2012. Like driving a van into a snowstorm and you know there is something awesome coming up you just can’t see it yet.

katburns — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 15:35:15 +0000

Happy New Year!

Crafts, KASHKA and pro-crasti-packing

katburns — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 18:46:29 +0000

I’m about to say goodbye to November in Toronto, as I pack up and head out on tour again with Forest City Lovers. I’ll be in the western part of this giant country. Please say hello if you see me! I’ve been procrasinating on the packing- I seem to pack best at the last minute- and spent the morning sewing. I reworked a dress from a video we did a while [clicky] into a cute skirt and added a pocket made of this fantastic heavy cotton printed with plants and birds that I thrifted a while ago. It’s the first time I have done something like this, but I think it turned out pretty well! Whatcha think?

I’ve been trolling the internet trying to find inspiration for new dressed and skirts to make. I seem to always return to this great Burda [clicky] site because they not only have great photos of finished products, but they have free patterns that you can download and print at home. Great idea! I love days like this. Sometimes I wish that I could just spend all the days of autumn months cosied up in my apartment writing, sewing, reading and playing my guitar. One day, one day.

While I am cosied up in my apartment, there are still hundreds of people camped out in a Toronto park for the “Occupy” movement. I respect the determination of the crowd -they really are roughing it- but I’m concerned that the right people aren’t getting the message. As other camps across the country get shut down, I hope that the message (fighting against financial disparity) gets across before the Toronto one is disassembled. Everyone should be able to pay their bills, am I right? If you pass by your local Occupy movement, make sure to give them a wave.

In other news, there is a KASHKA show tomorrow. I’m opening for a pretty great artist called Adeline at the El Macambo for her cd release. One of her songs was just in Grey’s Anatomy last night, don’t-cha-know. If you’re in Toronto c’mon out? [Facebook invite]

On the topic of KASHKA, I have a song featured on a winter-themed compilation that is out now [clicky] called A Moose in a Maple Tree AND you should go purchase it because it supports great charities and has a matching book.

Jusqu’à la prochaine fois, chers lecteurs!

Autumn in Ontario

katburns — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 12:51:25 +0000

This weekend brought me early mornings by the water and crisp walks through the forest. I missed the island, got excited for the winter and I loved my friends.

Have a great Hallowe’en weekend. Go for a long walk, avoid the zombies and stay warm!
See you all soon!
-Kat

I made this all by myself!

katburns — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 15:43:33 +0000

It was my darling favourite [read: only] sister’s birthday recently and I wanted to make her something special. I spent a day piecing together beautiful patches of two fabrics I bought recently in Montreal (I wish I could remember the name of their shop, I am sorry!) and making an abstract-esque quilt. I’ve only ever done something like this once before and it resulted in a small runner that lives under my stereo. This piece is bigger and hopefully will live on the wall to be enjoyed. I need to learn how to actually quilt properly (my mum is amazing) and then I’ll make a really big one to sleep under. Until then, just small things…

It’s that time of year again….

katburns — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 15:24:31 +0000

Even though it’s unseasonably warm, which is awesome, there is no denying that soon it’ll be colder and darker. Autumn and winter are great times for just staying inside my cosy apartment and being a artsyfart with friends. I have a lot of scraps of things (fabric, wood, paper) and it’s always a challenge to turn them into something useful. I’m going to try! I’m just about to run into my room and get my sewing machine out of the closet and into action. Hopefully it’s not all tangled up from packing it up in a rush on the island. Fingers crossed…

To make it fun for me, and you, this month I thought I’d do a little pay-it-forward thing. I’m going to restrict the participation to people with blogs (sorry!) because then they can continue it and post what they made/received etc. It just makes it more fun to see photos don’t you think?

Here’s the lowdown:

1. I will make something (a little something) for the first three people who comment on this post. You can be from anywhere in the world! It will arrive in the next year, but most likely it will arrive in the next few months.

2. To participate (aka get something cool from me) you also have to post something like this on your blog and share the love.

C’est facile, n’est pas? Make sure to leave a link to your blog when you comment! My psychic skills are still being perfected. If you don’t post something similar on your blog, you shall be passed by!

Doing things for people feels nice, so let’s all do it more often.

p.s. check out these beautiful fabric chunks (“fat quarter” metres) that I bought at Puce Pop while we were in Montreal…oohhhh

Always with the horses.

katburns — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 17:40:02 +0000

I dreamt it was morning. I was in Los Angeles. I walked down to the bus station and met up with my friend B. He was going to take me to the city. Inside the bus station, we boarded a boat that was docked in a small canal. When the boat started moving I noticed it was being driven by three giant horses. They were calm and majestic, and it didn’t seem out of the ordinary. Two grey and white speckled and another darker one. While we were motoring across the water I said to my friend, “I always forget horses have toes!”. We laughed. They were controlling the boat, standing on all fours, with four large toes protruding from each hoof. They steered and flicked switches with ease. We travelled over the water for an hour or so until we reached the border gate. It was then I realised that I had left my passport in LA. There was no way to turn back and the boat glided into the channel leading up to the border guard. I came up with a plan that my friend B could get in touch with my friend E and get him to bring my passport out. B couldn’t find his number in his phone, so I dictated it to him. The phone was ringing when I realised that E wasn’t even in LA. I woke up before I had to explain anything to the border guard.
—-

Why horses? It’s always horses with some strange shit on their feet. In other news, I am actually in LA and it’s pretty great. For a town that is known for shallow-fame-seeking people, I have met many very nice, genuine and gentle people. Don’t believe the hype, y’know? Navigating the transit system here is something else all together. Everyone has cars so the busses are terribly late, almost all the time.
—-

Tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of September 11th. I’m in the US so there is a pretty intense vibe underlying all the billboards and television specials. I watched a video about kids that were born that day while their fathers died in the towers. It was so heartbreaking to watch these ten year old kids earnestly talking about someone they’d never met. They were all struggling to build memories of their fathers. It was so sad! [link]

Californ-i-a

katburns — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 03:22:49 +0000

Where you can get yr teeth gold after you gets yr nails did.

