Story Swappin'

Sadly, I just realised the other day that I'm not going to be in town for "Take off your Clothes" the Montreal Clothing Swap. However, I am going to be participating by volunteering for set-up stuff tomorrow, and also by something very cool and new to the swap this year: the Story Swap. I did a short video where I tell the story of one of the items I'm swapping, then a code to see that video online will be attached to the article of clothing that will be placed randomly amongst the other items of the swap. Super cool!
Here's a link to that video on facebook:
www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=2203797691990
Enjoy!

On another note, I was just on Twitter and Tweeting to all of my Twats, when I realised that not everyone is aware that Kendall Made is on Twitter. CHeck me out here:
www.twitter.com/#!/KendallMade

Oh, Canada!

So I'm actually working on Canada Day, when everyone else will be celebrating in the traditional drunken debauchery that is the pride and foundation of our nation. But I made a deal with my boss where I would work on Holidays in order to get extra vacation days. Then I'm going to turn all of those vacation days into RAVE!!!

I'm going to a huge rave every weekend in July, each in a different city, and then in August I'm going to the World Electronic Music Festival (WEMF). I'm like, shitting lazers I'm so excited!

In other equally exciting news, I was approached by a friend of a friend Marika (of RedBox Photographie) to do a photoshoot for Kendall Made. We did the shoot last Wednesday and it went spectacularly! Yesterday I got to look through the prints and I had about 3 heart attacks they're so hot. I've never had my clothes captured in such a beautiful way, and all my friends that were modeling for me looked so incredibly sexy it was unreal.

It'll still be a bit of time before I get all the edited photos, but here's a little teaser of what's to come:

On the Fringe

It's Fringe time again! The Montreal Fringe Festival is always a crazy, hectic, theatre-filled, drunken mess of joy. I've been volunteering for the Fringe since about 2 weeks after I moved to this city and I'm super excited to be doing it again. Unlike the past 2 years, this year I'm working a full-time job, so I sadly can't do the kind of hardcore life-destroying volunteering that I've done in the past. I also need to be very careful about how much sleep and rest I'm getting because I've been sol sick for so long and I'm still wading through the tail-end of this gorgeous chest cold/strep throat combo that I've most recently been afflicted with. Bearing that in mind, I am determined to both see many shows and volunteer for many shifts, starting tonight.
Wish me luck!

Stars and Crafts

On Saturday night Matt went to go see Fourtet with some of his friends from Ottawa. Although I super love Fourtet, I was way too back-sore and drained from Dirty Phonics (ridiculously bumping show) the night before, so instead I stayed home with my friend Mel. There's a 3 foot blacklight in my living room and I was telling Mel about how many glow in the dark things I own that I hadn't had a chance to put up. She decided that it was the perfect time to bust it all out, so we spent the entire evening doing glow in the dark arts and crafts with the hundreds of glow in the dark stars and such that I own. I freaking love crafts! It is so ridiculously fun to do small, simple art that exists purely for the sake of making things cooler. My livingroom now looks crazy amazing in blacklight and I had such an awesome time. Plus, almost all the clothes I make are UV responsive, so when I wear them in my livingroom I glow like mad! Hooray!

On another note, I'm getting super geared up for the Montreal Clothing Swap in July. I'm planning on grabbing tons of hoodies and other things that I can recycle into awesome Kendall Made creations. If you don't know about the clothing swap, then you're lame and I pity you, but you can inform yourself here:
http://www.theswapteam.org/

Feelin' Foxy

Know what's fun? Dressing like animals. I seriously think my life is about 20% better when I'm wearing some kind of animal accessory. Especially if it's adorable and/or ferocious. I remember when I was a kid I had this really amazing leopard costume. Full body onesie, oh yeah. I loved that thing to death and wore it several Halloweens in a row and also lots of non-Halloween days. Then when I was in High School and I realised that I could sew I started putting fun fur tails on all of my pants. Since then my sewing skills and my love of dressing like animals has greatly increased, and so has my collection of costumes. I'm assuming that everyone in the world also loves dressing like animals, because how could they not? So lately I've been cranking through lots of fun fur and making tons of costumes. I've also discovered that I make a very foxy fox!
As always you can see what's for sale at http://www.kendallmade.me/

Now please enjoy some photos!

Larissa looking mad adorable as a Kitty

What did I tell you? Foxy!

Kendall Malade

Yes, yes, it's been way too long since I last wrote anything in here, I know. But the thing is, my body and I have been at war with each other over the last month. I got hit by a super bad cold and was feeling especially lame for 2 weeks, then a few days after recovering I was demolished by a very intense case of the flu. By the time it was all over I was so physically destroyed that I had trouble even carrying my own weight. At the same time my back went through some kind of demonic possession that was really hard to live with. Needless to say this made sewing pretty impossible for a long time. I'm finally not sick and my back is starting to get better, so hopefully I can sew again soon. In the meantime, Larissa and I did the photoshoot together before I caught the flu and here are a few photos from it:
Hope that these make up for my lack on contact.

I'll sleep when I'm dead

Last Thursday evening I got a call, very last minute, from this guy James that I'd met at a rave a few weeks prior. He was asking me to do a merch booth at a Hardcore/Psytrance called Dark Tendency rave the following night in Montreal. I've never done a booth in Montreal before, and even though it meant not going to a friend's birthday I jumped at the chance. After work I ran home (literally) while calling Matt and Zac and screaming gibberish with the words "rave" and "awesome". I spent about 8 hours in a flurry of fun fur, sewing a bunch of rave clothes to try and beef up my stock for the booth. I also made an amazing outfit for myself with a bunch of green funfur that I had at home. The theme of my outfit was Cat/Plant. Here's a photo of what it looked like:

After about 3 hours of sleep I went and worked a full, but very unfocused day, at my office job, then went to Dark Tendency to set up my booth.

The rave was a little weird because the turnout was much lower than expected. So it was a huge venue, gorgeously decorated, pumping with amazing sound, but not very full of people. Due to the low turnout I didn't manage to sell many of my things, but I did sell a couple items and I gave out some businesss cards. And even though the rave wasn't super populated and I brought a crapload of merch and only sold a few items, my outlook on the whole night stayed mind-blowingly positive. I mean, this was an opportunity that came completely out of nowhere, and it might open some doors for me in Montreal. Also, the fact that I spent the night with Matt definitely enhanced my mood.

After the rave I did manage to make it for the tail-end of my friend's birthday party. I stayed there for a few hours and by hte time I got home I was too far into the next day to look back. So basically I stayed awake forever last weekend, but it was a hell of a lot of fun.

So now I'm sitting on a mountain of rave gear, and this weekend I'll be doing a photoshoot with my crew so we can get it all up on the internet. It's like a great man once said, "when life give you lemons, you clone thos lemons, and then you get SUPER lemons."

Reduce, Reuse, Rock the fuck out

I grew up with a beautiful Hippy Earth-Mother type Mom who also had fierce political opinions and a huge ecological conscience. My Mommy has always been my role model, and these values have been drilled into me since birth. Despite being a designer, I hate how wastefull the fashion industry is. Bearing in mind the fact that I can't give up my neon spandex material, I've been trying to incorpoate as many recycled materials and accessories as I can into the clothing I make. Sometimes it's not possible, sometimes it takes a lot of extra work, but it's always worth it.

And here is why I'm awesome: I've invented Upcycled Dino-Hoodies!

What I do is buy hoodies from thrift stores and cut a section off the back to make into a tail, then I make neon spikes that I stuff with cotton taken from an old cushion of mine that I no longer want. I sew the spikes and the tail to the hoodies and voila: bad-ass Dino Hoodie made out of mostly recycled material!
This is what they look like:

I await your praise.

Rave Review

So all my sewing and slaving and nearly killing myself in preparation for Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey (last weekends rave, which I will now review... get it?) has at least partially paid off. Although the timing was really terrible due to my horrible back pain, my weekend in Toronto was a ton of fun. I have the unfortunate situation of living in a different city than all of my best friends. They live in Toronto (ew) and I live in Montreal. So this weekend gave me a chance to visit all of them, even though it became pretty rushed in order to accomadate everyone. Every time I go to Toronto it's like speed-dating, but with people I already know and slightly less desperate. But only slightly. So the big event was on Saturday night, my friend nad long time rave-mate George (aka: Flyboy) and his fiancee/partner in crime Lolita head up the company Daydream Productions, who were throwing Saturday's rave. It was time-machine themed, and also apparently some sort of Doctor Who allusion, which went completely over my head. For my own outfit, I decided to go for a cyber-goth inspired space-raver outfit. They sell these stupidly soft "car wash mitts" (that I've re-named "ecstacy gloves") at the dollar store and I bought 4 lime green ones hoping to incorporate them into an outfit. This is definitely the most creative I've gotten with non-material supplies and I wound up using the ecstacy gloves, cat collars, reflective tape, a dog leash, plastic tubes, and a glow in the dark rope. I'm pretty damn impressed by my resourcefulness, and also my awesomeness. Below is the final creation:

The night of the rave I was pretty back-sore, but I went with an mazing crew of friends, managed to sell more of my stuff than I did at Dino Circus (rave I vended at in September) and had an awesome time. I even got to dance to my most favouritest Happy Hardcore song "Children of the Night". By all accounts a win.

Now this week I'm trying to take a real break from destroying my back and recover a little bit. Also, how much does that oufit make me look like a clean-cut Tank Girl? BAM!

Back-log

Okay here's why I'm hilarious: I have a back-log of things to write about because I've been so horrendously neglectful with my blog writing. But also I'm going to log an account of what's been happening with my back! Get it? Seriously people, this is comedic gold.

Anyhoo, other than this past week where I've been curled up in bed waiting to die due to severe, mind-numbing back pain, the Kendall Made business has been taking some awesome steps. I have been adding more and more items to my Etsy, to the point where it's actually starting to look like a respectable shop... the kind that has stuff in it, and not just an awesome logo.

Speaking of awesome logo, I updated my logo on this page to the wicked one that Sean (my gay boyfriend) designed for my business cards. I think it is a wicked improvement and completely perfect for Kendall Made.

I've also done a few photoshoots with my awesome raver friends, who are not only hot, but also embody all that Kendall Made represents. I would some day like to get professional models and professional photographers so I can have a few really glossy images to send out as a press release. But for the time being, these shoots are wicked fun (and silly and ridiculous) and teh pictures are definitely good enough for Etsy. I have a lot of friends and followers in other cities, so it's really nice to have put pictures of everything I'm making online for them to see.

Now back to my back. I've always had a shitty, evil, horrible back and shoulder combination, and sewing definitely aggrivates it. But these last 8 months have been much more intensely painful on my back than any time prior. And this past month has been the most gruelling yet. After a few days of not getting out of bed and crying into my pillow, Matt finally convinced me that this isn't the type of thing I should be living with and that I need to see a doctor. I went to my not so great local clinic looking for better pain medication (I've been eating naproxen like it's candy with little affect) and a referral. I got a referral (woo) and a prescription for stronger naproxen, which is proving to be as inaffective as the bucket of condoms my highschool left in the hallway every week. That joke is only funny if you're aware of how high the teen pregnancy rate is in Gravenhurst. Anyway, I go to an Osteopath tomorrow, I'm trying to get an appointment with a physiotherapist, and I'm seeing an acupuncturist on Tuesday. Did I mention that my day job has a health care plan? Hopefully one or all of these things will help improve the situation, because as things stand right now I have to take a hiatus from sewing, and I have about 4 shelves full of fabric that strongly diasagree with that decision.

Wish me luck!

I'm a bad blogger

Dear Internet,

It's been too long, I know. Life got busier and my letters became scarecer, and pretty soon I stopped writing all together. Maybe ti's because I was so busy making clothes, maybe I was busy with all the changes in my personal life, maybe I was busy fighting ninjas. Whatever the reason, I'm sorry for my neglect.

Perhaps I can begin to make ammends with a few pictures of all the kick-ass stuff I've been making.

Enjoy!

Hand and Leg Fluffies by Kendall Made
Phat Pants by Kendall Made

Reversible Tie-Skirt by Kendall Made
Reversible rainbow/white Bear Hood/Scarf with pocket mittens and gloves by Kendall Made

"Spot" Superhero Costume by Kendall Made
Stuffed Unicorn Head by Kendall Made

I'll write again soon, I promise.

It's my bag, baby!

I'm one of those lucky people who was raised by a very eco-conscious Mommy before Eco became cool. Now that "green is the new black" everyone and their brother is into carrying around tote bags instead of getting plastic ones at the shops. This is great news for people like me who found it hard to find lots of canvas bags in the past, plus it means that new styles and colours of tote bags are available. My favourite kind of tote bags are the ones that fold up into a little pouch. They just make so much sense! I always keep at least one in my purse in case I stop into the fruiterie or something whilst I'm milling about town. However, I've found that these super convenient little bags are either really expensive or ugly as sin. I'd rather own something that's both pretty and affordable. And like most things that I make for myself or others, once I realized how easy and fun it was to make these bags, I made a crapload of them to sell. I've got bags for sale at Arterie and Psychonaut in Montreal, and in my Etsy shop. There are only 2 styles right now, but I'll probably make more next time I go fabric shopping.

Kendall Made's Fold-in-a-pouch Tote Bags now available on Etsy
http://www.etsy.com/shop/KendallMade

Kendall Made will spring into stores

It's Spring! Time for rebirth, time for regrowth, time for freak snow storms at the end of April. Wait, what? Montreal, that lovely lady full of surprises, has gone from T-Shirt weather to snowstorm and back again all in the last week. Despite the bi-polar weather, I have plunged myself whole-heartily into the production of a new line of baby onesies. My gay boyfriend Sean has a themed birthday party every April, and this year the theme was onesies. I found thrilling comic-book style Lichenstein-esque prints and used one of them to make my onesie.
After using about one meter for my outfit, I was left sitting on a huge amount of fabric that I didn't know what to do with. I thought it would be adorable (and not at all lame or creepy) to make a onesie for my niece, Olivia, in the same fabric as my onesie. After using the fabric to make a baby onesie for the first time I realised that a)it's not too hard to make baby onesies, and b)baby onesies in comic prints are freaking amazing! I cranked out a few more onesies in the following weeks and brought them and some recycled comic wallets that I'd made to 2 local stores. Luckily for me, both the stores liked my work and agreed to stock the wallets and onesies on consignment. Yay!
Now my wallets and onesies are available at Psychonaut and Arterie in Montreal, and once I make a few more I'll add my onesies and some new wallets to my etsy shop:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/KendallMade
Aside from my exciting clothing news, I'm still feeling incredible frustration on the job front and am once again unemployed and looking for work. Why won't you hire me Montreal? WHY?
On the acting front too, things have been hard. I've been to exactly 2 auditions since I was in Mental Floss, and so far nothing has come to fruition. Sigh.
On the other arts end I've had a very strange source of inspiration and have been penning picture after picture of different animal heads with squid bodies. After a few of these I started drawing celebrity heads with squid bodies. I have no idea where these came from in my subconscious, but damn are they ever hilarious!Sorry the picture is terrible quality, but I took it with my phone. Still need that camera. Anyway, that's about it for my artistic updates.

Oh my god PICTURES!!!

Some day, some day, some day I'll buy a camera. I mean, Ihave an Etsy shop, I have a creations blog, I really should have a camera. Unfortunately, I have no money. Fail.
In the meantime I will have to continue to beg random friends to take photos for me. For example, when my sister Carlye came to visit she brought her spectacular camera with her, so I got her to take photos of the stuff that I've been writing about in previous posts.

these are the sexy corset throw-pillows that I was so tempted to keep






















This is the skirt that I made out of the amazing playboy material

That's it for now, really, I just wanted to add these photos.

win, lose, win, lose

Well, I have been horrendously neglectful of my blog, but I have also been incredibly busy and living some very extreme ups and downs. I've had some victories and some defeats and I've come out a little battered, but still here. Firstly, in terms of my design-life, I have a win with my playboy skirt and I've grown very attached to the finished product. I'll hopefully get it up on Etsy soon, but I have no camera (frig) so I have to wait for a friend to come over to my house with a camera and take photos for me. Sigh. Also in design news, I have started making corset pillow-cases for a stack of throw pillows that are sitting in my living room. My plan is to make a variety of pillows all with some kind of corseting on them. I've made 2 so far and they are HOT. The problem with making really cool interior decorations is that I desperately want to keep them. I have enough pillows already, though.In acting news, "Mental Floss" was performed February 10th to the 14th and I had a FREAKING BLAST!!! Oh my god I love acting, I love theatre, and I really love that play. It's dark and creepy, but with comedy and silliness too. I got very close with the cast, the directors, the techies, and the script. You could see a major growth in the performances from night to night and after every show I was bouncing off of the ceiling from all the energy it gave me. Now I am desperately trying to find another theatre project to be a part of, because I need to get my next performance fix.

