a felted stone gathers some moss.

...well, lichen.

look what the postie brought me today! a brilliantly composed felted stone with french knot lichen by ottoman (aka oregonian fibre artist, summer hamel). she sells these as pin cushions, but i am going to keep mine just as is. i think it has a sculptural loveliness about it that i just want to stare at. hopefully the lavender in it will keep the moths at bay, too.

with the covered stone i just got from resurrection fern, the mushroom terrarium i got from holly procktor and some little assemblages of my own makings, i am accumulating quite a little natural history display (or unnatural? quasi-natural?)

as for my own real-life lichen collection, some molds have taken hold to the ones i put under glass. does anyone have any suggested cures before i haul out the fungicide that will also kill any mushroom spores that may be hiding in the moss of my terraria? i am glad i did not give the small ones to my most plant-insecure friends. they would have blamed themselves. but, no. it's not you. it's me. and now we all know for sure.

love and rummage trunk show, after the fact.

heart garland by girl number twenty

another february, another crazy trunk show at the workroom. this time, we got a massive amount of press. big thanks go to the toronto star (and tabassum), toronto life, cbc metro morning, the national post and all the blogs that hyped the show up. it was non-stop for the first couple of hours with ravenous rummage-hunters scooping up all kinds of deals on fabric, paper, trim, yarn & other crafty surplus. as per usual, i wished i had more time to look around. it made me extra thankful for my mother's assistance at the big december city of craft show. i might seek out a helper for the first hour or so of the next trunk show (which is already percolating in the group mind of me and karyn). i was also kind of hit-and-miss when it came to photographing everyone's display. amid all the photographers present, i think we catalogued just about everything, though - especially marnie's daughter who was very good at entertaining herself for the entire five hours of the show (okay, with some help from her dad).

here's a sampling:

more stuff should begin pooling up here as everyone recovers and starts to go through their pictures.

although i missed a lot of key rummaging, i did end up going home with one of margie's coveted covered stones and two choice pieces of fabric from jen's stash. all in all, a totally satisfying haul. it was also really satisfying to send so many of the vintage things i have been clinging to into new, loving homes. i hope to do even more getting-rid-of next time around. but i always hope to do more next time.

photo by the workroom

the end.

famous day!

karyn and i were interviewed about the love and rummage trunk show for the toronto star and it came out today. i have to say, i don't know those quotes about domesticity should really be attributed to me (i think it was karyn), but i don't disagree.

also, look what i found on the very opposite page (aitor says i make that face a lot, but i have never seen it before):



the caption reads:

"We don't put prices on our drawings, Billy."

how is billy supposed to pay his rent?

speaking of putting prices on things, i will be spending this evening at the ontario crafts council gallery for the opening reception of diwhy? the security envelope installation that i have in the show is the most expensive thing i have ever offered up into the world (which is not saying very much). i feel for billy's awkward situation. it is hard to attribute value to one's art. for my part, i based my pricing mostly on math (since i have a pricing basis for the buttons to begin with). but had i arrived at a less articulate sum, i would be thankful to any curator who didn't scold me. i wonder if billy even knows the woman shaming him.

late night screen prints.

i spent last evening happily finishing off the city of craft print run with the always lovely shannon. she hates when i take pictures of her but i thought that one up there was funny. it's not really funny - she had ripped part of her lip off with some packing tape. okay, that's a little funny. but it really bled a lot. see? crafts are risky business. i can't even count how many metal shavings i have pulled out of my fingers from the buttons. tough stuff.



we hammered out the rest of the shirts which will be available this sunday at the love and rummage trunk show (their real world debut) as well as the shiny new city of craft etsy shop.

if you have any particular shirt size requests, feel free to let me know. i can't pormise we will be able to fulfill all wishes but...you know...knowledge is power.

i made slippers.

look at these.

they are the result of last night's wool slipper class at the workroom as taught by one miss reva quam.

i was very excited to...

a) finally have slippers again
b) conquer my fear of sewing machines and irons with computers in them (well, kind of conquer)
c) finish something that was just for fun

the class was nice and easy, even for a rusty sewer like me and reva is a very clear and patient teacher. three hours = two new slippers. what a splendid way to spend a monday evening.

