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It's all about the pillows...


I love pillows…

I love their coziness, their luxurious voluptuousness and the possibilities of beauty and comfort they provide. It may have to do with the word “pillow” itself…what do you think of when you hear it? Big, soft, fluffy pillows piled on top of your bed; piles of gorgeous pillows in fabulous colours and textures on a deep-seated sofa…perfect for reading or napping on a cold, rainy day. Or perhaps it is the pillowy hug from the woman you love or the mother who held you when you were tired or sad.

Wherever you find the word “pillow” it is usually associated with comfort. I have always carried my pillow (or “pullump”, as the five-year-old Aussie kid in me says) on any trip, be it a short road trip or a fifteen hour flight across the Pacific Ocean.

As a little girl, when my dad would come home from work he would call out “get your pullump Christine, we’re going to Queensland!” Oh the heaven of it! A huge pile of pillows and blankets in the back of the van and a thousand mile drive ahead of us. Too bad I had to share it with my two little brothers - but that’s another story.

Then there was the bliss of being wrapped in the loving, pillowy bosom of my nanna when we finally arrived in Queensland and climbing into a bed that was encircled by a "romantic” mosquito net and made up in clean, white, cotton sheets and pillows. One of my daughter’s few memories of my dad includes bringing her pullump into bed with him and nanna for a morning snuggle.

I have this huge collection of of gorgeous fabric and vintage blankets that just keeps expanding; spilling off the shelves, into drawers, out of drawers; piling up in corners…

So when I asked myself the question “what do I want to do?” I thought…”I want to make pillows.” I will make beautiful pillows to make people happy.

Wednesday 17 October 2012

Encore Une Fois


" (French for once again / one more time)"


About two and half years ago my good friend Barb Rutherford and I were sitting around in my back yard wishing and dreaming about having our own "shop" and how wonderful it would be.  We envisioned a place to display and sell all the the stuff were accumulating in our houses and storage spaces: old wicker furniture, pictures, buckets, lovely old worn china and most of all textiles.  If only it were possible but with her living in Victoria and still working part time and me living on a gulf island. a ferry and 2 hour drive away it just was not going to be.
So we started to figure out how we could do it in a "pop up style". Maybe we could have a sale once or twice a year, bring everything together at her beautiful Arts and Crafts house in Oak Bay, Victoria and invite people to come and shop.  It seemed like that would be doable, so we decided to just do it.

Well Barb went home to Victoria and chatted about this idea to her friends Fran Fettig-Winn and Patti Wells, two very stylish and talented ladies in the world of vintage and upcycled design who thought that this was a great idea and loved the idea of being a part of it.  Encore Une Fois was born.  Barb came up with this wonderful French interpretation of "once again / one more time" and we jumped right into our first sale for that Christmas.  Between the 3 Victorian friends they had a pretty substantial friends/family email list, and our house show was  a huge success. Patti has been a vintage and all things beautiful collector for many years and had a garage full of containers filled to the brim with glass ware, silver, paintings and china, small pieces of furniture, jewellery and textiles which she had sold in her beautiful shop in Oak Bay - Manilla Tag in another life.

Fran is a craftswoman and needleworker of great skill and style who makes tea cosies which are works or art as we well as pillows, aprons and childrens dolls.  She is also a collector of vintage ephemeria and had an overflowing crafts/sewing room which was crying out for a bigger outlet.

So between the four of us and a few wonderful friends we did Barb's house up as a boutique with each room displaying our home made and found wares, it was beautiful...... and a huge success.  We have gone on to do another Christmas sale last year, and a spring/summer outdoor sale this past June, each of which has been a great success.  We are in the throes of getting our next sale ready for early November and looks to be better than ever with people looking forward to bringing their friends and family to early shop for Christmas or just for themselves.  Here are a few pictures to tell the story so far

Our first sale advertisement



Aprons and tote bags lining the stairs

One of Fran's beautiful tea cosies







Encore Une Fois's first spring/summer sale in Oak Bay Victoria








So if you would like to join us on November 6th  in Oak Bay, Victoria Encore will be presenting it's Winter Sale.  If you would like more information you can go to Encore Une Fois Community on Facebook or drop me an email at christine@modernbohemian.ca.

Tuesday 16 October 2012

I am calling it the "great room"....


 October 16th, and a beautiful Spring day here on Gabriola..

After much thought and referring to the wisdom of my style icon Kathryn Ireland, designer, author and all round creator of all things beautiful, I have decided to call our main floor the "great room".  

After all it is not just a big room, it is the room where everything happens.  In the morning we start out the day with coffee, magazines, papers and crossword puzzles and at the end of the day we come together for a glass of wine or gin and tonic and review the day before starting dinner. 

At one of the room is our sitting area which snuggles up around the wood burning stove.  This is definitely my favorite area of our house, as it is light and bright and cozy and open all at once. At the other end of the room is the kitchen and dining area, although I have serious problems with the expression dining room, we don't dine, we eat here! 

Because there are so many windows in the space and it is south facing there is lots and lots of light; which when you live in the middle of a forest in the northern hemisphere is a good thing.  We are actually surrounded by other properties but because there are so many trees and you would never know it.  That being said, it is lovely to live in a quiet, secluded neighborhood with the beach and fields with horses and cows just down the road, knowing that our neighbors and friends are not far away for impromptu cocktails and games of street hockey.

Sitting area of the "great room" with the fire blazing..

Eating area of the "great room"
Kitchen and dining area of the "great room"



 As you can probably see this house is a "timber frame" house made with fir grown and milled right on this island.  It sits on a cement slab which has thermal floor heating, and that with the wood stove makes it lovely and warm in the winter and lovely and cool in the summer.  We bought the house when it was only a year old, and still sitting in the building site surrounded by blackberries, weeds and wild brambles.  The floor hadn't been finished, and I had a picture in my head  from an Australian design magazine of a deep, ocean blue which would ground this huge, two story room.  Fortunately we did the floor in the middle of a beautiful July summer and could put everything in the house in the front yard including the tub, fridge, stove etc while the very labor intensive, time consuming and stinky process took place.  A week later we were able to move everything back in just in time for my mum to visit from Australia.

The woman who built the house had a very spare, chiaroscuro esthetic which I admired a lot, but I just cannot resist colour for very long, especially red.  Eventually the whole look came together, calm white walls, dark blue/black floor with a motley blend of comfortable furniture, artwork, salvaged treasures and my beloved blue and white collection of pottery and china.  The red antique dresser filled with our everyday china was from a farm in Saskatchewan by way of Fort Langley.

The side table beside the white, slip covered (with painters drop cloth) sofa is a vintage Singer sewing machine base with my husband's teenage skim board screwed to the top.  It just is one of those things that you carry around for years, because it is so pretty and he made it himself, and all of a sudden you think of the perfect way to use it.


Saskatchewan dresser with 7 coats of red paint


Sewing machine base with skim board top


Blue and white and red, what can I say... 



That ice cream sign is a real, honest to goodness beach find