"Will you forgive my single-mindedness, and my tendency to see knitting in everything?"

August 9, 2010 marks what would have been the 100th birthday of British-born knitter, Elizabeth Zimmerman. EZ, as she is known amongst the knitting community, was influential in shaping the craft into what it has become today. She was one of the first knitters to publish patterns in magazines. Her Wisconsin-based Schoolhouse Press was one of the first mail-order knitting pattern businesses. It is still producing countless well-thought-out and creatively designed patterns today.

EZ, herself, wrote many books about knitting. Her writing style is direct and logical. I have several of her books and they are my favourite works of knitting theory. I enjoy the mathematics and geometry that is involved in knitting. Elizabeth has managed to take these aspects of knitting and use them to design incredible techniques and guidelines for creating sweaters that fit perfectly and mittens that have such interesting construction. Really, EZ epitomized what being an arts and scientist means to me.

Not to mention, EZ was just one clever lady. Her personal motto was "Knit on with confidence and hope, through all crisis."

I have several favourite EZ quotes, but my all time favourite is a perfect example of Elizabeth telling it like it is, "really, all you need to become a good knitter are wool, needles, hands, and slightly below-average intelligence. Of course superior intelligence, such as yours and mine, is an advantage" (from Knitting Without Tears).

Above and beyond all of this, everything EZ made or designed was absolutely, simply beautiful. I think I will pull out my copy of The Knitter's Almanac tomorrow for some mid-summers knitting inspiration.

Thank you for everything, EZ.

Appropriate and inappropriate uses for googly eyes.

Sometimes googly eyes can be used for good. For example, quickly and easily turning a little purple tea cozy into a little purple hedgehog tea cozy.


On the other hand, googly eyes can sometimes be used for evil. For example. on this poster advertising a breakfast deal in downtown Peterborough. Sunny-side-up eggs shouldn't be able to see you. Also, none of this egg's food friends have googly eyes, so how come it even has googly eyes, in the first place?


Of course, definitions of good and evil are up for interpretation.

Vintage embroidery.

I need to do more of this (as opposed to none).



Those little birds got into the brandy, by the way.

Sewing Stork.

This new Threadless design really speaks to me. I've always had stork scissors around and I've always thought of them like this; like lively little birds. This design is called Alice's Sewing Basket and is by Jillian Nickell.

Etsy again.

Whenever an item catches my attention on etsy.com I stick the link into the line-up at the top of the Internet window. I manage to collect these little buttons quite frequently and things start to become more cluttered than I can handle. I have to admit, with a bit of time, I tend to forget what I've even squirrelled away.

That's why I like to make posts like this. I can take a look at my favourite shops again and show the pretty pictures.

Valerie Taylor makes all sorts of beautiful jewellery. I love the collision between industrial metal and nature that she's got going on.



The art at ISphotography by Irene Suchocki is unique and interesting. She uses metallic papers to create different effects when creating her prints.



I love all of the pottery that Raquel Masri produces. She makes Damask style items, such as the serving tray shown below, and she loves to incorporate one of my favourite images into her work, the Keep Calm and Carry On poster.




Sweetshorn Vintage can provide for all of your vintage home decor, toys, art, and tiny treasures. This is my kind of shop even though half the fun in thrifting is going out to find the treasures.



Bliss in a teacup makes all sorts of interesting treasures. I really like the things they do with chalkboard paint and I think these embroidered clocks are very clever. Great inspiration and design ideas.



Another photographer today, Bueller uses a 'through the lens' technique to capture digital images with the old-timey feel of antique and retro camera gear. I like this a lot because I'm always after the look, but actually using the older camera gear makes processing very expensive. They also have some cool Keep Calm and Surf On prints. I think I'm drawn to a very specific type of artist.



O, look a little baby! With tiny little shoes! I like everything at Lala Shoes.



Clayswan makes playful, happy pottery in every shade of the rainbow. I love this look.



That's all for now, but there's plenty more where this comes from.

Hillside 2009.

Every year in late July the Hillside music festival is held on the island in Guelph Lake Conservation Area. This year marked my fourth year in attendance. Five years ago I went with Bronwen as paying customers. That was the first year Hillside sold out. The next year we returned as volunteers and I washed dishes as Bronwen sold merch. We decided that the benefits that came with volunteering (free camping, food, playing an important role in the Hillside community) completely outweighed the costs (washing tons of dishes with enviro-biodegradable soap in lukewarm water). The following year I was not able to attend as I was a bridesmaid in Ottawa. However, the past two years I have once again volunteered and have ran crafty workshops. Hillside 2008 was a special year because Hillside celebrated it's 25th year running. I've also volunteered in the Hillside office for the first and second annual Hillside Inside events.

