“There’s only one very good life and that’s the life you know you want and you make it yourself”. 

Diana Vreeland

Saw The Eye Has to Travel the other day. It’s one of those movies that makes the loud, crazy person in you want to come out and make all kinds of declarations about anything and everything. One, because it’s fun, and two, because why not?

D.V. you’re so awesome!

Photo via Diana Vreeland

Several days ago I came across some weavings by New Friends via Sight Unseen. They really kind of blew my mind. But since then something happened to their website and it seems to have just disappeared. I’m a little sad because I can’t find any images of my favourite ones. Hopefully they’ll be back up soon, but here’s one I found reposted on the Textile Arts Center site. Beside the weaving is a plant I’ve been obsessed with for the past 2 years. It’s called Purple Heart or Purple Queen. I have them all over my house right now, because I’ve just pulled them in for the winter. I feel like a bit of a crazy plant lady. Kind of like a crazy cat lady, but with plants. They exist. I know they do. And they would have plants hanging from macrame baskets everywhere. I don’t have those yet . . .

Anyway, come on New Friends, get your site back up!

Image via Textile Arts Center

Another one of our drives in the Kawarthas led us to the amazing Highlands Cinemas where we saw Moonrise Kingdom, which I thought was very fitting. It’s a curious little theatre tucked away in a forest in the tiny town of Kinmount (population 300). In addition to being a theatre it also serves as a museum. The maze-like building is full of huge old projectors, antique film equipment, and movie memorabilia. And that’s not all! Attached to the building is a room with windows and tunnels leading to an enclosed outdoor area where numerous cats roam, called Keith’s Cat House.

I recently read that Highlands Cinemas was under threat of being closed this fall after 33 years.  The theatre has been screening movies using projectors from the 1950’s, but this year had to decide whether or not to invest in an expensive conversion to digital in order to keep operating in 2013.  The survival of the cinema will very much depend on moviegoers, so everyone with a cottage in the Kawarthas, invite all your friends to your cottages and go watch some movies! Highlands Cinemas is open from May to Thanksgiving every year. Too bad they’re not open for Halloween because it would be the perfect place to watch a scary movie and then wander out into the dark forest parking lot to find your car.

New to the Natural Dye Collection – Dark & Stormy. Inspired by the drink (rum and ginger beer – yum!) not Hurricane Sandy, which has left us with grey skies and rain for the next few days. As with the rest of the Natural Dye Collection, the fabrics are hand dyed in a multi-step process using plant extracts and minerals, so shades and patterns vary with each item. Check out the Dark & Stormy line at The Made & Found Shop.

Pictured above are the Dark & Stormy Travel Kit, Travel Case, and Makeup Brush Roll.

Last month during our stay at the cottage in Fenelon Falls we took little trips to check out the surrounding towns. The friends we were with are in the midst of renovating their farmhouse in Prince Edward County so we drove around looking for antiques and anything that might be useful. I love that you never know what you’re going to find when you see a sign that says “Antiques” with an arrow pointing you down a long country road. One of those signs led us to a couple of dark, cavernous barns filled with what I suppose one could call antiques. Or maybe one could also call them graveyards for neglected, damaged furniture and home to Chucky’s playmates. A little disappointing in our quest for antiques, but a part of me loves that places like this exist.

I think I may be developing a new mini obsession with hand woven rugs. Funny that this could happen since rugs to me were something older people bought and collected from their travels, usually a little dark and dreary, intricately patterned, in mostly burgundy, navy and gold. It might just be that nothing had ever really caught my eye before my stay at that Fenelon Falls cottage or I’ve officially crossed the threshold into being “older”.

Yesterday I found these mini hand woven wool rugs in the basement of a fabric store. They are tiny. Most of them measuring less than 1′ x 1′ and some of them a little wonky in shape. I was told they are from Morocco or India, but they seem more Moroccan to me, judging from a quick Google image search. I was also told they are used as placemats. Some more research is probably in order. For now I would like to think they are mini rugs perfectly sized for stuffed animals, or they’re some old form of trading card that kids would collect and trade. You know, in some far away place where kids are really into rugs. Or maybe they are starter/training rugs for twenty-somethings to build an appreciation. Some may even call them gateway rugs . . . okay, sorry that was horrible.

Spent last week with some friends riding out the last of the warm weather in Fenelon Falls at the most amazing cottage. It was the perfect place to be for the transition from summer to fall. The cottage itself was so beautifully moody and dark, like being on the set of a movie, especially with the fire going every night. Maybe if someone was to make a Canadian cottage version of In the Mood for Love (one of my all time favourite movies) set in the country, it could be filmed there.

What topped the list of things I liked most about this place was probably all the incredible rugs in every room and hallway. The best ones were the red, white, and black ones that ran down a long dark hallway, which I need to find a decent photo of.  I’ll have to post those in a later entry, along with all the strange and surreal things we did on this little trip to the country.

The Made & Found is the featured seller at the DX Shop for August! A selection of travel kits and cases are available at the shop located on the lower level of the Design Exchange at 234 Bay St. in Toronto.

People often say they’re inspired by nature and I thought I got it, but maybe I didn’t really get it. Sure, forests are nice, but nothing really that mind blowing. Then on a recent hike through Lion’s Head Provincial Park I think I started to see it –  amazing colours, patterns, textures, and odd little things growing everywhere. Is this what people are talking about?

Just a few pics from a super last minute trip to Anguilla in February. Anguilla is an island in the Caribbean which I had actually never heard of before going. It’s a beautiful, quiet island north of St. Maarten that maybe a lot of other people haven’t heard of either, because every time I tell someone about it they think I’m saying I went to Angola.

