whoa, this show is big and huge and exhausting. allison and i both agreed to up the ante on our displays this time around. i think allison bested me with the plexiglas display case. i upped my ante by adding a suitcase and a crate. oh, and by framing some prints for display. and i guess i also have the banner jen made me this time around. still, allison's better at being slick - don't let the dreads fool you.
hey, look at these cool new earrings that allison made. isn't she a smarty?
finally, and just in time for a weekend packed to the gills with craft vending, i have completed the first little batch of buttons from toronto artist/designer mark laliberte.
his set, called contamination series, is constructed from a collection of found images for the scientific past. each set comes with the microscope man, a little check list and an assortment of four "slides." i'm pretty excited about the arrangements by which these can be displayed/worn. these sets present a lot of options in that respect.
these guys (along with all the other button sets) will be available for sale at both the clothing show and the spring thing trunk show this weekend. i did the math - there is a total of 29 craft fair hours for me to cope with over the next three days, and that doesn't include load-ins and load-outs. i guess it's a good test of stamina. whenever something makes me feel to exhausted i usually just tell myself that i'll never make a good mother if i can't get by on no sleep and the self-doubt mobilizes me like imagining a shark in pool. we'll see if that works this time. after i survive the weekend, mark's sets will also be added to the etsy shop along with a few other choice surprises.
1) i clearly need a new cover for my ironing board.
2) on an unrelated note, i'd like to encourage everyone in the world to come to the two shows i am doing this weekend - the clothing show at the better living centre (exhibition grounds) and the spring thing trunk show put on by city of craft and the workroom at the workroom on sunday. holey moley am i ever excited for that!
3) now back to fixing my clothes.
in spite of the restful looking photos, today was full of sweetie pie activity. on top of talking to my cat and digressing into piecing fabrics together, i finally went back to the paper place to show them the new artists series. i am happy to say that they bought me out of jesjit's buttons and sampled a few of the security envelopes, emma's cowboy life set and tara's cheap dates. so if you are looking for some sets in toronto, go see them. but watch out, that place is full of tempting stuff. i almost got entirely sucked in to a very nice shelf there shared by dujoo, bookhoo design and le petit pig.
also, i got my hair cut, so act like you noticed.
among other less interesting activities, i spent my sunday afternoon at the workroom for their monthly quilt sunday open jam of piecing and cutting and sewing in community. that's jen up there working on some new hankie sets for the toronto craft alert. i was working further on my endless hexagonal quilt project.
sara from pin pals was also in town from montreal and toiling in the back of the room. she spent most of the day chained to the laser cutter and working through this giant stack of paper dolls. it can become so overwhelming when our crafty projects grow in popularity, hence sara's recent shift from scissors to lasers. i am happy to leak the news that sara is also in the midst of designing a new commissioned artist set for the sweetie pie press. hopefully that will be ready in time for some upcoming fairs. not that it won't be totally rad whenever it gets made.
as if all this quilting and chatting wasn't enough craft-related stimulus, jen and i also headed over to the m.a.d.e. (modern art design exhibit) at the gladstone. it's always such an inspiring/overwhelming show. organizers sarah and hoi-an do such a good job of curating and positioning the show as a fine craft show with strong elements of art, design and skill. i love it. i became most enamored of the ceramics i saw - stuff my xenia taler, lesley-anne green, and of course julie moon. whenever i see miss moon's work at any show, i can't stop circling back to look again and again. these are the moments when my perpetual brokeness really stings. the moments when i wish i just had a day job and filled my life with nice things. mostly, these acquisitory moods are of little merit. but when i see great art i feel unrepentant. well, mostly unrepentant.
i went home with one of her poppy pins (below) but of course, she had to go and make all these malformed busts (even more below) and totally blow my mind/heart. after the car gets new tires, and i get new glasses and buy the inhalers i need for spring, i know what i will be saving my pennies for.
today the reverend and i took a little trip to the nearby town of grimsby, ontario, to go to the 30th annual wayzgoose book arts fair for the first time. we also wanted to have a bit of time away from our home and away from the city.
grimsby is a nice little place, but i wouldn't want to live there. i'm sure this is due no small part to the fact that the only other time we "visited" grimsby was when the muffler fell off our car and we spun through three lanes of traffic on the q.e.w. and had to get towed away by a gruff man named al. i didn't like al much and he didn't like us. i would have been unsurprised if he had killed or otherwise tortured us. instead he did a bad job on the bottom of the car, charged us lots of money and let us leave with our lives.
this visit was much nicer. we went to some thrift shops (the kind where some things are still a quarter), walked around a bit and soaked in all manner of bookish things at the fair. the images pictured are the work of shannon bray (if my notes are correct). the one pictured above is an amazing multileveled paper diorama of saintliness in the wild west (or so i have decided). i don't know why, but i stopped taking pictures early on. oh yes, the light was a bit dim for my camera. but i also went home with some of shannon gerard's newer stuff and a letterpress plate that really spoke to me. maybe i'll post a picture of that when the mood strikes me. until then, stay prepared, dear reader...
getting reacquainted with sewing on a machine has been overwhelming me. well, it has been in theory as i haven't actually been doing much of it. so i made a resolution to practice my french seams (this puppy only straight stitches) by making a few simple simple pouches.
daryl gets one with his button order as a special gift. i think the cowboy motif goes well with his manly (or boyly?) themes. and also because i think the order is for his opening on thursday. openings deserve gifts.