This Hillside 2009 was definitely the rainiest, muddiest festival I have ever attended. It didn't really matter though because I also think this was one of the best festivals I have taken part in overall. I found a bunch of new music, my craft workshop was very successful, Nat's tent kept us dry, we ate a ton of Mapleton's Organic (my flavours: maple chunk, ginger, pumpkin, chocolate, and raspberry), friends came up from out-of-town, and we saw some Incredible shows. O, and one of the best parts was that I had completely handed in all of the paperwork, money orders, and copies of my thesis to Graduate Studies at school the morning before it all started.

On Thursday night, Bronwen, Kristen, and Hamish came to our house. They had driven all the way from Ottawa. With one stop for dinner at Hot Belly Mama's for dinner and a few wrong turns the drive had taken them ten hours. We hung out for a bit, then everyone crashed in the livingroom. I had to get up the next day to completely complete the graduation process.

The next morning I got up and headed out. I left those three to find their own breakfasts (which they did well at the Cornerstone). Then I was back and we packed up their rental car and headed up to the Island. Hamish had to be at his volunteer info session and we wanted to set up camp. Check in was quick and simple. I walked Hamish to his meeting. By the time I was back at the causeway the girls had dropped off our HUGE amount of camping gear. Hillside had arranged volunteers with peddle carts and golf carts to transport our belongings up to the campsite. This was greatly appreciated. We found a vacancy in the Volunteer Village and set up the tents.

Setting up tents with ominous clouds in the background:




I always love the colours tent village makes.

Doug, Kent, and Scotty from Kid Coma were playing in the first timeslot so we went to catch a bit of the Acoustically Yours workshop. We were about ready for Hillside beers and Nat met up with us at this point. We quickly set up her tent and then headed back to the mainstage to catch Xavier Rudd. I've seen him perform several times and this time was jsut as good and dance-y as all the others. Next we headed over to see Rock Plaza Central. I had never seen them before and they put on a good show.

The next morning, I was up and went for a swim. I always like to swim in the morning at Hillside. Breakfast was free with volunteer. I liked the orange slices. Unfortunately, my breakfast pita round was chockfull of raisins. My workshop ran first thing that morning. It went well and I managed to squeeze in about 45 crafters. The tent was quite crowded at this point. We ran over to see a few songs from Green Go before we made our return to the craft tent for Bronwen's book binding workshop. The Hillside ladies really loved her craft and everyone's little books turned out very well. Bronwen had put a lot of work into the covers prior to Hillside. Luckily she had found a box of abandoned National Geographic magazines. Their full-page photos make excellent book covers. Once our volunteer hours were complete for the day (we had missed both Bruce Peninsula performances :() we retired to the beer tent to catch the last few songs from the Bahamas. The cover of Purple Rain really got the crowd going. I'm looking forward to seeing them again at Wolfe Island. Emily and Gillian joined us at this point. They had stopped by Sears to pick up some rain gear. Good thing too. Ohbijou was on next. Their set was beautiful, as usual. Then we went to get food. That was good. I stopped by to see bits of Timber Timbre, Attack in Black, and the Guelph Guitar Project. I was feeling a bit down and all of the songs at this point were about sad things and bleh. So, I walked myself through the craft vendors and thought about buying some merch. At 7:00 pm with the first few chords from Hey Rosetta! my mood was completely lifted. The Saturday evening line-up turned out to be one of the best Hillside has ever heard. Hey Rosetta! was followed by Library Voices, Woodhands, and Sunparlour Players (one of my all-time favourite bands. Period.)

Here is a cool video of Woodhands. You can catch Em and I on front row of the picnic table. I'm pointing at a topless crowdsurfer and she laughs:

After the show, we headed over to the merchandise tent. Sunparlour Players made their way over to continue their set and I ran into Pete Kelly, musician photographer extraordinaire (well, in general photographer extraordinaire, but I love (and he loves, I know it) his musician subjects. See his image, entitled Spontaneity, to get a sense of the energy of this band. After the show I went for a dip with Hamish and then we headed over to the drum circle and campfire for a bit. I like to stop by for at least a few minutes every year.

