thing about this kind of guilty pleasure is the guilty gossip afterwards. Totally dissecting ‘who wore what’ and ‘kissed who’ and ‘what do you think will happen next week’. The problem is that I don’t know anyone else who watches it, or do I? I’m looking for at least one person out there who will admit to watching the show, so that we can indulge in some necessary gossip girl talk.

Did you see Blair’s white rick rack dress in the season premiere? I love this idea, maxing out on the rick rack. I see a future skirt/dress idea there for sure.

One last thing – headbands? I like the look, but I don’t think I can pull it off. Is anyone out there rocking the headband these days?

xoxo

p.s. please don’t hold this against me.

I HEART NYC & THE PASSPORT OFFICE

Published on August 30, 2008 in i heart. 5 Comments Tags: impossible, new york, passport, porter airlines.

I lived in New York for five years. I’ve flown back and forth between here and there dozens of times. For a six month period I even flew with an expired passport without even knowing it. Yesterday when I peeked at my passport and realized that it had expired a month ago, I knew it was a huge problem… because I’m flying to New York City this afternoon and things have changed.

As of January 2008, if you’re flying to the US, you MUST have a valid passport. Expiration dates on passports are not like expiration dates on yogurt. Yogurt is still good just after the date on the container. Porter Airlines confirmed that passports are not valid if they are expired, even if they just expired. Even if you have your birth certificate, driver’s license, health card and sing a sad song.

If you know how I feel about New York, you’ll know that not going on this trip was not an option. Especially when this is my first holiday in two years.

I decided to attempt to get my passport done in less than one day. My brother went through the same horror before a trip to Cuba a few months ago. (does this run in the family?) He got his processed in eight hours. I had less than five. By the time I got all my signatures, photos and forms filled out, I arrived at the passport office at 2pm, leaving 3 hours for processing. The Urgent passport service requires 24 hours for processing. I expected the pre-screener to laugh at me, but she just listened to my apologetic story and put me in the front of the line. No questions asked. The processing agent also listened to my tale of woe and seemed skeptical, but went to confirm if it could be done. As long as my references answered their phones, then I could get my passport in one hour. At 3:30pm, I went to pick up my passport and it was ready!

Impossible is possible.

I’ll be in NYC until Tuesday afternoon. Next week I’ll be back with too many stories and photos and you’ll probably have to tell me to shut about it and get back to making stuff.

{i owe a huge huge debt of gratitude to every single person who made the passport renewal possible. xox}

SUPER KID

Published on August 11, 2008 in delicious, i heart, local and the workroom. 1 Comment Tags: ice cream, kids trunk show, laura secord, rocket pop, super kid.

super kid ice cream, originally uploaded by the workroom.

You going to detect an ongoing theme this week. This Sunday August 17th is the Kids Trunk Show at the workroom. Plus, there are other crafty activities in Parkdale that day, like the Good Catch Double Dutch Craft Show.

I’m going to be doing a couple profiles this week of some of the participants, so there will be lots of posts to keep you entertained!

It’s my day off today and while I was running some errands in Bloor West Village, I stopped into the Laura Secord to get a cone of Super Kid. I’m not sure exactly what the flavour is meant to be, but I totally love it.

I might as well confess, my favourite Baskin Robbins flavour is Bubble Gum and my favourite popsicle is the Rocket Pop. I guess I’m about 12 years old.

Check out this darling popsicle creation. Too cute!

POCKET MOUSE

Published on August 11, 2008 in i heart and stitchery. 6 Comments Tags: denim doctor, denim therapy, dog cookies, jeans, maisy, mouse, mouse trap.

This is a warning to all you gals out there who love their denim, like I do.

The other night I went to grab a pair of jeans from my closet for the first time in a while. The first pair off the pile had a mysterious hole in the back pocket. So did the next pair AND the next pair. Panic started to set in. In fact, six of my favourite pairs of jeans has scruffy looking holes in them. (the heart pocket Jill Stuart jeans are especially painful and illustrative)

WHY?!!

Clearly this was the work of a mouse. The perplexing question was why would would a wee mouse target the same critical location in hundreds of dollars worth of jeans?

The answer, my friends, is dog cookies. I often put a couple dog cookies in my pocket for Maisy throughout the day. Usually I’ll break the cookie in half for economics and wind up with a pocket full of cookie crumbs. Little did I know that this could lead to a little mouse desperately chewing through my back pockets to get to this feeding jackpot.

