Vancouver Update: Battling the Gloom With Silliness

The last week has a seen a lot of unwelcome news: death, hurricanes, flooding....Not that there hasn't been good news, too, I'm just feeling that some recent sad events combined with the less than August-like weather the past couple of days has put a bit of a damper on the fleeting effervescence of an already short summer this year. Booo!

In the spirit of "Battling Possible Gloom With Absolute Silliness!!," I thought I'd post some, well, silly videos. The first is from a series of hilarious (but lewd!) clips featuring cast members from the current Broadway production of The Importance of Being Earnest reading transcripts from Jersey Shore. (In case you are unfamiliar with the general, um, level of decorum in Jersey Shore, you'll probably not want to watch this one with the sound cranked at work!)

This second video is from an older but equally hilarious series called Drunk History. It's fairly self-explanatory (and historically inaccurate)...

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

Vancouver Update: Cycling Mania!

If you don't generally tune in to The Early Edition on CBC Radio One, you've probably never heard High Velocity, a regular "column" on the show (Wednesdays at 7:50 a.m.) by local radio personality (and wonderful Vancouver shop regular!), Margaret Gallagher. It's a great little report on the local cycling scene and all the issues related to riding your bike in Vancouver.

This morning, Margaret was discussing the controversy surrounding B.C.'s mandatory helmet law; apparently there is a legal challenge currently underway in the name of increasing cyclist safety. I had no idea there was any ambiguity about helmets being good for cyclists' safety, but the programme had some very interesting food for thought. The main argument seems to be that getting a critical mass of riders on the street (which mandatory helmets for adults discourages) does more to increase driver awareness and, therefore, cyclist safety on the road than the benefit provided by helmets in case of a crash. Does anybody know more about these wild new ideas?

In any event, the whole thing got me thinking about hopping my bike and some of the best pieces in the shop right now for going for a ride....with a helmet, of course!

Our leather Bike Bag (on sale for $62) is a great way to travel around town with a few necessities in style. Even better, it comes with a detachable shoulder strap for when your bike is parked!

Our Simple Tees ($29--$34) are nice and long, so your backside won't be showing (no matter how low you've got your handle bars set!). Currently available in a selection of light-weight bamboo jersey and cotton, they are very soft, breathable, and good for layering.

The Garden State Dress ($108) is made of soft, breathable bamboo jersey and has a comfortable, swingy skirt with lots of room for movement. Bamboo jersey is great for getting sweaty in, as it dries out much, much faster than cotton and is naturally anti-microbial--a fancy way of saying that you wont get stinky even if you're sweaty!

Last, but not least, I absolutely love wearing my Cypress Skirt (linen on sale for $89, cotton $69) while riding around town. The high, wide waistband is super comfortable (and good for hiding tummies!), while the full skirt is roomy and long enough to avoid accidental dismount flashing--yay!

Lily Inspiration: Birthday Flies!

An extra special (belated) birthday surprise was hiding in today's box from Victoria: the world's most amazing, fly-covered picnic blanket! Knowing that Glenda loves picnics, blankets, picnic blankets, and all of our fly prints, Trish has sort of outdone herself with this one.

I love how all the individual flies are printed in a giant, cross-stitch-esque fly configuration (does that make it fly squared??); even more amazing is that this was printed by hand, one fly at a time! I'm sure it's only a short matter of time before Glenda starts introducing all her new little fly friends to some local ants...

Lily Inspiration: Locavores on Bikes!

Anyone with whom I have even a passing acquaintance can tell you that I like food. In fact, I like food a lot--especially locally grown, fresh, seasonal, Michael Pollan-approved kinds of food. In true locavore foodie spirit, Scott, our dear friend Aimée (who we sucker into working at the Vancouver shop every once in a while), and I decided to buy tickets for the Slow Food Vancouver cycle tour of Agassiz last Saturday. What an adventure! The annual tour is a self-guided visit to all sorts of interesting farms and food producers where you can eat, buy local products, and learn all sorts of fabulous things about good stuff to, well, eat. ...And, um, did I mention the eating?

This shot was taken at the first stop on our tour: The Farm House Natural Cheeses. Not only did they have incredibly delicious cheeses, but the world's friendliest donkey and insanely cute goats (see below!).

Riding through the orchard at Canadian Hazelnut was definitely a high point of the tour. The photo doesn't quite convey the overwhelming "enchanted forest" effect the dappled sun had.

Whilst checking out the UBC Dairy Education and Research Centre, we were required to "suit up" with these amazingly fashionable plastic booties in order to avoid tracking pathogens near newborn calves. They were a little silly and sweaty, but they allowed us to get up close and personal with....