This is the merch I bought:
-Sunparlour Players new CD called Wave North
-Sunparlour Players grey t-shirt with orange and yellow logo
-Patrick Watson grey t-shirt with creepy clapping robot hands
-Dancehall Free For All green ringer t-shirt
-Sunparlour Players preserves: mustard.

On Sunday, I slept in a bit. I really needed a good sleep because I was feeling tired from my crazy week. We had free breakfast again under the dining tent in an attempt to escape the downpours. O, rainy Hillside Sunday, what can I say? It rained a lot and there was a lot of mud. That's about it. My craft workshop went well again. I had another 40 attendees. Then went to see Dancehall Free For All before meeting up with Bronwen for her workshop (we traded workshop assistantships for the weekend. That helped a lot). Once her workshop was over the rain really started to come down and so did the lightning. Bronwen got shocked a bit because she was wearing a toe-ring and standing in a puddle. Scary!

This is what the lightning strike looked like:

Once that all happened, we were free for the rest of the day. We say Clues and Winter Gloves (love). Then we went to pack up. Once we got to the mudpit of a parking lot we decided we needed to move the cars in order to escape come the evening. I had to push Nat's car and that was quite funny. Luckily I did not get very muddy. Well, my feet got very muddy, but the rest of me was clean. The white car we skidded by was not so clean anymore.

Walking back from pushing out the car. Clean feet from a quick dip in the beach:


Traditional ice cream shot:


I had dinner with Andrew, Tyler, Emily, Nat, Kristen, and Bronwen while watching the end of Great Lake Swimmers, Patrick Watson, and Final Fantasy. Fantastic Sunday night line-up, but my feet were so sore and the rain came down hard once again. Bronwen and Kristen went to find a dry spot under the tent and I headed home with Nat. We were wet to the core and freezing cold, but completely content with our weekend at Hillside. I always love getting into a warm car in the middle of the summer when you're freezing cold.

Final Fantasy:

In the morning we got up and went to Eggcetera. It had been a while since I had eaten there and it was a nice way to wrap-up our weekend. The visitors hit the road and I came home to begin the process of packing up my house. Hillside is one of my favourite times of year and I can imagine I will always come back to Guelph to attend.

It's here!

And the short list for the 2009 Polaris Prize has arrived! I've added the album covers for my top picks.

The 10 nominees are, in alphabetical order:

Elliott BROOD – Mountain Meadows
(Toronto, ON)

Fucked Up – The Chemistry Of Common Life
(Toronto, ON)

Great Lake Swimmers – Lost Channels
(Toronto, ON)



Hey Rosetta! – Into Your Lungs (and around in your heart and on through your blood)
(St. John’s, NF)



K’NAAN – Troubadour
(Toronto, ON)

Malajube – Labyrinthes
(Montréal, QC)



Metric – Fantasies
(Toronto, ON)

Joel Plaskett – Three
(Halifax, NS)

Chad VanGaalen – Soft Airplane
(Calgary, AB)

Patrick Watson – Wooden Arms
(Montréal, QC)

I have to admit I'm a tiny but saddened that Bruce Peninsula did not make the top 10. I am very excited to check out Patrick Watson however, who has a chance at his second Polaris.

Annnd...I had almost forgotten to add this (thanks for the reminder!), but here's the wall-hanging I made for the Phd student who recently graduated from my lab. This present was not only to say congratulations, but also to say thank-you. He hired me on when I first came to join the lab and has been very supportive throughout my time working here. This wall hanging represents one of the plots he restored with alvar plants on an abandoned Southern Ontario quarry. All of the fabrics are reclaimed from abandoned items around my house. Good thing I squirrel away every little bead, ribbon, and sparkly bit that crosses my path.



A close-up of some of the flowers:



O, and a close-up of my tiny couched signature because I like the way it turned out.

One more thing today.

I just came across a link to a British Knitted Village. This incredible model was made by an Afternoon Club. I'm not exactly sure what that is, but I'm guessing it's a lot of older ladies getting together and knitting crazy cool things.



The entire project took over 23 years to complete by the 40 members of the club. Each of the buildings in their town of Mersham, near Ashford, is included and the details they included are absolutely countless. Now that they're all finished, the pieces will be auctioned off and all proceeds will go towards their local town hall.

Talking about our ideas.