Luckily, I have years of denim repair experience. When I tripped and fell in my first pair of Seven jeans, ripping an unsightly hole in the knee, I learned about the Denim Doctors (now called Denim Revival) in California. They were known to resuscitate old and damaged jeans with magical skills. I packed up those ripped jeans and FedExed them to the Doctor. They were returned to me a few weeks later, almost as good as new. I studied the repair and came up with my own repair technique which I have been using ever since. Once I do my repairs, I’ll post the ‘after’ photos and we’ll see how bad the damage really is. I’ve never had to repair pockets, so this may require some extra finesse.

There is now also Denim Therapy in Ohio, if you need the help of a professional.

I’ll spare you the details, but the culprit has been dealt with and the bait was dog cookies.

All this lead me to remember the game, Mouse Trap. I used to play it at my grandfather’s house. The game was always filled with so much anticipation about whether the bowling ball would hit the see-saw causing the man to catapult into the tub and actually trap the mouse. I miss fun board games like that.

OLD SCHOOL

Published on August 7, 2008 in art, i heart, local, the workroom and vintage. 9 Comments Tags: Becky, chalkboard, grey, old school, overhead projector, Post & Beam Reclamation, Smash, UpperCase Gallery.

overhead projector, originally uploaded by the workroom.

It’s pretty clear that I love vintage things of a certain style. Industrial, wooden, metal and grey seem to be common elements. Yesterday when I bought this overhead projector from a girl off craigslist, I realized that “Old School” was probably the perfect classification for my obsession.

What is it about all this old stuff? I just can’t resist it. The massive reclaimed church globes (from Post & Beam Reclamation), the battleship grey stools (found by Becky, even the workroom’s space is pure vintage with the vaulted ceilings and the gorgeous front glass windows. A month ago, I had to forcibly stop myself from buying a huge vintage chalkboard on wheels from Smash. Really, how many chalkboards can one girl have? (Jill – I’m still a bit sad about not getting it!)

The overhead projector does have a purpose though. It was purchased because we’re starting to get technical at the workroom. This fall Kristiann, will be teaching beginning pattern drafting classes. We’ll be learning about slashing and spreading and other fun things, so it is necessary to have some serious classroom equipment to facilitate serious learning.

Speaking of Old School, Upper Case Gallery is hosting a show AND doing a book on just that. Good lord, I could eat it all up. Please watch this ‘educational’ video about being quiet in the classroom. It’s classic. It also reminds me that I’ll have to hunt down an old school pencil sharpener next.

INTRODUCING : TINCTORY

Published on June 29, 2008 in etsy, i heart, introducing, stitchery and textiles. 4 Comments Tags: creature comforts, eva, jewellery, necklace, ring, smocking, tinctory.

One of my very favourite daily reads is Creature Comforts. Ez has great style and she has a special knack for pulling many elements things together into a perfectly pretty package on a daily basis. I’m always sure to fill my eye candy quota with a visit to her blog. A few weeks ago she posted about an artist that I haven’t been able to get out of my head, Tinctory.

I’ve spent lots of time already just looking through Tinctory’s flickr page, not only are her pieces absolutely intriguing and unique, but her photographs are incredible. I had to know more and so a new feature is born on this blog, “Introducing”, a chance for me (and you) to learn more about someone especially inspiring.

The woman behind Tinctory is Eva, who lives in the UK. All her jewellery is made entirely by hand and goes through an intensive process that includes the embroidery technique, smocking. What I hadn’t realized about smocking was that it is functional, as well as decorative. It was developed in the Middle Ages and is used to gather fabric so that it can stretch. Long before there was fantastic elastic, there was smocking. When I look at Eva’s pieces I really feel she has captured a historical essence in her interpretation of this age-old technique.

What is the meaning of tinctory?

EVA: Tinctor means ‘dyer’ in Latin. I don’t know if it’s a legitimate word but tinctory could mean ‘a place where things are dyed’. I picked it as a name for my Etsy shop when I thought it would sell mostly fabrics dyed with plants. The direction has changed since then but I’ve kept the name.

What is your creative background and what do you do for a living?

EVA: My interest in textiles started with a silk painting kit I got as a birthday present years ago. That lead me to dyeing, batik and shibori, knitting and most recently smocking. Most of what I know about textiles comes from books and experimenting. Craft is my only job right now and a lot of the time I feel there aren’t enough hours in the day. Hats off to people who have a day job, manage to make things, run a shop while maybe looking after a family as well.

