back on the horse.

now that the dead months are almost behind us, custom orders have started coming across my desk again. if you would like something, actually, now would not be a bad time (for me) to hammer it out. i am in the early stages of trying to put a couple new small tours together so it seems like i should just put the wheels in motion to amass any seed money i can. spring has to be around the corner, right? does your store need restocking? does your fabulous project need 1" buttons? i don't normally ask, but i thought i would just put this out there this time.

above are some very special brushed steel buttons made (using a process of pure magic) for my friends crumbs from winnipeg. the boys are planning their own spring getaway, an annual tour through europe. it begs an obvious question - when are you guys finally going to take me with you? i may not be some hotshot dj, but i can provide your shows with ovaries. let's go to berlin!

finished!

i finished the first of my two shame projects today for the crafty slacker's get 'er done giveaway (which you should check out if you haven't yet).

the length was finally love-interest-approved (adding about another foot) and a fringe added. the whole thing is now about eight and a half feet long. i think aitor could uncoil it and sleep under it in a pinch. and just in time for another cold snap.

thank you for motivating me, jen.

heart cake.

today aitor improvised a cake, having never made one before. he got mad at me when i laughed at the idea of improvising a cake but that is only because i thought it was impossible. i was wrong. it is yummy and has strawberries in it.

small displays of excess.

...the collection of hyperbolic beasts grows. this one is a double spiral made from some weirdo mystery yarn that karyn gave me from the workroom vaults. double spirals are a lot of laughs! they can sit in many different poses, including spiraling tubes and flat-wormesque convolutions.

also, after some back room whisperings, it looks like a toronto reef is in the works. as with all coral reefs, it will take a while to establish itself and will grow slowly over time. but i do foresee a great bloom at a yet-to-be-determined point in the future. stay tuned for news. but until big plans present themselves, feel free to take a look at the growths that have grown out of one of our living room chairs (sorry, sweetie)...

i neglected to mention...

...that the entire security envelope collection (my personal one) is currently on display in the window of the workroom on toronto's queen street west. it's a simple display, using the button boards by tara broderick. i had big plans to sew all kinds of envelope strips together to display as a big curtain behind the boards. given my time constraints, this amounted to two ten foot long strips - not my original vision, but also not altogether unappealing.

things are pretty fluid with me and the workroom, so i am not sure how long this display will stay there. you'd better just go soon and check it out. there are all kinds of great events going on there all the time. for instance, i stopped in on today's quilt sunday. the next chance to loaf around there should be a stitch 'n' bitch in a couple of weeks. maybe you should go.

witness my shame.

above is a scarf begun for aitor in (i think) late 2006 that still sits unfinished in the back of a dresser drawer.

this here is my dream yarn cataloging system that never fully bloomed. the latter was begun around a year ago when i bought an amazing vintage cathode tube manual (the pages from which were used for this). because of the manual's unique size, i need to cut all the pages by hand and similarly punch a strange array of holes into them.

so why am i publicly shaming myself with this sad display of failed projects? it is in an (hopeful) attempt to motivate these projects into completion. i am not alone in this venture, either; the toronto craft alert has put together a pretty hefty giveaway to celebrate the launch of their new site design. entering involves (among other things) completing abadoned projects and sharing the process with the internet. the heap of loot to be won is pretty amazing - a veritable smorgasbord of toronto craft output (including...ahem...some goodies from my own coffers). of course, i would love to win it. but i am not sure that i qualify as both a contributor to the swag and the blog (from time to time). regardless of my eligibilty, it's nice to feel a collective push to get some monkeys off my back. you also don't have to live in toronto to enter or win.

the full contest details are here. i would recommend reading through them very carefully. this contest has more levels too it than most and, judging from the flickr pool, this seems to be confusing people. attentiveness may not have made the cut to be a bona fide virtue, but it is rarely a bad idea.

thread bares all.

my puns are deteriorating.

the strength of my jokes notwithstanding, today was a semi-unintentional foray into clothing and meaning. aitor and i are entertaining a friend from brooklyn so we got out into the blustery city. our guest had suggested the bata shoe museum (to which we had never been) so we decided to start with a trip to honest ed's. visitors always freak out about honest ed's. plus, it reveals itself so perfectly from the bathurst subway station. i had almost forgotten about honest threads, an installation tucked away on the second floor that displays the clothing of toronto citizens and the stories attached to them. conceived by german-born artist iris häussler, the little boutique serves not only as a gallery of clothing but also as a clothing lending library! you can borrow the clothes of strangers and see what it feels like to be them. you can even borrow honest ed's shoes.

after some picking around, reading the wall-mounted stories attached to the clothes and pawing through the racks, i discovered the above dress - a white synthetic gown with a strange quote machine-embroidered onto it. it came with a beige threadbare acrylic cardigan, which made the whole outfit look exactly like something i would have worn, especially in my grunge-era pacific northwest youth. that said, the cardigan and dress combo is a staple of my performances with iron cobra. for me, the collection of blue dresses i have worn on stage was a very deliberate choice and a direct rip from the uniform of the earliest second city casts in chicago. i saw a picture of the post-compass second city cast and (although some of the female performers might have resented their uniforms then) it really seemed to resonate with me. i like that it looked like a uniform without being devoid of gender. that said, i usually wear a cardigan so that graham doesn't have to deal with the fact that i have boobs (which always seems to make him uncomfortable). the cardigan strips me of sexuality which feeds well into the needs of an improvised comedy duo. and yet i don't have to hide the fact that i am a woman. plus, dressing like a novice nun allows me some major leeway with crass material. am i revealing too many trade secrets?

i tried on the dress/cardigan combo and, although tight around my ribcage, i decided to check it out for a few days. as luck would have it, graham and i are hosting a big show tomorrow night to launch steve fisher's toronto performance blog, gracing the stage. let's see what dressing in a stranger's clothes does to my hosting/comedy skills. interestingly enough, this outfit had no story on the wall of the gallery. and it is so intriguing. what kind of stranger am i even going to feel like?

wow, serah-marie. i did it. i thought about fashion! i guess ms. häussler is onto something with this project.

i should also say that the bata show museum was a strange surprise. although shoe history is a little beyond my ample areas of interest, i really loved the current exhibit on native american footwear. everything was so beautiful and practical and meticulously crafted. i am not sure when this exhibit ends (perhaps it is indefinite) but i may, in fact, have to go back for a lengthier visit with the moccasins.

just look at this one! it features tufted moose hair details made with techniques taught to indigenous peoples by ursuline nuns. many of the pieces in the exhibit display markings of this tumultuous time of western intervention. it kind of makes all the bead work into the saddest kind of beautiful. the craft of it is absolutely incredible, but we all know where glass beads came from and what they brought with them.