Awhile ago a friend pointed me in the direction of ted.com. Ted is an annual conference created to bring "together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives" about Technology, Engineering, and Design. The ted website was created to archive these talks and spread these good ideas across the world for free. I've been watching some of the clips and trying to find the right one to post here. Today I noticed ted mentioned on the Ravelry chat boards in the Geekyknitters group and was led to this clip:

I knew I had found the right one. This video is very interesting. I've actually seen a lot of photos of the crocheted coral reef. I love the idea of incorporating mathematics and sciences into my crafty endeavors.

Springtime Craft Roadtrip.

Yesterday Nat and I went on a very fun roadtrip. Well, actually the day started off with Louise's first trip to the Guelph Farmer's Market and a visit with Emily at Capistrano. Then we went on a roadtrip. So, it was actually a roadtrip that was part of a very fun day.

The first stop on the roadtrip was The Ford Plant in Brantford. The Ford Plant is a music venue in one of the abandoned corner shops in the decrepit ghosttown that is downtown Brantford. This was very sad to see, actually, as the city seems to be a very beautiful town with the river running through and all the old limestone buildings and southern Ontario architecture (I love stone buildings of any sort). Anyway, I had heard about an Art and Craft Sale that was being held by the Telephone City Crafters. And we managed to find the Ford Plant and all of the crafty wares it contained. I was very impressed by the selection of artists that were at the show and their prices. I ended up purchasing a few things.



First, was an incredible pink coral ring made out of polymer clay by Sarah from Beat Black. I was completely in awe of the way this person makes cool things with polymer clay. We seem to have very similar tastes as well. I noticed she has a cool little crafty blog called In Shadows and I've already found two clips there that I absolutely love.

I'm going to have to do an entire post on videos from PES (the Western Spaghetti clip) because my mouth just drops open every time I see something new. O, and I also picked up a tiny coffee bean stitch marker from Beat Black as well.

Next, I purchased a small pyramid shaped pouch from a textile artists named Anna Zygowski. All of her work was absolutely beautiful, as is her website. I didn't notice any of the tops she has on her website at the sale, but they certainly are gorgeous. Really, even her business card is absolutely beautiful.



I also talked to Jen from Urban Fusions for awhile. I bought two hairpins from her and they are so lovely. My hair is very slippery though, and I lost one while we were playing in the park with Nat's kite this afternoon. I feel sort of sad about this and might have to order a new one from her shop. Looking through, many of her items caught my eye.



The last item I purchased was from Erica (nothing's up in her shop as of yet). She was one of the few locals at the sale. She knits and makes all sorts of things and does some bookbinding. I found a very cool little hand-bound journal for Jayme's upcoming birthday. The inside is lined with vintage Bettie Boop Goes on Vacation material and Jay loves that stuff.



After the craft sale we took Erica's advice to travel over to Paris, Ontario and take a look in all the little shops there. It was really nice to see a happening downtown. I found some neat items for one of my colourswap partners on Rav. We had lunch at a small cafe that had a back balconey over the Grand River. It needed a good spring cleaning, but it was fine. Then we took a drive out to Mary Maxim. I've only ever known Mary Maxim as a catalogue order craft business, but found out yesterday that it's headquarters are out in the middle of nowhere in a small business park near Paris. Interesting place. Huge store. Tons of crafts. Lots of wool.

I'll be back tomorrow with pictures from all of these adventures, Cass

Stop Motion Craft.

I spent some time today watching stop animation on YouTube. I like the crafty ones the best. Here are a couple of the best examples I found today. The first one is how to make a felt bunny. At the end, a bunch of different bunnies are shown. I really like how the creator makes the embroidery letters.

This second animation is quite clever. The mole is made from fabric and thread. I really like making little creatures like this one to have around the house. There's a neat science-y twist at the end of this one.

And, a morbid tale of a giant button attacking a town of mini buttons. You'll just have to watch this one. It's a bit sad, actually. Great character development though.

Finally, a clip I've been meaning to bring here for awhile. Actually, this brings me to an entire story I've been meaning to tell here. This is an interpretation of one of my favourite Edward Gorey tales from childhood. Last summer Bronwen and I went to see a special exhibit at the Toronto Public Library. I came across this book and I had forgotten all about it (where did it go?). Somehow, I managed to forget about it again until recently when I joined an Edward Gorey swap on Ravelry and was thinking about some of his work. This time, though, I couldn't remember the name of the book so I couldn't find it anywhere. I e-mailed the librarians at the Osbourne Children's Collection at the TPL and they got back to me the next day with the title. Since then I've been checking out all sorts of media inspired by Edward Gorey's work. This is my favourite creation of "An Inanimate Tragedy".