...Superhumanly cute baby cows! We named this one Li'l Licky. You can guess why.

A little later in the day we stopped to gobble down homemade pies at Blackberry Lane B&B. Sitting in the grass, slurping down lemonade and pie while looking out over a paddock of happy little lambs was pretty idyllic. One recurring topic of discussion that afternoon was how incredibly cute farm animals are up close and in person....

Another major topic was how ridiculously beautiful Agassiz is.

This is, without a doubt, the best looking corn field I've ever seen--and my mother is from Kentucky farm country. I've seen a lot of corn fields!

The last stop of the day was at the quaintly rustic Limbert Mountain Farm, which sells an alluring assortment of fresh produce, garden plants, homemade comestibles and teas.

None of us had ever been on the tour before, but we had a great time and would highly recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in food--you'd never guess how interesting a tour of a working family dairy farm from a second-generation dairy farmer is! We will definitely be signing up for next year's tour; you should, too!

Lily Home: Stools!

Two super cute new stools in the Vancouver shop! Grey velvet with our new, all-over garlic print (above, $139), and black embroidered leather (below, $80). I particularly love the curved, saddle shape of the the little garlic-y fellow--so good for bums and feet!

Vancouver Update: Backyard Garden Tour

I know I have documented my love for the Hastings-Sunrise neighbourhood in these (virtual) pages before, but today I want to share some more 'hood-related info that might also be of interest to denizens of other parts of the city. If you're free this coming Saturday (June 23rd) you may want to check out the 2011 Summer of Sustainability Garden Tour, a self-guided jaunt through the neighbourhood to specific residential gardens that focus on various aspects of sustainability. Not only is the tour geared towards good things like xeriscaping, beekeeping, veggie gardening, and backyard chickens, but there are interesting workshops, snacks, seeds for winter gardening, the voyeuristic pleasure of snooping around in other people's yards, and it's free! Awesome!

Sadly, it's the same day as the Slow Food Vancouver cycle tour of farms in Agassiz, for which I bought tickets ages ago. Since I won't be around to check out the Backyard Garden Tour myself, I expect a full report from someone next week!

Lily in The Globe

According to a new article filled with fabulous pictures (like the one above), The Globe and Mail thinks we're neat. Yay!

Riding Bikes and Car-Free Day!

Today is Car-Free Day in Vancouver, with simultaneous activities on The Drive, Main Street, Denman, and in Kits. Main Street looks like it's going to have a focus on music, with several stages and some good bands lined up to play outside of Neptune Records and Red Cat.

....And what better way to get to Car-Free Day than on a bike! I just wanted to share this dorky snap I took of myself after riding to work on Friday to show everyone how awesome the Cypress Skirt is for cycling: swishy, comfortable, and long enough you don't have to worry about flashing anyone while dismounting!

Happy Car-Free (and Father's) Day, everyone!

Lily Spotlight: Ivanhoe Bags

For today's spotlight, I thought I'd post some quickie snaps of the three Ivanhoe Bags ($220) we currently have here in the Vancouver shop. The Ivanhoes (does that sound weird? That sounds weird...) are awesome because each one is completely different from the next. We make a lot of unique things here, but these guys really take the cake. First, Trish lays out raw canvas and actually paints it. She then goes a little crazy with multiple silk screens in various colours. Once that dries, Trish then coats the material with Varathane, which not only looks shiny and feels sort of neat, but has the added bonus of making the bags more or less waterproof! Once all that is finished, the fabric is then cut up and sewn with leather and cloth lining to create the final product. Phew!

This bag is particularly cheeky because when the front pocket (pictured at top) is unzipped, you're staring straight at a horse that is otherwise mostly hidden. (I should also mention that the colour turned out quite purlple-y in these shots; the bag is definitely blue in real life.)

Tractors and flies--with filigree, tulip heads, and birds! Makes perfect Smoking Lily sense, right?

This bag is particularly cool because it features an awesome two-tone front panel, showing off the spot where Trish would have switched from painting the canvas in one colour to another (in this case, black to a light seafoam-teal).

Love the bullet print wrapping around the bottom and marching across the back--with some flowers, naturally!

One last awesome thing about the Ivanhoe Bag is that, because it's made primarily from cotton canvas, it's actually quite light. If you can resist filling it full of fabulous things--something I'm not particularly ace about, myself--it is a great tote for anyone with back problems or sore shoulders.

People With Talent!

The nice folks down at John Fluevog have a really neat contest on at the moment: people are invited to submit a design for an upcoming advertising campaign, with the winning image voted for by 'Vog fans online! Now, the "birds of a feather" love for Fluevogs from most Smoking Lily-ites has long been commented upon, so I know this will be of general interest to everyone. Even better, one of our lovely Vancouver regulars, Elisabeth, is the artist behind the absolutely stunning picture above, one of the four designs chosen by John Fluevog himself to be voted on--how awesome is that?!

