The image below shows a sample of the techniques demonstrated in the classroom. From left to right in the sample photo, students created the following;

• a 3 dimensional architectural element in black and white on a marbled fabric
• a bold floral motif on a pre-printed muted floral fabric
• a 3 dimensional diamond tufting pattern on an bold abstract fabric

Not shown in the sample image is the free-form marble swatch that I had the students do to start the class. The marble swatch allowed the students to try Colour Vie and discover how it handles as a painting medium. In the marble swatch students sponged, drybrushed, stippled and drew to their heart’s delight. Students were to use the freehand marble swatch as a base for their 3 dimensional architectural element, though most opted to save their experimental swatches and use another pre-printed marble swatch for the architectural element.

In the gallery above are a few shots from the classroom, the students and their projects. I had 13 students in the class which was ideal for a first run. Each student brought a different skill set and energy to the class which was perfect. Some students were more comfortable with abstraction, others were more controlled and painterly. This variety amongst the students helped them learn from each other by seeing what the products could do when handled differently. Everyone regardless of experience or technique was able to produce something beautiful and unique.

My class appears in the festival brochure on Page 19 under “Fibre Art & Surface Design” and the description is as follows;

203c3 – Fabric Painting with Colour Vie – All Levels

Create beautiful quilting and craft fabrics using Colour Vie pigments. Learn stencil making and brush painting techniques which can be used to alter existing prints or create original fabric appliqués and stunning backgrounds on a varitey of fabrics of different weights and textures.

Minimal Supply List & Kit $12
3 Hour Workshop – Friday 1:00 to 4:00

The class is limited to 25 participants. Class Registration can be done online through the CreativFestival website.

If you are purchasing advance tickets online, please use my discount code to recieve $1.00 off your admission. By using this discount code you will also be entered in a draw to win product prize packages.

Promo Code: 137KB

I hope to see you at the festival!

So… ensuing to my last post about the Meister’s Markt… things went very well! Despite to a rainy start to the day, the show was still very well attended and Mum and I managed to make nearly $600.

The big sellers of the day were the buttons and linens… mostly sold to other vendors (but you won’t hear me complaining about that).  Mum sold all of her tins (visible on the right side of the photo above on the left). I sold some clothes and the french ivory box I bought a few weeks back (for $0.25) sold for $7.00! The clothes that sold were the blue suit (above right), the orange dress (above left) and a tan sport coat (top left). The coat sold to Juul Haalmeyer or Homemade Tarts (a costume rental for film & television). All told the clothing made $100.

Naturally, being myself I needed to buy something… I came away with a cute cocktail hat trimmed with large velvet pansies, a few “little blue books” (titled How to Become Mentally Superior, How to Think Logically and How to Develop Your Sense of Humor) and a Viewfinder Stereoscope with photo reels of Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, Dancing Chimpanzees and the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

At the end of the day we still had a fair bit to bring home with us, but we’ve got 2 more sales lined up for this summer this summer… the MGVC Bits & Pieces Craft Supply & Car Boot Sale (May 28) and the Nobleton Market (date TBD).

As I mentionned previously, this was our first time doing a sale of this nature. Our 10 x 10 foot booth cost just over $70.00 and was well worth the price. The event staff was helpful during the load-in and throughout the sale. Other vendors were kind and cordial. I don’t think we’d do this sale every time it comes around, but I would certainly consider doing it again and I would recommend this sale to others who are looking for a venue to sell their antiques and collectibles. For those who are looking to try this kind of sale I would strongly recommend reading the vendor’s agreement because there are a lot of booth options and incidental costs that can add up if you are not careful.

“So what?” you say. I’ll tell you sew what… for those who like doing button joints these needles will fit through the eye of an average button and their super long length makes them great for button jointing really big dolls.

If you’ve ever made a big doll and have been faced with the challenge of joining arms, legs, etc. through a wide doll body you’ll know what a pain it is to use a 4 to 6″ long doll needle which only makes it half way through the body making it so that you’d have to push the needle through half of the body and out through the centre of the back and back into the doll again only to come out the other shoulder… sewing it this way has always made it difficult to get the right amount of tension through the shoulder or the hip of the doll in order to get the doll tightly jointed.

So where did I find these spledid needles… I found a needle company in India who makes them and ordered them direct from the factory. This was no small feat, but was totally worth it. I now have enough needles to enclose a needle in each of my doll kits and to sell some inividually. If you’re interest in buy one of these incredible needles, please drop me a line using the contact page. Needles are $3.00 Canadian + shipping.

