Last Hurrah!

via Pacolomo

We're heading off to Montreal today for a two week last hurrah before the holiday season and having to really get busy with our moving preparation. We'll also be going to Toronto (with a stop in Ottawa on the way) for my sister in laws wedding and then to NYC for pizza and walking the streets chilly streets in overcoats a la the Metropolitan set. I am so very excited, both for two weeks off on a real vacation and also to see places I've never seen before! Plus there are so many lovely people that we'll be getting to hang out with along the way, so fun to to do some real life hanging out with internet buddies. 

We've closed up the store for while we're away, otherwise I know I wouldn't really let myself take a break from it, but I might do a bit of blogging here and there to show you what we're up to. If anyone has any tips for the above cities, I would love to hear them!

Hope you're all well, and see you soon! 

Fall days

Hello! Sorry for how quiet it was around here last week, no excuses really aside from perfect fall days calling for neighbourhood walks and the realisation that the holiday season is approaching with the shop getting busier and busier. Oh, and the fact that it is November in a week. Eeep!

These photos are from a little stroll we took last weekend to a market that was held in this big, rambling house in our neighbourhood. There was vintage all strung up in the yard, boozy cider and pie for sale, a room full of vintage linens and Ora Bags and Seed Knits were selling their wares there, too. I ended up walking away with a beautiful Dresden Plate quilt for a steal (pictures to come), despite my best intention to be lightening our load before we leave. Oh well, I'm pretty sure you can never have too many quilts!

A few other things;

- My lovely friend Jen has released her Fall/Winter collection for her label Hound and it is just beautiful. I'll take one of each, thanks! How great are those yellow tights with the skirt and cape?
- Speaking of lovely friends, Kenzie released her new woven scarf collection last week and I am dying to get my hands on one! I love that she wove the yarn instead of knit, the texture looks amazing.
- City Shorelines by David Burdeny. These are just incredible, they look like paintings. The colours! I would love to have a print or two of these on my wall to daydream into.

Jumble

Canadian made 100% virgin wool blankets at Old Faithful

The temperature has definitely dropped over the last couple of days, which is almost enough to justify a trip to Old Faithful for one of these gorgeous blankets. There is pretty much no way I should be even thinking about buying anything housewares like with our trip home coming up, but I feel like these could pass as a souvenir of my life in Canada, yes? Please say yes. 

Thank you all so much for your lovely comments and support of our update and necklaces! I'm really pleased that people seem to like them, and we sold our first one this morning so I'm already planning out a few new designs to try out as well as making some more prisms to stock. It feels really good to have that all taken care of, and now I can start getting ready for the Christmas rush plus finally taking care of some wholesale orders. Fun never stops around here!

As we've both been working lots the past few weeks, I'm so excited to have this weekend free to play. We're going to be at Canzine West* tomorrow from 1pm-7pm as part of a little mini Got Craft? market. I can't wait, it's definitely something I would have liked to visit anyway and I'm really excited to check out all the zines there. I'm also hoping to head out to the Apple Festival on Sunday to taste a Grimes Golden or two and watch some cider being made, and I might check out the Mary Janes Flea Market happening in our neighbourhood, too. So many fun times! 

Well, this was a bit of a jumble of a post. That's what I get for locking myself in and working for so long, unreasonable excitement of being out in the real world that manifests itself as stream of consciousness blog posting. Ah well! 

Have a great weekend, friends!

xo

*I am going to close up the shop from midnight tonight until midnight Saturday night, so that there is no double up of purchasing. Naturally I haven't been organised enough to made things especially for this market!

Update phase two: Wood Necklaces

Wood is really one of my favourite mediums to work in, and I am so proud of how our first range of necklaces have turned out. They're made from mahogany that was discarded boat building material and this stunning cocobolo piece that Richard had left over from studying cabinet making. They're all strung on a fine, platinum coated chain and I'm really loving the way the grain has shown itself off, especially in the cocobolo prism. You can find them all in the shop, here. Hope you like them!

I plan to take a bit of a break now that this shop update is done, although I secretly do have a few new things I've slowly started working on. Back to more regular blogging from now on though, promise. Oh, we also have a Facebook page now so you can pop over here and 'like' it (so weird to say that) if you like! I'll try keeping it updated as much as possible. 

Update: Phase One

Phase one of our update, done! We now have these beautiful new pinboards in a range of sizes and vintage floral upholstery fabrics. I secretly want to keep that black one to hang my jewellery on! You can also find our range of limited edition teak bookmarks here, complete with hand drawn Scandinavian inspired illustrations. The king and queen are my favourites, especially the king with his tiny city for a crown. There's only a few of each illustration, and once they're gone they're gone!

We also now have a large 14" hoop chalkboard, a plain (or customized) writing slate and all our old chalkboard illustrations have been combined into one listing. Necklaces to come tomorrow!

