I was on Project Runway and the challenge guidelines were to use fresh produce to make a dress. I had access to a kitchen and about 10 convection ovens, and I concocted a fruit leather dress in 12 hours! How amazing would that be- imagine the pretty yellows, oranges and red ‘leathers’ I could come up with by mixing different fruits.

I googled ‘fruit leather dress’ for the hell of it and found this- of course it exists! It looks like she used those fruit leather snacks you can buy at the grocery store.

This makes me excited to see my version, which I am thinking will be a little Balenciaga Spring 2008  inspired. I am going to keep my eyes peeled and my ears tuned for any fashion competitions involving biodegradable materials. And prize money.

Allow me to present to you. . . . fruit leather!  Homemade fruit roll ups!

I got the idea from this recipe. My first try I followed it almost exactly except for reducing the sugar. There was a complicated issue of the heat needing to be set at at 150 degrees and most ovens, including mine, only go as low as 170. I had a wooden spoon in the door which I eventually took out after about 6 hours because it wasn’t really helping . . . I let it go for a few hours more and although it was delicious, wasn’t really what I would call a success.

The next day, I changed my approach.  I used one peach, one apple and a handful of cherries all diced up and combined that with a couple teaspoons of lemon juice and a little less than a quarter cup of sugar. I stewed it all on the stove for about a half hour to help cook off some of the moisture before I put it in the oven. I set my oven at 170 and used the convection setting.  Aha! I never bothered to read my stove’s manual so I don’t know too much about convection but it makes sense- having a little fan blow around the heat- isn’t that the premise behind a food dehydrator? It only took 3.5 hours! The leather was moist and soft and perfect!  Egad! Success!

Next time, I think I will skip the sugar alltogether.

Voila the masterpiece-

All cut up-

Try it!

“the act or an instance of cutting, splitting, or dividing”

Real life scenario-

With just three precise scissions, my cat’s fur went from ‘drab’ to ‘fab’.

This word is so awesome, I wish I had known it my whole life. Imagine how useful it would have been in fashion school.

I had another adventure in quilting the past few weeks, which I totally enjoyed until the very end when I wanted to rip it to shreds.

Congratulations to Christine and John and big sister Margot on the arrival of little Cole! I made him this floor quilt- in the hopes that he uses it for tummy time.

It looks way better in the dark! It looks really good lit by candles after a few glasses of wine.  Not sure if this photo is doing it justice, but it’s kind of got that “so ugly it’s beautiful” thing happening. And so lumpy! Why? It gave me such pains during the machine quilting process. My heart decided that I should put 3 layers of polar fleece (my batting of choice) in between to make it extra cushiony for the precious little human.  My brain didn’t rationalize how difficult it would be to quilt the extra thickness without a walking foot so anyway as the pressure foot pushed as it’s supposed to do, it ultimately created lots of bunchy lumps. Oh well. Each lump is like a tiny pillow for a little head.

I put a special tag on, because it needed a little pizazz. And if it’s high end then I can get away with anything.  I have been using a lot of men’s shirts lately, so I happened to have this gem on hand.

Ha!

Dom and Loenne and I went to Black Creek Pioneer Village on Canada Day, which was a dream come true for me. If you know me, you know that I love pioneers. Everything about them!  I wish I had some other nerds to start a pioneer club with. Pioneer Village is basically a pioneer town with fake pioneers going about their business.

It was a really nice day.  We lounged in the shade and munched on 100 year old candy, that we bought with some eggs our hens had layed that morning. We were dressed in our Sunday best, no less. There were a couple special Canada Day activities like a citizenship ceremony for 30 new Canadians going on in the backround, which was very patriot making, and 19th century lawn games such as croquet, badminton, and stilt walking. Everyone was looking like fools trying their hand at the stilts, and my manly husband was like “watch this” and he sauntered over and grabbed a pair and strutted all over the field like a champ! What a nerd! I nearly choked when he hobbled on over and stilted up a stair onto the deck where Loenne and I were lounging.  Clomp, clomp, clomp. And it was his first time, yeah right!  He probably brought stilts with him along with his devil sticks to all those Lollapalooza festivals and Phish concerts he used to frequent in the 90’s. He’s gonna kill me for writing that because he is so not one of those guys.

