Raspberry Cake and Friends

Hello all. I had the most wonderful weekend. I spent it with friends who are like family and we celebrated a birthday and saw a baseball game. We enjoyed potentially one of the last warm weekends of the season and the beginning of cool evenings with drinks around a fire pit. I am so lucky to have such amazing people in my life.


I had some extra cake batter from the cupcakes for the birthday party so I made this little raspberry star cake too. It ended up being quite pretty.

The Tactility of Textiles

Lately I'm inspired by textile design. I love the colours, textures and warmth that are possible in textiles that are made by hand. These are a few stitch studies that I've re-posted from Karen Barbe's blog of her own textile designs and inspirations. Her blog is here if you would like to take a look.

A Savoury Breakfast

Most mornings I press snooze as often as I can but every once in a while I am actually ready to get up when my alarm first goes off. 


It is very luxurious to be able to enjoy the morning before work or school by making a proper breakfast and having a cup of tea. The best part is being able to drink my tea while sitting in one place, rather than what usually happens where I carry it from room to room with me while I get ready until it is ice cold and I end up buying a hot one on the way to school anyway.


This morning was one of those rare, calm mornings. I made myself fried eggs with chorizo and cheese and ate them with toast and yogurt and enjoyed my cup of tea.

The Smell of New Notebooks

This week was appropriately cool making it really feel like fall and it made me even more in the mood for back to school. I started a new semester this week and have three new exciting design projects on the go. Hope fully I'll have some sketches to post soon.


I'm excited to break into my new clean notebooks and sketchbooks with my new pack of pens and my nicely sharpened pencils. In a strange way fall is like a new beginning even though it's really the end of the summer.


I hope you all enjoy your weekends and the last few warm days before fall truly arrives.

Good Food and Good Company

On the way home from the lake we stopped at our cousins' house outside of the city. My cousins are roughly the same ages as my sister and I so we all grew up together. They are some of my best friends. We rarely get together without eating!

For dinner we had Moroccan lemon chicken with ratatouille and barbecued corn. We also made fresh lemonade with mint leaves from the garden. 

Spending time with my cousins is all about eating and talking and I've missed them a lot while I've been in Toronto.

The Important Things

At the lake the most important things are eating, going for walks and relaxing. Here are some photos of all that.

avocados being prepped for guacamole 

mixed grill lunch with roasted beets and yogurt dressing 

greek salad with grilled chicken and garlic toasts for supper 

a walk to green lake 

my dog mocha, i think the cottage is her favourite place too

My mom and I had a lovely weekend. If I could go to the lake every weekend, I definitely would. One weekend a year isn't nearly enough.

Memories in Objects

I'm visiting my family in Winnipeg this week and I was able to go to my cottage for the first time all summer. My cottage is my favourite place in the world. Nearly every object in the cottage has a story that goes along with where it came from. When I go to the cottage it's like visiting old friends. Here are some of my favourites.

Many objects are souvenirs from trips people have gone on over the past 70 years or more. These are working bellows that we use actually use to start the fire. They have soft leather sides and wooded top and bottom. 

There are three wooden chairs that are all painted in different colours with different designs. My aunt Marke painted them when she was a teenager. 

This is a stylized New Zealand fish hook. My Opa saw them and liked the shape so he made a large one which now hangs near the fireplace. 

My grandparents found this while they were traveling and bought it because it looked just like their daughter Saskia. I never met Saskia but I always liked this painting. 

Eating and cooking is very important at the lake and the cooking utensils are all kept in the same location that they have always been kept. The drawer is lined with this lovely wall paper. Opening the drawer is like stepping back in time a little bit. 

The rest of the utensils are kept in this lovely ice bucket. One side is a little bit melted from getting too close to the stove but it still does the job. 

Finally there is the big wooden world map which hangs in the living room. It is a little bit inaccurate (some countries appear twice) but nobody really minds. It was made by my great grandfather, my mother's Opa. He also built the cottage for our family and we will always be grateful to him for it.

Afternoon Snack

freshly steeped la-la lemon iced tea and blackberries 

from the market

City Market

Today I went to the farmers market outside Metro Hall. Apparently it's been happening every Thursday. I went on my lunch break and I got to see all the business people in their suits tasting watermelon and buying peaches. It was nice to see the financial district humanized in this way. There was live music and even though the rain was threatening, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. 

 

The market had bread and cheese and meat and fruits and veggies but the flowers definitely stole the show. I wonder how many offices in the surrounding area are benefiting from the lovely fall blooms this afternoon.

Tactile Way Finding by Haptic Lab

Haptic Lab are a relatively new group started in part by architect Emily Fischer. The quilts are part of a project called Soft-Maps which was an academic experiment inspired by Emily's mother who started to lose her vision. The quilts were an experiment in tactile way finding, using the quilt as a tool for someone to orient themselves.


I love the meeting of the graphics of cartography with textile design. I find that maps bring with them memories of locations and that combined with the warmth of a quilt and the emotions that go with a quilt made by hand make this project such a beautiful combination of ideologies.