'Tis the season to get craft

 

With Christmas is just around the corner, the house gnomes are out and about, lurking in the corners, stealing your snacks and drinking your beer!  Don't let their small size fool you, a "nisse" is extremely strong and if agitated or annoyed, he can become quite a nuisance around the house. In Denmark, it is the "Jule Nisse" that brings out the gifts, so you really want to stay on their good side. You can offer them porridge (with a spot of butter and cinnamon) or maybe leave them a home baked cookie or other nice treats. To me, it makes much more sense that the "Jule Nisse" delivers the presents, as how can one person (Santa) possibly deliver everything to the whole world in a single night? No, it makes much more sense that a team of 6 inch gnomes lug around our Nintendos, and Wii consoles, Steve Jobs bio, Justin Bieber's latest album and of course the latest iPhone 4S! 

So, with the 1st Advent coming up this Sunday, let the Christmas crafting begin!

Step aside Jamie Oliver!

Do you love to cook? Does your family have a recipe that’s been passed down from generation to generation?  Perhaps you cook together with your family? Do you think you've got what it takes to win a cooking competition? Food Network Canada is currently looking far and wide (well, far and wide within the borders of Canada) to get the best families that love to cook together.

"Family Cook Off" is Food Network Canada’s latest and greatest game show cooking competition like no other. Twenty-four families will go head to head to see who is the better and faster cook.  Think “Family Feud” meets “Iron Chef”. Teams are made up of four relatives (parents and children, siblings and grandparents, aunts and uncles, you get the picture). One team member prepares the appetizer, two members cook the main entrée and the remaining team member prepares the dessert all the while the audience is cheering and the clock is ticking. You have 20 minutes to complete each dish! Dishes are graded by a panel of judges, based on taste, presentation and creativity for a total of 10 points.

Shot on location in beautiful Vancouver, this show will have it all: emotion, fun-filled entertainment for all ages, charismatic host, celebrity judges and a live audience.

So, if you’re a hobby chef and you love to cook with your family, this could be your chance for those fifteen minutes of fame.  

Email cookoff@forcefour.com to let them know you’re interested and one of their lovely Story Producers will get back to you with a questionnaire.

Good luck!

Summer Sports

Summer is here and I'm training for my second Sprint Triathlon. It's the Subaru WesternTriathlon  to be exact. As a result, my mind has been a little more on the swimming and the biking and the running and not so much on the sketching and the printing and the sewing. And when I do sketch and print and sew, well, it seems I still am thinking of the swimming and the biking and the running. You get the point, I am sure. 

Although you can complete a triathlon without all the expensive gear, you do need a fair bit of stuff and lugging it around can be a hassle. My regular sports bag has recently been stretched to its limits with the addition of new swim fins and an extra water bottle, so I decided to make myself a quick and easy draw-string bag for all things swim-related. It holds my towel, my fins, goggles, swim cap, swim suit and all the gadgets and nicnacs I carry with me. Next version will have a separate pocket for my wallet and pool card.

Mama Olifant

Here's the elephant pillow I designed for Mother's Day. I was a wee bit late and only printed it the day before so it wasn't much use to my mom, or any other moms for that matter. Happily, it has been pointed out to me that it can also work quite well as a Baby Shower gift  (which can happen at all times of the year)! 

In short, the back is made up of an elephant stencil I cut out, while the front is screen printed using screen filler. I'm enjoying sewing pillow cases as they look very complete and finished at the end, and in reality it's just a bunch of straight lines! Print, print, zoom, zoom, cut here, cut there, and you're done! Voila!

Just for the fun of it, here are some of my other favorite elephants:

and to pull on the heart strings, here's a scene from Dumbo:

 Now, go call your mom and let her know how much you love her.

I heart Biking

I'm finding myself printing in all manners possible: screen printing, stenciling, printing with linoleum stamps and even potato printing! On top of that my newly acquired skill of sewing makes me sew anything and everything together: pillows, bags, pencil cases, and random pieces of fabric. I added a zipper to this cute little pencil case I created.

