Keep up the doodling

This is just a glimpse of some of the work I did recently for a series of whimsical educational picture books... which I can't really show yet because I haven't got the published books yet...

A friend living in Greece emailed me a link to this artist in Buenos Aires, ah the wonder of the internet. And I just thought it was so brilliant I had to mention it. It's fascinating, "an ambigous animation painted on public walls" by an artist named Blu.

It kind of reminded me of some of the sketches I used to do in high school except infinitely more talented and evolved. Luckily I don't have to compete with this kind of artistry because as you know I now spend my days drawing things like the one at the top of this post. And this.

Brown and aqua is always right

This is the standard reaction (by Frances) to any bag that is brought into the house

I don't have enough time to craft lately (well not as much as I'd like which is all the time), so I seem to be scooting over to etsy to find things that other people have made. It's odd when you know how to do it yourself, but practical or not, I love buying handmade things. I like to see which fabrics people choose to put together and how. I think it's similar to the stash impulse. Like I've bought a tiny bit of someone else's fabric stash.

I love the brown polka dot on the back

So today I received this wonderful quilted tote by the talented Ms. Minshall. Visit Sarah's etsy shop for lots of crafty treats.

Tidbits

flower decorations made by my niece

I've been busy with artwork for a few assignments, including final artwork for a book I've been working on since last fall. It has to be confidential until the book is published, so I may be some time before I can show what I've been up to. But I wanted to mention it in case you think I sit on the couch and eat bonbons all day.

But the main reason for the quick post, is to mention that the lovely and talented Karyn from the Workroom now has a blog. Which you should visit.

Oh and this, which I love. (Thanks for the link Simon).

Ok that's all I had to say.

Vintage lamps

Yesterday I went to the stitch 'n' bitch at the workroom. We had such a nice time with lemonade and cookies and chatting and sewing. As usual it's a great way to see what others are working on and get ideas. And buy more fabric...

I bought these fat quarters, then some other fabric for a skirt which I'll show in another post. I was inspired by a vintage navy blue British Airways bag with white piping I saw in a vintage store on the way to the workroom so that's what the navy blue is for. The others are just because I love green right now.

On the way there my friend and I stopped off at Queen Antiques, a wonderful dusty old shop that sells vintage and antique lamps and lampshades. I managed to find two matching milk glass shades that are perfect for my new blue lamps (as previously mentioned found at our family garage sale).These shades aren't vintage, so very reasonable at $6 each. I've always wanted to go in this shop, it always has beautiful vintage lamps hanging in the window. But it's usually closed when I go by.

I like the little scallop detail at the base of the lamps.

It's the kind of place where it helps to ask for help, because there were things tucked away all over the place that I didn't see, including these shades. I can't remember the exact location of the shop but it's on the north side of Queen St. between Ossington and the workroom!When I got home I washed the shades right away and tried them out. When I turned on the lamp in our kitchen for some reason it made me nostalgic for doing homework on the kitchen table when I was little. It suddenly felt like a fall evening in the 1970s in our kitchen. Our telephone was next to the kitchen table and it looked like this.

Swapping

The weekend before last I finally did a whole bunch of craiglisting and swapped all kinds of furniture. I sold two storage ottomans(men?) and threw in the cushions I'd made for the top because the person who came for them seemed to like them so much. I sold an IKEA bureau that just had camping gear - all that went into the shed. I sold a sideboard and a bedside table, also from IKEA, neither of which had a place to go anymore. And finally our very tall IKEA hutch. Oh, and my old camping backpack. I can't tell you how good it was to clear all those things out!!

Before: this corner of the kitchen used to be a workshop, with all the tools and supplies for the renovation.

Then we bought a new hutch in a vintage style I like so much better, and a glass door bookcase that now holds all my yarn and some spillover fabric. I'll probably post that later once it's sorted out. The new hutch is similar in style to our china cabinet that holds all my fabric, I would guess 1930s, which seems to be my favourite decade for design.It's nice little details like this handle that I like so much:Then we bought the new IKEA Fusion table and chair set, which luckily matches the hutch since the wood finish on the hutch is very nice and I wouldn't want to paint it. So now our kitchen nook is almost done!

