Here we are on the eve of another new year, ripe with possibilities. There are so many things we can count on experiencing in 2013. There will be surprises, tragedies, and triumphs. There will be love and there will be loss. Some things we will be able to control, and some things we will not. I am not making resolutions this year, but I AM making some wishes, the way children make wishes, with all of their hearts, and my wishes are for YOU (and for me too). Here goes… image credit: from artist Lisa Congdon’s 365 Days of Lettering Bravery. I wish for you the guts to pursue whatever it is that calls you, without delay. Life is short, and a rewarding life demands courage. An ability to let go of worry and embrace the unknown. A life without anxiety is a much better life. If you can remain calm and open, you’ll be better able to cope with whatever challenges you face, and you won’t waste your energy worrying about hypothetical problems. Self-acceptance. Trying to be something you’re not is exhausting. I wish for you the freedom to feel comfortable in your own skin and to stop judging [...]

About a year ago I embarked on an exciting new project that would be different from anything I had ever done before. My goal was to create a special dress to raise money for a very effective, life-changing charity called Canada Mathare Education Trust (CMETrust.org), and the dress at the centre of that project was called The Love Dress. The dress was launched in March 2012, and was featured in Canadian Family Magazine, ParentsCanada Magazine, and on the morning show Cityline. A few of my wonderful stores: Planet Kid, Elm Hill Kids, Kid Culture and 100 Mile Child created special displays to promote The Love Dress, featuring beautiful posters that were designed by graphic designer Eric Parker, and printed by Lamin-8 Services in Toronto, both of whom generously donated these services.  CMETrust promoted the dress through its own channels, and a great many people helped spread the word. “Making Love” feature in Canadian Family magazine   The cheque is off to CMETrust this week, and I want to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has supported this project in one way or another. I hope it’s helped to spread the word about this amazing charity, so that the [...]

This hand belongs to a real person who deserves to be treated with respect I’ve already shared with you my outrage about the lax safety standards in garment factories that have led to the deaths of hundreds of workers overseas in the past few years, workers sewing clothing for us and for our children. But our outrage, however deeply felt at the moment of a catastrophe, is clearly not making an impact on the safety of workers, particularly those in Bangladesh, and I just can’t let it go. These are not rare events. The devastating fire that killed more than 100 people in a garment factory in Bangladesh last week was notable only for its scale. Authorities declared that the loss of life would have been dramatically lower if the exits had not been locked from the outside. Why would any company allow its products to be made in a facility that permits workers’ lives to be put at risk? Are we truly willing to sacrifice human life in exchange for low labour costs? What’s stopping us from demanding answers to these questions? Katrina Onstad wrote an excellent article in The Globe and Mail last week on this subject entitled [...]

Something usual happened to me this week, perhaps even cathartic. I live in a rather chaotic environment of my own creation, with three young children and a home-based business. There are times when my house accommodates not only family and friends, but also hundreds of new garments, or dozens of bolts of fabric waiting to be cut, or dozens of boxes waiting to be packed and shipped. Right now I’m busy preparing for the One of a Kind Show, which starts in a few days. But it’s my seventh year, so I know what needs to be done. The complication this year is that I’m selling my house at the same time. The thing about selling a house that is challenging for people like me, is the fact that houses look much better when they are not cluttered with too much stuff. The five of us have accumulated a LOT of stuff. When I was writing my bio for my website, I described myself (humorously but truthfully) as a fabriholic. I don’t love all fabric of course, but when I find a piece I love, my imagination runs wild. Whatever draws me in, whether colour, pattern, or scale, all beautiful [...]

Last night my sister came to me with a mission: she’s taking a quilting class and wanted to select nine harmonious fabrics to use in her first quilt. Because I own a vast amount of printed cotton fabric, she expected this task to be easy. It wasn’t! As she pulled out bolt after bolt and ruminated over multiple possible combinations, I started to think about what makes a colour or a print pleasing to one person and ugly to another. I spend a lot of time making decisions about colour and scale and pattern, but it was interesting to watch somebody else engaged in this process. We all know what we like when we see it – something in our brain just clicks. We live surrounded by visual stimuli and are constantly judging what we like and dislike from a multitude of choices. But I wonder how much of this is subjective, a reflection of our personal or cultural associations and biases, and how much is attributable to science. A recent (2010) study at UC Berkeley by a team of psychologists devoted to the study of colour perception and aesthetics, postulated a new theory of colour preference. “Ecological Valance Theory” [...]