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As the old saying states, time flies when you're making tea towels. I have been a busy little bee getting ready for the pinnacle of my months of tests and labours. Next Thursday, December 3rd is the day of the Speakeasy craft sale and the debut of my tea towels!
Before I get into the specifics of the progress of my work I want to share with you the specifics of the two craft sales that I will be featuring my products. First, as mentioned above, is the Speakeasy holiday craft sale, at the Gladstone hotel. It starts at 8 and a donation is asked to enter the sale. See the flyer above for the rest of the info. If you're in the area please stop by- the sale features a TON of awesome work to oogle. The second sale is a last minute decision. It's happening on Sunday December 6th, with the Workshop Collective studio. The studio is located on the 2nd floor at 1380 Queen St West. Both sales will be fun and I hope to see you there!
So, the specifics! I have been working my bum off on the designs and construction of the tea towels, as well as packaging. I have come up with some great ways to save time. Using a rotary cutter and a hand made pattern has made fabric cutting a breeze! I'm also using an acetone/ carbon photo transfer technique to transfer the embroidery images to cut down on re-drawing the design every time. Without these quickeners I'd be in big trouble. I had my first silk screening at home experience just last week and am happy to say that it was a lot less messy than I thought it would be! I am finishing the printing tomorrow for the show towels- any fear of screening at home is long gone. My embroidery remains the most time consuming part of the process, although the more I embroider the quicker I get. I used print gocco to make the band label to keep the two towels together. They came out a bit distressed looking but I don't mind it so much. I've decided to price the pack at $35- one silk screened and one embroidered. I feel like I'm actually on the home stretch and know that I've got a great item to sell to the world. That makes me happy as heck.
I also decided to get some prints made of the alphabet poster I made for a friend in the spring. I really loved doing it and I have never made high quality prints of my work before. I went to my tried and trusted printer buddies Marco and Nadia at MarcorMedia to get them done and they turned out beautifully. I can't wait to debut them on thursday night. They will be $60 each. My main concern now is finding a way to package the prints without damaging them or my pocket book. Any ideas?I'm also going to sell some home-goccoed greeting cards (I know, I know- I really am not getting any sleep at all) in a variety of themes.I will be sure to fill you in on how everything goes at the sale. Of course, if you can come out and see it for yourself, all the better. Until next week, ta ta!
I am BACK!
I apologize for the lengthy hiatus on this lovely, yet way neglected blog. It's been a terribly busy month, and I won't go into the gory details of it all, but it started with my computer having the digital equivalent of a stroke. I was just getting ready to put up my (Canadian) thanksgiving blog post when the "left arm went numb". Here's the lovely illustration that would have greeted you way back when. Now you may apply it to American thanksgiving!
Anyhow, after weeks of trying to revive my second generation iMac G5 I officially called the time of death on Monday, November 2nd, at 5:45 PM. May it rest in peace.
I was able to go through the grieving process quite quickly, as two days later a new computer came into my home and filled the hole in my heart with all it's 27 inches. Oh, beautiful, beautiful, humongous iMac. How deep and hard I have fallen for you.
Although it seems all I've been doing is fretting about my computer woes, I actually had a very busy 4 weeks while away from the world of blogging. I figure that I'll split it into personal and professional over two posts as I don't want to overload your senses. So first, the personal.
Aside from Canadian thanksgiving, I celebrated the beginning of my last year of my 20's on the 14th of October. I was spoiled with lovely flowers, bellinis, bunny busts, and swimming gear. I also did some spoiling myself, as Ronaldo helped me make a big spread of homemade Italian dinner and appetizer fare for my nearest and dearests. All in all, a lovely way to ring in my 29th year.
My sister, Martha, came up a week later to take me to a lovely concert at Massey Hall. It was David Gray, who I am not all that familiar with, but loved all the same. In fact, I found my newest obsession that night- his opener, Lisa Hannigan! Her music was amazing- relaxing, sweet, adorable, and her voice is just lovely. Aside from some mega jerks who sat in front of us (David Gray had to stop the show to tell them to get off their phones because it was distracting!) our second row seats were mind blowing!
A week after THAT was Halloween!! It's one of my favourite holidays, and Ronaldo and I went all out.