Science Fair 09.

Today I volunteered to judge 36th annual Waterloo Wellington Regional Science Fair. The Fair is a day long event. All of the projects have won the science fairs at their respective schools and have moved on to present at this regional fair. The students range in grade from 8 to 12. There are several divisions which are divided based on age and field of study. I judged 7 displays from the Life Science and Biotechnology categories in both the junior and senior divisions. I was impressed by the level of effort and dedication the students put into their projects. One of the students decided to test the effect of energy drinks on his hockey performance. He was in grade 8 and had a rink in his backyard. He shook my hand and offered me a seat while he talked about the skills he tested after him and his dad drank Red Bull, Full Throttle, and some other highly caffeinated, sugar water drink. He had to have special permission to incorporate these drink products into his study because they aren't permitted in his elementary school (good thing, in my opinion). His observations about the way the drink altered his performance were things like 'made me fidgety'. I was impressed by his cleverness and his determination to study the contraband beverage. I tried to ask several questions, but unfortunately he was never quite able to explain what some of the negative aspects of consuming these drinks were. He also had a hard time explaining why the information he gained was useful and beneficial to the general public. I think this is where most the projects began to breakdown. And I do suppose that this sort of cognitive synthesis is going beyond the level of most grade 8 students as well.

Overall I had a really fun time. It seemed like the students were having a great time too. I think this sort of an atmosphere is great for teaching the importance of displaying your work well and sharing the information you gather.

I actually went to the Science Fair with one of my friends from down the hall in Integrative Biology. She is heading into her 7th semester and mentioned the fact that she is finishing up the last edits of her thesis. When she handed her first draft in it was only 20 pages long! I'm way past that point now, so I think I'm going to hammer out the ending and focus on submitting it asap. Even if the discussion isn't quite up to par this will get my committee talking about it and I could use some suggestions. I need to stop feeling stuck, put the ideas down on paper, and work on things from there. Moving to the next point is the goal at the moment and that requires letting all of my readers see a fair copy and sign my request for evaluation form.

Just now I also made a change to my blogger template. I managed to figure out how to edit the html and add a label cloud! I've been wanting to make that change for awhile, but I was intimidated by all of the lines of code. Blogger doesn't seem to have a gadget for just adding-on a cloud. So I went to this friendly site: phydeaux3 and figured out to add their code into mine. I also found this really cool 216 Web Safe Color Chart in order to change the colours of all of the features on my blog. I'm sure this will come in very handy in the future now that I know how to use it. I ended up making my cloud range from light pink to burgundy.

And in other exciting news, as I was browsing through the recent updates of blogs I keep tabs on, I found that the muffin bunnies were featured on IndieFixx along with a cool tutorial for these sweet little cherry blossoms.



At another of my favourite blogs, I found a tutorial for making tulle blossoms was posted yesterday. These flower crafts are so fresh and spring-timey to me. I wish there wasn't a blizzard outside. I think I'm going to have to incorporate some of these ideas into my secret swap package that's heading to South Africa this week.

Inspiration.

This is so beautiful:



I found it on one of the crafty blogs I follow for inspiration. Every time I finish a section or a bit of thesis I get to look at one. This prevents me from sitting around and daydreaming about all of my knitting projects at home. Uh, yeah, I do that. It's so strange how you can care so much about so many different things and yet some things just seem so much more fun to do. I suppose knitting is easier for me than this science gig since I've been actively practicing craft for so much longer. Not to mention, science still has that schoolwork vibe attached to it for me. I can't wait to be a free agent and just float around in the world for a bit.

For now, I'll type away and post pretty things. This particular blankie is made with a wide range of Koigu Premium Merino (KPM). The colourways are rich and beautiful. Imagine the possibilities with this stuff for giant granny squares which happen to be one of my favourite crafty items. A throwback to easy days in Warsaw at Nana's house. And possibly every summer weekend in Cottage Country, Ontario.



Okay, I'm out. Enough pretty internet pictures. I've promise myself that I'll send my Hypotheses, Predictions, Methods, and Results to Uta this afternoon for proofreading. Got to buckle down and show up, I just had to post this first.