see emelgy

where do you go from here?

2011-09-10T15:18:00.001-04:00

Hello beautiful person! Thank you for finding this blog. I'm so glad you came.

I am slowly moving all of the original content from this blog to my new blog, here. I hope you'll check it out. It's all about eco-friendly cleaning, organizing, healthy living, art, design and my life.

Peace out.

blackberry holder

2008-08-16T17:03:00.010-04:00

I needed some kind of holder for my BlackBerry - I have a skin for it, but the screen is getting a little scratched. Pulled out some felted scraps today and sewed myself up a little something to protect my "lifeline." Below is the reverse side.

Below is a photo of my tapestry yarn stash; one of the reasons I love crafting so much is being surrounded by this gorgeousness.

how to buy really green

2008-03-11T07:52:00.000-04:00

How do you know if what you're buying is really green or not? My favorite eco-friendly consumer advocate, Debra Lynn Dadd, has written a new book that answers exactly that question. Really Green covers easy green principles that anyone can learn, to help each of us understand the kinds of things that really DO help health and the environment.

It contains all the information you need to be able to tell the difference between products with real environmental and health benefits and those with misleading green hype. In this book, you will learn:

* What "green" really means
* The true foundation for defining green products
* The life cycle of green products
* The eighteen basic principles that define what's green
* The five basic types of green products
* All about green packaging
* Various shades of green products
* The cost of green goods
* How to spot misleading "greenwashing"
* How to change your buying habits to be green

Click on this link to find out more and buy the book today!

how to straighten circular knitting needles

2007-12-30T13:20:00.002-05:00

I just started a new knitting project: a scarf in rainbow-coloured variegated wool. I like to use circular needles whenever possible, because I tend to drop things - and trust me, given the opportunity to drop my straight needles, I will drop them with discouraging frequency.

The only problem with circular needles is that, when they're stored in their original packages, they take on the tight curve that they've been stored in, and when you go to use them, the flexible part becomes very wayward.

This morning I decided to remedy the situation by ironing my needle. Applied with care, heat will relax the plastic and encourage it to take a new shape.

Find the full instructions for how to straighten a circular knitting needle in this Facebook photo album (you don't have to be a Facebook member to view the album).

tükz and tea cosies now available at Nathalie-Roze and Co.

2007-09-05T07:24:00.005-04:00

I'm happy to announce that my tükz and tea cosies will soon be available at Nathalie-Roze & Co., an awesome, quirky, funky shop on Queen Street East in Toronto's Leslieville neighbourhood.

Here's the full contact info:

Nathalie-Roze & Co.
1015 Queen St. East
Toronto ON M4M 1K3
(416) 792-1699

Hours:

Closed Mondays
Tuesday to Thursday 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Friday 11 a.m. - 7 p.m.
Saturday 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Sunday 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.

I'll also be leading some craft workshops (teaching you how to create your own toques and cosies!) this fall in Nathalie-Roze's workshop space. Check later for more details!

Update: August 2008

Nathalie-Roze is no longer carrying my designs - but do check out her shop when you're in Toronto. It's packed full of great items from a number of talented designers - and many of the pieces are made from recycled materials!

photo credit: Chris Struk

to commission or buy my designs

2007-08-16T10:47:00.003-04:00

I've stopped production of my past designs, but still take the occasional commission from interested buyers. Click on "View My Complete Profie" in the right-hand sidebar to find my e-mail address, and drop me a line with your request.

the story behind tükz

2007-08-07T09:22:00.001-04:00

If you take a look at my tea cosies, you will see a startling resemblance to these toques. Yes, the hats are basically tea cosies without holes for spouts and handles.

My original tea cosy pattern was based on the shape of a close-fitting toque that I knit for myself a couple of years ago. I didn't really think about making hats out of recycled sweaters until a guy in my Alexander Training put one of the cosies on his head during tea break one day (read the tea cosy story, here). His comment was that I should make some hats.

So I did.

tükz

2007-08-05T15:01:00.002-04:00

These unisex skateboarding or snowboarding toques are hand-sewn from recycled, felted 100% wool sweaters. Each hat is unique. Also available soon in infant and children's sizes.

tükz care instructions

2007-08-04T07:56:00.001-04:00

Tükz hats are made from 100% felted wool. They will shrink if you machine wash and dry them. So be sure to hand wash your tükz hat in cold water with a mild detergent, and hang to dry.

eco-friendly shower curtains

2007-05-28T08:00:00.001-04:00

Conventional store-bought shower curtains are made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a petrochemical product that is toxic in its manufacture and use (it outgasses a suspected carcinogen and hormone disrupter). It is being phased out of toys and household products in Europe, and hopefully North America will soon follow suit. Because it is relatively inexpensive to make, it's found in a huge variety of items. Read more about the dangers of PVC here.