these ones were made out of an old cut-up blanket that was at the workroom, and are not quite felty enough (ie. they are fraying and shouldn't be). i might try another pair out of something more felty, but these will offer me a good opportunity to play with some embroidered edging if they keep unraveling.

pteridomania.

in researching the terraria, my readings wandered into historical context. that is where i found the connection between dr. nathaniel ward (inventor and namesake of the wardian case) and an ensuing pteridomania in britain and scotland. so what is pteridomania? it translates from latin roots to 'fern craze' and was one of a few results of dr. ward's glazed cases. having enclosed glass containers kept delicate plants (like ferns and, later, orchids) safe from the toxic mash of london's coal-fuelled air. one has to question how children were kept alive in this environment. presumably they were less novel than collecting ferns. during this mass hysteria, ladies and gentlemen of means took to the hills and meadows to scour then for ferns. they collected new species, grew their own from spores and eventually, for some hearty souls, got into the exciting territory of hybridization.

and how was the term coined? well, it came from this passage out of charles kingsley's 1855 book glaucus (note the other crafts that he claims were eclipsed by chasing the fern):

Your daughters, perhaps, have been seized with the prevailing 'Pteridomania'...and wrangling over unpronounceable names of species (which seem different in each new Fern-book that they buy)...and yet you cannot deny that they find enjoyment in it, and are more active, more cheerful, more self-forgetful over it, than they would have been over novels and gossip, crochet and Berlin-wool.

aside from threatening some natural fern stocks, this mania also bled its way into textile design, ceramics, glass wares, metal work and more. clearly there is much more reading to do. see? this is why i can't read fiction. there is too much weird real stuff to absorb. and i don't read very quickly.

hyperbolics in plastic and the oceanic travels of shopping bags.

pictured above is the beginning of a hyperbolic model i have been working on made entirely from plastic bag yarn. this is for an upcoming project (that will find its way into the window of the knit cafe) spearheaded by angelune des lauriers and intended as a craftivist earth day project.

angelune has assembled a group of crocheting friends (including shannon, kalpna, leah, marnie, myself and others) to make these plastic models, aping the oceanic forms of corals and other sea animals. the notion is to assemble a great plastic reef as a way to bring attention to the great pacific garbage patch (also known as the trash/garbage vortex or garbage island). this fetid new continent, located somewhere between the hawaiian islands and the coast of california, is reported to be twice the size of texas and is composed prominently of discarded plastics. it weighs an estimated three million tons and has resulted from a combination of ocean currents and collective carelessness (although i'm not sure quite how much we should blame the ocean). other reports note the area to be more like a massive garbage stew (as opposed to one contiguous garbage heap) which might explain why google earth doesn't just simply display this 'island.' regardless of these details, there is much agreement that this is a big mess and it's our fault.

so what is there to do? well, currently, i have decided to crochet plastic coral in the hopes that someone smarter will see this project, be alerted to the ocean's ordeal and brilliantly solve the problem. i know it's not the most active choice, but it's better than freezing in a state of absolute confusion and doing nothing at all.

and what can you do? if you are a genius, you can figure out how to fix this problem and make the world okay again. if you are not a genius (or if the above task is going to take you a while), you can drop off your colourful plastic bags at the knit cafe to be turned into yarn and then crochet models. for me, the ideal bag is ripped and unusable. i can still work around most rips when making the yarn and don't need the handles at all. this also makes me feel that the bag has been used to its maximum ability.

i should also mention that this project is highly derivative of some incredible past works, most notably the hyperbolic coral reef conceived by the institute for figuring to address issues of marine coral blanching and the later plastic bag sea crochet of helle jorgensen. in the name of education, these undertakings seem open to future interpretations/incarnations but props are certainly due. go check out their sites.



on a more pragmatic note, i have also learned that bamboo hooks and plastic yarns do not mix well. be forewarned, lest you suffer the same fate as me. i'm glad i hung on to all my metal hooks.