The bike design is from a linoleum block I carved out many months ago. I like the detail of the handbrake, the chain and the pedals. The ink worked quite differently on the fabric compared to the previously printed paper cards. Because the ink didn't take evenly in all places, it almost looks like a newsprint or somehow 3D.

When in doubt, put a Vespa on it

I made a pillow! I know, not the biggest accomplishment ever, but I'm a novice in the world of sewing, so I'm excited! The stitches are (more or less) straight, and the pillow fits inside. What more would you want from a pillow case? Oh yeah, a cool image. So, when in doubt, slap a Vespa on it. 

The large front Vespa was done by cutting a stencil from my stash of overhead projector plastic. I didn't want clean lines, so I cut in and around the marker lines, making the final print like a sketch. I opted for doing both sides of the pillow using a stencil. It wasn't for any artistic reason, I just didn't feel like getting all the screen printing paraphernalia out and having to clean the screen afterward. Talk about lazy! 

Well, maybe not lazy, so much as I'm finding myself with a new found attitude of "just do it" (for fear of getting dinged by Nike, I should say "just get it done!"). My "just get it done" attitude means also that I'm opting for good over perfect and it's leaving me with many more items produced and while I avoid  the endless tinkering and over-thinking I just plow ahead and learn along the way.

It's a pretty cool pillow, if I do say so myself!

Canvas Painting Time Lapse

Painting

I find screen printing to be very controlled and with the final outcome to be the result of much thinking, preparation and planning. To shake things up I enjoy painting. So far, my painting extravaganzas have been limited to throwing painting on a canvas. The bigger the better with some of the paintings being 6x3 feet. There's no plan. There's no initial idea. I don't sketch anything and definitely don't aim to create anything visibly recognizable, i.e. a person, a house, a tree. I just choose a color I like. I quite enjoy adding that first dash of color on a blank canvas. It's similar to when you first lift the silk screen after pulling the paint through the stencil. "Aah, look how it has changed, there's a mark now! How fun!" This little initial mark of paint creates an energy or perhaps more accurately, a stepping stone for the next mark. Should the next blob of paint be close or far away? Do they connect or is it all separate? It's like a dance. And soon enough the canvas is full and I have no more paint in the bucket, but plenty on my apron!

A tote for summer days

Last week I tried out stencil printing and i have to say, it's pretty darn easy and fast. Sketch, cut, ink away! I printed over a meter of fabric in preparation for this cute tote bag.  As you can see, I'm discovering a very feminine side of myself that I never knew I had. Flowers? Baby blue? You must be joking! But alas, now I think it's cute.

I had found the patterns online from The Long Thread, a lovely source of inspiration with sewing tutorials. For those who wish to also create such a tote, be mindful that steps 3 and 4 appear to be reversed and inserting the lining is easier done by creating a tube (inside out) and then reversing it to right side out before attached the bag's two sides together. Confused? I apologize, my lack of sewing terminology is keeping me from explaining this with any coherence.

So, with a little tote bag, we're all ready for summer days spent by the pool, the beach, the park or wherever else the warmer days may bring you.

The cutting of the ribbon (in cyberspace)

My Etsy store is open! Yay! Hurrah! So exciting! The ribbon has been cut and now it's shopping time! Please imagine many people milling about, nibbling on cheese and sipping wine while perusing my lovely products and buying lots of aprons.

*Ching, ching, ching* I feel like I should say a few words...ahem, first off, thank you to everyone who has supported me over these past months of hard work, soul searching and reinvention of myself. Friends, family and yes, even my new Twitter/Etsy colleagues have made all this so much fun and much more enjoyable.

For those who are unfamiliar with Etsy, it is an online commerce website filled with all things handmade, vintage and supplies to make more wonderful handmade things. When you're tired of the mall, Etsy is a great place to find cool, nifty items.  Plus, it's super easy  and provides hassle-free purchasing. Etsy is an incredible community of hard working individuals, all doing something with passion, dedication and hard work. I know this, because believe me, it might look easy (all those pretty colors and cute things throw you off) but trust me, "handmade" is a synonym for long nights, dining rooms turned into sewing studios, and paint stains and paper cuttings on the living room floor. There is no Crtl + Z in handmade! You either love it, live with it or start from scratch.