Thankful

I have been totally swept away by Caroline's photos of Iceland ever since she returned earlier in the year. The drama and colour of these are incredible, and have only confirmed my desire to visit the country! I'm hoping she'll set up a wee shop someday soon so that I can hang some of these prints permanently on my wall. I was chatting to Caroline yesterday to get permission to post these here, and I'm so glad I did (aside from the fact that she is great and I can't wait to hang out in Montreal with her in a few short weeks!) because these were the perfect images to look through today while stuck in bed after a short hospital stay last night. Nothing too serious, but while I'm feeling pretty rough and sorry for myself in bed today I can dream of escape from my bed while I listen to Ursula snoring away underneath it. 
Happy weekend friends, it's Thanksgiving here and today I am thankful for lovely, caring friends who drive you to emergency in the middle of the night, a husband who brings me cereal and the laptop to watch Project Runway in bed and cooler days so that I can stay under quilts all day.
Have the best weekend, fingers crossed I will see you back here on Monday with a shop update!

Balance

I'm really excited to announce that not only do we have a new DIY in the latest Blanket Magazine issue, but that we're going to be continuing on as regular contributors to the magazine! Bec puts together such a great magazine and we're really honoured to be joining the team. This month is the Landscape issue and it is just as beautiful as ever, I really recommend checking it out. Amazing cover art by Jo Cheung, photography from one of my favourites Erin Tyner and some other fun tutorials in diorama and tilt shift photography (miniature landscapes!). Our tutorial is teaching you how to make a simple landscape inspired mobile. The trick is all in finding the balance points, which is surprisingly easy so maybe you'd like to give this a go! 

Balance, definitely something I'm still trying and learning to achieve in my life. I've pretty much come to terms with the fact that I am a total last minute person. I need that pressure to get things done, and as much as I hate it when I'm actually pulling the all nighter (or, attempting to as I most definitely can't to it anymore. I'm too old and sleep is too good!) it's always seemed to work well for me. Only, the aftermath of said late nights is starting to get to me and it's this; the messy house, candy wrappers and mugs of tea all over the place, my sleep schedule all out of whack, that I'm thinking really needs to change. 

Like I mentioned in my last post, the shop update I had planned for Tuesday had to be postponed. And then postponed again. Both reasons were totally unforeseen and there wasn't much I could do about them, but had I been a little more on top of things I might have been able to work around them. I wonder if I can trick myself into being more organised? Anyway, in an attempt at being realistic about how I work I've postponed the shop update until next Monday (13th Oct.) despite having done most of the work for it. I'm really hoping that my brain takes the cue that this means I should work on it a bit each day, thus leaving me the time to do other things rather than sit at my computer surrounded by post-its and scraps of veneer all day. As a sign that things might be on the up and up, I've already purchased a Christmas present for this year! I'm hoping to have everything ready to be able to ship to NZ/Australia at the cheaper than 5 days before Christmas rate. Let's just not talk about the fact that some of the gifts I'll be sending are ones that never made it out in time last year. Sigh.

A sneak peek at the mobiles we've been working on, that will hopefully make their way into the shop update. Think falling leaves, the milky way and tiny landscapes!

Update Update

So, I locked myself out of my apartment yesterday just as I'd finished up taking photos for todays update. Thankfully after awhile I was able to track Richard down and pull him out of class to get his set of keys. Reason #238 for him to get.a.cellphone. Anyway, this meant I wasn't able to finish up the shop update like I was hoping to, but it's almost all ready to go so it will be up tomorrow. Promise!

:Edit:
I now have to head to the doctor for the afternoon so the update has been postponed until next Monday! Sorry, folks!

Change

We went for a walk around our neighbourhood on the autumnal equinox the other week, it was my perfect kind of evening, mostly clear skies, a slight chill in the air but I was still able to get away with a t-shirt. We used to do these little walks all the time (especially to go get gelato) but life has gotten the best of us over the last while with evenings spent watching Greys Anatomy marathons and trimming veneer, so it was nice to go for a stroll for no other reason aside from watching the leaves turn, stretching your legs and doing some sneaky peekins to people's cozy homes.

This time right at the start of Autumn is my favourite, when the leaves are just starting to change and grey rainy days are still punctuated with crisp clear sunny days. There's change everywhere you look, and you can watch it all happen while eating something pumpkin spiced and wearing tights and a cardigan. I've mentioned before that I have a love/hate relationship with change, I both crave it and resist it. October means that we're that much closer to our move home which is getting increasingly exciting and scary. I'm at that stage that it is far away enough for me to be getting anxious and just wanting to fast forward, but then realising how much I will miss it here. I mean, Halloween in the spring time just might not cut it anymore.

Back to work for me, keep an eye out for our big shop update tomorrow! 

Sale!

In preparation for our shop update next week we're having a big sale! We're hoping to clear out some inventory so we can switch things up and make room for new stuff, so now is the time to buy up big people, it is not too early for Christmas shopping y'know. Speaking of early Christmas shopping, be sure to check out the new Poppytalk Handmade Market launched this week - its fantastic as usual and we're so happy to be a part of it!

Have a great weekend friends, it's meant to be hot and sunny here which is...crazy, considering that today is October (also crazy). See you Monday!