I know it sounds like a very odd combination but that has been my world this past week!

The renovations are barreling along, I have to remind myself it’s only been a week since this all started, some days it feels much longer than that. The new walls are all in place, the wonderful plumber and equally wonderful electrician are working their magic.  There’s an awful lot of  “stuff” going on inside the walls right now and none of it will be visible when there are walls!

It may not look like it but things are coming along well. Thanks to everyone who sent along a comment on their own renovations and words of encouragement. The consensus is it’s all worth it in the end and I am reminding myself of that on a regular basis!

I have been doing allot of running around this past week, who knew it would be so tricky to choose a bathtub, it’s not something you shop for very often. But once you decide what you want,  you have to get it home…

yup, that’s my new bathtub upside down in the back of my car. If you look carefully in the top right hand side of the image you will see the new toilet in its blue and white box sitting on the passenger seat. I did get a funny look from the car next to me at a traffic light, but really, how else do you get them home?

Thankfully except for a few days at the end of the week the weather has been glorious! it certainly makes hauling boxes, picking up lunch and taking stuff to the dump allot more pleasant. This gorgeous red leaf tree is right against the fence in my yard and all summer I have been threatening to take it out, it really hasn’t done much but be messy until the weather cooled down this week.

The red tree ( sorry, no idea what it is!) against the blue sky and the yellowing leaves of the climbing hydrangea is really striking. So for now the tree has won a reprieve, it stays.

In the midst of all of this organized chaos I have been getting a bit of stitching done. Truth be known the studio is the only dust free place right now, so that’s where I head when I need a change of air.

I have been having great fun playing with this piece of laminated paper Edwina Mackinnon and I made when I was in the UK this past August. Edwina gave me a lesson on laminating paper and this is the piece we made out in the back garden one sunny afternoon. It took me awhile to figure out what I wanted to do with it, but now it’s layered up and the stitching is happening.

I do love working with paper in all it’s forms so paper laminating is right up my alley. I really enjoyed the process and the results are so much fun, thanks Edwina. I must have grabbed the sports section of the newspaper when we got ready to work and have unintentionally managed to include Mark Cavendish in my piece, upraised arm and all. Just one arm I’m afraid,  I accidentally cut one off  in the design, sorry about that Mark .

Bye for now, Catherine

 

The time has finally come! I have started renovating my kitchen. Actually in the spirit of full disclosure, other than cleaning, picking up stuff from the hardware store , picking up lunch for the workers and making endless coffee I am not actually doing much actual renovating … yet!

We are at the demolition stage and things are moving very quickly! After 2 days of sledge hammers  and crowbars ( great name for a tool isn’t it!?) the old kitchen is gone! and a few walls as well.

That yellow gap under the window is where the old corner sink was, the new one will be under the window to the right in a nice loooong counter-top.  The doorway in the picture above  is gone now as well.

Not only is the kitchen gone, most of the bathroom has left with it! that’s the remains of the shower stall in the center of the image above (and the front edge of the toilet in the bottom right!)

Not everyone is as excited as I am about the changes. That bit of black on the far right is Bart creeping around the edge of the door frame, he’s not a big fan of the noise and disruption.

Here we are at the end of day 2 and things are looking good, though a bit dusty ( OK more than a bit dusty, very dusty!) but there’s going to be wonderful light in the kitchen when everything is all done.

This is the new “view” from the kitchen to the sitting room, well almost, those vertical “bars” will be gone tomorrow. There’s more demolition to go and of course with it more dust and mess, but it’s exciting to see the rooms opening up.

I am planning on hanging up my hard hat and heading out to the studio tomorrow afternoon, at least that’s the plan!

Bye for now, Catherine

 

I know I’ve mentioned it before ( maybe allot!?) but one more time can’t hurt!

The Maiwa Symposium is still on in Vancouver, it really is a big event here and runs for about a month of wonderful textile workshops, lectures and events. My latest involvement with the symposium is as a volunteer! I spent 3 days as classroom assistant for a felting workshop with the brilliant Jessica de Haas as instructor. Jessica’s Funk Shui Felting workshop was amazing and even though I was up to my elbows in wet towels and buckets of water for a good portion of the time it was amazing to watch Jessica work her magic with wet wool!

This is the “wet room” and believe me it was! The fan in the picture wasn’t because it was a warm day, getting a little air moving helped to dry things out (a bit)

The students did some wonderful work with wool and silk and over the course of the 3 days developed some exciting designs.

It was an exciting hour at the very end of the 3 days when everyone gathered  around the big table for show and tell. It’s amazing the different work each student created, their personalities came out in their color and design choices.

Jessica uses silk paper and lots of free motion machine stitching on her felted pieces, the combination is wonderful!

It was a busy 3 days but I did manage to make a bit of silk paper and experimented (well for me it was an experiment!) with wool roving mixed into the silk. I couldn’t resist adding a bit of text as well, the newsprint settled into the silk fiber nicely I think.

It won’t end up anything like the felting created in the workshop I’m sure, but I have a few ideas I want to try out….