Moved houses, got a haircut and learned how to knit.

katburns — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 04:55:48 +0000

I’ve been on a secret quest to learn how to do things that were traditionally fostered by the lady-likes in a community. Recently I sewed a dress from a pattern for the first time (the whole way through!) and today I learned how to knit. I’ve never caught onto knitting, and I quite often envied my bandmate who used our cross Canada trips to create beautiful scarves in the van while I just stared out the window. But now I can do that too! My mother tried (I think?) to show me when I was a kid but, being the know-it-all that I am, I probably frustrated her beyond belief after lesson one. A few friends have tried to show me in the last couple years but I have had difficulty, being lefty/ambi, mirroring them or catching on. Maybe the beautiful after glow of Saturday’s full moon cast some magic on my hands because I caught on really fast when my friend Mara showed me today. Look at what I’ve accomplished! More than one row, not that many screw ups and it’s a nice colour that apparently “goes with my hair”.

Now I can knit the winter away while I watch episodes of 90210 with my dear friend (and flatmate again) Liz. We just recently started living together again after about a year of living separately. That means that my DVD collection has instantly become gigantic and I’ve gained a kitten. And, if you ever read Liz’s blog [click click], it means that we will be eating a lot of delicious food and there will never be a shortage of jam or pickles in the house.

I also cut off all my hair again last week. It feels good to have hair that actually looks like I style it, even though I just wash it. I like that there is a secret way of cutting hair that makes it lay just so. Here’s me saying hello just before I head off to a wedding.

This weekend there’s a Forest City Lovers video shoot in the ‘burbs and that means I get to have a fam-jam with the parents. Maybe I’ll bring some knitting needles….

p.s. I’ve been slowly but surely updating this Etsy shop I have… maybe take a peek? [click click]

New KASHKA EP – pre-order it now for $2!

katburns — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 21:06:12 +0000

Exciting news! I worked on some top-secret (sorta) songs over the winter with my friend and collaborator James Bunton and now some of them are ready to be born. Read below for the official press release from Play the Triangle.

–

NEW EP FROM KASHKA – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Play the Triangle is please to release a new online-only EP from KASHKA, the ongoing side project of Kat Burns. The EP, entitled LLANOS, will be release on Burns’ imprint on August 2nd, through http://www.kashka.bandcamp.com and will be backed with “No Way Around It” with producer/collaborator James Bunton duetting with Burns on the track. The album download will also include a remixed version of the title track.

A series of videos will be release over the next month.

About the project:

KASHKA is the ongoing project of Kat Burns, most well known as the force behind Forest City Lovers, a wistful folk pop outfit out of Canada. KASHKA is the ship that sails wayward songs into the ears of the unknowing. The vessel that carries melodies that don’t seemingly fit within the folk-pop realm, yet still manage to strike an emotional chord in the listener. Sometimes dancey, sometimes minimal and stripped down. All of it a personal exploration of words and sound from an ever evolving songwriter. KASHKA is often a collaborative effort, with recorded production by James Bunton (Ohbijou, Light Fires) and live assistance from Chantale Renee (Touch My Stereotype).

Play the Triangle (Burns’ online imprint since 2005) released a a digital only EP called ORNICO in the winter of 2010 and is proud to present “LLANOS” in summer 2011, a prelude to the eventual release of a full length recording entitled VICHADA.

My Oh Monday (On Wednesday now? Jeez.)

katburns — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 03:23:44 +0000

I’ll try harder for next Monday. Weekly recap, go:

1. The Heat Wave

I couldn’t write anything about last week without mentioning the extreme heat that blanketed a lot of North America. Holy smokes, Toronto was boiling. Even on the island it was a scorcher and I felt the most strange hot breeze blowing across the lake. The local newspaper forecast read almost as fiction; same temperature in Toronto and Cairo, Egypt. Whaaat? Records were broken everywhere, people perspired and probably got angry/ragey/etc on their way to work but we survived. I wanted to find a video of some goof talking about their crazy experience with the heat wave, but decided against it after watching this [link] and thus please enjoy the video of swans keeping their babies cool.

2. RIP Amy Winehouse

I wish she’d found the help she needed sooner.

3. Jack Layton’s Temporary Leave from Parliament

No no no! I am terribly saddened to hear that Jack Layton (for you non-Canadians he is the leader of the NDP party and the official opposition) has been struck with another cancer. It broke my heart. Something about Jack makes me feel hope for the future of Canada and he always radiates positivity; smiling constantly. Much of our families and friends have been touched by cancer and it so often feels both insurmountable and isolating. I can’t fathom dealing with such a personal illness as a public, let alone political, spectacle. I want Jack Layton to get better and my heart and thoughts are with him in this time of need.

Think good thoughts and keep smiling Jack, like here on the Hour, in your hearts for a swift recovery.

Short and sweet this week because I want to post some drawings etc. Forcing myself to blog is hard…
xo