Tommorow morning (Saturday April 23) Mum and I are going to be participating in our first ever antiques market… the Meister Markt at the Markham Faigrounds. We’ve put together a very respectible booth full of glass, ceramics, procelain dolls, vintage textiles and miscellany. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed collecting and displaying these pieces, but we’re hopeful to find new loving homes for them all.

Here’s a snippet from the show’s press release describing what the show has to offer

With over 150 vendors selling all types of cool and unique antiques and collectables in over 43,000 square feet of indoor space and 150,000 square feet of outdoor space, there’s sure to be something for everyone at the Meister Markt. Find vintage advertising for a loft space, rustic Canadiana items for the cottage, a beautiful mid-century lighting fixture for a condo or perhaps a solid oak bookcase for a home office. This show offers the ultimate in green living and recycling.

The vendors set up earlier today (from 3pm to 7pm) and once Mum and I were finished putting up our booth I had a chance to walk around & I can tell you that if you do have time to come to the fair tomorrow you will not be disappointed. There is truly something for everyone. I spied a couple of deco lamps that might just have to come home with me… and there was a fellow with a booth full of hooked rugs that I’m going to have to peruse tomorrow.

Now I only thought to take some photos after we had covered everything up for the night, but here’s a sneak peek of a little bit of the booth. The photo on the right showing our linen rack also features some of Mum’s pillows which she has made to re-use and display re-purposed lace. I will post updated photos to my twitter account throughout the sale tomorrow and following the sale I will recap the show on this website.

Hope to see you all tomorrow. Rain or shine it promises to be a great show!

This project is another blast from the past… Spring of 2008 to be precise. I was going to see Oysterband at Hugh’s Room and found that I had absolutely nothing to wear. I had learned a few things about corsetry from my time at the Shaw Festival, but I had never drafted one from scratch – so I cheated!

I’m really sorry, but I have no process photos for what I am about to describe. As usefull as they might have been, it was just too humiliating. I just couldn’t bear the thought of anyone seeing me like this.

Using a cheap t-shirt purchased with a 40% off coupon at Michaels and a roll of duct tape from Dollarama I followed the directions for making a Duct Tape Dress Form. There are tons of pages out there with directions for making one of these forms, here is one that I found on the Threads Magazine website. For my purposes I put on my best bra (which holds mest right) and I slipped on the tshirt and wrapped myself in duct tape. Because I wanted the corset to synch me in at the waist I sucked it all in and started taping tight around the waist. Once I was all taped up. I drew a line down my centre front and had a friend draw a line down my centre back. I also traced a line where I wanted the top and bottom of the corset to be. I also traced lines where I wanted all of my seams to be.

In deciding where I wanted all the seams to be I referred to a great book – Waisted Efforts by Robert Doyle. The specific illustrations / pages that I was looking at were the “Cadet” corset on page 175 and the “Straight front” S corset on page 184. These images helped me with seam placement and the placement of bone channels. If you’re looking for a copy of this book I have an extra which I have listed on Amazon.ca.

When I’d marked out my centre front, centre back and all of my seams I had my lovely assistant help cut me out of the t-shirt. This had to be done very carefully so as not to cut my bra by accident because that would have otherwise bee a tragedy.

Once out of the shirt I cut the centre back and discarded one half of the shirt. On the remaining half I numbered the pattern pieces from front to back and cut along the top and bottom edges and along my traced out seam lines.  Then I traced these pattern pieces on to paper and added seam allowance where required. I alo drafted a 1″ extension for the centre front left which will be overlapped by the centre front right when the centre front is done up.

Most of my fabrics and findings were purchased from Farthingales in Stratford (Ontario) and they had shipped my coutil, spiral bones (precut and tipped), busk, lace bones, lace and lace (shrink) tips overnight.  The black and silver silk brocade was purchased from a fabric shop in the west end of Ottawa (I can’t recall the name of the shop, but I will look it up  and post it shortly).

Once the pieces were cut, I sewed from the centre front to the sides catching all layers of fabric in each seam so that the outer covering and lining were worked up at the same time. I can’t think of a good way to really explain this myself so I would suggest referring to the instructions on the Farthingales website (thy also have instructions on how to properly insert a busk and lace bones). The edges of the side seams were bound with a poly-cotton seam binding. The side back and back pieces were sewn seperately by putting the wrong sides of the brocade and lining coutil together and binding the side seams with poly-cotton seam binding. I had bound the side and side back seams so that the corset could be easily altered later if need be.

