This year I got a new phone. And it’s pretty rad. Instagram is completely addictive and overall it’s great to be able to access whatever information you need without turning on the computer. Not to mention as of yesterday my mom is all about FaceTime. Which really shouldn’t surprise me. Though it does.

As soon as the phone arrived, people were telling me how delicate the screen is and how theirs shattered and how crucial a case is for it’s protection. In fear of having just bought an expensive paperweight, I started to cruise sites for cool cases. I thought about a basic Pantone, or maybe one from the designers at Society 6. But are these protective? Or just decorative outfits? I think the phone itself looks good, and doesn’t need any visual excess. Then I got an email from Makr, showcasing their leather phone cases (my favorite being the matte navy). What a great idea. A leather sleeve will protect the screen from key scratches and because of the texture, the phone won’t readily slip out of it’s case at inopportune times.

Because I had some leather sitting around, one night I drew up a pattern and stitched together the case. It’s just 2 pieces of leather cut into the shape of the phone, stitched around 3 sides. Really quick and simple.

At the last minute I was able to catch the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit at the Musée des beaux-arts while it was still in Montreal.

Unlike any I’ve seen before, this show featured animated faces projected onto mannequins, including one of Gaultier himself (see top photo), as well as a runway with moving mannequins. He didn’t want the show to have a typical stuffy and static museum feel, and these were ways he could bring it to life.

I took a lot of close-up shots (big surprise, I know) – but the detail that goes into each piece is incredible. He is one of the select few members of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, and you can see why.

Shortly before my visit, I had picked up an issue of the New Yorker. The article, Fantasyland, was a great supplement to viewing the exhibit. If you didn’t make it to the show (I think it’s in the States now, and then Europe), the article provides a great little glimpse into the life and work of Gaultier, and is worth a read, selon moi.

Really due for another trip to SOMA. This particular chocolate was filled with pop rocks – so much fun!

With friendship bracelets making a comeback, I decided to revisit my youth and jump on the bandwagon at a Friendship Bracelet Party held at The Workroom during Lizzie House’s visit.

The colourway I decided upon was inspired by the shirt I was wearing at the time – an unexpected combination of pink, red, orange and purple.

To make it more challenging, of course, I decided to use a Japanese pattern book, because if you’re going to make a friendship bracelet, you might as well make a difficult one. It took about four starts to actually figure out how to accurately interpret the grid system, but in all honesty, it is not a particularly difficult pattern once you get going.

And if you’re in the market for an inexpensive, compact project that travels well, I would definitely recommend starting a friendship bracelet.

On Thursday I attended the opening celebration of a store built by Mercy (for whom I previously did some illustrations for a t-shirt line). It’s perfectly located between Clafouti and White Squirrel on Queen West, right across from Trinity Bellwoods.

I’m so excited their line will be available in Toronto again, and the other brands they carry are also terribly impressive, including Italian jewellery designers Iosselliani (I’m a huge fan), Les Prairies de Paris, La Botte Gardiane, and Ascher London – a scarf in the shop inspired my little sketch up top. It was a great night: seeing familiar faces and meeting new, very stylish, people. Congratulations to Jennifer and Richard on their new shop!

For the month of August, I’ve had two fashion illustrations up on the walls of Club Monaco on Queen St West. This is the last weekend they will be up, so if you’re in the neighbourhood, stop in for a look!

Waiting for my parents to get ready for the game, I snapped a few shots in their hotel.

Carolanne’s banner is up! This summer I designed a logo and a banner for her quiltmaking business. It was a great project and experience, as we were both on the same page from the beginning with respect to the concept and design. We decided on an abstract acorn motif for a number of reasons like, not wanting to be too literal, and creating an image that is versatile and maintains a flexibility in terms of usage.

Carolanne is a lovely and talented quiltmaker. Impressively she does everything the old-fashioned way, by hand. I learned to piece and quilt by hand from her and her enthusiasm for the craft is infectious! She teaches quilting at the workroom, and if you’d like to see some of her work, you can check out her blog here.

So almost one year later I finally get around to making these popsicles!

They are loosely based on this recipe. I placed three different fruit (peach, mango, raspberry) with a couple tablespoons of turbinado sugar in a saucepan and stirred on low heat until the sugar melted – add enough sugar for the mixture to taste quite sweet, as it will taste less sweet when frozen. Then I used a hand blender to break up some of the bigger pieces. Alternating spoonfuls of the fruit mixture and yogourt into the popsicle molds (star-shaped!), the recipe turned out really well. I made two batches: one with lemon yogourt, and one with coconut. These are my two favorite flavours, and they both work very well with the popsicles. Delicious!

Also, I just heard about this new Zoku Quick Pop Maker from Williams Sonoma and it looks amazing. As soon as I had made my yogourt pops, I wanted to eat them straight away, which was impossible. However, this new contraption makes popsicles ready to eat in 7 minutes! So tempting!

Ever since this whole mug rug trend came along in the crafting community, I’ve wanted to make some of my own. They are bigger than coasters, yet smaller than a placemat: the perfect size for a mug (an iced hot chocolate perhaps?) and a treat. I first saw this mug rug concept on Karyn’s blog, then on Katherine’s blog, and even my mom beat me to the project, only she calls them rug rats. From what I understand, the project originated here, where you can purchase a pattern, though using their approximate dimensions of 9.5”h x 6.5”w is probably enough to get you started.

When I signed up for Carolanne’s Whole Cloth Quilt class at The Workroom, it was the perfect opportunity to experiment with lots of hand quilting on a small, manageable scale. Which is a bit contrary to my normal approach to classes, which is usually to make something 3 times the size of everyone else’s, or make 2 instead of 1, or if everyone is making a square, make a circle. You get the idea.

The pattern I quilted was interlocking circles, and I’ve come away from the class with great interest in quilting more geometric patterns. I must admit that whole cloth quilting is a bit more calculated than it seems. The choice of fabric, thread, and pattern are crucial. The three fabrics I chose for the mug rugs (top, binding, bottom) look great together and would have worked well in a traditional pieced quilt. Whereas with the mug rugs, the quilting, which is supposed to be focus, is almost completely lost in the print, even though the print isn’t particularly busy with respect to colour. In general, I would recommend using a solid fabric for a quilting project like this, or at least one that has a muted and loosely space print. Learning from this first try, I am already gearing up for my next whole cloth quilt, which will potentially be the size of a quilt. For this next project, in consultation with Carolanne, I have selected a fabric, thread, and new geometric pattern to quilt that all complement each other, and am excited to move forward more whole cloth quilting adventures.