Needless to say, I think everyone deserves a unique apron.  And what do you know, Mother's Day is coming up. There's birthdays and wedding presents and even Easter (hey, better late than never and why not give presents at Easter?). The aprons pictured are just a handful of the ones printed. There are plenty where they came from!

Once again, thank you for your continued support and enjoy the cheese and wine (in your mind!)

Enjoy!

Printing, printing, printing

So, to celebrate that the Vespa has been brought out from its winter storage I thought it was an appropriate image to try out stencil printing. Also, I needed to get away from my regular screen printing extravaganza.

There’s something fantastic about printing which I believe comes down to all those tedious steps I so criticize. You start at one point, presumably with an idea. Then, perhaps you sketch it on a pad of paper, and with that it changes. Your idea becomes a reality and the lines aren’t quite what you had imagined but a version of them. You correct, amend and finalize the sketch to your liking. Again, it has changed. In the case of stencil printing, you would then cut out the design from card stock or, as in the images here, from a plastic sheet. Again, the design changes as the exact-o knife slips or your hand wobbles. 

By the time you add paint, fill out the empty space and lift the plastic to reveal the final print your idea has morphed into a beautiful creation. It is somehow removed from you personally, making it easier to look at it objectively. 

For me, because I am my own worst critic and I’m exceedingly hard on myself, I enjoy printing, in whichever form, because of this objective view. The final creation is a version of my original idea but I like it even more!

A Handmade Stamp

As you may have noticed the Little Viking is gone. Last I heard she's out biking somewhere in the sunshine, drinking beer and trying to prove that the earth is indeed flat. In any case, you can't trust Little Vikings with your business.

So, I guess it's just you and me now.

I'm back to creating a logo/stamp for my products with the new shop name, You & Mia. I decided the best way to get a truly handmade feel is to, well, make it by hand. Go figure.

Linocut is pretty self-explanatory.  You do need to pay attention though or you may inadvertently cut out the wrong part of the pattern. Also, keep your free hand behind the cutting tool. It's easy to accidentally jab your hand as the tool slips out of the linoleum. Not a nice feeling. The natural thing to do is to mark the linoleum with your design and carve out the marks, only to realize you want to carve our everything else except the markings. It's that whole negative/positive print thing. Don't be confused. Just look at the photos below.

ABC's of Biking Tuning

It's Spring, which means Summer comes afterwuuuurds and that means beach, bikini, longer days and shorter pants (also known as shorts). Perhaps you've been cooped up inside all winter and if you think the gym is an unmentionable institution of the modern world, then go biking outside. But, besides the exercise benefits, do you really need an excuse to bike? I really can't say anything negative about biking. I love it. So, for practical purposes I'm posting this How Tuesday video from Etsy because I realize not everyone knows how to tune their own bike (me included, ahem) and having a bike with functional breaks is a good thing in my book!

One step forward, 3 steps backwards

Well, I unveiled my fabulous line of aprons on Monday before a group of about 20 classmates and I think the overall response was positive. "Good colors", "nice patterns", "great hand made quality"...an all around "compelling presentation"  which included my Process video, 3 models and me blabbering.

But...yes, there's a but...no one agreed with my "Little Viking & Bike" shop name. At all.

Hm. I pondered momentarily whether it was worth it to argue against them in an attempt to explain my branding and image.

OK, yes, yes, I know! "Little Viking & Bike" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue and when you think of vikings you really don't picture a cheery girl on a bike, but perhaps more accurately a giant red-head with a horned helmet, possibly even running at you, yelling, swinging a large weapon. Fear is not really what I wanted to instill in people's hearts as they peruse my creations of love.

Fine. I will change my "shop name". Just when I thought I was about to launch my crafting career.

No one said branding and creating a logo and coming up with a style guide, a shop name and a "look" was going to be easy. This is why you hire a team of marketing specialists, a logo designer, a webmaster and a business guru. 

