patience made | holiday part one

i had so much fun this month creating my new holiday stationery. i used a lot of fresh colours that make my eyes happy - and hopefully yours too! below are the envelopes and stationery sets (both with writing paper, and flat cards) and later i'll post the extra holiday "goodies"

i'll include my usual diatribe here: christmas cards are great - i think everyone should send them. but if you want to stand out from the rest (the clutter, the cartoon-like illustrations), try spending a little more time by writing more than "merry christmas", "happy holidays", or "season's greetings." isavirtue stationery offers you the space you need to do just that. plus...think of all the envelopes that get immediately thrown out and ripped off unappreciated! isavirtue envelopes are really the *heart* of the piece :)

see all stationery and holiday items here

art vs. art | jenny keith vs. jen mann

a friend sent me a link to the work of jenny keith and something about her portfolio reminded me of past work by jen mann (her new work looks more like this). the similarities may not be immediately obvious (or at least not as obvious as this or this art vs. art), but it's more about the vive. there's a an eerie atmosphere, and a connection that is being made between various species. and of course there is a distinct theme of metamorphosis.

but which do you like best and why??

jen mann

jenny keith

pregnancy 0.3

this is a subject that i've been thinking about often lately so i think it would be beneficial to talk it out. and when i'm not thinking about it - someone is asking me:

"have you found work yet?"
"any luck with a job?"
"what are you going to do after you move?"

and other variations of the same question i have been asking myself over and over. it truly was a big decision to move because i always knew that by the time i arrived in ontario - i would be showing. and realistically speaking, what are the chances that someone in a career type field will hire someone they know is pregnant? would i even hire me?? well of course i would! but i know me. i know that i'm in the low percentage of people in this field who is legitimately passionate about it. i know that i am creative, hard-working and i truly care about how art can affect people.
plus it would feed that feminist part of me that knows i need a career in something i love in order to feel fulfilled in my life. and what a relief it would be to know i had my foot in the door somewhere - somewhere to go back to after a maternity leave. i know that a child will feed my soul in ways i can't even imagine at this point - but i still feel strongly that i personally need to be working outside the home.

i realize i should settle for something that doesn't really make me happy. people do that all the time! that for a short while i should serve, or work in retail. but maybe i'll get lucky:

while interviewing with my current art gallery employer, i told her i would likely be leaving the province in five months. when she called later she said "we realize you won't be with us for very long, but we think having you for that short amount of time will be worth it." i re-write this here not to sound cocky, but to remind myself that if she felt that way, maybe i can find someone else who does as well?

anyways, here's hoping.

snail mail | isavirtue and new penpals

not much mail going out this week - just some isavirtue orders. this on account of the fact that my entire life is about to change. i've been packing and donating and re-organizing. and it's only about to get crazier!

it's going to be strange because all the people near me now in victoria, will soon replace my current penpals in ontario where i am moving back to. that's not to say i don't send mail to friends that practically live down the street, i totally do. it's just that i'll now be seeing people in ontario more and sending them a whole letter about my life won't be high priority - or entirely relevant. it may be fun to write to different people now though.

i've already bought ten "i left my heart in victoria postcards for the first set of correspondence.

pregnancy | 0.2

growing up with three brothers is enough to make any woman want a daughter. even if said brothers weren't your stereotypical testosterone filled males who liked to burp, watch sports and only play with trucks. in reality they played barbies with me more times then i can count, did arts and crafts with me, and even helped me clean my room. with a mother and father who worked nights, we spent a lot of time together during the days while they slept - and found a happy balance between time spent dressing dolls and building lego houses.

regardless, i still wanted a sister. and now i really want a daughter. *gasp* *shock* *awe*.
i've heard pregnant women are not supposed to talk about this! what is she saying? cover your ears!

it's not so much that i really don't want a little boy, but rather that i want to have a girl and get it over with so that i don't have to stress about whether having a darling daughter is something i'll ever experience. plus, with lack of described experience with those kinds of boys, how will i know how to deal, or interact, or play?

i mostly keep these thoughts to myself. i try not to let my desires slip loose too often for fear my husband and i will end up in a full out battle royale. though we inadvertently slip gender based pronouns into our conversations about this little peach (fruit of the week). i must be the stronger party in this regard however, because jon has absolutely no qualms about sharing with anyone and everyone how much he wants a son. this is an obsession based of course, in the fear of what his teenage daughter will be like (despite having a strange kinship with pre-teen girls, i have no doubt that she will hate me and am prepared). the truth is, he will be a wonderful father to a boy...or girl. when it comes to woman, he is one of the most understanding men i have ever known.

and here's the strangest part of it. when i imagine the baby inside of me (weird! not even sure if it's still there!), i imagine a boy. when i imagine the baby after delivery, it is absolutely a girl. what do you make of that??

snail mail | victoria memories + life/work switch

remember here i said i wanted to make maps of victoria? well i did some a big one, as well as some smaller outlines, and hope to fill them in with various notes, graphs, markings etc (god i really love maps!). in this instance i typed a letter inside one to a friend who used to live here. i even traced part of the map onto the envelope. the letter was full of memories of our time together here. 

