Tag: Valentine’s

February 14, 2013

Paint Sample Valentine Bunting

Happy Valentine’s Day! Yes, the big V day is here and I do so love to embrace the day of love, not so much in the couple-y sense, but in the wider, appreciating the people and things around me sort of a way.

And it inspires all sorts of craftiness in people far and wide, which is so excellent!

I, along with the rest of the crafty world, have fallen for buntings in the past couple of years and envisioned this one just last week while standing in front of the paint samples at Rona. Didn’t know if I’d have time to make it happen but I squeezed it in, threading hearts in the driveway while my sons pretended to drive in my stationary car (side note/free parenting tip: this is an excellent way to buy some time, just let them sit in the driver’s seat and go go go til they’re spent. If the horn honks, it just spices up the neighbourhood). My husband brought in a couple of snowy, errant hearts that I’d dropped when he came home later, hazards of crafting on the go.

I adore paint samples. The the graduation in colour, the heavy texture of the paper, the free-ness, the often-ridiculous commercial names of the colours. Here are some good ones from this bunting: Irish Rose, Grape Vineyard (is there any other kind?!), Satin Serenade, Ballerina Slipper (waaaay off, much darker than an actual ballerina), Very Pink (in case of confusion), Grape Jamboree, Vintage Violet (exactly as you’d imagine), Strawberry Crush, Frankly Scarlet (could you settle for any other red after reading that?), Valhalla (Norse gods always make me think violent fuchsia, of course they do!), Canterbury Lane, Peppermint Pink (nice contrast in terms), Redfeather, Purple Polka (I’d take that dance), Vibrato, Regal Robe (just to end on operatic notes). Names aside, I simply find paint samples satisfying to look at. Plus they are a great, free art/crafting resource. One that I take liberal advantage of.

Here’s a little how–to:

1: get yourself a big stack of purple and pink paint samples

2: cut out a heart template that fits on your paint sample. Since my samples were rectangle, I made a heart that fit twice on each page

3: cut out a lot of hearts!

4: hole punch 2 holes in each heart (that sounds so harsh!), one in each hump (that word alway sounds dirty to me …)

5: thread a ribbon or a piece of bias tape — I found some excess burgundy bias tape lying around that did the trick — and cut to desired length

6: thread ribbon through holes in hearts starting from back-to-front so that the heart looks “stitched” across the two humps

7: et voilà! Valentine bunting! And you can store it away for next year, leaving time for new love crafts …

April 13, 2012

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 …

February 15, 2012

Post V-day …

Yesterday was Valentines and Rudi worked for hours at making some spectacular cards for us. He’s learned to use tape and is very proud, his tongue sticks out with concentration and his little fingers work so carefully:

I’ve been trying and mostly succeeding at doing some of my artistic work during the day amidst and around the mothering of my 2 wee boys. But it’s come at a cost, I feel like I’m unraveling a bit and the balance of life vs work/art is swinging back and forth wildly, dizzyingly, instead of wafting tolerably.

It was working for a bit but I realized that I was putting-off my 3 year old more than usual because I was either preparing food, nursing the 5 month old or working on some sewing or online on the blog or researching. Not fair to him. And sending me in too many directions, which always ends up making me feel useless. Not fair to me. And since I have a lot of interests, I tend towards this anyways — being in too many directions at once, having a lot of “in progress” projects that get done bit by bit as interest and time allow. And then the feeling useless translates into me getting defensive to the world and being a major brittle, cranky pants. So it’s time for a schedule overhaul!

We are now playing with Rudi for a while in the mornings immediately following breakfast, instead of us both going off on our own, he to play and me to work. Today we were in spaceships (he made one for me by arranging all the balls he owns around me in a circle!) We talked on walkie-talkies (wood pieces from his play tool set) and took pictures of planets with his toy camera. It gave a much better tone to the day, Rudi was happier and I’m feeling like I actually accomplished something rather than just spinning my wheels.

And instead of trying to do everything — mothering and art-working — all at once, I’m going to try dedicating 2 to 3 nights per week to the sewing and crafting instead of surrendering to the couch and good/bad TV with the hubby every single night, as tempting as it is. And the days will be more for the boys, and food prep, and walks and whatever comes along, like unexpected poos or cuddles or naps or cleaning jags! We’ll see how it goes, I’m going to give it the old college try anyways.

I’ll leave you with this little nugget of goodness in honour of yesterday’s love day. I’ve been following the blog of artistic mom Adele Enersen since I found it in 2010 — you should check out her etsy blog to see what I’m talking about – her sleeping baby adventure photos are utterly inspiring! Rudi was too old to try this with by the time I saw her blog, so when I had Gene I knew I wanted to make some of my own with him during his sleepy times. Here he is, rocking the Cupid: