The Most Beautiful Buildings in Mississauga

On a recent trip on highway 403 through Mississauga Derek and I saw two beautiful buildings. They are the Absolute Condo Towers. To me they are such a beautiful sculptural form which would look equally wonderful as small elements as they do as large buildings. The shape would make great vases for a bouquet of roses.

Art Crawl

Derek and I took in the Hamilton Art Crawl on Friday night. The Art Crawl idea started last year with an arts supply store owner talking to his neighbours about staying open late one night a month. They chose to do it on the second Friday of the month. The idea grew organically with more and more galleries, restaurants, and local artists opening up their doors to welcome people.

Derek and I were pleasantly surprised with the enthusiasm that met us at the venues. Most of the Gallery owners had wine and cheese spreads. The art students on the street were more than ready to talk about their paintings. Several artist co-op studios had bands playing as well as one restaurant who had five young guys playing an assortment of horns. The one on the french horn looked like he was almost having as much fun as the 80 year old guy dancing to the music. Next time we go on the crawl I'm going early so that I can get a seat in that restaurant.

Derek and I have been on many art tours and we have never been to one that was as well attended as this one. From what I am told this past Friday night wasn't as busy as past crawls. I'm impressed. I have heard that the Art Crawl is getting divided up into two camps of thought. One of them is wanting to write up some bylaws, get the city involved and jury the participants. The other side wants to leave things alone and let the Art Crawl continue its organic growth. I personally agree with the second group. Remember the camel was a horse made by committee. The public by their attendance and support will weed out what they don't want or think is relevant and what they do want will prosper.

Clothes worth Wearing

I started sewing with all the girls in my grade 7 class. We walked to the local high school and took the home ec class. I loved it, the sewing part not the cooking, and continued with the program all through high school. In grade 10 I entered a sewing competition and won a Vogue Sewing book. I like to call it the sewing bible. After high school wanting to continue with my sewing I went to Humber Collage and took Fashion. After that I went to Georgian College and enrolled in the textiles and weaving coarse. Many years later (I won't say how many) I borrowed a serger, bought a new sewing machine and ordered fabric. My pattern making skills were minimal but I bought a book and taught myself. The surface design of fabric, the sewing skills and the manipulation of fabric have stayed with me. I have come full circle and am glad to be back.

I start my fashion process by getting back to the Humber College idea of looking at fashion magazines. I looked to see what the trend forecast is and what Marc Jacobs is up to. Favourite pictures of colour combinations, textures, and anything else of interest are ripped out of the magazines and pasted into my sketch book. I find it's best to buy the magazine from the Quicky Mart first before ripping out pages. Initial drawings are done in the sketch book. Ideas are interpreted on the table using my basic block pattern. See home schooling is good. Patterns are drawn, cut out, sewn together in muslin and tried on by Judy. She's such a good model. Always there ready to help. No yelling when I stick a pin into her. Patterns are altered as I go until I like it. I cut out and sew up the final fabric piece and get feed back from Cait. Once everything is a go I size the pattern and I'm off to the races.