But alas, these "luxuries" are beyond my reach for now.

I did, however, call upon some friends for advice on how to shift away from "Little Viking & Bike" and over to a name that associates it all to me. There's no more hiding! With "Little Viking & Bike" I felt more at ease and the whole experience was somehow removed from me personally.  And yet, I was able to break down, in themes what it all stood for: me! Recall my blurb:

"Little Viking & Bike" is me! Viking stands for traveler, discovery, merchant, adventure. (Uhm notice I don't mention the usual viking activities of attacking and pillaging of villages, let's just say I'm skipping that part). The bike is my main mode of daily transportation. It's fun, eco-friendly, healthy, sporty and it gets me outside, rain or shine! Little Viking & Bike represents all this (aforementioned fun, healthy, adventure, etc.) and I try to incorporate it in my designs.

"Mia Prints" "Mia Design" 

"Mia Studio" "Made by Mia"  

"Mia Mania"

"Stuff Mia Makes" "Mia Land"

"Mia the Viking" "Mia is Awesome"

Gah!

 I finally went with You & Mia, which came from my good friend, Simon. I like You & Mia because of the fun play on words and it makes it almost impossible for someone to mistakenly pronounce my name Mah-ya when it is in fact Mee-ah.Who says "Mah-ya" you ask? Believe me, those three little letters have been twisted and turned to come out in all sorts of manners. Don't even get me started on my last name!

So, one step forward and three steps backwards but I continue to learn and I haven't given up yet. I do sincerely hope that all this is somewhat amusing (perhaps in a comic way) to those who follow my (mis)adventures in my new found entrepreneurial world.

Tomorrow is  a new day.

The never ending Apron Journey

It now seems many weeks ago that I embarked on this Apron Journey. I set out to make 80 aprons, but due to some mathematical errors and my limited experience in sewing, I miscalculated how much fabric it would take to make a 55cm wide apron. And for those who, like me, do not know much about sewing, the answer is not 55cm. I should have added in the extra 1-2cm on either sides for the double folds that make the apron look nice and finished. OK, so now we know that. It takes at least 60cm to make a 55cm wide apron. So, I'm making 76 aprons. Three of them turned out as rejects, so the end result is 73 aprons. Not bad, for my first go at "mass production".

There's a great hand-made movement going on in the western world today. Community Markets are springing up everywhere and there's no excuse to buy factory-made if you wish for something with more character and story behind it. Etsy, Got Craft?, ArtFire, Made It, are just some of the few online stores and sources. I have perused these sites for months with a mixture of awe and (sometimes) a feeling of "hey, I can do that". 
 
I jumped into this venture head on, with both feet, flop! I did not think it would be easy, because if it were, everyone would do it (I mean more than those already on Etsy, Made It, Big Cartel, etc). But I thought it would be easier. I thought the hard part was behind me once the decision had been made to give it a go. But, so many steps! All the preparation! You cannot print and sew an apron (or anything else for that matter) on a messy kitchen table or on your way home on the bus or while watching TV on the couch. This is not knitting. No, screen printing and sewing and ironing and counting and measuring fabric and burning screens and re-stretching silk mesh, takes your full attention and requires some prep time before setting up. Gah!

 

Due to my lack of sewing skills/ knowledge, Little Viking & Bike has recruited an employee! Or perhaps he is an intern? Hopefully he's a volunteer. Maybe I should clarify this with him. In any case, he has already been awarded "Employee of the Month". I have the feeling he will also be the recipient next month. Below you can see proof of  why my new volunteer (really, who has overhead for paid employees nowadays?) has received the "Employee of the Month": hard at work, sewing away, both day and night.
 

 

So, my hat's off to all the crafts people out there. The dedication and hours of work is motivational to say the least. My Apron Journey is still going strong. I am determined.  I have a n Intern. Or was that a volunteer? And, as much as I complain about the multiple steps and preparation, I love it. I'm really not complaining, but merely explaining my deep fascination and expressing my awe at the other crafts people out there. I am truly amazed.