Formerly a high school science teacher, it looks like Elisabeth may soon be at least semi-retired from her current career as a stay-at-home mum, having recently won a contract to illustrate a hotly anticipated children's novel. (Not a bad first gig for someone who claims to have discovered relatively late in life that she is insanely good at drawing! Did I mention she's also charmingly modest??)

Click here to check out all of the final designs and vote for your favourite--go, Elisabeth, go!--until June 7th.

Vancouver Update: Getting local with Marché St. George

A few weeks ago, Aiko wrote a great little post about some of the many benefits of buying "local," and in that vein, I thought I'd post some quickie snaps I took during a recent visit to the Marché St. George. Opened in a former corner store at the intersection of 28th and St. George here in East Van, the Marché strikes me as being a truly "neighbourhood" kind of place, with all sorts of delightful products and edibles largely--but not slavishly!--with a very 100 mile-ish bent.

Some locally made soaps I felt compelled to take home and test out (verdict: awesome!).

A cold case full of treats from near and far, including free-range eggs from Abbotsford.

The exceedingly friendly barista, Natasha.

Sourcing of the products aside, Marché St. George has such a great neighbourhood vibe that it's easy to see why they are becoming such a popular meeting place....Not to pick on chain stores/cafés, but the quirky, homey nature of Marché--run, as it is, by a young couple+extended family team--isn't exactly the kind of thing that generally comes out of corporate headquarters!

For more information, Andrew Morrison of Scout Magazine has written a review in this week's West Ender; be warned, however: his enthusiasm is catchy!

Easter Store Hours

We're starting to get calls regarding our holiday hours this weekend, so I thought I'd go ahead and post them here. Hours for all three shops this weekend are:

Good Friday: 12:00--5:00

Saturday: 11:00--6:00

Easter Sunday: closed

Easter Monday: 12:00--5:00

Happy Easter, everyone!

Smoking Lily Loves the Environment

I'm not sure if the small, local business model just inherently goes along with environmental awareness in a P.B.&J. kind of way, or if that's just the way we roll here at Smoking Lily--maybe a bit of both?--but I find we've often got "green" on the brain around these parts. In celebration of Earth Day this coming Friday, we're going to feature a number of "eco"-themed posts over the next two weeks on topics ranging from environmentally friendly fabrics to the simple things we do as manufacturers to keep waste in check.

In addition to reading about some of the things we're doing to stay green here at Smoking Lily, you can get more involved by checking out Earth Day Canada's site for listings of Earth Day events happening in your own 'hood. The Queen of Green blog from the David Suzuki Foundation's very own Lindsay Coulter is also a fabulous source of information on all sorts of the little, everyday things we can all do to get more down with Mother Earth (and I just noticed that Lindsay is pictured wearing our very own David Suzuki fundraiser dress in her latest blog post--woo hoo!).

Go, Earth, go!

Good Lookin' Mannequins

Hey everyone! Just wanted to share two of my favourite looks from the Vancouver shop at the moment. Both are casual but put together, and very, very comfortable.

On the left, we have the Richmond Skirt and Mt. Pleasant Top in "Moroccan Blue." On the right is a printed American Apparel cardigan and one of our Ribbon Tees layered over a Hester Skirt (the denim shown is already off the web store, but there are still a few kicking around the shops).

Below is a close up of one of the new lace Dancing Leaf necklaces Noriko dropped off for us last week--sooo pretty, and a good way to inject a little feminine flounce into an otherwise clean-lined look. Noriko even makes a point of using only B.C. wine to dye the lace this lovely pink-purple; she is too cute!

Vancouver Update: Customer Love

I know I've written in the past about how awesome our customers are, but I've been really feeling the love, as it were, the past couple of days. A few days ago, one of our Vancouver regulars came by to pick up a couple of Print Yer Own shirts, including one rather wee-sized tee. Within a day, he had thrown this super cute photo of his son modeling his new duds up on our Facebook page; thanks, Phil! We find it so gratifying to see our things in action and to know that they are loved (and your "little man" is quite the model!).

Yesterday, in the midst of all that incredibly depressing, positively biblical rain we had, I received a super sunny phone call from Sara, another of our lovely Vancouver regulars. Sara was just ringing in to let me know that the white lace Luv Affair Dress and golden silk obi sash she had purchased the day before were her new favourites out of all the Smoking Lily items she has ever had. Furthermore, she was so excited with them she just had to pull them out to show the perfume sales gal at Holt's later that day, who was apparently also very taken with them--yay! Thank you for sharing such a happy story on such a sad, grey day, Sara. (...and if you send me a photo of you modeling your fabulous new outfit, I'd love to post it here!)

