so i put off putting the kettle

in other words... i haven't updated in ages, therefore... MONSTER POST!

i've been making a lot, as per usual. specifics:

- finished a journal for sam-pie. bookbinding is one of the most useful skills i've acquired recently. all thanks to a friend called willow. it's a pretty empowering and rewarding practice (for both the maker and the receiver).* the one pictured is one i made for myself. it's about 14 x 17cm. the patch says analog love. the pages are made from old envelopes made of pretty, acid-free, water colour paper-esque paper, and the fabric used for the cover is that of a shirt found in a free box. sam's is grey and doesn't have a patch on it yet. we'll probably silkscreen him one and glue/sew it on, or not.

- made a couple of lovely circle skirts. well, one of them is an oval skirt (which makes it fall differently), that's the brown one made of a wool blend. it's got one half-oval pocket located about the left hipbone (it's sorta like a fannypack... they've been reclaimed though, so i've heard, by cool kids, thereby redubbed 'hipsters'). the pocket is lined with a lovely yellow fabric†, the same fabric i used as bias tape° to line the waist of the skirt. it has no zipper nor buttons installed, thus i have to reverse-dive... or dive up into it. it's basically like i'm putting on a shirt, 'cept that shirt's a poncho, but not a conventional poncho that lies on one's shoulders, rather one that gently grips the hips. essentially, it's a 'hip poncho.' eh, eh?

anyway, same deal with the other one, 'cept it's reversible and made of a cotton blend. one side's orange, the other's red (i call it my fire skirt), with blue bias taped waist. all the colours are very bright. i'm considering making this one into an oval too so that whatever colour is facing inward at the time can peek out more. (check out the photos above, of the skirts straight-on, to see what i mean) maybe not though, if it takes away from the skirt's supreme-o twirling effects.

- bread. i've baked two loaves in the past few days. so delicious. it's the cake-y kind of bread that's more so called a [hmm] loaf (hmm = prevalent ingredient, i.e. carrot loaf, banana loaf. used this recipe (it says it's cake, but like i said... i think it's cakey bread... or maybe it is cake, but my using a 9" tube pan and spreading [apple] butter to it influences how i perceive the baked good).

the first time i followed the recipe very closely, but added only half the sugar (just making eye contact with a mound of sugar sends me crashin'). i also added dates, walnuts, and coconut shavings. oh, not to mention whole wheat flour and olive oil instead.

same thing for the second loaf, except i only had one carrot left, used honey instead of sugar, used a little less oil, added more coconut shavings (sprinkling some on top too, enveloped by a really thin coat of batter), mixed in some cubed apple, and chucked in a pinch of curry powder just for fun.

finally, i've found a great base (nice and moist, fast, not too dense) for all different types of loaves. i can't wait to experiment s'more (next time i'm thinkin' a savory one with olives an rosemary, onion, basil, cheeese. can't wait!). anyway, looks and tastes beautiful. (and... it totally is cake; i didn't use yeast, bread flour, and i didn't knead it one bit)

-film-related stuff, but more about that later... now i will make vegan shepherd's pie and coconut rice puddin'!


fin!

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*i find journals already make for pretty good gifts, especially when presented to writer-types, but when you make it yourself and give it to somebody who doesn't journal often and tell them it's a secret place you made for them that you'd like very much for them to adopt and make their own... well that! that's somethin' else!

°this... process, sewing skill or whatever, is my new best friend. srsly. reanna reminded me about it and i also found this video online real enlightening.

† see!:







those larger, lone flowers are embroidered (not by me) on.

whoo...

i have started fashioning a wearable owl head (+ floppsy wings) today outta chicken wire and plaster. i reckon the whole thing is semi-indicative of the costumes featured in where the wild things are. but less scary and a more softcore sort of ugly. i don't want the thing to turn out weighing a tonne, thus will probably use some tissue paper or vellum-esque stuff to fill in scaley-looking feather bits here and there. my hands feel great because of it.

and now i will continue watching NFB animations (three recent faves in no particular order: hungu, the danish poet, and how wings are attached to the backs of angels) until i doze off.

yeah! friday.

button button

is a neat little shop i've passed by millions of times, but have never truly acknowledged. UNTIL: NOW. the place is brimming with cute. it's mighty tiny, and potent. buttons on every wall, arranged lovingly, cradled by wooden compartments or pop-top tubes. every surface is covered in buttons of all varieties. mother of pearl, plastic, wooden, brass, fish leather, ceramics, you name it it's probably there.



anyway, spent the better part of an hour holding buttons up to a piece of felted grey wool, soon to be a hooded something for my love. chose the most beautiful buttons---with the help from a new friend, marion who looks after the shop once a week, if my memory serves me right. I might get sewing lessons from her next season. she and i discussed my origami method (she mentioned her favourite designer issey miyake) of sewing and how fabrics and fibers tend to just fall into place, shape themselves.



