Tag: rearview

Rearview Fridays: Juliet doll (best H.S. Eng. project ever)

This may be the oldest project of mine that I ever manage to feature here on Rearview Fridays! It’s a doll I made for a high school project, circa 1994. I remembered her when I featured a couple of other dolls I’d made a few years ago on a recent Rearview Fridays post. I can’t believe she’s in such good condition and that I’ve managed to carry her with me all these years.

May I introduce, Juliet Capulet:

In Alberta’s grade 10 English curriculum, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was par for the course. I had as awesome English teacher, Mr. Young, hands down the most inspiring teacher of my high school career. He was a great juxtaposition of art and jock. He’d been a wrestler in his youth, injuries sustained made him walk with a roiling gait, and he had these giant forearms. He was also passionate about basketball, running a huge national invitational basketball tournament every year. On the other hand he taught English, was the head of the department, and ran the school’s Shakespeare Club (of which I was a member of course). And he was utterly passionate and practical about language and stories and history.

Every year he assigned one project where we could do anything BUT write an essay. Our teenage-minds were blown! It was an arts high school, called Victoria Composite High School at the time and we were exploding with creativity. The excitement was palpable for this assignment in the 10AP class. I think I learned more about Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet and their times because of this project. I researched clothing, costumes, hair, payed close attention to the details of the play. One girl made a dance film, monologues were performed, a guy even forged a sword. Forged a sword! I made a Juliet doll — shocking, I know.

As I look at her today, I am amazed at my 16-year-old self. I started with a basic Waldorf doll, which I figured out myself by looking at other ones. I remember being so proud of how her eyes came out, painting lips and irises with such care. I picked natural fibres like cotton, wool and cotton velvet, dyed the fabric for her skin with tea, did a lot of the stitching by hand. Her hair is black cotton yarn, thick and waist-length. I crocheted burgundy lace for her dress, I even crocheted a snood, a freaking snood! I want to squeeze my overachieving, unstoppable self from 1994, tell her that she’s awesome. That she shouldn’t take the next 16 years to really feel comfortable in her skin because she’s great, extraordinary as is.

Juliet has a little lace and cheesecloth slip that ties at the back, it’s so sweet and innocent. Her dress is rich and heavy and closes with hooks and eyes at the back. Then to top it all off there’s a secret pocket under the top layer of the dress with a wee foil dagger and a corked foil vial, which, of course, has green beeswax in it so if you uncork it you see “poison”. Of course. Cause I like details. Ahem.

Mr. Young really believed in me and encouraged my shy, unsure self to trust my natural writing abilities. I am still surprised that I ended up working as a writer editor and administrator at a magazine for over 10 years without planning or training in that direction, but I think a lot of it has to do with some seeds of trust and inspiration planted in me by Mr. Young. I am forever grateful.

I’m also amused to remember that I simply am a creative creature, it’s who I’ve always been and who I am delighted to continue to be.

Cheers Juliet. Thanks for the memories.

Rearview Fridays: Knitted Organs

Today I think it’s time to share another knitting project for Rearview Fridays, 3 dimensional internal organs! I made them as costume pieces for a dance I choreographed last year called Organ Stories. The story of the dance itself will be  one for another Rearview Friday, I have to upload some video and want to give the dance it’s due here. And these organs deserve their stand-alone own entry.

This first shot is of The Uterus, with me and dancer Krista Posyniak getting organised for a rehearsal in June 2011. I was super-duper pregnant with Gene!

Inspiration: The Heart

In 2009 I knitted an anatomical heart for my husband for Valentine’s day, which he thought was weird, but I also like to think he secretly loves that I do such things! I sought out a pattern online since I didn’t really know where to start and was amazed at all the anatomical patterns people had come up with. Here’s the heart pattern I used, it’s by Kristin Ledgett of The Knit Cafe in Toronto.

I also knitted a heart that year for a wee boy named Ford, my friend’s son who was in hospital with complications from Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. Sometimes when I’m at a loss when those I cherish are in a hard spot, making something is the only way I can think of to show my deep love. I pour my thoughts and goodness and hope into my hours of work, and I hope, I believe, that the object carries the weight of that love. Ford is no longer alive, but I’m glad my knitted heart sat beside him and his mom, who is so dear to me, for a while. So this piece is especially tender for me.

The Lungs

I chose 4 organs that I’d make short solos about. The dancer spoke about facts and emotional associations of each organ and then danced a little organ-specific solo — like a lecture-demo on physiology through dance!

Here are the lungs, they tie around the neck and have super-strong earth magnets on the back that stick to a blouse with magnets sewn into it. I developed my own pattern from a few different ones I looked at online, but I didn’t write it down since I modified as I went, argh! Ah well, there’s next time.

