LadiDodo: Cardboard Bike Parade

When daily life becomes too rigid, we look to the sky and imagine. Cheap art can save us. Ladidodo!

More of this, this, and this:

I am wanting more of 

this:

this:
and this:

Anybody in?

When two shirts become one...

I do love the Slow Design process of envisioning, sketching, planning, pattern drafting, deconstructing and recycling materials,and finally realizing the design in its unique and given circumstance.  Equally am I drawn to, and frequently fall into, a more fluid squishing of elements on hand; projects whose genesis is the extra cup of coffee, whose realization is fated by a moment's contents of the studio, and worn home just in time to make lunch for small boys.

This garment is of the latter tribe, the Frankengarment. Pieces synthesized for their own good. The most-of-a-western blouse was in a lucky pile I received from Paper Moon Project as she packed for her return to Los Angeles. Into it I gathered a strip of Heather Ross bicycle print fabric and much of a cotton gauze shirt, once upon a time worn for fieldwork by my vegetable-farming husband.

1 minute slideshow: "Mothertrucker's Favorite Machines"

Here's the first installment of an audio-visual project I began years ago and envisioned as a book, with a companion record, like we 30-somethings had when we were kids. I still hope to press and print the project someday. Meanwhile, I realized that the blog is a perfect format for sharing my work in progress. Enjoy, and please, comment!

Inside, Out

Wow! It's 4 above zero and w-i-n-d-y here in Burlington. I'm uploading MP3s of mixtapes past as Classic Hits and I prepare to record the next one. Here are some pictures from inside and outside the studio.

Bike Cap Delivery!

I finished the first installation of the Fall 2009 cap series a few hours ago. Next door neighbor, Jen, helped model and deliver them to the Bobbin. Sold one on the way, but most arrived soundly!

Here is today's collection at the Bobbin. See it in person at the shop, corner of N. Winooski and Archibald St.s, Burlington. The caps pictured are in a range of sizes and are priced from $20 to $45.

See how the Bike Cap pattern is made to hug deep down to the nape of the neck? That's what keeps it from flying off your head when you speed down the hill!

Here's Jen giving us a Bike Cap action shot on my "used-to-be-a-10-speed". This is my beloved old bike I've had for 20(!) years. For our 20th anniversary I had the Old Spokes Home rebuild her into a single speed. See the festive birthday handlebar streamers?

my favorite garden

My gardening triumph of the season came from one of those "ah-ha!" moments in the back yard. For my birthday (in early May), my mother gave me a collection of hand-painted terracotta pots and took me to Red Wagon Plants to fill them. But with curious twin toddlers, anxious to explore our backyard, where could I put them and ensure their safety? 

On top of the bike shed! Tall enough to keep tiny fingers away, close enough for me to water and harvest easily! This position had an invaluable bonus: visible from the kitchen window in our upstairs apartment, I look out on it daily. I see it every morning and think, "Really need to water those petunias," or, "Maybe I'll use some of the tarragon in this potato salad," et cetera.

Unlike the rest of the backyard, or most of Vermont this growing season, the environment on top of the bike shed was dry and hot. Next year maybe I'll put the petunias somewhere else and try some Sungold tomatoes.

Bicyclalicious!

Here's Decatur Street, outside the Flying Hen Studio, last Saturday!


And that's our new tandem! Thanks, Old Spokes Home!

Photos by Heather Driscoll.

sounds like a murder...

Littlewing (aka DJ Classic Hits) pimped her ride with crow effects.