Eva is now over 7 months old. I clearly don't have time post regularly, but I will do it whenever I feel so inclined. Recently, we've been walking with the stroller and picking up bits of nature. Just think! Flowers in January. At the local thrift store, we find these containers. Now all we need is a snail..next time.   

  

The quiet life...for the next month

Until now, I was trying to avoid it. That is adding my baking and cooking to this blog. My first reason was, I do it almost every day so what's the point in documenting? The second reason...this blog was meant to document my material creations. As in my craft-sewing. But if I feel inspired to do it, and cook/bake without a recipe, isn't that creative? 

Also I am in the last trimester of my pregnancy. Just started maternity leave and although I experience fatigue most days, I give'r all the rest of the time. I do as much as I possibly can, considering I won't have much time for myself after baby's born.

 I realize its all pretty typical for a woman in my position, but I am enjoying every moment of it. Between sitting breaks taken reading in the sunshine, here is what I made yesterday.

-ricotta & spinach pie

-12 grain bread

-pear and almond crisp

Today will be a sewing day.

My First Quilt

I made this quilt for my cousin's baby in Croatia. Last October Danijela and her husband Jakov had their 1st baby, Matea. I kept meaning to make something to send to her. They didn't need anything conventional for the baby, so I made a quilt out of my old jeans, a salvaged hippie dress (the peacock) and some soft cream wool I had many meters of. The baby blanket that resulted is definitely not perfect in shape, but I liked it so much I was tempted to keep it.

While I am living in the foothills, I intend to learn some traditional skills from the ladies who do quilt in this area. This is something rural women do quite impressively here in Alberta.I know I have enough visual ideas, I just need to learn some tricks of the trade to do it properly.

COMPULSIVE CREATION

Life has been in crazy transition since Feb.2012. I am settling into my new place, in every way. One thing I have to do for myself relatively soon, is get somebody to photograph me in the dress I made for myself out of that silk I dyed (eucalyptus on silk). 
Since I left Toronto, I haven't dyed a thing. But I have been taking apart used clothing made out of beautiful natural fibers and sewing. I have been collecting pieces for a while, which allows me to be completely spontaneous when I want to create.

 From top left corner, clockwise: linen pants taken apart, raw silk dress, Indian sari, given to me by Sara Witalis.

To be honest, I spend every waking moment on the weekends outdoors hiking and enjoying Jasper which is so close by. I play with fabric for a sort of therapeutic effect during the week. My mind may solve a problem or two, but for the most part the experience is fully tactile. 

Meanwhile, I have been making myself a cotton dress out of a table cloth. I'm trying to see if I could do it without a pattern, meanwhile make it perfectly fitted for me. Considering how rarely clothing actually fits when purchased in the store-unless stretchy. I will document that soon as well.

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This is the back of the silk cushion cover. Coarse natural linen.It is for my mother's 60th birthday. I know - very nostalgic...

This is how it turned out. Just eyegballin', no pattern.

And the peachy silk ribbon is just ripped pieces of raw silk.

Its been finished for a couple of weeks. AND!!!! it made it on time for her 60th birthday. Let's see what's next...

LEAVES ON SILK

I think it was a year ago, while working in the Grande Prairie Library, that I ran into one of those books that opened my creative perception. Gave me new possibilities for experimenting with fabric and colour. The book was Eco Colour. The author, India Flint, had done her research (for her master's degree in fine art somewhere in Australia) on  extracting colour from eucalyptus leaves. Supposedly there had been books written on these experimental studies as far back as the Victorian era in Australia. Eucalyptus was everywhere as debris, so why not find some use for it? India Flint was able to extract several hundred colors, each obtainable by varying the degrees of temperature, accompanying metals,etc. So I took some cheap white silk, ripped a yard in half, and tried doing the print & steam technique. All I used was a rice steaming pot now dedicated, and some leaves which were soaked for 24 hrs previous. Here's what I got. Now I will not stop with eucalyptus. It was given to me by my sister and she works as a florist. Eucalyptus is not endemic to Canada, so I will continue with other debris. My goal is to experiment, learn about results, and sew these one of a kind fabrics into garments. See what happens.

The tie dye one above is a beautiful thin linen table cloth that I purchased in goodwill for $3. What you don't see, is all the clovers and ferns that are a woven pattern in the white linen. Very subtle. The tie dyeing was my first. I just boiled down the pressed leaves, and that is the colour I got by submerging. Not nearly as beautiful as the silk reaction to the plant. But I want to tie dye more using a different colour.

The linen below the steaming package is what I used for the tie dye above.

Jasper in May

CLICK on the images!We came back yesterday from the most amazing weekend in Jasper. Because we are moving back east within the next month, we really wanted to spend some time camping in our favourite part of this awesome country. The northern tip of the Rockies. This place is so awe inspiring because it still posseses some of that dangerous thrill of nature being left to its own devices.

CLICK ON MY PHOTOS!