Bye for now, Catherine

 

There’s something special about Friday afternoons to me, especially late on  Friday! The weekend is right around the corner and I still get a bit of that “just released” from school/work feeling. Though really it’s been a long time since I had a “proper”  Monday to Friday job and even longer since school days!

This Friday brought a treat! My drawing buddy and his partner were going to be threshing the wheat they had grown and I was welcome to drop by and see it done. There was no long car trip to farm land involved, this is the wheat David and Kelly had grown in their garden right here in North Vancouver, who could resist!

They had harvested the wheat and invited other growers( or should I call them farmers?)  from around the city, there’s allot more people growing wheat in Vancouver that you would think!

The wheat is then run through a wool carder to separate the wheat berries from the chaff. It’s the most unusual use of a wool carder I have ever seen! but very efficient. After running through the carder a few time everything is then sifted into the large blue bucket on the right.

This was the group using machinery to help them along but out on the lawn was another group. They had the wheat spread on a sheet and were hitting the heads with sticks to separate the grain, a very satisfying feeling!

They then gathered the edges of the sheet and separated the wheat berries from the chaff by winnowing. Now it was a still day so some ingenuity was required!

The results just about ready to be ground into flour. What an amazing project and a wonderful way to celebrate the end of the week.

David is one of my life drawing buddies but little did I know he is a brilliant glass artist as well! he has been working on a panel ( not the proper name I know but I can’t remember what you called it!, sorry David) ) for their deck. It based on the poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” by Wallace Stevens and is absolutely stunning!

He’s got 7 panels done and 6 more to go, it’s amazing with the setting sun coming through (and without as well)

and I couldn’t resist this fellow perched on the roof of David and Kelly’s studio!

Bye for now, Catherine

The Maiwa Symposium is happening right now in Vancouver and there are wonderful workshops, lectures and some fun fibre based events ( not something that happens often is it!?) happening all over town. I attended a lecture on Living Textiles of Mexico on Thursday night and spent this past weekend knitting!

I spent a wonderful weekend wrestling with knitting design! OK wrestling might not be the best word for it,  but it is a bit like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. There are so many things involved in the creation of a knitted shawl! Thankfully we were guided by the brilliant Sivia Harding  who has no trouble at all patting her head, rubbing her stomach and juggling balls of yarn at the same time! And all done with a smile on her face.

I know it doesn’t look like much but I really accomplished allot this weekend! and enjoyed myself thoroughly. Nothing like a bot of a change to get the creative juices flowing.

Not sure how well it shows in the image above but I have learned to chart my own designs and place them within the triangular ever-increasing shape of a knitted shawl my mind is spinning with ideas! Sivia’s gorgeous shawls were eye candy and inspiration for the weekend, she graciously allowed us to try them on and get the feel of shaping shawls to our bodies. Who knew there was so much detail in a triangle!

The workshop was held on Granville Island in the Loft space above the Maiwa shop. The Loft is an amazing textile resource with a library and the Maiwa collection of textiles from around the world. It’s a  feast for the eyes or was before we messed it up!

Then of course there’s the other kind of feast you can find on Granville Island at the Public Market! Finding lunch was no problem, deciding on what I wanted was another matter all together.

There’s always the usual cast of characters entertaining the visitors on the island!

There were a couple of times during the workshop when I felt a bit like this fellow! balancing carefully on a rolling thingy on a stool and hoping for the best. But thanks to Sivia and her endless patience I have ideas brewing for a knitted design of my own.

Bye for now, Catherine

Wow is it wet here!

The first official day of autumn starts tomorrow and we are experiencing our first heavy rainfall warning  in a long time.  For those of you who don’t live in a rainforest, a heavy rainfall warning gets issued by Environment Canada when they expect “significant precipitation”.  For my part of town that means about 50 to 70 millimeters  (2 to nearly 3 inches)  in about 24 hours! The weather has certainly brought a sudden end to summer.

These wonderful and well over 6 foot tall sunflowers are in my neighbor’s garden. They are doing their best to hold their giant heads up against the rain.

I know that taking photos in the pouring rain isn’t really the most ideal time for most people but I really enjoy some of the effects I get in the rain. Of course I have no control over where the water drops end up on the camera and really don’t know what I have shot till I get home and get the images on the computer, but every now and then I get a good one!

I’m sure proper photographers would have a fit about all the water on the camera lens ( it can’t be good for it!?) not to mention the soaking I take while trying to get underneath the flowers!  Of course there are those who love the cooler temperatures and rainy days…

and the giant almost wading pool size puddles (otherwise known as drinking bowls!) that appear all over the neighborhood.

Of course rainy days also mean days spent in the studio, not in the garden! But that will have to wait till tomorrow. I am off to a lecture tonight. The Maiwa Textile Symposium is in full swing here in Vancouver and I am attending a talk by Sheri Brautigam on  the Living Textiles of Mexico, sounds fascinating doesn’t it!?  A perfect way to spend a rainy Vancouver evening.

