Author Archive
Scarfette Rasta Mom
Yes, this is my mother wearing a big pile of scarfettes on her head as a wig.
I think this is absolutely hilarious.
She just turned 70 this year and look at how much fun we still have together.
I will cherish these photos forever.
FEAST YOUR EYES!
I am bedding designer.
I love sleeping.
Here are some of my favourite beds.
They are art. They are inspiration. The winds are blowing cooler and it is time to nest.
Above is the “Apple tree” bed by Atilla design
This is a bed I have imagined in my mind and wanted to build myself one day. Looks like someone else had the same idea.
Above is the “Tree” bed by Shawn Lovell. It is cast iron.
These hand painted lovelies are made by a company called Sticks Beds
I found the pictures of these built in cubbyhole beds and they have a really cozy feeling. They remind me of traveling and of my childhood fairytale fantasies.
I would love to build something like this in a child’s room.
Sweet Dreams.
This is the photography of Maude Laliberte (a dear and beloved client at the boutique) who went to the Diner en Blanc last week in Montreal.
The diner en Blanc is an event the groups 2400 people together for a picnic dinner at a secret location.
Buses picked them up at metro stations and parks.
They set up their own banquet tables and chairs.
Bustier Katrin Leblond ($160) with Russian shawl ($44)
I am a spiritual person. I am a political person.
I believe that I am empowered to make ethical decisions that are beneficial for my community by the money I spend as an entrepreneur . I believe that as an artist, it is my duty to create beauty for my customers to enjoy. I believe that women deserve to be treated like goddesses entering a temple when they come in to my boutique. They are to be served, taken care of, draped in fabric and made to feel beautiful. I believe this from the bottom of my heart.
I have always been politically active and I have always been crafty. There were certain points in my life where I felt guilty and pained because “just making pretty things” was not saving the planet. Now that I am running an ecological and local manufacturing business that serves and adores women, I feel better. I have merged my environmental activist with my feminist and with my local economist in a way that allows me to keep being a creative human being.
And here is Linda Evangelista, our Montreal-born International Fashion Icon, merging her political views that something is wrong in the world and someone should be held accountable with her love of the Madonna. She got to play a living Madonna in a Religious procession. I have traveled to Antigua in Guatemala to see these processions. They walk the streets playing sad brass band music all the while carrying statues and crying for the death of Jesus. They walk for 12-13 hours. My main reason for traveling there was to see the “carpets” that the locals make from coloured saw dust and flowers. The carpets are made in the street prior to the passing of the procession. When the procession passes, the carpet gets trampled. It was incredibly beautiful. (This is reminding me that I should do a post about those carpets.)
I am unusually attracted the the iconography of the Madonna even though I was not raised in any form of Christianity. To me the Madonna is the “mother”, gaia, goddess … and those are all great things. It represents female divinity, something each woman carries within herself.
I love religious art. I love folk art. I love making pretty things.
It can take quite a while in life’s journey to settle into being who you truly are and not who you wish you were.
These prints are like whipped cream and strawberries.
Yummy!
They are vintage and oh so French.
The first one definitely has and Art Deco feel, but the rest are decidedly Victorian.
KL tote travel bag. Each one of these is unique and you should see the lining!
Rich red will always be strong and I will make sure to have a good red in every collection.
I cannot have these prints and I cannot put them into my Fall collection, but the colour palettes and combinations are an excellent reflection of Fashion trends right now. Soft natural nudes and creams and tans are making a raging comeback for Fall 2010.
KL Cerise Dress $245 with Colette Van Haaren mobius shaal $36
The camel and gold tones will be nice to complement last years brown. I know that Montreal is a black and grey clad city, but try to imagine these colours around the face with skinny black pants. It is gentle will especially complement blond and sandy brown hair.
KL Upsidedown cardigan, Gloria Gaudette ivory cardigan, Maillagogo Ivory knit cardigan and handprinted 100% cotton scarves
KL Mystery Jacket $126 with nude Donna Beth cami $25
This post was written by Erin based on Katrin’s telling of the making of her embroidered travel belt.
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While on my first road trip across Canada, with the man I later married, I wanted to record our travels. The problem was I get car sickness.
Despite, the fact that I couldn’t write in my journal, I found embroidery to be something I could handle even with the rock and roll of the road. Embroidery became my traveling form of journaling.
I stitched the landscapes and the names of all the animals we saw along the way.
The coloured threads depict the story of our road trip together.
I would sit in the passenger seat of our non air-conditioned van and stitch away.
The finished belt wraps around my body twice.
The needle pulled the thread in and out of the fabric stitching the moments I wanted to capture. The van hit the road. My needle pulled the thread. The wind swept us away at the start of our journey. The stitches became pictures. The pictures began the story of our journey. I stitched the flower called Indian paint brush. Wild to Canada, this flower called out to be remembered. I stitched the orange and yellow of it’s petals. The lakes in Ontario were numerous swimming pleasures. There were so many lakes. I painted with the blue of my embroidery thread just one to remember them all. As we approached the prairies fields of Canola, also called Rape seed, danced yellow blooms that waved in the wind. Dots of yellow thread floated across the belt.
The car broke down and we had to spend three days waiting for a part in Edmonton. I stitched the part we needed called a U joint. We drove on to the Rockies. Nights under the crescent moon were beautiful.
We took the fairy to Salt Spring Island and went swimming with purple and blue dragon flies.
We watched boat racing on a Native reserve on Vancouver Island. We walked in the red wood forest under the full moon.
Then we left Canada. We hit Seattle and we went to the fish and flower market. Four hours from Seattle, we spent two days at mount Saint Helen the mountain that erupted years before.
LOVE…….LOVE LOVE WAS EVERYTHING. Our van was love parked in dry lands that had sage bushes all around. I stitched a heart floating over our van. I stitched my love. My heart.
We drove through the Craters of the Moon and finally got back to the rivers of Ontario. Eager to get home we drove and drove and drove…day and night. We took shifts.
The road took us home.
Sometimes we fall, we slip.
Sometimes things don’t all go as planned.
Sometimes a great idea turns out to need a lot of tweaking.
A sting.
A zing.
A bit of a sour thing.
Sometimes a bit of sour helps you appreciate the sweetness that comes along next.
Nature has always been my greatest inspiration. Flowers in the summer and leaves in the Fall. It is so simplistic, but it returns to me every season and I never tire of these basic earthy themes. Here is a sampling of some land art I find beautiful (all done by a man named Nils) and some of the leaf embroidery we are working on for the current Fall 2010 collection.
These leaves will be appearing on our Fall pencil skirt. It is my new favorite skirt and I am super excited to introduce this cut as a recurring staple to the store.
The black and white feather appliqué is a perfect t-shirt for the graphically bold. The feathers are delicately placed at the neckline of the v-neck. (this photo is on it’s side)
The new Mystery jacket ($126) with tumbling red tulle leaves (pictured below).
Nature in red glory marching to the water. I don’t really know what this photo is about I just like the walking red flowers.
Frost on the leaves is coming sooner than some of us would like to think.
The doorway to Fall.
The collection in store offers some fashionable ways to get ready before it gets cold out!
Kat
In my opinion these are the most amazing prints ever. They are 100% cotton, designed and printed in the US and I have always loved them. I coveted them so much, that I decided to design and make my bedding collection just because I needed a reason to purchase these fabrics.
They have recently become such a hit (since they were featured in M magazine of la Presse) that we have increased our production of the decorative pillows we make from these glorious prints. They are washable, won’t fade, wont shrink…they are perfection.
Visit the Official Site!