Last, but not least, Glenda and I arrived this morning to a very cheerful thank-you note from one of our lovely mail order customers in Saskatchewan. Now, cards of thanks are in no way necessary--we appreciate your business!--but we got such a kick reading that Monique's elementary students heartily approve of her Smoking Lily duds.

....and this is also why I'm not kidding when I tell people that we have the best customers in the world. Thanks for being so wonderful, guys!

Vancouver Update: Colours, prints, and David Suzuki!

Despite the fact it isn't supposed to last, we have been enjoying some seriously glorious sunshine here at the Vancouver shop--all the better to show off the fabulous David Suzuki fundraiser dress in the window! Today's box from the studio also brought us a roll of kraft paper covered with Mr. Suzuki, so I have a feeling we'll be posting some photos soon of more window display madness (happy birthday tomorrow, David!).

Along with conspicuous amounts of sunshine, we've also been enjoying an amazing amount of colour in the shop of late--yay, Spring! Here are some quick snaps of what's been brightening my day:

Beautiful tomato red and and an olive-y, army-ish green in the Luv Affair Dress. (You can't really tell in this photo, but the green is printed with coils of barbed wire; how lady-like!)

A cheerful range of teal, kelly green, and very bright periwinkle Garden State Dresses. These new Spring colours are all also a bamboo blend fiber, which makes them wondrously soft!

We now have the Cypress Skirt available in three lovely linens (magenta, teal, and pistachio), and are soon to have the über-comfy Wonton Love in a bright grape-y purple to go along with the "Moroccain" blue and "atomic" red pictured above (and my apologies for the rather crummy cell phone photo colour reproduction going on here. I highly recommend coming in to check them all out in person, of course;p).

Last, but not least, we received our first of the new printed Hester Skirt! Made from durable black cotton twill, these little (but not too little!) guys will go with just about everything. Glenda and I are famous for telling people that the Hester is the most useful skirt you'll ever own, and we're not kidding. I have two and Glenda has six--six!--and counting...

Lily Inspiration: Cheesy T.V.

While deciding what to write about today, I came up with a number of options I thought might be of interest. There was a great little article in this week's Westender about Village Vancouver, a fabulous, homegrown network of folks that's all about getting green and getting to know your neighbours. I have also been thinking a lot about an article I read a couple months back about Tomas Maier, the somewhat unlikely champion of buying less who is currently el capitan of Bottega Veneta. Additionally, I've been crushing pretty hard on some colours lately (hello, coral! Mustard!!).

After much parsing of ideas, however, you know what I've really been enjoying recently? T.V.! I cannot believe I am admitting this, but all I want to do lately is veg out and hit up the boob tube when I get home. Awful, right? Wrong! Not with the absurdly entertaining BBC miniseries Sherlock to watch. You got it, the BBC has created an updated take on everybody's favourite drug addicted sleuth--or "high-functioning sociopath," as he describes himself in the first episode--and plunked him in contemporary London.; Watson is even a recent Afghan War vet--weird!

On a vaguely fashion-related note, I should point out that there are some very awesome, high-end wallpapers featured throughout. The tree print paper in the clip above is dilapidated, crumbling old building fodder? Puh-lease!

Lily on the News!

...or, more specifically, Glenda on the news! Apparently The Bay has just signed a deal with Topshop to bring their clothes to Canada, and CTV News came round yesterday to interview Glenda, our fearless leader here in Vancouver, for a "small business" take on the new competitor. As Glenda adroitly explains in this video clip from last night's six o'clock news, we aren't worried...

P.S. I'm not sure how long CTV will have this video posted to their website, so watch it fast!

Lily Spotlight: Print Yer Owns, Part II!

Last week I wrote about the fabulous world of home decor Print Yer Owns, but didn't mention all the fun clothing and accessories we can screen, as well. That's right, not only can we print your drapes and cushion covers, but we are happy to do shirts, skirts, dresses, and bags, too!

Here are some quick shots of recent Print Yer Owns that more gracious customers have agreed to share with their fellow Smoking Lily-ites:

Large squirt of lapis ink, ready to be applied on a lovely pink silk bag.

Et voilà! A happy, bright blue jellyfish.

Navy men's hoodie, already subtly screened with our "Park" print...

...awaiting addition of "Side Bike" in light blue ink.

Ok, these last two photos aren't really Print Yer Owns, but they were such awesome Special Order men's tee shirts, I just want to show them off!

"Negative Forrest" screen taped off and in place on black tee:

Greyhounds and raccoons frolicking in the woods--awesome!