The Uterus

This one made me giggle as I made it. And it was great when people would ask me what I was making, particularly because I was obviously pregnant while I was knitting! It was a highly appropriate organ to be knitting in my condition. I worked directly from a lovely, easy to follow pattern on Knitty by MK Carroll. I’ve also made this as a gift for my midwives, the lovely ladies that saw my boys into the world. Best midwife or obstetrician gift ever!

The Brain

The Brain I concocted myself. I used a great little Blue Whoville Hat Pattern as a base, though I modified a lot of things, made it bigger, alternated knit and purl for the earflaps so that they’d be more smooth than the original and did away with the ribbed band in the original.

Then I made miles and miles and miles of i-cord that I sewed onto the hat like a brain. It was fun to tell people that I was knitting my brain, have them look at the looooooooog cord, scratch their heads and walk away wondering about my sanity … but my plan worked! Here it is:

And lastly, I leave you with a shot from the performance of Organ Stories in July 2011. Here’s the slightly frazzled Professor Posyniak with her spectacles on and her Judy covered in organs. You can see the magnets sewn onto her blouse that the organs stick to for each solo. She was just finished lecturing about the brain and was about to dance it, which as mentioned before I’ll share in video form on another day:

This photo by Andréa de Keijzer, the dancer is Krista Posyniak.

Happy Friday everyone, hope that you’ll never look at your organs the same now that you’ve made it through this post …

Rearview Fridays: birthday loot bags!

I’m in birthday mode since I have a 4th birthday happening in my household tomorrow. So I thought it’d be apropos to dig up some crafty goodies from the last couple of birthdays I’m put together for my boy for today’s Rearview Friday.

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Rudi’s 2nd birthday party was lovely, the kids painted with water colours outside in the crisp spring air. Then we used the paintings to make frames for photos of his guests that we took throughout the party and printed up on the spot. I made loot bags out of some awesome hot pepper fabric I had lying around, waiting for just such a  moment. I adore little bags and containers, I am a squirrel after all! So I take loot bags seriously. Full Stop. No plastic junky ones for this lady, no sir. I make reusable ones that come in handy later on for, say, taking a few Hotwheels to Nana’s house!

I’m not much of a baker. But I aspire. And sometimes I reach too far. But I was pretty darn happy with these nuggets of awesome — cupcakes in cones. They were  great for newly-2-year-old hands to handle:

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Last year, for the 3rd birthday, it was cowboy time. Toy Story 3 and the ever-charming Woody were a big hit with Rudi at the time, but I tried valiantly to tip-toe around the Disney versions and keep things a bit more general cowboy-ee (thank you Waldorf for my auto “cringe at commercial” reflex!). I made “party hats” that looked like little cowboy hats (attached around with elastic):

And the reusable loot bags were small canvas feed bags. I stamped the little guests’ names on them and actually carved stamps — a cowboy boot and a horseshoe — from erasers after being inspired by the lovely Japanese blogger Mairuru. I loved carving them and remember spending one late, quiet night working on them while Rudi slept inexplicably long on the couch beside me, as happens with kids once in a blue moon.

Rearview Fridays: Knitted Easter Eggs

After a long week full of cold days and soul searching, I emerge today to acknowledge my blog for the week. I try to write here 3 times per week and more often accomplish 2 entries, but life got the better of me and my time! And every time I tried to formulate an entry, I had nothing and everything to write about. So I waited.

The weather got really cold again, driving us back under big comforters and I felt the impulse to hibernate — truly. Every moment possible I slept, deeply. Whenever a kid slept, there I was! It was awesome really. Disorienting, plan changing, but so good. I still only get a max of 3 hours at a time with a nursing baby at my side, so I do have big, sexy fantasies of 8 hours of uninterrupted, blissful, needtopee-free sleep, alone in a huge bed of course … sigh … and then I shake myself and wonder if I could even do it if it was possible, honestly I’d probably make a craft instead if I had that kind of time!

My Knitted Easter Eggs in a backyard tree, enjoying the burning-off of spring frost in the morning sun. And a door to ... somewhere?! (We're doing some construction)

As for the soul search part, I formally resigned from my work as a managing editor. I won’t return there after my maternity leave. It was time. There was a lot of consideration and I feel truly solid in my decision. But I’m leaving a secure place to land and a known quantity that’s been a part of my life in various forms for the past 10 years. And I’m walking towards an Autumn of mothering with my (paid)work committed to the development of my independent sewing business. I’m giving this working-from-home thing a shot at last.  And I’m very excited!