Speaking of blankets, I noticed a few lovely woven cotton ones in the Village. The first is a bed in the pioneer house, and the second is the wall in the weaving establishment. I would love to have one of these on my bed in the summer!

makes a girl want to take up weaving

So I hope you’re feeling nice and cozy now, ready to cuddle up by the fire with a nice blanket and perhaps a well worn copy of Anne of Green Gables. If you’re into that, maybe you and I should start a club. . .

The winds of change are blowing and Mary Poppins is about to drop like a bomb on all your asses.

Her mysteries shall remain.

To break it down for you, all you thousands of people who are reading this, who were also not there- The Clothing Show is an event in Toronto where clothing, accessory and streetwear designers, showrooms, vintage dealers, and other *randoms* can get a booth  for a nominal fee(read, less expensive than other similar venues) to sell their wares.

Five years ago, The Clothing Show was like a mall on boxing day. Seriously! I remember the first time I did it, remarking to my boothmate, “Holy Shit! This Mo-Fo is bizzeeee”  But, the attendance has dwindled noticeably every show since. I have sold more and more every time I do the show, which is why I keep doing it. I also love being able to experience first hand who appreciates my line, to see what they like and don’t like. For instance, this past show, everyone was all over a few pieces from my fall 08 line. Maybe I am ahead of the curve, or maybe they liked the price tag, which was below cost for me.  I’ve learned- people are willing to take a chance on something out of the ordinary if the price is right.

This is what I’ve come up with, to make The Clothing Show better! Because it has such potential!

- The organizers need to edit. The show would improve 10 fold if it was juried. At last falls Clothing Show there were more than one booth selling sheets. Sheets! What the hell does that have to do with fashion? And at this show, there was someone selling blenders. The only relation I can come up with between small kitchen appliances and fashion is. . . I got nothing. What is wrong with this picture?

-Way too many booths selling pashminas. How depressing to be selling $10 pashminas, and competing against 12 other booths trying to do the same. Same goes for cheap Made In China garbage.

-Advertising. There were more than a few moments of standing around with other booth holders, arms crossed, lamenting the suckage, trying to figure out why there were no people at the show- contrary to the fact that the organizers had advertised like never before. I think their advertising is way too general. They need to focus on the deals. The average Clothing Show shopper is only looking for deals, that’s the nature. So why not advertise that way? Every local designer in the house is practically giving their goods away at wholesale, or below.

-Where are all the locavores? Most modern folk are adept in preaching their personal standards of only shopping local- but where were they this past weekend? At least 100 of the 300 booths present were Made in Toronto designers. The advertising should reflect this, do the locavores just not know that it’s a one stop shop for eternal salvation in the 100km radius heaven?

-On that note, the public needs to be educated on what it costs to make clothing in Canada. If it’s say, a cute dress, and it costs less than $100, and you’re buying it from a local designer- that is a serious deal. Exclamation point.  All people involved in the creation of said dress are probably making minimum wage.

-There were so many unique and wonderful things for sale at The Clothing Show, made by the people that were hanging around all weekend in their booths, and I am not sure if they are getting the props they deserve. Has fashion become so uncherishable?  I am all for buying less and appreciating more, so why not patronize a venue that may surprise, delight, inspire you?  Maybe it will be worth something someday, after you’ve had your fill. This time in our lives will be history someday, afterall.

Thank you to all the women who stopped in at my booth, tried something on, talked to me about my work. I loved being there, it was exciting and interesting and I will do it again.

In September, I hope to see you there!

