365 : neverending holiday treats

For weeks and maybe months after Christmas there seems to be unlimited chocolates, candies and cookies. I have a large stash of toasted coconut chocolate bars in my bedside table. It’s heaven for me.

p.s. I know a lot of you have asked, Reva had her baby on December 21. It’s a boy. His name is Orso and he’s pretty adorable. When I meet him, I’ll take some photos to share with you.

There is a definite lack of handmade goods for men out there, so when I learned that Reva was planning to make a line of men’s accessories from upcycled materials, I was very excited. Many of you will know Reva as one of the workroom‘s teachers, most notably of the popular snap coin purse class. Each of the items in this line have been thoughtfully designed and made with care for the men in your life. The Holiday Trunk Show will be the debut for Reva’s beautiful new line, so you’ll be the very first to see it and buy it in person.

Where did the term mr. sköna originate?

Reva : Well, a little randomly to be honest. When I was setting up my blog, I was trying to find the right name. The word ‘sköna’ came to me in a dream. I had no idea what it meant or where it came from but it resonated with me for some reason. I googled it and discovered that it means ‘beautiful’ in Swedish. It was the perfect fit for my blog since it references my Scandinavian heritage and the fact that I try to live a beautiful life.

Originally, I had a different name in mind for my line of men’s accessories. My boyfriend one day suggested mr. sköna instead and it was the same experience of it feeling right so I abandoned my first plan.

What is your creative background? Have you always been crafty?

Reva : I have always made things. We had lots of arts supplies around growing up and more often than not, I was either crafting things or drawing pictures of clothes. In high school, I got into theatre and wanted to be a set designer. At UBC, I discovered I was not that spatially oriented and focused instead on costume design. I have been designing costumes for film, theatre and dance for the last 7 years.

Why menswear?

Reva : I was inspired my boyfriend. He was complaining one day about not being able to find a wallet that he liked. Being crafty, I said that I could make him one. He loved it. I noticed that there weren’t a lot of minimal, design driven, handmade goods for men around so I decided to make some.

I also decided that if I was going add more things to the world, that the items and how they were made would have be as sustainable as possible. I want mr. sköna items to last and not be thrown away in a year. I only use natural materials (linen, wool, cotton, leather) which wear well and can be recycled easily. The 90% of the materials used are recycled, repurposed or thrifted (only thread and elastic are new). Packaging is minimal but nice and can reused. As much of my energy needs as possible are met either through human power (I ride my bike everywhere) or green powered (my studio is Bullfrog powered).

Do you find using upcycled goods challenging? Are there some things you haven’t been able to find for your line that are recycled?

Reva : Upcycling goods is challenging but for the most part, it’s a good challenge. I love going into thrift stores, finding a coat made of beautiful material and imagining what it could become. I love problem solving which is probably why I like the design process so much.

The not-so-good challenging part of using upcycled goods is that it takes a lot of time to find just the right thing. Sometimes it will take days of looking before I find what I want. I generally don’t use recycled thread or elastic because it’s hard to find and it’s often old and not in good shape which shortens the life of the item I am making.

What is at the top of your holiday wish list this year?

Reva : An industrial machine (it’s a wish list, right?), nice earrings and some new cookbooks.

It must be abundantly clear that the way to my heart is through my sweet tooth. Lo and behold another sweet treat was hand delivered to my doorstep a couple days ago in an amazon.com box. Not books, but a homemade apple tart made by Reva. Of course the best time to enjoy such things is for breakfast. Why stop there? Why not add some cream with vanilla bean and raw sugar? Yes, thank you, I will!

The recipe comes from Orangette and is as easy as can be. Skimming through her other recipes, I’ve marked down these ones to try out myself – Banana-Coconut Bread, French Chocolate Granola, Fresh Mint Ice Cream and Soba with Peanut-Citrus Sauce. (the last one is so that you know I eat things that are not classified as dessert too)

I don’t know about you but once I start looking at recipes, I can’t stop. I’ll pore through cookbooks and food blogs bookmarking dozens of recipes and making myself extremely hungry. It’s a strange form of torture.

I just wanted to gush a little over the darling little coin purse I made in a class taught by Reva on Sunday. Figuring out how to make these purses with the metal frames was on ‘my crafty list of things to do’, so I was delighted when Reva proposed this as a class at the workroom.

I used fabric from Denyse Schmidt’s new line ‘County Fair’, it’s a heavier canvas weight perfect for home decor and accessories. The lining is a print of antique coupons by Anna Griffin.

These little purses use very little fabric, so you can make a few from just a fat quarter or make good use of your scrap stash. With all the different sizes of frames in the shop, I see a matching token purse, sunglass case and clutch bag in my near future.

Summer Hat, originally uploaded by the workroom.

As much as I love teaching classes, I REALLY love taking classes. It’s a real treat for me to have such cool and gifted teachers at the workroom, each one having their own special talents. Sitting in on their classes, has been very inspiring.

We had the Summer Hat class the past weekend which was taught by Reva. I met Reva in the shop before the Christmas holidays. I complimented her on her handbag, which she told me she had made from the Lotta Jansdotter ‘Simple Sewing’ book. We got to talking about sewing, Japanese fabrics, craft blogs and printing fabrics. I learned that she was a trained costume designer and that we pretty much had exactly the same taste and inspirations. Naturally, I asked her to share some of her experience by teaching some classes at the workroom.

On Sunday, we had a full house of future hat-makers. We all decided to make the bucket hat, which is reversible. I used a sage green cotton canvas, lined with Amy Butler’s Optic Blossom in yellow & grey. I’m really pleased with mine. I often forget to wear a hat in the summer and I’m quite prone to getting sun stroke, so having a new stylish hat is just the incentive I need to cover up. The hat class is running again in August, so I’ll be making the military-style cap next.

Reva also teaches the very fun lino block printing class. I would love to print my own fabric one day, so lino block printing is a great way to dip my toes in that pool of water.

p.s. I used to have a real thing for hats when I was in high school. I had a large collection, many of them with big flowers and folded up brims a la ‘Blossom’. Perhaps I’ll try to dig up a funny photo for you.