I had another baby not too long ago, and by not too long I mean almost a year. Time has flown by since her birth and she is now over nine months old! Not nary a mention on this blog has she, not that she doesn’t deserve the fame and glory of blog-dom. I’m too busy motherin’ to be bloggin, is all.
So, may I introduce my beautiful daughter, Evan Estelle. She is a calm, cool, and collected baby with a cuh razy side. She’s really strong and tough. But also very cuddly. She looooves her sister. But hates it when you wipe her face, that’s about the only thing that makes her mad. She’s a real character. We are just starting to overhear a giggle fest between her and her sister in the back seat on occasion. I really love having two daughters!
evan
I was into making my own maternity clothes this past pregnancy, was into the whole concept of maternity clothes, and wanted to start designing them full time. I still would- say if some accessible Canadian company wanted to hire me to help design a maternity collection for their brand. I’d be all over it. Said Canadian company really should be doing maternity, as most Moms I know love a little retail therapy while they are doing their grocery shopping, and they may also be pregnant with their 8th child and be needing a little new somethin somethin to get them through the term. Just sayin. psst. Hey JOE FRESH!
Anyway, I reworked a few thrifted finds into some fun and functional clothing for my pregnancy. If you’re pregnant, and you’re a sewer- you should give some of these ideas a try.
Please pay no mind to the hilariously terrible photos! The many, many hilariously terrible photos which will be available after the fold. Click to read more…
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My favourite Caninja for 2012. The back is lovely.
Caninjas are back- a brand new group of 85 for Fall 2011. 50 of them are now up for grabs at Butikofer Handmade Goods.
I am happy to be making them again, but man, I forgot how labour intensive they are after not making any for five years. It’s the same design as always- but I found a great new sewing contractor that did an impeccable job, and am using new snaps that are more sparse and buried on the inside so there is no cold metal against the temples. I really love the way they turned out- love them so much I named them as if they were babies or cats. Check the names! There are a few knee slappers in there, err, at least in my mind.
Free Shipping in Canada on everything on Butikofer Handmade Goods until 2012!
And I have a Caninja store on Etsy, if that’s the way you roll.
If you want to see Caninjas in person- go to Distill Gallery in the Distillery District of Toronto or the Clothing Brand Experiment Pop Up Shop in Toronto until January 1st.
All Caninjas priced at $65 online and in store.
HIYAHH!!
From now until the end of November- for every 50 people that like Butikofer Handmade Goods on Facebook, I will be giving away a pair of Skinny Sweats- determined through random.org from the list of likers, shipped for free anywhere in the world.
For you, or as a Christmas gift- you can’t go wrong!
I upstarted a new label for spring 2012 called Skinny Sweats, which is dedicated exclusively to the laziest, sexiest pants around. I hawked them for the spring but a couple retailers wanted them now! And so they are now! available at:
October Boutique in Winnipeg, Manitoba
and The F.A.R.M. in North Bay, Ontario
Go, see, try, shop!
And always, available online.
If you clean your house while you have baby barf on your shirt and pants within smelling distance of your nose you will clean harder and faster because you think your house smells like barf, when in fact it’s just you.
Try it!
I just ordered this coat from Etsy, which is going to be custom made from my measurments. It looks like a duvet! How lazy! I will be a walking nap this winter, which is perfect for a mother of an 8 month old and a 2.5 year old. I’m always tired.
Who knows how it will turn out! Will the arms ACTUALLY be long enough for my 5′ 11″ body? Is the oversized-ness of it going to be way too oversized? It’s all very exciting, and nerve wracking.
Your New Family
How does the saying go? Never share your dreams, or maybe, listening to someone else’s dream is a tedious and confusing experience. Well too bad. Stop reading. Things are about to get fuuuuuuuucked up around here.
Prologue- I thought the 2012 phenomenon was a well known bit of pop culture- you know, that the world is scheduled to end next December 21st, 2012? Apparently not everyone knows about this, but you should! Some believe that whammo! we’re wiped out as a civilization, and others believe that this will be the beginning of a positive new era in culture and spiritual belief. I happen to be married to an eschatologist- someone who believes in the end of the world, so hey, I am not gonna say I haven’t thought about it.
On to my dream.
You know in your dreams when you have this other knowledge of the dream world around you without it actually being spelled out? Right, so this whole end of world thing was happening, I knew that’s what it was. It wasn’t negative or dramatic, or terribly panicked. No bloodshed. Just happening.
I was driving and I needed to get gas in order to get home to my family. I pulled up to the gas station, and there were many people there trying to do the same thing, but there was no gas. And I felt the knowledge that there was never going to be any gas ever again. So I left my car at the pump and started walking.
I made it home to my husband and daughters and we hopped into my husbands work van which had some precious gas, and we headed out for the country because that seemed like a good place to go. Because . . . there was no more electricity- and there was never going to be any electricity again. At least until some shit got sorted with this new era. We were driving, and ended up in a small town because we needed something (don’t remember what) It was desolate. I went into a store to see if I could find it, and did, and explained to the shopkeeper woman that I really needed this but I didn’t have any money. She gave it to me and said it was okay, because money didn’t exist anymore. Money didn’t exist anymore. I realized that in the new era, helping others was common and I should accept the help, and it was to be our new way of life.
We continued our travels into the country, looking for a temporary place to live where we could find water and have fires and maybe find food. My thoughts were consumed with thinking of what my husband and I had to offer in the ways of skills, trades and products we could make in order to survive in a world where there was no gas, no electricity and the big one- no money. I felt at peace with the post 2012 era- I felt like we would survive, that we had a lot to offer others, and everything would work itself out and be fine. The end.
I had this dream over a month ago and it keeps coming up in my thoughts. It’s about a post-economic-apolocalypse world and it doesn’t seem that unrealistic. No aliens, no zombies, no giant meteors.
No gas. No electricity. No money.
What do you think?
I stumbled upon these quilts- so beautiful in their random imperfection. They really are the opposite to fussy cutting. So what’s better or more impressive- the loving abandon shown below, or the pursuit of perfection in a fussy cut?
Click for a bigger view. See more of the magic here.
Veruschka by Richard Avedon, 1967
I heard a great sewing term on Sewing With Nancy a little while ago. Sewing With Nancy is a long running American sewing show that I can occasionally catch on PBS. It’s kind of dry and awkward, which makes it amazing- the real life version of that skit on Saturday Night Live with the two women on the radio food show. . . Delicious Dish!
Anyway, I happened to catch this quilting segment a while back, and they used the best term ever to describe the process of cutting something out where the fabric patterns have to line up with each other over multiple seams- FUSSY CUTTING!
My long-lost always honest studio assistant Danielle used to often use the word fussy to describe a design wrought with finicky and unnecessary details. It is ingrained in my psyche.
When fussy cutting is done right- the result is often very impressive.
Check it- the obvious, and relatively easy fussy cut- the pattern matches in the front crotch seam of the shorts. And what gets me all riled up- the open jacket’s pattern matches exactly with the shorts pattern underneath. Wow. Great cutting and great casting, as the model’s proportions would have to be perfect to pull this off. A real head shaker.
MARC JACOBS RESORT 2012
Another example- this one is more fussy sewing than cutting, all seam allowances would have to be perfectly the same. I like this because it has a quilting vibe- definitely a reference that I think is coming down the pipe for Fall 2012.
Proenza Schouler Spring 2012
My own example, from my fall 2008 collection. I (meticulously) cut each piece individually. I had this sample around since then, but someone bought it at last springs Clothing Show for 40 bucks. I wish I had kept it. 40 bucks is kind of an insult to the effort. Oh well.
FUSSY CUTTING!