Bye for now, Catherine

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It’s been a bit of a boring week! nothing really special has been happening just allot of catching up on bits and pieces that needed to be done. I’ve been putting together class plans for a few workshops this fall and catching up on email, a bit of a yawn after the past 2 whirlwind weeks of openings and events!

I did head back to the Seymour Art Gallery to do a photo shoot for the local paper, the North Shore News. They sent photographer Mike Wakefield, an amazing artist in his own right!, to meet Ros and I at the gallery. Mike has just got his website started up and wants to add more images but there are some stunning examples of his work there. (click on his name above) It was great fun and definitely not something I do everyday that’s for sure!

Here’s Mike getting Ros and I set up. Ros is back to back with one of her wonderful garments.

I’m not sure what the newspaper will choose as the final image for Fridays edition, hopefully something flattering to both of us!

Meanwhile back at home… the figs I was marveling at earlier in the year are ripe! and boy are they tasty. I have been eating them with cheese, cereal and right off the tree. It is amazing to me to be able to eat ripe figs right off my own tree ( OK, I confess, the neighbors tree as well) but I think I may have had the last of them!

The raccoons have discovered the ripe fruit and spent most of the last 2 nights tumbling around in the branches of the tree. They are the cutest little bandits you have ever seen! no pictures of course, its pitch black when they come to raid the trees.

It is a bit of a fruit festival here! Not to be outdone by the figs , the grapes are ripening. Apparently they are supposed to be “wine grapes” and not good for eating but I have tried a couple of them and think they are delicious!

Sorry about the dark images but it was quite gloomy crawling around under the grapevines. And it’s raining! well not proper Vancouver rain yet just showery and damp but still I could hear the forest and gardens breathing a sigh of relief this morning.

One of the best things about rainy days is the garden-guilt-free studio time!

Bye for now, Catherine

 

 

Well that easy, thanks to a helpful computer techie…

Here’s the images of Jabberwocky with the colours correct! in fact almost perfect.The blues look allot better for sure.

and the detail,

Bye for now, Catherine

whew, and just under the wire as well!

I don’t know what it is about a deadline…I always seem to see just how close I can get, I must work better under pressure or at least THINK I work better under pressure.

Anyways, Jabberwocky is done and hanging in the gallery, complete with hand mirror beside it for “reading” . It ended up being entirely hand quilted, not something I would recommend when you are fighting a deadline.

We had a great time at the opening last night and I was really pleased to see visitors using the mirror to read the poem!

Here’s a detail of the finished quilt. All the images I took last night in the gallery seem to have a yellowish cast on them ( sorry about that!) I will take some more images of the quilt when it comes home and you can see the colours a bit better.

Through the Looking Glass is on at the Seymour Art Gallery in Deep Cove, North Vancouver till the 18th of September. If you are in the area Seymour is a lovely little gallery in a beautiful place! well worth a visit.

I seem to be taking longer and longer between posts these days, no excuses but finishing quilts and attending openings has slowed me down. So has this!

Bart had to have a little surgery on Friday and of course my world revolves around him! We spent the long weekend at home recovering (both of us) and he is well and truly on the mend. He will be so thrilled tomorrow when the “cone of shame” comes off.

Bye for now, Catherine

Another whirlwind week has gone spinning by starting with a flight home to Vancouver.

I know this looks allot like an image I posted about a month ago, but really it’s the other end of the trip! This image was taken at Heathrow just waiting for my ride home. I’m back in Vancouver and a little behind with my blogging (and a few other things as well!) It’s  not much of an excuse but I hit the ground running!

This Saturday was the opening of the wonderful exhibit at Basic Inquiry Art Gallery that celebrates the amazing 30 plus year career of Peter Read. Anyone that has done life drawing for any period of time in Vancouver has probably drawn Peter. This group exhibit brought together artists inspired by Peter’s work as a life drawing model.

It was great to see so many drawings of Peters inspired poses. The show is on till the 14th of September if you’re in the Vancouver area.

And today I went to the PNE, that’s the Pacific National Exhibition if you’re not a Vancouverite, to visit an art installation by Elizabeth Harris Nichols ( no relation!)  Elizabeth is involved in Container Art at the PNE, who in partnership with Port Metro Vancouver,  have juried artists into containers. The actual artists aren’t in the containers …. but have created exhibitions in their containers working to the theme of the Port and daily life.

Elizabeth’s installation is titled All that is Golden  and is a visual record  of the grains and seeds  that start out life in Western Canada and make their way to the Ports of Vancouver for distribution world-wide.

Elizabeth and the Farmwurx team created the contents of the container including the center table. The table holds Elizabeth’s beautiful ceramic bowls filled with grain and seed and is surrounded by her paintings and Ally’s photography. It’s impossible not to run your hands through the bowls of gran!

It was great to see the visitors enjoying the exhibit, and since we were at the fair anyway we had to check out a few things….like lunch, yup we did!

and the rides, not a chance!

And a quick visit to the livestock barns on the way out to visit with this beautiful spotlessly clean white oxen.

Bye for now, Catherine