Update!

We've been busy filling Ainslie Wood Co. up with all sorts of pretty things for fall and winter. We've also had Heather, our one and only, all-time favorite accessories model back in to take some lovely pictures. Isn't she just beautiful?

We still have tons of new things to add to the shop, so keep checking back daily!

Preserving

And we're back, talking about pretty things, just as we promised.



These pretty things in particular are a part of Thea Haines' beautiful installation currently on display at the Harbourfront Centre. The Fruit Cellar of Miss H... runs until November 7th, and I highly recommend you stopping by to check out her incredibly delicate and meticulously crafted work. Thea hand-stitched each individual fruit and vegetable piece, after naturally dying (for the most part) the various materials. I'm especially fond of the Sweet Pickled Onions, which were made with cotton organdie and dyed with Queen Anne's Lace.

You can see more photos and read her artist statement here. If you are in Toronto, definitely check it out in person. All the love and vintage work ethic sentiment that went into the pieces is better close up.

And while you're there, the Harbourfront Centre gift shop has a fire truck shaped cat playhouse that may interest you. I was thisclose to going home with it. I don't even like fire trucks. But I do like anything that makes my cats look like humans.

Brief Interruption

Aerotropolis Costs: Pipe Line from Mike Jerome on Vimeo.

Ok guys, we're going to get a little political again today. Voting takes place today for Hamilton's municipal election, and it's kind of a big deal. There's big issues on the table. Namely, Aerotropolis. For those who aren't from here, or who aren't familiar with it, the current city council has voted to proceed with a project that would extend the urban boundary and pave over 4,500 acres of farmland surrounding the area to create some employment lands, that so far, no commercial developers have expressed any interest in.

Sounds like gibberish? Read up here, and see which candidates you can vote for that oppose Areotropolis.

Also, Hollie's husband Mike made the amazing video above. I think it puts a lot into perspective.

Back to dresses and pretty things tomorrow!

What I Saw On My Walk to Work

Fame!

Thanks to the lovely Lisa Hannam, White Elephant has been featured in our local paper, The Hamilton Spectator again. More specifically, the earrings of some of our amazing handmade artists have been featured.


PDF version here.

Natural Selection

This past Saturday, Thea was kind enough to host another day of Pickle Bee Society vintage goodness in the form of a natural dye day. The weather was crisp and sunny and it was a perfectly lovely way to spend the weekend; outside on Thea's back porch surrounded by textiles and tea. Some of my favourite crafty ladies Kate and Jenna and Courtney and Laura all participated. Jane showed up after her shift at White Elephant just in time to smell our super stinky stinkbug silk. More on that later.



We used two natural dyes - walnuts that Kate had been collecting herself, and crushed cochineal which Thea had from a natural dye kit that she had ordered from Maiwa. Cochineal is a small insect from South America and Mexico that produces a natural reddish tint when used for dye. We boiled both the walnuts and the cochineal in water for about an hour, while we let our fabrics soak in warm water. Once the walnuts had finished boiling (we decided later that we should have let them boil longer) we removed them from the water. We then moved all our fabrics into one of the two different dye baths. We used a variety of different fabrics, including cotton, linen, silk, and wool. Some of the girls did some machine and hand-smocking on their fabrics to create patterns when immersed in dye.

We didn't use a mordant, which is usually added to the pre-soak and is a substance that will allow the dye to adhere to the fabric indelibly. It's not always required, but it is a good idea. We were just experimenting to see what we came up with. Alum is one of the more commonly used mordants.



While we were waiting for our fabrics to dye, we did some experimentation with silk and some more natural dye producing materials. Thea had some yellow and red onion skins she had been saving, along with some carrot tops, which all produce natural dyes. We collected leaves from the garden to make different patterns, so that the dye could not penetrate through these spots. We then placed everything on 6" strips of silk, folded the material in half and rolled it up tightly on a stick, tying it securely. We let these sit in boiling water for about 45 minutes. The longer they sat boiling, the more dye we would draw out from the onion skins and carrot tops.

As we were picking up leaves in Thea's garden, we noticed a lot of tiny bugs crawling all over the place, and we couldn't avoid including some of them in our bundles. Kate, at one point mentioned that she thought they were stinkbugs. We didn't think much of this until we untied the bundles. Turns out stinkbugs smell even worse when you boil them.



After about an hour and a half of letting our fabrics sit in the dye, we removed them, rinsed gently and hung out to dry. In the bottom photo from left to right are our materials dyed with walnut, two cochineal pieces, and then our long silk onion and carrot patterned pieces, and finally the rest of our cochineal pieces.

If natural dying at all interests you, borrow a book from the library on what plants and minerals you can use. You wouldn't believe the spectrum of colours you probably have at your disposal in your own kitchen or backyard. And it's a really fun way to feel more self-sufficient.

Gabby's Big Day!

A couple weeks ago, I think Hollie mentioned that I have a new roommate, Gabby. Gabby moved here from Vancouver, and one of her dreams was to go to Canada's Wonderland. So yesterday, when it was sunny and slightly chilly, a group of us packed into our cars and headed for the park.


Fact: Canada's Wonderland is pretty amazing in October. It's only open on weekends, and at night they open the park for Halloween Haunt, but during the day it's pretty empty. I don't think we ever waited more than 10 minutes in line, and most of the rides didn't have any lines at all. We went on the Mighty Canadian Minebuster twice, which was awesome because it was easy to take pictures on it without losing my camera.


Another fact: Canada's Wonderland does not like you taking pictures on roller coasters. So much so, that this is where they stopped the roller coaster HALFWAY UP THE HILL, and wouldn't start it again until everyone put there hands up in the air to prove they weren't holding a camera.

