I just found out yesterday that the workroom/make something had been nominated for a Poppy award under the ‘Favourite Handmade Crafter’ category. How sweet!

The Poppies are a brand new virtual awards event to give recognition to all the awesome talent out there, put forth by the wonderful crew at Poppytalk. Every day for the next week, a new category will be announced and you can vote for your favourites in each category. You can vote once per day for the entire week for each category.

There are so many great people represented, so it’s a wonderful opportunity to discover some new crafty shops and blogs. There is stiff competition in the crafters category. Atlantic Treefox, Film in the Fridge, Leptitpapillon, Miniature Rhino, Resurrection Fern, Sandra Juto, Stitchface, and Yokoo are just a few of the folks in the running!

Vote for your Favourite Handmade Crafter here!

the workroom’s monthly Stitch n’ Bitch night was featured as #8 on Toronto Life’s 50 Cheap Thrills!

Late in the summer, the workroom had the opportunity to play a small part in an initiative that Chatelaine staffers had created to donate money to families in need over the holidays by selling reusable gift bags they had sewn from thrifted and vintage fabrics. An enthusiastic crew of happy sewers arrived at the shop with piles of fabric, trim and even baked holiday treats from the Chatelaine test kitchen. (yum!) They quickly set up a production line and whipped up 46 colourful totes to sell for their cause in just a few hours. You can read about this great event in the November issue of Chatelaine!

Katie Dupuis from Chatelaine also runs a crafty blog called, “She’s Crafty”. I was super flattered to be her “Crafter of the Month” for September. Thanks Katie!

One last thing. the workroom and some of our workroom friends have become stock photography! Photographer Darren Kemper arranged a photo shoot at the workroom in the summer to get some shots of young people sewing and crafting. It was a pretty fun afternoon, ‘pretending’ to sew and teach sewing while Darren snapped our photos. There was a heck of a lot of laughing that afternoon. If you scroll through the photos, you’ll also see a photo shoot that was done with our friends at the Knit Cafe. I wonder where these stock photos might end up?!?

What a sweet surprise to hear that the workroom was mentioned in Toronto Life’s Best of the City issue!

Hi, it’s June! Summer is just racing towards us faster than I can believe.

To celebrate the very first day of summer, City of Craft and the workroom are presenting the Garden Party Trunk Show on Sunday June 21, Noon – 5pm. As usual we have an enticing crew of vendors who will dazzle you with their wares (both handmade & vintage). I hope you will mark your calendars!

Also, two of the workroom’s friends – Sarah & Shiralee were featured in an article in the Globe and Mail on the weekend about handmade weddings. I was really excited to see photos from both of their magical-looking weddings that they added special handmade touches to. (including fabrics from the workroom!)

The article also shares some great resources and ideas, but mostly i just LOVE looking at photos of weddings. This and this are a couple of my favs. Do you have favourite wedding photos? Perhaps your own? Comment here with a link, so that I can spy on more people’s weddings!

Spotted this on my walk to work this morning. This is a seriously smart game of hopscotch.

It’s been so long that I had to read up on the rules of the game.

With a little help from Anabela, I finally located a couple copies of the newest issue of Stitch magazine at Presse Internationale. There’s a nice mention of the workroom with a couple great photos. (that’s Anabela’s quilt, Grant, Rosalyn and Michelle in the top photo!) This piece came about because Jacqueline of Soak kindly mentioned the workroom and put me in touch with one of the editors. It’s such a treat to be on the same pages as so many great talents in this new magazine.

There is an informative article on Liberty of London fabrics (they are coming in the next couple weeks!), people who are printing their own textiles (Lena Corwin, Ink & Spindle and Lotta Jansdotter) and tons of cool projects and patterns. I’m going to get myself a subscription so that I don’t have to run around the city trying to locate a copy. Plus, I want to make sure this magazine stays in print.

I know there are a few people trying to find copies, so please comment if you see a copy somewhere in the city. Michelle said there were lots of copies today at the Indigo at Bay & Bloor.

Thanks so much to everyone who emailed and tweeted when they saw the article. It’s great to see how popular this publication is already!

Perhaps because of the long weekend, or perhaps just because the stars were perfectly aligned, we received a record amount of fun deliveries at the workroom on Tuesday. Each of our delivery guys – UPS, Purolator, Fedex, Canpar and Canada Post paid us a visit bringing boxes filled with Japanese fabrics, sewing notions, organic cotton canvas and a stack of the first issue of Uppercase Gallery’s magazine.

Everything that Uppercase Gallery does is delightful, so it was a pretty sure bet that their magazine would be a keeper. Oh, it is. From the cover illustration by Blanca Gómez to the tear-out artwork by Charlotte Sullivan at the back, the magazine is filled with wonderful features on Irina Troitskaya, Great Lake Swimmers (one of my favourite bands), and me!

It was such honour to be asked to be a part of this project. You’ll also find a fun tutorial for Log Cabin Applique Cup Cozies that I worked on just for the magazine right after my interview. If you’ve ever been to the workroom, you’ve surely had a cup of tea with one of these cute cozies on your cup. Now you can make your own!

To celebrate the launch of this ‘magazine for the creative and curious’, I’d like to give away a copy to two lucky readers. Just leave a comment revealing something you are curious about these days. For me, it is honey. I’d like to start collecting honey from around the world and learn to discern its different flavours. I’ll close the contest by Friday April 17 at midnight and announce the winners (randomly chosen) on Monday.

With so many of our favourite magazines folding, I hope you’ll support this beautiful Canadian magazine. We have copies here at the shop, or even better subscribe!

Andrew bought these lovely tulips yesterday and for me they are the perfect marker for the end of a crazy work week and the start of a heavenly two day weekend.

I wanted to share a few bits and bobs before I head off to devour some rare free time.

Glorious new fabrics arrived this week including Tula Pink’s Neptune collection and Japanese treasures like nani IRO, kokka and echino. Oh dear, what to make next?

I’ve created a new page on the blog where you can see all the ‘Tutorials & DIY projects‘ in one place. Hopefully this will make it easier to reference some of my past projects and get me going on doing some more tutorials for you!

Reva told me about a new sewing magazine that has just come out called, “Modern Seamster“. You can download the first issue as a pdf. With all these magazines closing, it’s so nice to see something new.

I love Audrey Tatou, so I’m really excited about the new Coco Chanel movie. The trailer is in french which makes it even more intriguing. I am marking this one in my calendar, I want to see this in the theatre. Wanna make a date? {via NOTCOT}

The Globe & Mail’s article on craft and the economy came out yesterday. This seems to be a very big topic of interest with the press. I’m wondering what your thoughts are on this? Are you crafting more right now? Do you craft and sew to save money? Are you buying more or less locally made and handmade stuff?

The weekend went by really fast! I hardly had a chance to realize it was here.

I spent Friday night hanging out with Becky at the workroom promoting the upcoming Love & Rummage Trunk show. This included having our photo taken in various “un-posed”/posed situations. Becky was smart and had props (balls of yarn), while I laughed nervously the whole time, not knowing what to do with my hands. The great part was chatting with writer Tabassum about all manner of things crafty and talking up all our fantastic vendors.

If you read the Toronto Star or if you are my mother, check out Thursday’s fashion section to see how the story spins out in print.