The bone channels were stitched through both laters of fabric to both sides of every seam. The side and side back seams were pressed open and the bound seam allowance was caught in the seam so that they would not shift about. An additional two bone channels were stitched across the side front panel from under the arm down, under the bust and ending at the front edge of the panel at the waist – these channels offer extra support to a heavy bust and will keep the side of the corset from caving in.

all of the bone channels were stitched I slipped all of the bones (pre-measured, cut and tipped) into the channels and closed off the top and bottom of the bone casings using a satin bias tape. I stitched the tape to the outside of the corset by machine and rolled it over the edge and tacked the inside by hand so as not to show through the outside of the corset. I probably should have made a corded edge like the Farthingales instructions show, but I was pressed for time.

The lace bones that I used at the centre back have made it so that I can tight lace the corset without the centre back buckling or twisting, but it made the back of the corset difficult to grommet. I have never bothered grommeting by hand because its mucky and seldom works, but finding a gromet machine that can handle the extra thickness of the lace bones is difficult. I was fortunate to find a seamstress in Ottawa, Edwina Richards, who had a grommeting machine and she set my grommets for me. I can’t recall how much I paid for this service, but it was well worth the cost since I had already heavily invested in quality fabrics and findings.

Once the corset was grommeted I laced the back (leaving the laces long) and tried on the corset. I laced the corset tight (as I planned to wear it, tied it properly and trimmed the ends of the lace. Once the laces were trimmed, I removed the corset and applied the shrink tips. Shrink tips are a plastic sleeve which is threaded on the end of the lace and shrunk using a heat tool or a blow drier. Once the tips were on and shrunk I trimmed the tips to clean them up… et voila! I was finished.

This week the Markham Guild of Village Crafts celebrated their 40th anniversary. In high style the ladies kicked off their celebrations with their monthly meeting and a gallery show.

This past Tuesday at the monthly meeting, the guild executive (shown above) sliced into the anniversary cake lovingly designed by my Mum. The guest speaker for the month was Debbie Blair from Homespun Designs in Stouffville. The meeting was very well attended and the ladies shared many of the crafts they had made in guild classes from when they first joined the guild (many of whom joined nearly 40 years ago).

The gallery show was held yesterday and sadly I was unable to attend. The show was attended by the mayor, Frank Scarpitti, town councillors and many other members of the community. I am told they put on a grand show… good job ladies! Leslie Wooton was kind enough to take photos for me and I will post them here shortly.

For more information on the Markham Guild of Village Crafts and the classes they offer, please visit their website at http://www.guidingstar.ca/MGVC/

This weekend I was up to Barrie visiting a friend & didn’t have the chance to get out Garage Sale-ing. Instead I stopped at one of my fave local antique malls – Roadshow 400 Antiques.

Normally I have a really tough time getting out of the mall for under $50, but since I’m effectively between jobs I challenged myself to keep it cheap. I saw tons of things that made me drool including these two beautiful Wades…

The pitcher was selling for $295.00 and “Peg” was priced at $40.00… a fair price for either item, but out of my range for this particular trip.

What I did come away with was the little booklet in the image at the top of this page – The Canadian Red Cross Society: Knitting Instructions for War Work.

Published some time during the Second World War, this booklet contains patterns for all the knit goods required by the Canadian Army, Navy and Air Force including the following;

• Socks
• Knee Caps
• Gloves
• Half Mitts
• Broadcast Wristlets
• Rifle Mitts
• Whole Mitts
• Two-way Mitts
• Plain Knitted Scarves
• V-neck Sleeveless Sweater
• High Neck Sleeveless Sweater
• Plain Helmet
• Steel Helmet Cap
• Turtle Neck Tuck-in
• Balaclava (with chest and back piece)
• Ribbed Helmet
• Quebec Helmet
• Pullover with Turtle Neck and Sleeves
• Men’s Convalescent Jackets
• Lightweight Amputation Covers
• Seaman’s Stockings
• Sea Boot Stockings
• Areo Cap & Helmet

There are no illustrations of what these patterns work up to look like. When I get a chance I shall have to work through them to see how they all work up.

If you’d like to see the patterns & try them yourself, I have scanned the booklet as a PDF. Be forewarned, its a huge file. With 18 pages its approximately 31 MB. If you try any of these patterns, please send me a photo so that I can add it to this site (with appropriate credit given and reciprocal links where requested).

So how much did this little gem cost? $3.15

Happy Knitting!

Once again it’s Garage Sale season in Markham. Today Mum and I hit the first sale of the year… the Grace Anglican Church Rummage Sale!

Grace Anglican has bar none the best sales of the year. In the sring they put on a rummage sale & in the fall they have an antiques and collectibles sale that is to die for… great picks, better prices & all funds going to fund church work. Who can argue with that?

