craft sale!

Hey! Tomorrow Hands&Feet will be at it's very first craft fair! I've done craft fairs before, but never when I had a actual business/actual direction/actual knowledge of what the heck I'm doing/making. 

If you want to come out and support handmade, the sale is at Sheridan College, Oakville and is part of the annual Arts Open House event.  Not only can you come and peruse the craft sale, you can also check out the crafts&design studios and see a lot of great art and design from a lot of great people.  PLUS-our Craft&Design graduation show has moved into the gallery at the college, so you can check that out too! What a lovely day!

I'm excited.  I've had the luxury of not having a job or being in school this week, so I've been dyeing and piecing and sewing away.  I'm learning how to make things faster and more efficiently and I'm really starting to feel like "hey, if people actually buy this stuff, I can actually do this as a job!"

Now I'm sitting in a room full of Hands&Feet products and it's a good feeling.  Here's some photos from my preparations this week. 

 my elephant friend the teapot

 circle scarves!  There's only a few of these, and I'm interested to see how they sell, as I've never done them before.

 naturally dyed zipper totes

naturally dyed and pieced pouches!

Plus, I made a banner for my booth, so that's fun.

FYI, if you haven't already, check out my Etsy shop linked on the top of this page! I'll be working on stocking it up more and more, so keep checking back!

makin' changes

If you are observant, you might notice that my blog is a wee bit different.  That's because I :

a)  finally decided on a business name.  I wanted something simple, sweet and it had to include an ampersand, because I love them.  I went with Hands&Feet because really, using my hands and my feet to make things is one of the most important things to me.  Sounds really simple, but that's because it is.

b) finished school! Well, almost.  I still have a final critique and studio clean-up and things like that, but our graduation show, Here&There at Propellor Gallery in Toronto opened this past thursday and it was lovely and SUPER busy.  Seriously, I did not anticipate that many people being interested in us. I guess I usually underestimate myself when it comes to the things I make and I'm coming to terms with the fact that people might actually pay me to do what I love to do--make things!

You'll notice that on the top of this page there is a link to my Etsy shop.  If you go to the link and discover that there's nothing there, DO NOT FEAR.  I am working hard on stocking it up.  Keep checking back for more and more Hands&Feet goods! I hope to have it full in the next couple days.

I'm feeling pretty excited and positive about this new venture.  I've gotten a couple emails from people who picked up my card at the show and are interested in purchasing some things, and I even sold some things at the show itself.   I was talking to Eric about it and he just looked at me and asked "are you ready for this to be your job? are you ready for this?"  to which I replied, YEAH!

But in all seriousness, this is going to be a bit of a learning curve.  I am going to make mistakes.  I already realized that I made a mistake on my business card and the web address to my Etsy shop is wrong.  Bad move, Brittni.  Especially since I ran out of business cards at the show and now there are lots of cards out there with the wrong address on them.  So if you're reading this, and you tried the address on the card, I'm sorry.  You can use the link on the top of this page, or just search "Brittni Gazendam" under "People" on Etsy.

Please be patient with me. I'll do my very best, I promise.

Now, I'm off to my sewing machine!

dress!

Yesterday a bunch of the textile ladies and I were talking about what we're all wearing to our gallery opening next week. (We are a studio full of women....). It got me thinking that it would be appropriate and fun to make a dress for myself.
I consider myself to be a pretty good sewer (seamstress?) and I've made a couple items of clothing before, but I'm not the greatest at tailoring things to make them fit, or making very complicated garments.  Usually when I make clothes I go for really easy, loose-fitting things that look fine no matter what you do because you can just slap a belt around it and you're good to go.

I got this fabric a while ago in the sale bin at Fabricland.  I still can't really decide if it's ugly or not.  Sometimes things are right on the edge of being either really awesome or really ugly, and I'm still not sure what side this fabric is on.  I think I'll just decide that it's really awesome.
I got a pdf pattern from BurdaStyle (love that website-I use it all the time for clothing patterns) and made a dress!   In the comments section of the website a couple people were saying that this dress is very "Mad Men-ish".  It makes me laugh that vintage 50's-60's style clothes are now just referred to as "Mad Men-ish".

It's hard to take proper pictures of yourself in clothing, and I feel a little silly posting these pictures on the internet. This is my concentrated face.

there! I made a dress with darts and lining and an invisible zipper and everything! I definitely messed some things up.  I didn't have a long enough zipper, so I have to basically dislocate my shoulder to get it over my shoulders (seriously...my shoulder hurts. what does a dislocated shoulder feel like?)  

oh well.  handmade. 

By now you're probably thinking  "wow, what are those awesome things on Brittni's feet?"  I'M GLAD YOU ASKED!  Those are just my wonderful new moccasins made by my wonderful husband!   After watching him make them for his mom and almost all his sisters and some of his brothers,  I finally got a pair of my own.  Aren't they beautiful?  I did the embroidery on them, but everything else is 100% Eric-made.  Want him to make you a pair?  I am conspiring to make him change career paths from engineering to leather-working.   

Now that I've spent my whole day off making a dress instead of doing my homework, I should go get some things done.  Almost graduated! YEAH!