I am finally living in my new house. Since March 28th actually. But just bought mirrors today and are you really living if you have no mirrors? Finally set up my studio last week, it’s not quite organized but I stopped myself from tinkering any further with my label maker, and am doing some actual sewing for the next week. Next (this?) weekend is The Clothing Show. My ninth? It wasn’t all shit talk either- 2010 is about the purge- so loads of tank tops out of whatever I got, embellished with whatever I got. As usual, I am getting side tracked by creativity, and being not nearly as sweat shoppy as I should be. I’m all la di da, ooh pretty, ooh shiny. I haven’t seen any of my fabrics or trims for a year and it’s all very inspiring and distracting. It’s times like these that I really do need that tattoo on my wrist. Which loosely translated, means “of ones own initiative” aka “ACTION!”  My should-be-working-constantly guilt is beginning to return.

Loenne turned ONE on April 30th! Wowzas, eh? She is a very sweet little lady. She says Ba! (ball, about a 1000 times a day lately) and Mama and Dada- we’re not sure if she knows what they mean but who cares. Sometimes she says “Mamamamamamamamamamamama” And hey, that’s what she wants to call me, that’s cool.   She can point to her nose, eyes, ears, feet and shoes! If you ask her “What does an owl say?” She says “Hoo. Hoo”. So funny. She claps and waves and dances like crazy. She doesn’t crawl yet! Or walk! I am trying not to let this bother me (but it does) just because, you know, everyone is always comparing baby achievements. She pulls herself around quite speedily while sitting on her ass so that’s just how she rolls, I guess. It will all happen soon enough.  Her favorite foods these days are oranges, apples, meatballs, yoghurt, and bran flakes in milk. That’s the one she yells for lately, maybe the first thing she’s ever yelled for.  She is very funny, very cute. Her Daddy can get her on a real roll of giggling and it’s the best

Here she is on her first birthday-

For kicks, here she is at one day old-

My little Loenne. What a difference a year can make!

Bye for now.

Everyone else, please enjoy.

Love her!!

Bea Arthur. Mountains. Pizza.

There was a time in the not too distant past that Dom and I would only speak to each other in a Bea Arthur voice. Deep, slow and sexy, with lots of emphatic flourish. We love her. RIP Bea.

So I would like to say, in my Bea Arthur voice,

“These last 30 years of my life have been wonderful. I’ve made some marvelous friends , and oh, how we’ve laughed. Oh, how we’ve laughed and laughed. It’s been glorious. On this most auspicious of days in my life, I would like to say, thank you. Thank you for all the wonderful times that we’ve had. I love you all.”

xo

It made me so mad, and desperate, and embarrassed! People were emailing me back with messages like “this is spam, take me off your list” and I would write back all scrambley and apologetic saying ” Eeeee, I would if I could but I don’t know what’s going on. . . !” What a time suck it was, having to delete all this shit, having to communicate with my web hosts, having to think about something that is so meaningless in the big picture. More than once I was like, I’m just going delete my website. Fuck it.

I’ve now fixed the problem, I think. Only time will tell, when the last few bounce backs have run their course. I had to dig a little deeper into my web stores inner workings. I usually prefer to ignore that coded web hacker type information. Like, I’d rather use the space in my brain to store useful information, like silly songs to sing my daughter, or one of the zillion passwords I am required to know as a human living in 2010. 

It got me thinking about spam, and how ridiculous it is. Why does it exist? Does it ever actually work? Are people that stupid? People that send spam are the same type of people that litter. I hate them. Imagine that every spam email was actually printed on a piece of paper, then thrown on the ground. What would the world look like? We’d be buried alive. Even though the internet is this virtual place, where does all this spam go? What if the virtual world gets so littered with spam, it ends up a useless wasteland? Is that possible? 

Would I even care if the Internet ceased to exist because it became so overrun with spam that it self destructed? Sometimes the internet and my place in it will suddenly make me very, very uncomfortable. It gives me the heebie jeebies. Like, why am I sharing all this information? Am I not just contributing to the cyber garbage heap? Why do I know all this random shit about all these random people all of a sudden, and do I really care? I feel like rebelling against it often, but the boring rebellion to the internet is just not turning on the computer.  I don’t know. If I disappear all of a sudden, you’ll know why.

It’s been way too long since I made something with my hands.