I was the only one with the camera.


I think I snuck this shot in on the first trip, before they demanded I stop doing it.



After our harrowing experience on the Minebuster (and Amy threatening to murder me if the roller coaster broke as a result of my actions), as well as riding every other roller coaster in the park, it was time to turn our attention to what we were most excited for: dessert.
Amy & Gabby opted for a cookie sandwich, while I went for the motherload:


Funnel Cake. This time I watched it being made, which was really a huge mistake. It still tasted delicious though, and it also meant Gabby got to try her very first Wonderland Funnel Cake.


And on the way out, we took the requisite Wonderland picture with Wonder Mountain in the background. Gabby's big day!

Sister Stores

We got the best package in the mail this week from the lovely girls Regine and Katie at Victoire. They came across this Royal Botanical Gardens Hamilton pennant at a flea market on the weekend, and snatched it up for us. So thoughtful! The best part is, I don't think they are aware at how hard Jane and I look for Hamilton pennants. They are impossible to come by. We've got our favourite on the wall, which we found in Perth two summers ago, and we came across one more this summer which we have yet to hang, and now we've got this lovely one too. We're shaping up to have quite the collection!

Thanks ladies, you are the best. Can't wait to see you in November!

Granny Dreams

Excuse me for stealing pictures from another blog, AGAIN, but I haven't been doing much lately that warrants picture taking. Hopefully this weekend will change that, with a possible trip to Canada's Wonderland on Sunday, and a natural dying day on Saturday. Hurrah!

Anyway, Kate just posted pictures of her grandma's house which only confirmed what I've known for a while now: my ultimate design style is granny-licious. I want my home to be exactly like this:



I haven't really mentioned it yet, but I'm planning on moving in December. I think I've been looking at people's home photos a little more closely these days because of it, and it's making me so excited.
Some other inspiration:


Francesca's entire home.



Eleanor Grosch's bedroom


Elisabeth's summer home.
So good.

Farm Fresh Weekend

This weekend was Canadian Thanksgiving, and I got to host my first big dinner with family. I've been itching to host a serious meal for a while now, and with the autumn harvest and all the delicious food ready at the farm, I was really looking forward to preparing Thanksgiving eats. Even if it did fall on my birthday.


On Saturday a group of eight of us went up to the farm and dug the remaining potato rows, and then piled all those bushels of squash you see on the tractor. Gary's dad had actually picked them all for us and left them in the field, so all we had to do was drive the tractor with the wagon attached and pick them all up. Sounds easy, right? Not so much. Picking up about sixty bushels (or more!) of heavy squash and putting them on a moving tractor is tiring work. But rewarding. We were all in really great spirits by the end of the day. I love the farm so much. Have I mentioned that here already?

Edit: Gary noted that it was closer to 150 bushels of squash, which weighs around 3.5 tonnes.


After we put in a couple of hours of work, we picked what we wanted to take home. And boy, did I collect a bounty for dinner. Potatoes, beets, turnip, carrots, green onions, pumpkin and butternut squash. Brandi, Tate and Kierin went apple picking earlier that afternoon and were nice enough to share some of their apples with us too. Everything I needed for a thanksgiving feast! And how nice it was that I helped out in growing it all. From earth to table right here.

I did end up getting a couple of things from the Hamilton Farmer's Market, but all from the Buttrum's stand, and all Ontario grown. I got some parsnips, some white carrots and some fresh garlic. We had planted parsnips at the farm, but they never came up. And my lovely aunt had come by the store and presented me with some organic garlic from Quebec earlier this week, but we can never have enough garlic in our home. It's so damn good right now.



Sunday was my baking day. I used a farm pumpkin to make a pie (using the instructions that Courtney sent me here). I had some leftover pumpkin puree, so I quickly whipped up some pumpkin snickerdoodle cookies, which were the only thing I could think of to make with only one egg left in my fridge. Lots of butter, but lots of deliciousness too.

Then I made an apple pie for our family dinner at Mike's parents on Sunday evening. I got a little fancy with my crust. It's just how I roll. I've started incorporating raw honey into my apple pies this year, and it might just be my honey/bee fetish, but I think it is dynamite.



Monday was the big day. Lots of prep work. So much so that I gave up and didn't get photos of anything past me putting the turkey in the oven. Our turkey was a naturally grain-fed, free-range bird from Dearsley Meats. I used copious amounts of butter inside and out, seasoned with salt, pepper and dried thyme, which came fresh from my friend Laura's garden earlier this summer. I stuffed some parsnip, white and orange carrots and green onions into the cavity, and also slid some minced garlic underneath the skin by the neck. But don't tell my mom that. I think flavour frightens her.

Then, in a blur, I whipped up some garlic mashed potatoes, roasted the beets, roasted the butternut squash and apples with brown sugar and cinnamon, shredded turnip, roasted a parsnip and carrot medley, made a stock from the turkey giblets and used it later for the homemade gravy. It doesn't seem like that much when I write it out, but it took all afternoon.

Oh, and I made some stuffing from a box for my mom because it's the only kind she likes. The whole afraid of flavour thing that I mentioned earlier.



I set the table with some sunflowers from the market and some small gourds. And I didn't even notice until right now that I didn't get the turkey in frame. Oh well. Overall, my first big dinner was a success! I loved being able to say that everything on the table was grown by our friends and us. And spending the entire weekend in the kitchen almost made up for the past whole year where I hardly did any cooking or baking, due to my insane work schedule. A birthday present to myself.

Jules, sorry that you're not really in that photo, BUT I TOLD YOU NOT TO MOVE.

Hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend full of good food and family! Did anyone else try their hand at a homemade feast?