Alternatives to vinyl shower curtains are available commercially in the form of fabric curtains. Most are also made from petrochemicals, however. Hemp and organic cotton shower curtains are available, but expensive.

I decided to make my own eco-friendly shower curtain out of a large piece of gauzy 100% cotton from my fabric stash. All I had to do was hem it to the appropriate length and add twelve grommets to the top. Because it's so lightweight, it dries quickly and doesn't attract mold. It's easy to wash, and can be dried by re-hanging it while still wet. It looks great in my bathroom, adding to the natural spa effect of white tiles and fixtures combined with natural materials such as wood and wicker.

linen and linen-look cushion covers

2007-05-27T20:15:00.001-04:00

When I moved into my current apartment I wanted to go with an all-white European rustic theme for my bed. I had already made pillow slips out of heavy, linen-look rayon for my "sleeping" pillows, but wanted some throw cushions to match.

IKEA carries very inexpensive feather cushions, and I made slip-on covers for them out of vintage fabrics from my stash: two old 100% linen tablecloths, an old, worn 100% cotton sheet (lined with more cotton since the sheet had holes in some places), and 100% cotton muslin.

Each cover has a slit in the back (I don't like zippers on cushions) so it can be removed for cleaning. They look great on my bed, giving it the feel of a European farmhouse.

ecclesiastical stole

2007-05-24T06:02:00.000-04:00

This stole was a gift to a minister who was leaving my church congregation in London, Ontario. Two churches had amalgamated, and the agreement at the outset was that one of the ministers would move on, six months after amalgamation.

One Sunday morning shortly after the amalgamation I was chatting with Marilyn (the departing minister) before worship, and I happened to ask her about the colour of her stole that day. Marilyn began to explain the various liturgical colours, and as I listened to her rhyme off the seasons of the church year I realized she hadn’t mentioned Advent.

It turned out Marilyn didn’t have an Advent stole, which should be blue in colour. In a lighthearted mood, I asked her if she wanted one. The moment passed, but later that morning during the service I realized that an Advent stole would make a wonderful gift. Being an experienced sewer, I was inspired to create a unique present for the amalgamated congregation to give to Marilyn.

I envisioned a blue stole made of patchwork; only later, in a conversation with another church member, did I discover that Marilyn was also a quilter. All but one of the many blue fabrics included in this stole was recycled from used clothing.

In total, the stole took about 25 hours to design and sew. The colours of the stole remind me of Amish garments. The ends of the stole, and the point at the back, are inspired by “Nine Patch” blocks in traditional patchwork quilting.

The text embroidered along the length of the stole is a verse of scripture from the book of Luke - Chapter 1, verse 38 - where the angel Gabriel tells Mary that she will bear a child. Mary's reply is: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

slipcovers

2007-05-24T05:52:00.000-04:00

The upholstery on my mother's favorite armchair was rotting from sun exposure, and she didn't know what to do about it. I offered to make her a slipcover for the chair, so we went shopping for fabric (which my sister paid for), and this became Mom's birthday present that year (my responsibility was the sewing part).

In retrospect, this particular fabric was probably not a good choice; it looks amazing in the room, and coordinates well with the other pieces, but it was a royal pain having to match the pattern with its small repeat and right angles. I'm pretty obsessive, and everything has to be exactly centred and perfectly symmetrical. I was happy with the end result, though.

michelle lynne goodfellow

2007-05-21T21:41:00.000-04:00

I've been sewing since I was about eight years old. As a child I played almost incessantly with dolls, especially my Barbies. One day I discovered that one of my closest friends knew how to use her mother's sewing machine to make doll's clothes. I immediately begged my own mother to teach me how to use our Singer, and soon Barbie's closet was full, and the Barbie-sized dollhouse my father had built for me was overflowing with new cushions, quilts, and curtains.

Mom also taught me how to knit, crochet, and embroider. I'm just one generation removed from rural farm life, and every adult female I knew as a child did some sort of handiwork. Even the men in my life dabbled at fibre arts: my paternal grandfather designed patchwork quilts in his retirement, and my father learned how to crochet when I was a child, creating ponchos for me and my sister to wear. My brother was a meticulous machine sewer who tapered his friends' pant legs as a teenager.

My mother always nurtured my creative talents in her own quiet way, and encouraged me to pursue art or design when I finished high school. I have a bachelor's degree in home economics with a major in clothing, textiles, and design, and also studied visual arts at the university level for two years before transferring programs and finishing my second bachelor's degree in film studies.

Looking back, I can see that the times when I ignored my creative impulses were the bleakest and emptiest of my life. There were many wake-up calls along the way. Once, when participating in a watercolour class at a local Waldorf school as an adult, I was shocked to realize that nobody else's work looked like mine - because I had engaged in the process on a completely different level than everyone else in the class.

