Hamilton Happenings: Modular Beauty

 

Hamilton's Beehive Craft Collective are organizing another large-scale art installation for Supercrawl this year. Last year it was a knit facade for The Brain. Opting for crochet hooks over knitting needles, I wasn't able to contribute. This year, however, they're speaking in terms I can relate to. The piece is called  Modular Beauty and it will be made of many many hand-sewn, English paper-pieced hexagons that will creep and grow out of unexpected places along James Street.

I took a stab at the craft at this week's Craft Night at Needlework and I have to say it's really simple and really addictive. "Just one more piece..." Ha! The cluster above took me about 3 hours to complete, though, so these ladies are going to need a massive amount of help from the community to make this a success. 

Luckily, the Bees have organized several ways to make it easy for you to get involved, including teaming up with Etsy Canada to host a fun Hive Drive hexagon-making party on Wednesday, July 4th from 6:00-9:00 at Low Key Studio. They also set up several hive drive donation locations throughout Hamilton where you can pick up hexagon templates and fabric scraps and drop off sewn hive sections when completed. Visit the Beehive blog for lots more information, including instructions, templates and a super cute video tutorial.

Happy sewing!

June Recap

One of the greatest joys and challenges of running your own business is being able to go with the flow. Often this means setting aside something that isn't working (or you just don't feel like doing) and tackling something else instead. That is precisely what's been happened here for the past few weeks. At the beginning of the month, I set myself up with a very clear goal of sitting down and making some new products for you. But even though the shop is starting to look pretty bleak and Mikey J has threatened to freeze my fabric spending until I hit up my scraps, instead I made a conscious choice to finally take the time to cross some pesky to-dos off my list, to fill orders with purpose, and to enjoy this beautiful early summer we've been given as much as I can. That seems to be working for me so far. Take a look at what I've been up to...

- canoeing in cottage country -

- babies and baby racoons -

- custom wedding totes -

  

- reversible apron class at Needlework -

- more cottage bliss -

- peony, lemon, and lily blooms in our garden -

- paper piecing -

Poppytalk Handmade: Here Comes the Sun

1. Handmade Julz 2. Starshaped Press

3. Samantha French 4. Creative Thursday

5. Inklosures 6. Anna Joyce

Poppytalk Handmade is welcoming in the summer this month with their "Here Comes the Sun" themed market. In addition to featuring the talented artisans and their shiny, happy products all month long on the Poppytalk blog, Dear Edna has a place in the market as well. It's on until July 8th. Please stop by and check it out!

Cue Soundtrack: Get Free

This song has been on repeat around our house... and on the patio and in the car and at the cottage. Haha! We've already declared it our theme song for the summer and it seemed perfect to share on this beautiful, patio-perfect Friday. I have a packed weekend ahead, with a bridal shower tomorrow, my Needlework class on Sunday, and lots of sewing in between. My goal is to have some new stuff to show off for you next week, or at least some sneak peaks of works in progress. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Hamilton Happenings: June 2012

image via Russell Gibbs

In true Hamilton fashion, a month's worth of events are all happening in one weekend, this weekend. Naturally I began researching and bookmarking said events in order to list them all here, in true Dear Edna fashion. However, in the midst of all that, I came across a fantastic post that beat me to it, by none other than Tourism Hamilton! Part of the reason I started these monthly Hamilton Happenings posts was because I found myself having to search 5-6 websites to find out what was going on in this city and figured others would appreciate a concise list as well. It's refreshing to see Tourism Hamilton tends to agree and I hope they'll keep it up. So, rather than duplicate all of the same information, I'll simply redirect you HERE for all your event-going needs this month. I should also mention that Open Streets is June 24th, on James St. North. Have fun and don't forget your sunscreen!

E xo