Yesterday I met up with some friends for some free coffee at Sam James Coffee Bar. It was their 1 year anniversary and all day they were giving out free coffee!

We also enjoyed some Russian candy that my friend Natalie brought – it had the most awesome packaging!

Toronto and Ottawa

Missing Ottawa a bit. These are from my last trip.

And by OC I mean Ottawa Carleton.

Well, I don’t suppose this demonstrates process in a strict chronological way. But it does show one thing I like about working digitally, which is being able to play with layers. As one would with different pieces of tracing paper in a traditional sense, you can almost have more fun with in a digital sense, in that you’re playing with colour and various states of being rendered.

Do I like the first image better? In a way I do find it more interesting. Less literal. Her hair implied instead of given. Her mouth highly rendered in comparison to the other components. Imagine creating portraits like this. How would those commissioning a piece react? It might be interesting to play with the layers of finished portraits some more, working backwards in a way, to come up with something different. More interesting? Hmm. Perhaps a future project idea..

This illustration was created for The Style Notebook. Rita Liefhebber is a Toronto designer, and former fashion editor at Flare magazine. Click here to read the interview.

Alber Elbaz has been working wonders as the Artistic Director for Lanvin since 2001. And he’s also a great illustrator!

Pictured above are some stamps my friend brought me from Paris featuring his drawings. So great! His illustrations have been featured on the backdrop for this Acne Lanvin collaboration photoshoot, on numerous Lanvin products, and apparently he has illustrated a song for Mika, which I would love to see.

Personally, in terms of design, his shoes have always tempted me. Have you seen this crystal-embellished satin ballerina flat? Or maybe these leather boots? Size 9 thanks.

Thanks to Carolanne, I am completely addicted to hand piecing! Though I suppose I could think of a few worse things to be addicted to..but I’m serious! I’m taking a hand-quilting class, and after the first class, I stayed up and finished my homework for the whole week that very night! So by the time class 2 came along, I had already finished 1/2 the piecing, and had started a second! When I got to class, everyone was calling me a keener! Pfff. More like addict.

Stay tuned, will likely share the finished projects sooner than later!

Isn’t this chocolate hedgehog lovely? He and two of his buddies who have since ceased to, well, anyways, were a super tasty west coast treat from Roz – thanks lady!

This weekend I was given the opportunity to go to the Toronto Islands for the Arcade Fire concert. We arrived after the Sadies had performed and got there in time to see Janelle Monáe. She was opening for Arcade Fire, and to be honest, I was most excited to see her. She is phenomenal and I’m sure will be back in Toronto, headlining in no time. Both gave fantastic performances. Great night. So glad I was there.

So the silk I bought for the skirt is pretty cinematic, right? (second photo)

With the help of the lovely Kristiann at The Workroom, I was able to finish the skirt I drafted this summer – so awesome. It’s a split tulip skirt and let me tell you, it was a lot of work. The fabric was easy to work with, but a little sheer. I used silk for the drape, and also because I would probably make everything out of silk given the choice. But as I had a bit of a Lady Di sheer skirt, backlit experience at Fashion Week back in March (don’t ask), creating a lining was important. Since lining the front wasn’t much of an option, I created a lining for the back panel only, which did the job of helping reduce the amount of light passing through the fabric.

The waistband was probably the most time-consuming. First I drafted a curved band that when straightened, was supposed to undulate elegantly. But it ended up looking a bit weak. So then I redrafted, adding knife pleats, which gave it more Valentino-like ruffles I thought.

In the end I was so happy to have it sewn together that I didn’t get a chance to iron the hem before the photoshoot, hence the wavy and flipped over a bit front panel in the last picture. But overall, pretty good for a first try at pattern drafting, right?

Here’s the latest illustration I created for The Style Notebook. Kealan Sullivan is owner of 69 Vintage and you can check out the interview with her here!