The lamp on the table was a family yard sale find, there's a pair of them and I just need to find glass lampshades for them.

It's basically done, but someday we'd like to replace the sliding doors (that don't slide very well), the ceiling fan and the dusty old stucco on the ceiling. The Fusion set is great because the chairs curve around the table and it doesn't take up much room. I didn't care for the black seat covers, so I replaced those with a striped aqua and white fabric that I bought at the Textile Museum Yardage sale.

I was trying to pick a fabric then noticed this one matches the curtains perfectly, hurray!

Speaking of which, I can't tell you how much great stuff I found at the Yardage sale, but to paint a picture, I looked like a bag lady who lives on a bicycle on the way home. I had huge tote bags sort of wedged and tied to the baskets at the back. Most of it is in the new bookcase so you'll see it then...

Kitchen fan

Thank you for the shelf comments, they really cheered me up! This weekend we finally put up the fan back up over the stove, and I can't tell you how happy I am about it. When I say "we" I mean Bradley because I did very little aside from finding screws and washers, picking them up when they fell, and holding the fan for a few minutes. Also saying things like "wow, it looks so good", "do you want me to leave you alone now?" and "I can't believe you finished that bit already". The latter because it was much more difficult than expected.

The problem in the first place is that given the height of the cabinets and the hole in the wall where the fan used to be, there was a new gap between the two. Otherwise the cabinets would have been too low on the wall and too close to the countertop. This is the kind of thing that makes installing your IKEA kitchen tricky.

So first Bradley used finishing panels to construct a box that would be the shelf. Finishing panels are just big flat pieces from IKEA that have the same finish as the door fronts so that you can attach them to the sides of your cupboards so that they match. So dad-in-law helped cut pieces to size with his table saw. That was a few weeks ago.

Then after assembling the box, Bradley had to move the entire row of cabinets (they hang on a rail) a tiny bit to the left to fit the box in, then back again so that it was snug. This involved taking everything out of all the cabinets. Then finally an extra hole was needed in the wall for the fan to fit in place and then the fan was attached onto the new shelf.

This is sort of what it looked like before (I took this picture before the countertop was installed). The fan was sitting between the stove and countertop since it was still attached by a power cord. It was in the way, was accidentally scorched when I turned the wrong burner on one day, and was generally driving me nuts.And this is the fan finally back in place! With an extra little shelf that I've decided to put our Denby Blue Linen baking dishes on. I just need to do a little caulking and paint touch-ups. And in case you're wondering we don't usually have a blue jug of peonies on the countertop, I went out and picked them specially for the photo shoot. ( I guess without the fan there the countertop was looking kind of bare). I love peonies and was thrilled to see two bushes grow up this spring, one in our front and one in the backyard. Such a luxury after condo living.

Playing house

These lilies of the valley showed up in our backyard. They last very well if you pick them, and with only these three the kitchen smells lovely!

We took a long break after the main part of our kitchen renovation was done and for the past few weeks we haven't done much at all. But there are still lots of finishing details to do (you know, minor things like baseboards). Recently we've been starting to get back into it and I finally cleared out all the paint and tools that were in one corner. If you're pausing in your renovation I recommend it. It's worth trouping out to our shed to get a paintbrush in exchange for a (sort of) tidy kitchen again.
Today I filled the big bare wall in the eating nook area (we're nook people) with shelves from IKEA. They're just plain white ones, rather than something charming and countryish but they match the cabinets and when we sell the house someday I can leave them behind without any regrets.
As you probably know by now I love monochromatic schemes, and especially blue so I've put lots of blue/green things on the shelves.
Sometimes I feel self-conscious about blogging, I suddenly realize I'm showing you pictures of my kitchen shelves, which is kind of trivial. And I worry I'm boring you. But before I put the shelves up I was looking around on Flickr (how pretty is this) to see how other people had arranged their shelves. And I was trying to decide if I was happy with this style of shelf, or if we should take them back. So my point is I guess I find it helpful when other people post pictures of their kitchen shelves and a surprisingly large number of people do.