Today I came away with a tidy little haul of early 20th C. sheet music, a french ivory dresser box, two cute aprons and 7 books.

I love early to mid 20th C. sheet music.I’m not a musician, but the cover art is always great and it shows well on display. The photo above shows a sampling of my sheet music collection – only the sheet on the right was new to me today.  These sheets are for a Scottish Waltz and Two Fox Trots. “Billets Doux” c. 1921 (centre) was purchased in France and is stamped with distribution restrictions (could not be sold in Belgium, Switzerland, Holland or Luxembourg) and the suggested retail price (3 fr 50 – wholesale price was 1 fr 75). On the bottom of this sheet is a photo of the original chanteuse, Nina Myral, and see is wearing a tel beau chapeau!

As mentionned previously, “Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue Has Anybody Seen My Girl” was newly acquired today. I wish I could sight read because I can’t picture for the life of me what a Fox Trot with Ukulele Accompaniment would sound like.  If you’re curious to flip thought it, I’ve scanned it as a PDF.

Here’s a pic of one of the little aprons I picked up. I simply can’t resist a vintage apron… especially one with rhinestones. I’m sort of wishing that I was back at the museum because they’ve got a building they call the Honey House and on event days I’ve spent more than just a little bit of time in there. Would have loved to wear this with my uniform!

The other apron is likely a old kit from Mary Maxim. The apron is made of muslin and is printed with an embroidery pattern of roses, daisies, lily of the valley and either foxglove or canterbury bells. The person who did the embroidery was either very young or a novice as the stitching isn’t particularly good, but the apron is still sweet nonetheless. I simply adore vintage aprons & it is my plan to have a rack of them in my kitchen one day (each with its own strand of pearls).

My next little find was this French ivory dresser box. For those who aren’t familiar with the term French ivory is actually a celluloid plastic. This particular box has two marks Imperial Brand and Ivory Pyraline. Having searched a few auction sites and found some vintage advertizing pieces my best guess would be that this piece is from the 1920s.

I have quite a bit of French ivory in my collection, but mostly just button hooks. I was really quite happy to come across this box and it was only marked $0.25. I have an antiques market coming up in a few weeks time and I’m tempted to try to flip this one for $8 – $10. If it doesn’t sell I’ll be glad to put it back in my cabinet.

Finally, the books that I picked up…. I found two collections of essays on women’s history and gender studies, the History of Scarborough, Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol and the Wake of the Great Sealers. I know that not everyone is on the same page re: the seal hunt, but this is really a phenomenal book which details the 1914 Sealing Disaster which had resulted in the loss of 78 men from crew of the S.S. Newfoundland. The illustrations by David Blackwood are beautifully executed and seem to move aas they evoke a sense of the inhospitable environment in a way that photographs fail to capture.

Finally the question I’ve been dying to answer since the top of this page… How much did all of this fun cost? All together $3.50!

In the fall of 2008 my mother and I set out on a co-operative project. She asked me to design a rug for her to hook. I looked to a song, the Mermaid, by Great Big Sea as my inspiration. Rather than explain the story behind the design, I’ve included the lyrics for your enjoyment. The song can be heard in its entirety on GreatBigSea.com.

The Mermaid

Well I was a lad in the fishing town
An  old man said to me
‘You can spend your life, your jolly life just sailing on the seas
You can search the world for pretty girls till your eyes are weak and dim
But don’t go searching for a mermaid, son if you don’t know how to swim’

Cause her hair was green as seaweed
Her skin was blue and pale
Her face it was a work of art
I love that girl with all my heart
But I only liked the upper part
I did not like the tail

So I signed on to a whaling ship
My first very day at sea
I seen a mermaid in the waves
Reaching out to me
Come live with me in the sea she said
Down on the ocean floor
I’ll show you a million wondrous things that you never seen before

So over I jumped and she pulled me down
Down to her seaweed bed
And a pillow made of a turtle shell she placed beneath my head
She fed me shrimp and caviar upon a silver dish
From her head to her waist it was just my taste
But the rest of her was a fish

Cause her hair was green as seaweed
Her skin was blue and pale
Her face it was a work of art
I love that girl with all my heart
I only liked the upper part
I did not like the tail

But then one day she swam away
So I sang to the clams and the whales
Oh how I miss her seaweed hair
And the silver shine of her scales
But then her sister she swam by
And set my heart awhirl
Cause her upper part was an ugly fish
But her bottom part was a girl

Yes her hair is green as seaweed
Her skin is blue and pale
Her legs they are a work of art
I love that girl with all my heart
I don’t give a damn about the upper part
Cause that’s how I get my tail

Under Construction… more to follow shortly.