In work news, and here's the big "lose" part of this entry's title, I have been going on a job roller coaster. And not the good kind of roller coaster where you get an adrenaline rush and feel like punching the sun, but the old, rickety kind where you get jostled around until all your muscles are sore and you're at the brink of vomiting. My full time job working at Latina, an "Épicerie Fine" in the Mile-End, was paying me minimum wage and it didn't equal enough to keep me afloat, so I had been looking for other work. I found another job at a pub, so I finished my two weeks at Latina whilst also training for my new job and also, also rehearsing for Mental Floss. It was an insane two weeks. Then I did about a week of full time at the pub, after which they fired me for the oh-so vague reason of it "not being the right fit". Yeehaw. So now having thouroughly burned the Latina bridge I was without any kind of job at all, already in major debt and sinking fast. Since then, after an insanely depressive two weeks I've finally (FINALLY) found another job at a Sports bar this time. I'm not a sportsy type (yes I made up a word, live with it), but I'll do anything short of prostitution for money right now. Unfortunately this job is only part time and the bar has an unusual lack of customers, so it's not nearly enough to cover my expenses. Now when I'm not working there I'm busting my butt trying to find another other job so that I can hopefully buy a flashlight to shine on the map that shows the way to tunnel that leads to the well that connects to the rope where I might some day pull myself out of debt. Here's hoping.

On a less depressing note I like kittens. It's not relevant, but this post was bumming me out.

Playing around with playboy

In the summer my friend Tiana invited me to some with her to New York for a week and a half and help her run an extravagant performance and dinner party event called "Carnivale of Ascension". I'd been to New York state before, but never New York city, so I was eager not just to experience the city with a genuine New York socialite and all of her friends, but to go to the famous New York garment district and get my hands on some interesting new materials. In the summer my primary focus was on making my cocktail-dress style aprons, so I mostly bought materials for that reason. However, I'm such a bargain hunter and when I see some kind of strange, extravagant deal I seize it. In one of the fabric stores we saw this incredible screen-printed sheer playboy material. There were a couple different designs and I bought 5 yards of one and 10 yards of the other. Afterward I kind of put it in a box and forgot about it. The other day it dawned on me that I have 15 yards of playboy material and no idea what to do about it. So, I'm trying a few things to make use out of it. The first thing I've started working on is a red lined pencil skirt. It's coming along pretty well, although I find the thin, sheer material really hard to work with.

I've literally started making this skirt about 2 weeks ago, but have had almost no time for it. I've recently switched my day-job from working in a fancy grocery store (Epicerie Fine) to working in a pub and have been working both jobs at once in order to "transition over" aka "kill myself with work". I've also been getting in the down-to-the-wire crunch time rehearsals for Mental Floss. Mental Floss is an amazing play by a local playwright that I have the honour of performing in from February 10th to 14th. I`m so excited about this play, I can't even describe it. I haven't done any serious theatre since I went to Europe last year and it's been killing me. Now all my pent up theatre energy will be getting sweet, sweet release. Yay!

And so it begins

Hello readers, if you do already exist, and welcome to my style blog! This will be an art, life, fashion, style, creations blog where I take you through the fascinating world of my creative process and the terrifying caverns of my mysterious brain. I've blogged before, so I should know enough to keep it interesting and at least semi-coherent. However, I've decided to keep this blog 100% open and honest about my creative process, which means it might get a little messy. A lot of my ideas don't come to fruition, a lot of my projects become failures, a lot of my successful creations don't sell. This is my reality as a multimedia artist and independent designer.

A multimedia artist? You ask, your cute little brows furrowing in cartoonish confusion. Yes, a multimedia artist, that's what I've always considered myself. I began drawing at the age of very, very young, I began acting in grade 5, I began sewing by hand in grade 8, I began painting in grade 9, I began sewing by machine in grade 10, I studied theatre acting in college, I began writing in earnest after college on my backpacking trip through Europe, and I began selling my homemade creations on Etsy when I came back from Europe and moved to Montreal, and that is where I am now.

With all of this crazy art going on, my blog won't be centered around only the art that I sell, it will be centered around the (unbelievably loud, with no indoor register) voice of an artist in a little-big city already full of art. Of a mostly-bilingual anglophone in a francophone province. A post-grad 24 year old looking to make art and life happen for her in a big way.

And so it begins.