And for your Reaview Fridays pleasure I present Knitted Easter Eggs! I made them through the late winter of 2009 as my Rudi approached his first birthday. And, bless my ambitious heart, I made one for everyone who attended his first birthday party! I was left with 9 that I use every year now to make an Easter Tree, a weird but beautiful decoration that I feel attached to from childhood. I used this lovely, easy pattern from Lonie May. I think I added a row or 2 to the middles as I like a nice long-bodied egg, made hanging loops and added colours to create patterns. Here they are with some of their real brothers from an Ontario farm:

Cheers to change and bravery and possibility. And to Fridays! Happy weekend.

Rearview Fridays: Paint Sample Art

Today’s Rearview Friday is my paint sample art — a piece I made to brighten our bedroom wall last year. I’d found a stash of leftover paint samples from another project (which I describe below) and the muse woke up!

It’s an quick and dirty way to make a beautiful (if I do say so myself!) piece of art. I think I’ll make a how-to for it soon, so stay tuned!

Now why did I have a stack of paint samples tucked away? Press on …

When I present my dance work, I like to make unique program inserts, something to treasure, a little piece of art that supports the dance. In the spring of 2008, I created a dance about Achromatopsia (colour blindness). I used paint samples as my program inserts and put a quote from Dr. Oliver Sacks on the backs of them, a teaser to whet the audience’s curiosity. I’ll eventually include a Rearview Friday post about the dance, a piece called A|Chromatic.

The quote is awesome, I’ve gotta share it too:

“What, I wondered, would the visual world be like for those born totally colour-blind? Would they, perhaps, lacking any sense of something missing, have a world no less dense and vibrant than our own? Might they even have developed heightened perceptions of visual tone and texture and movement and depth, and live in a world in some ways more intense than our own, a world of heightened reality – one that we can only glimpse echoes of in the work of the great black-and-white photographers? Might they indeed see us as peculiar, distracted by trivial or irrelevant aspects of the visual world, and insufficiently sensitive to its real visual essence? I could only guess, as I had never met anyone completely colour-blind.”

Dr. Sacks wrote about Achromatopsia in his book Island of the Colorblind, a fascinating read. I was drawn to explore the idea of colourblindness — black and white vision — in my dance project because my mother and aunt were both born with Achromatopsia. And in spite of literally growing up alongside someone so close to me whose eyes see so differently than mine, I was/am hard-pressed to imagine what the world is like through a constant black and white lense.

Rearview Fridays: A Tale of Two Quilts

Today’s Rearview Friday title today comes to you courtesy of my amazing cleverness at 3am while contemplating my inability to actually sleep while the baby is sleeping and thinking of blog titles to pass the time/lull me back to sleep. Ah-thank-you. As a tangent, I feel I should add that A Tale of Two Cities is my favourite Dickens tale and one of my all time favourite books. It captured my 16-year-old heart when it was assigned for a grade 11 Social Studies assignment. But this post is not about Dickens, or cities for that matter. It’s about 2 quilts and my first “grown up” knitting adventure.

As a Waldorf student, I learned to knit in Grade 1. I made a multi-coloured Gnome with a long body (we’re talking upwards of 18 inches) and a pointed hat, a triumph for any 6 year old. Not sure where that gnome got to after all these years, probably tending a fir tree in Alberta and smoking something fragrant on a mossy log … anyhoo, from there I knitted this and that as a kid and knew the basics — knit, purl, basic increase and decrease, I could knit a scarf or a mitt or a leg-warmer if pressed.

But by the time I was 30 and expecting my first son Rudi, it had been years since I’d knit. I had a long daily commute on the subway and thought that I’d really like to knit my baby a blanket. I discovered Knitty and Ravelry and the amazing online knitting world. There were multitudes of tutorials on YouTube to learn any stitches I didn’t know, so I waded in! I bought beautiful yellow washable wool at Romni Wools in Toronto [aside: a totally amazing wool store in Toronto, if you visit here and love wool you must go!]

I found a lovely pattern and even taught myself to cable! It came out beautifully. Then I took the washable part too literally and washed it in a machine. When I took it out, the centre bit of the machine had literally chewed my hard work up. It was so bad I laughed, learned a valuable lesson, and thought I’d keep it as a car-blankie and a reminder to be gentle on hand knits in the future.

Insanity or stubbornness prevailed and I decided to start again and whup the butt of that blanket project. I bought more wool, I did it again. I prevailed! Here’s the one that’s been bundled around both my wee boys. The blocking has been pulled beyond recognition so that it’s almost square from all the wrapping and stretching around tiny bodies. it’s been washed a number of times without incident — even in the washer on the most delicate of delicate cycles.