He was Ash from the Evil Dead movies...
...and I was a flapper girl! We are too cool for matching costumes!
We went out to a 60's revival night with our friends Pat and Terrence (anyone seen the TV show Extras?) and had a blast. I was a big fan of Ronaldo's homemade hand chainsaw and particularly his shot gun!
The next day, as hung over as hell, we went to see this year's tour of Cirque De Soleil, Ovo. It was my birthday present from Ronaldo, and I was totally mesmerized the whole time. I have never seen anything like it! Even the tents were impressive!
So, that is half of the fun you missed while I was neglectful. Next post I will highlight the work I've done and what's happening in the world of tea towels.
Hope you enjoyed your weekend!
Here we go. As I said in an earlier post, I gave up on creating a gocco print for the two matching printed tea towels in my "chemistry set" (my new name for the set, by the way) and decided to come up with another solution. Ronaldo and I were in the Kensington Market area of Toronto a few weeks back when I ran across a store called Model Citizen with a sign in the window advertising a silk screening workshop that happened occasionally on Sunday afternoons. I went in and met Julian Finkle, who I think owns the store and runs the workshop. He spoke so passionately about screening that I knew that I had found the solution to my printing problems. I spent the last week preparing a handful of colourful tea towels, and working on a tight design that fused kitchen and chemistry with the old Claire flare.
I have to say that the preparation was well worth it. The class was worth every last penny of the $180 I spent on it. First, Julian seems to keep the classes small- the class I was in was meant to have four students, but it ended up that only two of us were able to make it. We started by actually stretching the screens. Ian (the other student) and I next learned the process of applying the photo emulsion. We were taught the steps to creating a usable image and how to burn it on to our screens. Ian made designs incorporating the Japanese characters that made up his son's name and I had my sciencey screens.
Once the the screens were burned we were taught techniques to apply the inks actually print something. How gratifying to see the results! Here are some images of the work I created that afternoon:
Here is a towel with my inspiration- basil!
The class went from 12 noon until around 7. Julian was incredibly knowledgeable and welcomed us back to make more screens at a later date if we wanted to. I highly recommend the class to anyone who's interested in learning the basics of screen printing. Hopefully, if all goes well, my towels will be available at Model Citizen just in time for the Christmas season!
I even made a few extra for myself and Ronaldo to use. Here's a picture of Ronaldo's amazing homemade tomato sauce too!
Next step is trying to bring down cost of material, time spent on creating the art, and figuring out the packaging.
What do you think so far?
What a weekend! I feel like I need a day off to recover from it! Lots of friends, family, fun, and art and crafty goodness. It starts with the arrival of a special parcel in the mail.....
...look what finally arrived! About two weeks too late, but I'm sure that I will find a use for it eventually.
The Madonna dance party was a hoot with my dear friend Vinny.
Saturday my little sister Martha came from Guelph and, along with Ronaldo and I, took to the streets of Toronto for the all-night art festival, Nuit Blanche. Although it was extremely busy, we had a great time!
The night started with Martha and I creating a clay tile in honour of our dead family pet, Bert the cat. And a few flasks of sweet sweet rum.
We tried going to a block party (ironically called Tony and Bert's block party) but it ended up taking place across the street from the Men's mission. Sketchy enough during the day, extra sketchy at midnight. We moved on to this lovely silver balloon bunny to calm our nerves.
Strung across the towers of city hall was this giant 4-letter-word generator. I swear, it made the word BART a few times, but every time I tried to catch it on camera, it changed to this really familiar word(?).
We saw all sorts of neat installations, did some life drawing at a hair salon, breathing art that moved, and a gigantic light bright. At the end of the night, this was Martha's favourite display. Who doesn't love a gorilla eating a child who is eating an ice cream? Next stop for this truck: The Louvre.
An exhausting night of art, but nice to experience with the awesome people I saw it all with. Sunday morning, and my much anticipated screen printing workshop came all too soon. As it was SO amazing I am honouring the class with it's own posting tomorrow. Feel free to wait with bated breath.
