private screening.

on thursday, i was lucky enough to get to spend some evening time with shannon and willy who were kind enough to help me screen print some new shirts for my improv duo, iron cobra.

it was my first ever attempt at registration (even though shannon did all the hard work of pulling). and i think the end product turned out very well. the artwork is by the ever-brilliant reverend aitor.

if you know where to find iron cobra, you know where to find one of this small run of shirts (i'll give you a hint: we're going to atlanta this week and starting a monthly show in toronto at the end of the month).

thanks shannon and willy and aitor. the shirts look rad.

and special thanks to willy for being our biggest/smallest fan and getting a custom shirt on the spot. well, he's a fan of aitor's artwork, anyway. he has yet to see iron cobra. but willy has threatened to come out to shows with his swear jar. he'd clean up!

mythbusters.

nice try, vandal. willy and i call bull-oney on you.

i just left him there. it's almost a day later and he is still waiting for his bacon.

hyperbolic and bucolic.

...just a preview of some hyperbolic reef action that will hopefully launch a great and vibrant reef for the city of toronto. models by shannon gerard, angelune des lauriers, kalpna patel and myself. set up in shannon's living room so we could measure it and take stock.

apartments have gardens, too.

years ago, i did a custom button order for east york community garden. when i asked them what their organisation did (picturing simply public gardening plots), it was explained to be that they aimed to expand the public's view of where food comes from. for instance, it was put to me, i could be growing tomatoes on my fire escape balcony. it was as easy as that for me. i started a container garden very soon after. win one for the community gardeners. i have been fortunate enough to continue living in places with balconies ever since (although some foods can even be grown indoors) and keep a container garden every year.

with all of our summer travels this year, the garden is rather slim. i mostly planted hardier herbs that i thought would survive a stream of subletters and house sitters. the rosemary certainly prevailed. i just did a major cutting today.

even when my only crop is a small bundle of herbs, i feel the empowering effects of apartment gardening. i wonder what all this will be cooking into.

also, if anyone nearby wants chives, i have a heap of them. i grow them but i can't eat them.

a touch of endlessness.

monday night's city of craft deadline also meant that the toronto hyperbolic reef contributors had to come together to submit our installation proposal. of course, this meeting mostly involved absent minded crocheting (we are not the type to leave hands idle) as we took turns working on our proposal.

this left me with a newly started model which i had to come home with and work on. this meant pulling out my stash of crazy yarns for the reef project which also meant finding other hyperbolic beginnings. pictured above is a nudibranch i had started a while back (and finished last night). it is made from a crazy collection of mixed-guage yarns in a hyperbolic double spiral. i find it really difficult to properly match these insane yarns and colours but i think i did a pretty good job in this case - especially when you see what real nudibranchs look like:

photographer unknown

...it's a tough act to live up to, but one that offers many possibilities when in comes to colour and palette. and here i thought neon was invented by the 80's.

our application relates to opening the toronto hyperbolic reef to more contributors, so polish off your hooks, toronto. our fingers are crossed that we will fit into the programming (yes, i have to apply, too). one way or another, toronto's reef hopes to grow and needs a lot more contributors to do so.

wrapped up and bagged.

this is what happens when an eight year old has to sit through a two hour proposal-writing meeting. i have to say, willy's spazzes are pretty creative. he upstaged us all. now to pull down the city of craft applications. phew!

security blanket.

today i took a break from city of craft, shipping and endless sorting to put together a little dream project of mine...well, the beginnings of one, anyway.

i have joined the beta testing team for the spoonflower textile marketplace. this allows me to goof around with some fabric designs and offer some choice selections up for sale to you, the people of the internet.

i am starting with a few designs including a series based on the security envelope project. offered up here is the first in the group, a tiling collection of scanned circles.

finally, we can all sleep under the security of quilted patterns that can obscure our presence to the outside world.