The pattern was free and easy to follow, even for a relatively green knitter. Find it at For the Love of Yarn. I followed the pattern exactly as given (with the noted corrections on Feb. 5, 2007).

 

Rearview Fridays: A Felted Marcel!

Here we are at Rearview Friday already! Today I present a recent project, my needle-felted Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. Do you know Marcel? If not, you should check him out immediately as he’s charming beyond words! There’s also a sequel, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Two, and a book Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Things About Me.

Rudi’s dance teacher is also a good friend of mine and in December at the end of his first term as a dance student, I made her a felt Marcel as a  thank you present (I’m a big believer in teacher gifting). I got a needle felting kit from a friend a while ago and I just love it! Needle felting is like painting and sculpting at the same time and it pays off quickly. Plus it’s fun to jam a barbed needle into a hunk of wool over and over til it’s felt, great for letting off frustrations.

This week kicked my behind a bit, strange weather, a family trip to the dentist (Rudi yelled so long and loud they decided to try again in 6 months!) and epic bodily function marathons that went something like this: baby Gene poops through his diaper, then vomits copiously across the space I sleep while I’m getting a wet cloth and a new diaper, now Rudi needs to poop in the toilet but he can’t get his pants undone, okay, Rudi’s pants are off, he’s taking care of business, Gene is now diapered, vomit wiped up, Gene poops again, I wipe him and leave him for 3 minutes of naked bum time thinking, “how much more poop could there be?” (error), Rudi, bless his heart, has peed on the seat and left the water running but at least that means he washed his hands, wipe up pee, turn off tap, back to Gene, he’s peed right over the waterproof mat onto the space where I sleep and pooped on the mat, soak up pee, toss mat in laundry, Gene is diapered again, Rudi is hollering from downstairs about a granola bar, Gene poops again, violently, straight out the back of the new diaper then immediately rolls (his new trick that I don’t yet anticipate) leaving baby-poo streaks where I sleep, now I need to pee, dream of a nap for a moment, remember I need to pump milk so I can teach dance on Saturday morning, open the granola bar, now I’ve forgotten to change the sheets, by the time it’s bed time I really don’t care, so I sleep in the traces of poop and pee and vomit. I probably need a shower.

Now that’s not a complaint, it’s a share that hopefully reminds me and maybe helps someone else to remember about the sometimes-madness of parenthood. There was a lot of laughing and sighing involved, I  just had to surrender to the ridiculousness of the moments and pretty much walked away from all blogging, business planning and actual sewing for the week. That’s part of being where I am right now, and so I laugh, sigh, occasionally cry (though not very often, there’s no time for drama folks!), lie on my back to stretch or “sleep” for 5 minutes when I can and am grateful that other people are honest in conversation and books and on blogs about the merciless pace that comes with young children. Plans, as well laid and measured and modest though they may be, often just go sideways. So I’m side-stepping, doing the grape vine through it all, and a plate or two may break, just sayin’.

Happy weekend, here’s to a cozy, calm weekend. Ha ha (about the calm part anyways).

Rearview Fridays: The Grey Slippers

On Fridays I’m going to dig up an old project, craft or dance or costume, and feature it here. I hereby start this inaugural Rearview Friday post with: The Grey Slippers (aka booties)!

When my 3-and-a-half-year-old Rudi was born I rediscovered my love of knitting and found so many wonderful patterns and tutorials on the internet. I don’t remember exactly where this pattern came from, too bad because I want to make more … will keep looking in places patterns might have been tucked …

Feb. 27, 2012: Glory Be! I had a flash of memory and found the pattern – only change I made was to add elastic rather than a tie and they stay on like a charm!

2008: Rudi models his new slippers. You can easily fold up the top bit towards his knees for extra warmth, which I love. And oh how I adore the delicious kankles!

Anyways, I made these as I was having a hard time finding something that stayed on tiny feet and also kept ankles warm. After experimenting with patters, these did the trick. You can see in the first shot I was initially using a twisted-yarn tie on Rudi’s little legs, but I quickly changed it out to elastic and that made them almost unkickable-offable! And they fit him for about year, love the stretch. In the following shot you can see my second son Gene’s 4-month-old feet are now big enough to walk (er, kick) in his brothers slippers!

2012: Gene steps into the grey slippers. Shown here with the fashion forward fold over with denim pants, all the babies are doin' it, dontcha know?!! By the time he got 'em, I replaced the tie with elastic and they never fall off! Plus very fast to put on kicking feet.

So that’s me finished for week one of the blog, I planned for three posts and I did them all (pause to pat back). Follow me on Twitter if you’re into that sort of thing and I’ll be here next week. Happy weekend!