i also found two "life/work" postcard style papers in the latest issue of uppercase magazine (amazing creative read!). each card had "work" on one side and "life" on the other. i sent one of each to two friends in ontario. these cards felt particularly pertinent to me right now as my summer was filled with work (so much work!) but now it's time to concentrate a bit more on life (in more ways than one!). 

musings | on ...?

on july sixteenth i called my father, my mother and my aunt, in that order. for twenty minutes i chatted with them - mostly about how awful and hectic my dad had been. tuesdays in july and august were (supposed to be) my days off. instead they turned into "errand" days which usually resulted in me running about the city with (i'm not exaggerating here) twenty things to do. meetings, bank deposits, gallery visits, supply pick up and other endless "to dos."

on july sixteenth everything seemed to overlap in the worst way. while i was at a meeting with the community arts council, the public library and the ministry of casual living, i had to step out to take a call from a ted harrison customer (who in the end wasn't fully ready to commit to a print!). my bridesmaid dress alteration was punctuated by a terribly disappointing email that implied the print work for my festival was no longer going to be free. a meeting with my event planner to look at spaces was interrupted by a phone call from the bus company saying they weren't sure they could adapt a route to fit the festival. and when i was finally on my way home, i left the art supplies i had purchased at a bus stop, and received a call from my book keeper wanting an updated print inventory within 24 hours. so i went home, had a little cry, and fell asleep.

i woke up when i heard my husband returning from work. without greeting him, i walked straight into the washroom and took a pregnancy test. still sleepy and bleary eyed, i thought i might be dreaming when i saw that the test had come up positive! i literally rubbed my eyes like a cartoon character. i have no idea what made me take the test at that exact moment. maybe i instinctively felt i needed to turn my day around.

so after chatting with each family member for quite awhile i said something to the effect of "yes, it's been a pretty terrible day. but on the upside, i just found out i'm pregnant!" the disbelief that followed was perfect. all that time on the phone without mentioning it kind of threw them for a loop!

but i wouldn't do that to you.

patience made | first quilt

so a couple years ago i bought these adorable fabrics off of a woman who had closed up one of my favourite craft shops. at the time i had no idea what i was going to do with the material - i just knew it was too sweet to pass up!

for the past year, my friend bonnie and i have tossed around the idea of making quilts. but we both have crafty businesses so we always feel obligated to be stocking our shops, or working on custom orders. quilting was the thing we would do if our lives ever calmed down and we found The Time.

well i finally found the time! now that the festival is over i feel like i have all the time in the world! (sort of...that cross country move we have planned is a real time suck!)

so here are so process photos of my quilt. this is mostly just the blocks laid out and a couple strips sewn together.

hopefully by next week i'll have figured out how to bind the edges...

creators | quilting

as i come to the most difficult point in my quilt project, i can't help but take a moment to browse those who already have this craft down pat. (i have sewn the blocks vertically and horizontally to the batting and quilt back but i have no idea how to bind the edges now...). here are some delightful finds from etsy sellers: (okay i threw a quilted pillow in there but it's so cute!

the vintage clothespin

ivie baby

violet bundles of love

felix funhouse

bubble and bean designs

quilt story

art | emily barletta

i'm always very interested when an artist is able to take a traditional craft or artform - one that has been stereotyped for centuries - and present it or reconfigure it into a new and contemporary format. you may have heard me wax poetic about watercolourists such as cate parr (silver ridge studio) and jess durrant who take a antique medium and breathe life into it through fashion stills and city skylines.

emily barletta lends the same air of modernity to her embroidered works on paper. she creates intricate abstracts using repetitive lines and organic shapes. 

lucky johnson is another artist who has reinvented the way in which we view embroidery (in her 365 days project), but she still uses the classic hoop stitching whereas barletta has removed her craftcompletely  from it's traditional context.

musings | on planning and moving

so you may have noticed a distinct silence in this neck of the woods lately (ha! who would ever compare my blog to "the woods"...more like a little pink craft room really). either way, august has been one of the craziest months of my life!

my best friend got married on august 10th. she kindly appointed me maid (fine, 'matron') of honour and i was delighted to stand by her side at her beautiful wedding. these things of course, take a lot of prep in terms of events, wardrobe, gifts etc.

also, since january i've been planning a city-wide arts festival. can i just pause for a second and tell you what an amazing experience that was for me? on one level it was frustrating, time consuming and even as some points, heartbreaking. but it was also incredibly exciting, fulfilling and the stuff that dreams are made of. i was lucky to have a team of dedicated women who worked for me (for free!!). i owe them, and all of my friends, family and festival sponsors so much. in this past year i have learnt how to manage people, how to navigate sticky situations and above all, how to ask people for what i want. the experience also cemented something i was already catching on to: that it doesn't feel like 'networking', marketing or shameless self promotion if you are passionate about it. it just doesn't, because you care too much. i'll include a couple photos from the event below.

here's the other thing: we are moving back to ontario. i think that might be hard for american readers to understand what that means. so for anyone who has ever left small town iowa (wyoming, arkansas etc etc) to live near the ocean in los angeles (san francisco, new york etc etc), and then decided to move back near your hometown...well then you get it. i can honestly say it took us about a year to fully come to this decision. and even once we did, we went back and forth on what we really wanted for months. more about this next week...

integrate arts festival 2013