A New Baby; A Pillow Cover Project and 100 Posts...

Remember a while back I told you I was working on a project but couldn't show it to you yet? Here it is!



I made a cover for C's baby/nursing pillow and this is her VERY sweet new daughter Rowan! I can't get enough of this little girl! She was born February 10th and is happily cooing with her mamma at home.

Also I just realized that my last post was my 100th! Very strange that I've been doing this for that many posts!

Happy Thursday!
lealou

the trap

This weekend at The Gladstone Hotel my sister participated in the "Come Up To My Room" exhibition. Basically it's a bunch of rooms that are made over by local artists for the weekend. I didn't really know what to expect but it was quite inspiring and we saw some really cool art installations and furniture pieces.

My favourite of course was this is collective's room (the group my sister is a member of) -- featured above but really the photo doesn't do it justice. What it doesn't show is that on... or in the bed are 16 peep holes that, when you look through them, feature 16 separate dioramas -- each unique, funny and inspiring. it was so funny to be in the room and see a bunch of wary adults creep over to the bed to cautiously look into each peep hole.

I also loved the rooms by the Brothers Dressler -- two very tall brothers who repurpose salvaged materials to create functional works of art. Also inspiring was "we, the consumed" - a collaboration between a furniture designer and a graphic artist who created very inspiring environmentally sound pieces of furniture with various screen printed 'conversations between consuption and the consumed'.

just another reason to love online shopping

First I should preface this story with a sad one -- for those who aren't from Toronto and haven't heard, this week there was a devestating fire just steps away from the store I was visited today on the infamous Queen Street West. Some businesses were tragically destroyed after years and years of being in business. Duke Cycle was one of them (you can actually see the store on fire through this link... so sad) -- they had been in business for 95 years if you can believe it. To hear about this story and see footage on the news is one thing, but to see the masses of ashes, charred timbers and ice crystals in person is quite another.

just a warning, the reason for my post seems trivial after posting the news above, but nonetheless...

two weeks ago I was so excited to learn that amy butler fabrics were offered at a store here in Toronto -- macFAB... so today I decided to go on a little fabric adventure to see what the store had in stock. I was so excited about the fact that I would actually see the fabric BEFORE buying it -- what a concept!

As I approached macFAB, Amy's fabrics were in the window on display inside. I quickly found the stash and began pulling samples galore from the shelves. A nice woman who worked there came over to help me, to whom I mentioned that I was happy to find fabrics locally -- "I'll save on the shipping for sure!" "Uhh ya!" she replied...

As we were going through the fabrics, she proceeded to tell me the prices of each. My jaw hit the floor. The first bolt she pointed to was $35 a yard! umpardon?

I have been poring over fabrics online for months now and I'm pretty sure that I have not once seen $35 a yard online! hmf... well I wasn't paying that -- even though the fabric was in my hands and ready to be taken home to be made into a lovely bag or pillow. nuh uh.

as I made my way deeper into the store I found more of amy's prints that were a bit more reasonable -- $19 a yard. Not too bad -- I seemed to remember them being $14 online, so with the shipping and conversion (not much these days) it would be about the same. I bought some yardage and brought it home.

Well I just did a little search on sewmamasew and I found the same fabric I bought today for $9.10!

so I think I'll be sticking to online shopping from now on -- I may get to feel the texture of the fabrics in the store, but it's just not that worth it to me....

oh so frenchy

I bought this pattern from amy butler what seems to be five million years ago and since then I've been staring at it try to gather up the courage to try it out. you see... I'm not great at following instructions for things so when it comes to patterns and instructions I tend to run the other way. well this week I finally kicked my own butt and got into gear. I thought i would make "prototype" of the bag before I used any nice fabric. I chose some grey canvas with some spotty yellow for the lining and man I love this little bag.

happy heart day!

oh yes and I finally sewed something

...but you can't see it yet.

here's a clue:

(not really, it's just the fabric I used)

I'll have a pic soon!

zuppa

ok before there was snow there was sun and I took this nice picture of some soup I made. It's another concoction full of beans and potatoes and peppers. basically it's like a vegetarian chili(ish) but with potatoes. and it was quite good.

sorry no recipe because I don't remember what I did -- just put some red peppers, black beans, chickpeas, garlic, onions, potatoes, carrots and celery in a big pot along with some soup stalk and water and you've got yourself a lovely lunch. oh and don't forget the tortilla chips.

if all else fails... talk about the weather.

I don't know what's going on, but the weather here is wacko. snow, springtime, slush, snow, freezing sludge; and now lightning and thunder mixed with snow. man what would people talk about if it weren't for the weather?

hmmm. are going to end up like those poor peeps in the day after tomorrow? yowsas...