It's a very rainy Friday here in Toronto. No reason to be blue though, as I've finished 8 final sized tea towels! I am definitely going to have to come up with a quicker way to make the towels and a cheaper online wholesaler, but I'm happy with the final product. I have already changed the colour plan slightly. I won't be using the dark teal colour as a fabric base for the "Tin" towel set. It gave me an icky feeling when I was doing the mock up, and from what I can tell, others feel the same way. I'm going to make them orange, I think. Or white. Anyhow, the teal is OUT. I've been working on the screened design for the towels too. Sunday is the big day- the silk screen workshop! I want to make sure I'm as ready as can be so I can make the most out of it. I am really pumped! After this weekend I'm going to make up the corresponding embroidered towels to make the five final mock up sets. I've also got to get going on an illustration for a show I'm going to be in coming up at the beginning of November. More on that as it comes closer.
Here are the towels! Note the missing teal...
Tomorrow night is this crazy art event in Toronto- Nuit Blanche. It starts at 6:59 pm and finishes at 7 am on Sunday morning and happens all over the city with exciting displays, installations and general artiness! As a "roving reporter" for Claire Loves... I will be filling you in on all the fun on my Monday blog entry.
Before I sign off to go to a Madonna tribute dance party (yes, you heard me right) I want to let you know that there is a new little addition to the animal gang at the Toronto zoo. It's a newborn gorilla and you have a chance to him! I actually suggested my ultimate cat name, Bruce, as I feel it transcends species. If you have a chance, drop by the Toronto Zoo website and make a difference in the life of a local gorilla.
Time to make like Madge and vogue!
Happy Monday! I hope you all enjoyed your weekends! Although slightly less than productive than I hoped to be, mine was good. It just means I have lots to accomplish this week! I have done my initial plan for the collection colours. I have a feeling I will be making a few changes here and there, but over all, I'm fairly happy with my choices. My next step is to make the final art for the screened towels, and to create some towels to actually screen at my printing workshop next weekend.
This is a bit of a short entry, I know. I will be back with more later this week!
It's Friday!! Who else is happy about that? I haven't done a whole lot of physical work on the tea towels over the past few days, but am planning on using weekend time as prime work time. After the excitement of having my first potential retailer I realized that I need to start hammering out the details of the final towels. When I made the testers I used random colours, jst to see what I like best. I've now narrowed the list down to a solid 10 or 11 colours to pick from in my embroidery spectrum. I also picked the colours for the up and coming printed tea towels. When I go for my screen printing class next week I want to have a few final colours to print on so I can start the first round of final sets. Stay tuned- at the end of the weekend I'll put up a big chart of all the details thus far. I'm also going to take time to come up with a great sciencey, cute print for next weekend. I'm also going to whip up some final printed towels. Next week will be all about packaging. Time to figure out what to put the suckers in to make them look juicy to my future customers.
What have I been up to instead of furiously embroidering, you may ask. Well, I went and picked up a piece of my artwork that was in a local art show that wrapped up a few weeks ago. It's all embroidered so I thought you may like to check it out. It seems every year I have a summer fling with embroidery. I'll embrace, love and laugh with embroidery projects from June through August. As soon as September hits I move on to painting and bid a fond farewell to my stitching. This year I feel like me and embroidery are going to keep up the relationship. We're going to be like Sandy and Danny, or those kids from high school musical. We're not just summer lovin' anymore! This is how we got together this summer.
This week was also the last Thursday to participate in this awesome Toronto event called Gallery Spin. One thursday of every month this summer a bunch of folks on bikes meet up at a local Toronto park (Trinity-Bellwoods for you Torontoites) and a guided tour of various local galleries commences. It was SO much fun!
So, this is me! Here I am with my awesome boyfriend Ronaldo, getting ready for the bike ride.
A line of bikes while all 52 of the cyclists were in a gallery looking at some amazing art.
The brigade riding from gallery to gallery. We went to 5 in total.
This man not only rode his bike, he also serenaded the crowd with some beautiful trumpet music. I really don't know how he did it- I would have driven straight into oncoming traffic if it were me.
Each of the five galleries had a totally different feel, and a totally different style of artist. It's a good thing for me to get my head out of my little turtle shell to see what else is happening in the art world. Good things are happening, my friend. Very good.
Let's see how this newly found inspiration translates into work!