I'd cried on the way to class because I'd just left a singing lesson where I despaired of ever singing well; I cried on the drive home because I finally realized how much time I had wasted worrying about all the things I couldn't do, while letting my true talents languish.

My art - whether fibre or fabric crafts, drawings, photographs, or even writing - is my way of putting the beauty I see in the world back into the world for others to see. I hope you enjoy it.

tea cosies - flat views

2007-05-21T13:51:00.001-04:00

Each reincarnations tea cosy is one-of-a-kind, lovingly hand-crafted from recycled, felted 100% wool sweaters. Wool has many amazing properties that make it a superb insulator. It retains heat even when wet and is naturally flame-retardant.

The teapots are courtesy of my friend Laurie, who collects teapots. She generously loaned them to me for my "photo shoots." (I drink lots of herbal tea, but ironically I never use a cosy - I like my tea lukewarm, and I make it in a Bodum-style coffee press. Yes, there is a prototype Bodum cosy in the works!)

I'm inspired by the colours of Kaffe Fassett's knitting and needlework designs, and the colour combinations I choose for my cosies are often reminiscent of the colourways Fassett uses.

I'm also inspired by folk art, North American rustic and Amish designs. I like to make practical objects that are beautiful, colourful and a little funky. I hate to throw anything away, so you'll often find ribbings or other sweater details incorporated into some of the cosies.

tea cosies - top views

2007-05-17T07:19:00.001-04:00

I like to listen to music - usually classical - when I'm cutting fabric for the cosies. Right now I'm going through a Mussorgsky phase, and play Pictures at an Exhibition every time I pull out my scissors.

I often listen to lectures on tape - especially Clarissa (Women Who Run with the Wolves) Pinkola Estes' Theatre of the Imagination boxed sets - when I hand-sew the cosies together. It takes me about an hour to sew all the seams on one cosy, so the time passes more quickly when I have something interesting to listen to. I don't own a television...

why "reincarnations"?

2007-05-16T16:12:00.000-04:00

I have been interested in sustainable living for over twenty years, and I'm always encouraged to hear about artists and craftspeople using recycled materials in their work.

For some time I've been wanting to create beautiful, useful products from the huge stash of fabric and yarn - much of it recycled clothing - that I've collected since I was a teenager.

The name reincarnations was not my first choice for my recycled fabric creations. I wanted to call them healing threads, since I believe that recycling fabric is something that can help heal (or at least reduce the harm to) our planet. But when I did an online search I found a company in the States already using that name.

Another product line I want to create is meditation cushions sewn from recycled jeans, and as I played with the idea of meditation and Buddhism and recycling, the name reincarnations came to me, and kind of stuck. So reincarnations it is...

how the cosies are made

2007-05-14T19:07:00.000-04:00

Making the reincarnations tea cosies is a very labour-intensive process. First I hand-select preloved 100% wool sweaters from a number of recycling sources (usually thrift shops or rummage sales, although a few of the sweaters once belonged to me or my family). I then felt the sweaters.

100% wool fabric will shrink when exposed to alkaline chemicals (washing soda, baking soda, or pure soap), hot temperatures and agitation. In the past I have found that using alkaline chemicals speeds up the felting process, but results in a fabric that is less pleasing to the touch. So I forego the chemicals and simply wash the wool in hot water, then dry it in the dryer on the highest temperature setting. I add vinegar to the wash water to help condition the water. It may take several washes for the wool to shrink enough to create a dense fabric that won't fray when cut.

After the sweaters have been felted I cut them apart and steam the fabric pieces flat with an industrial iron. Then the fun begins. I sort the felt pieces by thickness and colour, and choose the colours for each unique reincarnations cosy. After cutting the pieces I hand-stitch them with tapestry wool using a blanket stitch, and press them one last time before tagging and shipping them to tea shops and retail outlets.

the story behind the tea cosies

2007-05-14T18:47:00.000-04:00

I'm in the first year of a three-year training program in the Alexander Technique, a type of body work. Every weekday morning during class we have a fifteen-minute tea break. The students take turns preparing tea; for some, it is a very serious or thoughtful task.

One student in particular, who was raised by his English mother to make a "proper cuppa," would often resort to covering the full teapots with tea towels to keep the water warm before break, in the absence of proper cosies. When he was about to go on a trip to England to visit relatives, he remarked that he should bring back some tea cosies for the school.

I've been creating with fibre and fabric since I was a child, and I was inspired by his words. I told him not to bother with cosies from England; I would make some for the school myself during the time he was away.

Like most sewers, I have a huge fabric stash, including several brightly-coloured wool sweaters that I had felted. I cut up a few of them, and in a couple of days had stitched together three cosies - each unique - for the school. I made a fourth for my best friend who collects teapots, and a business was born.