We met all kinds of sea things and creatures on that trip, which I took pictures of with my little Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1 that goes underwater. Luckily for us Garvin, the manager of the villa we rented happened to be around and showed us how to skin and gut the fish we bought for dinner one night. We had a triggerfish, snapper, and parrotfish and each one had to be prepared differently. He said if he had known we wanted fish he could have taken us spear fishing! I say that with an exclamation point because I’m imagining it to be more exciting than it actually is maybe?  I don’t know.

And a cute stray puppy! There were stray dogs and puppies everywhere.  Some of them walked with limps because they’ve often been hit by cars, but this one was unharmed. It really enjoyed eating chicken and fish. And finally, my favourite stray, the ratty one at the very bottom, which I’m not even 100% sure was a dog at all. Kind of looks like some strange otter. He and his buddy were hanging outside the local supermarket.

Sometimes bad things happen in summer.  Note to self, or anyone else with a clear top record player placed near a window: Don’t do it!

So I was pretty excited to pull these pieces out of the dye pot the other day.  With a bit of playing around I’m getting more depth with this kind of grey marbling effect.  The pinks and purples are pretty, but I’m really liking the hint of darkness and extra dimension in these yellow pieces.

The last photo is a piece I dyed last summer.  I was at the farm picking random plants and pretty much anything I could get my hands on so it was kind of haphazard.  I don’t remember what plants I used and I don’t even know the names of most of the plants out there.  I’m going to have to keep better records this year.  Dyeing with plants is much more involved, but the results are a lot less predictable.

Okay, so it’s been 2 weeks and not a few days, but I have been busy.  Lots of natural dyeing with mostly plant based dyes, except cochineal, the pink one (bugs!) and sewing.  More to come in the next few days.

Working on a few things that I hope to be able to post here in a few days.  Here is a picture of my old sewing machines.  The Pfaff was rescued from a high school I believe.  It has half finished profanities scratched into it.  The image of a home ec teacher catching a student defacing their sewing machine with a pair of scissors makes me laugh.  Not out loud.

A few block print postcards I started a looooong time ago.  I’ve spent too much of my life obsessing over details and not enough time finishing things.  I think I will need to spend the rest of my life obsessively finishing everything I’ve started.  Here is the first of many.  I love sending and receiving real handwritten mail, and even more so if it has nothing to do with weddings or Christmas.  So these are my most un-Christmasy, unmatrimonial postcards.

We drove out to Sauble beach while at the farm this past weekend and Lake Huron was frozen as far as the eye could see.  It was like the Arctic tundra, or what I imagine it to look like.  I could just see myself wandering in slow motion out into the middle of nowhere, cold winds blowing, and slowly crumbling and falling onto one of those big sand dune things and freezing to death.

I’ve been trying to hold onto the feeling of South American summer at least until spring, but I think I’m losing the battle.  We just got about half a foot of snow today . . .  and the winter boots have come back out.  Sad face.

This happens every time.  I go away, find things I love, come back, and kick myself for not bringing back more.  These are a few of my favourites from this trip.

Alpargatas.  Before Toms there were alpargatas.  They are everywhere in Argentina and Uruguay, but I like these ones in particular because they have the jute soles and thick cotton stitches along the bottom.  And I like the faded candy colours.  And I like the one pink stitch on the green one.  Really should have got a pair in every colour . . .

Dresses.  Okay, so you can find dresses just about anywhere, and I don’t usually love dresses, but I love this one.  The fabric is a cotton silk blend so it’s super airy and light.  Found it at Ayres in Buenos Aires.

Cachafaz alfajores. I could eat these all day, every day!  A thick layer of dulce de leche sandwiched between 2 soft shortbread-like cookies, edges sprinkled with coconut.  Yum!  These ones just caught my eye because the packaging was so subtle and quiet compared to the other loud chocolate bar style wrappers.  I think it’s the frosted matte cellophane.  Gets me every time, but who knew they would be so unbelievably amazing?  I wish I had brought back 3 boxes rather than just one.

In Montevideo I picked up a kilogram of this beautiful, super soft wool from Manos del Uruguay.  No idea what I want to make with it, but I think I’m going to dye it.  Back in October I took a natural dyeing class at The Workroom and learned the basics of natural dyeing, after some very haphazard, experimental dyeing with plants in the summer.  In the second photo is a racerback tank I made with some of the dyed fabric in the colour I’d like the wool to be.  Hopefully I don’t end up with 2 giant felt balls.

We arrived at this small fishing village at midnight in the middle of a rain storm.  I won’t go into too many details, but you can probably imagine how our night unfolded in this town where the streets have no names, or if they did there were no signs, with barely a street light, and our very limited Spanish, looking for a hotel called La Posada, which literally translates to “the inn”.  When they opened 19 years ago they were probably the only inn around, but I can tell you most definitely this is no longer the case.  And in the pouring rain these were the directions we were following: “From the Prefectura de Marina, with the sea to your right, walk 120 metres.”

We woke up to the sound of crashing waves, and to my surprise I was not drowning.  What a great way to start the day.  We opened the doors to the balcony and this was our view.  After a week of hustling around Buenos Aires, and a few long nights and days traveling between places, this was perfect.  All there was to do was sleep, eat, surf, or lie around on the never ending beaches.  So that’s what we did for four days.

The antique markets and shops that went on and on and on in San Telmo were a little overwhelming, but I did find a couple of things, like this old clothing hanger, which probably isn’t an antique, and wasn’t actually for sale, but they sold it to me anyway.  On it is one of the tops I made before the trip, when I realized I didn’t have any summer clothes.  The floral print was a piece of fabric I had been holding onto for years.  There’s something I love about it even though I never wear floral prints.