Aych in Canada

Walking in a winter wonderlaaaaaaaaaaaand!

2007-11-23T19:51:00.001-08:00

Yesterday it snowed! It was amazing, pretty much one of the coolest things. It was rad to be walking to school at 7.45am and have snow flakes falling and trecking through snow (the backstreets still had snow and hadn't been salted). A great feeling when you have to shake the snow off your jacket when you get inside~!

The above picture is of Melanie, myself and Annemiek on the steps of a Church near where we live.

There is nothing like a bit of a snow fight to brighten your day!-->

I HEART NZ - Melanie's wonderful artwork on the steps of the Church

Halloween

2007-11-02T16:49:00.000-07:00

Halloween has been a month of festivities in Toronto -- The shopping bags at our local supermarket have been orange with Jack-o-lantern on them! On Halloween night part of Church street was closed off and everyone goes out in costume -- my two favorite costumes were a group of girls who dressed as buzzy bees and followed around their friend dressed up as a flower and the guy who dressed up as facebook --- about 1.5mx1m large mounted canvas printed with what you see on your profile page-- he cut out where his profile picture would be and stuck his head through... I think he would have had several friend requests the next day!

My friend Annemiek (one of the Kiwi girls here) helped me make a beautiful black silk dupion corset lined in a turquoise satin (metal boning! and two layers of canvas squished between) and edged with purple sequins (ok... so binding the top and bottom of the corset didn't quite go to plan.. imagine 4layers of fabric (one of them satin, 2 of them thick canvas the other silk dupion) being bound in silk dupion around curves with metal boning every 10-15cm.... so the sequins gave a tidy finish to binding that was far from favorable!) and I made a purple handkerchief skirt out of a satin that had a cut gold/light purple print through it -- to complete the creature of the wood/fairy Queen look Annemiek painted a floral design on my back and front shoulders/neck (paula helped too!) - butterfly mask and blue feather in the hair and we were away! "stuck a feather in her hair and called it.... a Halloween costume!"

Pictures on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=28080&l=4c0f6&id=542250478

Uni is crazy busy here but very exciting -- they go for 14 weeks straight then exams (at home we do the 2 week mid semester break and a study week if your lucky!) We were starting to get a bit worn out but after handing a few assignments in and getting stuck into new ones we got re. Its great living so close to uni- we can pop in to finish stuff off with no worries -- and campus security will walk us home if its late/early/we feel unsafe..... its great! Tutors are also very helpful and all round passionate about what they do.

Toronto Fashion Week

2007-10-24T14:32:00.000-07:00

Our design tutor (Zoran Dobric) invited us to his show at fashion week - we were on the designers guest list! His collection was neat - very wearable, cohesive and standoutish. It was realy cool watching Zoran interviewd on fashion tv after the show and to hear him talk to the reporter the same way he would talk to us.
There are few more shows that we are able to go to this week so its all very exciting!Here is a pic of me and Naomi at our church Freedomise - Naomi was our first friend in Toronto! She took us under her wing -- she is pretty special!!!

2007-10-14T08:20:00.000-07:00

WOW Greetings from Canada!!!
Its been almost two months since we left the land of the long white cloud and set off on an adventure for North America... Toronto, Ontario, Canada to be exact. Flights went soo super, Air NZ escorted me to my conecting flights so I arrived in the right continent at the right time! I met my room mate Sarah in Vancouver and we spent 5days with my Great Aunt and her two friends and were treated like princesses! Vancouver is soo pretty especially Vancouver island where we were based (Victoria). It was so nice to step off the plane and to see trees in the city!
We arrived here in Toronto a week before classes started - we were met at the airport by Naomi from IVCF (Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship) who kindly gave up her bed for us, took us under her wing and generally looked after us for the first week until we moved into our apartment. Classes are in full swing (crazy like AUT)-- doing two fashion communication papers and two fashion design papers which are all very interesting. Last weekend we took a weekend away to French Canada for Canadian Thanks giving. We went via Otawa which was neat to see parliament buildings. The fall colours are sooo pretty, such vibrant reds/oranges/yellows/greens. It was realy cool to be in a French speaking place - it was crazy to see signs in McD's written in French but exactly the same layout!
I think thats me for now! Add me on face book to check out my pics and Ill try put some up here soon. Super love, Hannah xox