AND met the makeshift gal, nathalie. she seems as neat in person as she does in blogland.

photos to come once we find the card reader! [edit: just gonna photo booth everything for now!]

can you guess which one sat in the 'steampunk' tin?

also, painted today and made a portfolio out of a huge piece of cardboard, an exacto knife, and duct tape.

noggin nest

made one, last night at the 404 house.

isaac had this really rough chunky-and-felted-here-and-skinny-and-curly-there wool and virgin yarny yarn, all in sterotypically 'earthy tones'. y'know: greens and yellows, orangey yellows, yellowy browns/greens, and browns.

so i started playing with it and decided i would make a hat for nina [9-uh]. so i starting knitting the virgin with circular needles, comparing the circumference to nina's head, and then proceeded to build a swirly mess on top. what hiccuped out started looking more and more like some sort of whimsy nest. it looked like nina was a forest creature, or a sea nymph (or a combination of the two).

all this happened while we waited for the bread robot to finish kneading and zapping the ingredients nina had thrown into it... spelt, a single lonely egg, applesauce, and other stuff, with cooked quinoa sprinkled on top. we also drank much-too-spicy ginger tea for its alleged health benefits, played with words via the portmanteau (i.e. gorgy; gorgeous + orgy) and pun* ('i don't knead you isaac. i have a robot for that!), and listened to and sang iron and wine and paul simon songs. finally, i scowled at the cats a bit, attempting to will them from attacking all the fiber-y goodness, and had nina feed me fruit juice corn kernels (pomegranate seeds) because my hands were full and my patience for stuff like that was already operating at full capacity.

anyway, back to the thing; i starting pinning stuff together while it was still on her head and knit the spirals in place, then added a loopy trim brim. now nina has a green-egg-sans-ham noggin nest. she is also leaving town for a hot place very soon, but it'll still be cold here, so i get to wear it while she's gone.



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*the pun and the double entendre are similar, but a d.e. must be comprised of two words sharing identical phonetic transcription, right? whereas the former needn't be and may even be of the implied variety, yes?

strange elven-esque hooded vest

made one. outta charcoal-hued felted wool with lime green detail (well, there are some visible seams). started it at around 6 last night, worked on it virtually non-stop until ⓶AM (must emphasis how late that felt at the time), and am finally done after working on it today, on and off, for maybe an hour).

the vest aspect was pretty simple.

i quite literally folded the fabric twice, to outer edges towards the middle for a semi-double-breasted asymmetrical affect, and cut a couple oblongated holes for arms (after playing around with the fabric by holding it up to and wrapping it around myself... this creation was sans measuring. or... was visual measuring and shape-matching, devoid of any measuring devices). snaps keep the vest closed, and make all the lines and wrinkles i've created look right. i can do all the snaps up for a sort of boat-neck effect, else keep the top one undone for a cute, off-centre v-neck plus half-a-collar/ooh-that-kinda-looks-like-a-bandanna look.*

the fabric is great to work with because once you cut it you can kinda just fold and mold it into the shape you want, stitching here and there to keep the structure you've decided on (at times it felt like i was making a bra---never wear 'em but haven't you always wanted to make one yourself? just for a challenge?---via some modified form of origami.° applied origami? reclaimed origami? whatever.) anyway, continuing on with the awesomeness that is working with this fabric, its edges don't fray, so i saved a lot of time that would have otherwise been spent on sewing (more specifically: hemming). the sewing method breaks down to probably 60 per cent with the machine, and 40 by hand.

might i say hoods are the most difficult things to make. this is where i really clocked up some hours. after mounds of attempts, mistakes, alterations, and web searches†---not to mention a wee bit of frustration and deciding to 'sleep on it'---i've finally come to a result i am rather pleased with. the hood has evolved from a square, to a tent, followed by sith hood, back to a tent, and into a pretty decent hood. again: zero measuring, just playing and using one of sam's hoodies as a guide.

i feel like some sorta ninja-elf-pirate when i wear it. (a warm ninja-elf-pirate at that)



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*did you know the second result you get after punching 'how to sew a hood' into googz is 'how to make a jedi robe'?! it's so hilarious because a) you can totally tell a bunch of nerds came together and half-assedly taught themselves how to sew just so they could make fanatical star wars digs and b) that is totally how i sew shit!

° 'the process of making is the point of it. this needs to be a kind of ballet.' they've got films about this kind of stuff.

†photos once sam and isaac come back from the wood shop (they have the digi-cam to document their own project).

been thinkin' about doing this for a while

hi, i'm aly. i make stuff.

i'm finally starting to actually feel comfortable calling myself stuff like 'artist,' 'activist' and 'maker'.



i've been making stuff for as long as i can remember and with a new year starting and all, i believe now is the perfect time for me to keep making as per usual, as well as document that shit. that is what the above 'this' in the title of this post is referring to; i want to have a place to throw down my thoughts and ideas and share my projects.

there are just a few rules, erm. no, not into rules, so let's make it 'em guidelines instead:

• i, aly, must work on projects and document them using the spiffy technology that is the blog (although perhaps the term blahg is more fitting dubbery in this case), keeping a steady record of things i'm working on or plan to in the future.
  

• i will post relevant illustrative photos, videos, links, etc. to supplement written content.
  

• i will go on tangents about things that i find inspiring or piss me off. (what's neat is that both have the potential to call me to some type of action)
  

• i will post about projects even when they are going shitty-ly as i value process as well as end results.

cool, that's all for now i guess.