wilderness

  Eric and I took off on a last minute interior camping trip in Algonquin this past week.  The weather was wonderful, lots of sunshine and just enough rain and thunder to make it interesting.  There's almost nothing better than being in the middle of beautiful, beautiful nowhere with just a canoe, a tent, backpacks and the person you love the most.   My wilderness survival skills are subpar, but thankfully Eric is a naturally born wildman, so I'm learning.  I caught a 20 inch bass (which is quite impressive, I'm told) and had my first taste of freshly caught fish.  Delicious. I also worked up the courage and actually took the hook out of another much smaller fish after I caught it (which involved actually touching it, instead of quickly handing the rod off to Eric)

The trip also included, but was not limited to : moose chasing, rainbows, baby ducks and goslings, beavers, birds, a great deal of paddling, dragonflies, cigars, cooking over an open fire, napping in the sun and swimming in cold, clear lake water.  Oh, Northern Ontario, how I love you.

Being Canadian is the best.  Seriously. 

This photo is not from Algonquin, it's from last weekend camping at Pineries with family.  I just think it's adorable.  Uncle Eric and Charlie. BFF

studio!

 I feel like I've been holding off on this post because I didn't feel like this was actually real. I've pinched myself again and again-and it's true!  We have a studio!  A big, bright, beautiful space to work and make in.  I'm sharing the space with 6 of my lovely friends who just graduated with me.  I love having like-minded friends who get excited about the silly things that I get excited about.  A wash-out sink! Exposed brick walls! A light table!  Wowser.  

Anyways, we're in the Sonic Unyon building on Wilson Street, just off of James Street North.  It's already been exciting just being close to the growing community of amazing-ness on that street- and I don't even know very many people yet!  We're hoping and planning that we can be open for James North Art Crawl every month so that people can come in, see what we're doing, and maybe even buy some things if we set up a fun pop-up shop!

We need a collective name, however.  Any ideas? 

The studio is not done being set up, by any means, and there's still a large amount of supplies and things that I'll need to get before I can start using it every day(my poor bank account) but it's getting there.   Eric and I, and my studio mate Mary, have been working hard at building a giant print table, a cutting table, putting up shelving, etc, etc.  When I say all three of us, I mostly mean Eric.  If I didn't know it before, I can now safely say that I'm married to the greatest man on earth.  What a guy.

Here's some pictures of our progress so far.  Some of the images aren't the best quality, but you get the idea!

 Big, beautiful, empty space!

 eric the great starting construction on the 20 foot long print table.

   Kijiji stools!  Reupholstered by yours truly. (the ugly red is the old upholstery)

 The cutting table! with built in shelving! It is now painted white and awaiting a cutting mat with a grid.  Oh, and what's that in the background?

 Print table, with padding.  The padding is now stapled on and there's a not-wide-enough drop cloth covering the surface. Oops.  We forgot to get double-wide length cotton.

Oh look!  Here's our embroidery/tea drinking/knitting/crocheting/drawing/sleeping loft!  We really wanted to have room for a couch or some chairs so we could have some space to just sit around in the studio (because screen printing and sewing is hard work-seriously) but we soon discovered that there wasn't going to be any extra room.  Thus-the loft was created!  The previous tenant,the talented Jenna Rose, had a darkroom for exposing screens built already (huge bonus for us!), so all Eric had to do was reinforce it with his framing know-how and build an adorable ladder and railing!  We're going to eventually put lots of pillows and maybe some carpet up there, so we have a nice cozy spot to take a break.  I also attacked the beams up there with a vaccum cleaner. Not completely fun, but definitely worth it.
I think it looks like a giant adult bunk bed and I'm not mad about it.

That's the studio!  I've been pretty busy with it, thus the lack of posting, and the lack of MAKING.  My sewing machines been packed up in a box, waiting to be taken out and used, but there's been too much sawdust in the studio to actually use it.  The construction is done now, though, so hopefully soon I can get back into the swing of things and start expanding this business!

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!

lately.

It's reading week right now and I had pretty big plans for all the things I was going to get done on my grad project this week.  Unfortunately , I came down with an awful flu on Sunday night and have spent the last three days recovering from it.  Needless to say, I'm kind of behind on my grad project. It's kind of freaking me out.  Kind of a lot.

I had a pretty good day today, getting things done that I had planned out already, but theres still major parts of my project (a.k.a  the most major parts...) that need designing and thinking and planning and pattern drafting and trial-and-error-ing.  And now I'm hitting a wall.  

I know I just need to clear my head a bit and then just go and eventually I'll get to a point where it'll just come to me and I'll get everything done.   That's how it always works.  But it's haaaaaaard. Complain, complain, complain.  

Here's a bit of what I'm working on right now.  Lots of tie dying, folding and dipping with natural dyes.  Lots of cutting those up into tiny pieces and sewing them back together, a.k.a "piecing"

 Eric borrowed a weight set from his parents so he could get buff.  It's turning out to be a less-than-efficient drying rack.

bunnies.

I was going to write a blog post about all the half-finished projects that I'm working on right now for school, for myself, for other people and for gifts.  But that's stressing me out.  So instead I spent a lot of time looking at pictures of bunnies on pinterest and subsequently looking for a bunny of my own to love on kijiji. 

I just really want a bunny.