What inspired you to start making these amazing smocked pieces of jewelry?

EVA: I was looking for a textile technique which would create permanent texture on natural fibres and require minimal space and equipment. Smocking was the perfect answer because a piece of fabric, needle and thread are all that’s needed. When I learnt the basics I played around with shapes and stitches until I was pleased with the result.

Thanks so much, Eva! I’ll be ordering one of your necklaces as soon as I can decide on just which one I love the most.

MINIATURE MUSHROOMS

Published on June 26, 2008 in DIY, gardening and i heart. 5 Comments Tags: garden, logs, miniature mushrooms, planter, tree stump.

Miniature Mushrooms, originally uploaded by the workroom.

Last summer I was obsessed with the idea of creating planters out of tree stumps. All I had to do was find a bunch of logs.

A few weeks after my inspired idea, I looked across the street from my house to see piles and piles of logs. Seriously. I crossed the street and asked my neighbour, who had a chain saw in one hand, if I could take a few of them for my garden. He gave me the “Why-on-earth-would-you-want-these-stumps?!” look, but told me to take as many as I liked. Undeterred by the look, I hauled about six of the logs, in various sizes and heights, over to my back yard. Finally, I would have a whole gang of cute log planters!

My idea was to drill large holes in the top of the log and then chisel out a deep ‘bowl’ for the planter. I had done research on this, but what I didn’t factor into my plan was having FRESHLY cut wood. I had even bought a special drill bit that would bore out a 1″ hole. I got to drilling a series of holes into the top of one log. That didn’t go as easily as I had planned. Then I learned that freshly cut wood is wet and does not want to be chiseled… at all. My log planter dreams were dashed!

Unknowingly, I had actually created a planter of another kind. The other morning, I took a close look at my sad log with multiple holes drilled into the top and noticed that there were all kinds of miniature mushrooms growing out of the holes and along the sides. These cute mushrooms are only about 1.5″ tall. I was totally fascinated. This wet log has been sitting in the shade and getting rained on the last few weeks and was now having a mushroom party. The holes I had drilled are the perfect place for mushrooms to thrive.

Mushroom logs are actually a very popular type of gardening, especially in Japan. You can grow Shiitake, Oyster and Button mushrooms on logs both indoors and outdoors. Mushroom log kits are available for purchase online or you can drill your own logs (like me!) and buy special plugs that are filled with the spawn to fit into the holes and wait for the fruiting to begin. Apparently these logs will last for years. I think I’m going to have to start growing mushrooms.

There is a great article on mushroom gardening here. You can also order a mushroom kit from this Canadian shop.

p.s. I did create one log planter last summer using an older tree stump. The chiseling was easier with the dried wood, but still very labour intensive and blister-causing.

If anyone has any freshly cut logs, I’m in the market!

MEET "LORELEI"

Published on June 24, 2008 in i heart, patchwork and textiles. 9 Comments Tags: Denyse Schmidt, ebay, fabric, lorelei, my first quilt, NYC, selvedge, Takashimaya, Tom Tom Club.

‘Lorelei’, originally uploaded by the workroom.

This is Lorelei. She is the centre piece fabric in an epic Queen-sized quilt that has been ‘in the works’ for over five years. It is also my first quilt. Now that I’ve got my own quilt and fabric shop, I think it’s time to push this project back to the front of the line.

I first took notice of quilting years and years ago at ICFF in NYC when I saw Denyse Schmidt’s quilts for the very first time. It was one of those moments when a whole new world opens up before you and swallows you whole. I started collecting fabrics for a quilt that is inspired by a couture quilt that Denyse did for the amazing store Takashimaya made from vintage Kimonos. I collected fabrics for this quilt until last summer when I finally found the last fabric to complete the collection… for the quilt top. I’ll fill you in on the quilt back fabrics later on.

Lorelei is a vintage cotton print that I bought off of ebay. Everything about it is perfect. The name, which also happens to be the name of one of my favourite songs by the Tom Tom Club. -love!- The typewriter font notes on the selvedge, which also read “Never Misbehaves”. -love!- The colours and the off-set printing of that sweet floral. -love!-

I’ll be introducing you to all the other fabrics of this quilt in the next little while. I hope you love fabric as much as I do.