While I was looking I also found this brilliant idea for the shelves - if you had a cat. I love how Egyptian the orange cat at the top looks.

p.s. I really really want that couch too

Yellow-breasted chat

After all this time I've decided it's finally time for a new header. Here's a detail of the pen & ink and watercolour illustration I made, which was inspired by my post on our illustration blog for the topic "yellow". Our talented Anette has been suggesting topics each week for our little group to post about to help us keep up with the blog.

Earlier this spring I saw a shrub with black berries on it which was very picturesque and have been meaning to add it into one of my illustrations sooner or later. Berry branches are always good backgrounds for bird illustrations since they like to eat them! I would have taken a picture of the shrub but I generally don't carry my camera around.

This bird is the yellow-breasted chat, I chose it because I liked the charming name and its bright yellow breast with light grey/brown feathers on the back.

Weekender progress

I almost finished the weekender over the long weekend, there's just a few more finishing details left to do, so in the meantime I thought I would post some of the progress pictures. As you probably know by now (this is a very popular bag!), the first part of the pattern involves putting together the two main panels complete with large pockets, handles and piping. (I've made one addition at this stage, maybe you can guess?)

The second part is the zippered top panel, which has pockets attached at either end.
One thing this pattern taught me was how to neatly sew in a zipper, with folds on either side so that when it's closed the zipper is hidden. And doing it step-by-step is very easy and it looks nicely finished when done. I added a little bit of bias tape for a zipper pull.

I made a few additions to the pattern. One of my favourite (and the simplest) is inner pockets. I cut pockets with the same rounded shape as the rest of the bag and also cut out pieces of the thick canvas lining. Then rather than trying to hem the pocket, I added bias tape trim all the way around to finish the edges and attach the lining to the outside, then sewed the pocket in place.

I used magnetic snaps for the pocket closures. It's my first time using these, and it turns out it's really simple. Just snip two tiny cuts (with pointy embroidery-type scissors) for the tabs to go through, then the tabs fold in and hold each side of the magnetic snap in place. It helps that the fabric was a sturdy canvas, I guess if you were using something flimsier you would need to use interfacing. Another extra detail I added are loops on either side to attach a detachable (longer) strap. I sewed the loops in place just behind the side pockets so it looks tidy. Right now the bag is assembled but not quite ready for it's photo shoot so I'll show the finished bag in my next post.

Picnicking

We had a busy weekend, hosting my family on Saturday for dinner, and hosting Bradley's family for Sunday dinner. And both evenings I was up until 1am working on artwork for the last of a series of five children's books I've been working on the past few weeks. It's not as bad as all that though because I've always been a night owl. I perk up around 6pm and get very energetic around 10pm and have to force myself to go to bed at a reasonable hour. Which I rarely do.

But I still managed to sneak out for a little thrift shopping Sunday afternoon although I felt oddly guilty. Lots of shops were closed and it was like "why aren't you at home have quality time with your mom? I hope you're not here picking up last minute flowers because you forgot it was mother's day" But it was worth it because I really liked what I found. This picnic basket (for $4.99) actually has a little table that fits inside it. Also good for separating things in the basket so less things get squished. I assume. The table cloth is a previously thrifted item but seems to belong with the basket.
When we go picnicking I like to take a pillow, and I've decided the charming pillowcase (below) will be perfect for that since it has a kind of woodland feel. I bought this from the friendly & talented Marnie at the Trunk sale (I also loved her "play capes" for children). The sale was lots of fun and as usual a source of lots of buying and swapping as well as selling.

note the bird ribbon. how can I resist anything with bird ribbon?

I also bought this cutlery roll from Marnie, which will also go in the basket.
My favourite part is the matching napkins.
And while I'm showing off the things I got at the trunk sale, I'm loving this spring scarf created by Dory who posts here. The colours came out a bit dark in the photo, the dark patches are actually navy blue corduroy.
It's warm but not too warm if you know what I mean. Also I like to see the fabrics that other people put together, it's like getting a little batch of someone else's stash.