Meet Tricia!

Here's Tricia Mulhern from Spruce Clothing- our newest member!

Tricia writes "Taking a sewing class in high school got me hooked! I immediately started experimenting, taking apart old clothing, making something new, and loving it! A few years later I found myself in Victoria B.C where there were a few local markets that were perfect for testing the market, so on my days off from my day job I sewed in my living room to build up stock. I began successfully selling my clothing every weekend.

At the time I did not own a car, so I took an old lady cart, extended the handles and packed up my entire booth in it for the 20 minute walk to the market. People were always amazed at how I was able to get my entire booth - tent and merchandise all into this little cart! What a girl will do to get her business going:)

After about a year, I decided I wanted to learn more about making patterns and sewing, so I enrolled at George Brown and moved back to Ontario. After graduating from design school, I decided I was not yet done with my education and pursued a degree in women's studies.

All the while in school I continued selling my clothing during the summer months at the Hillside and Mariposa folk festivals.

Over the years I have sewn and set up shop just about everywhere! I have taken over numerous communal living spaces as my sewing empire grew and grew...I even sewed for an entire summer in a friend's garage!

I am now working on my business full-time and have an actual studio space on Queen St. West that I share with 3 other fun, creative people.

I named my business after my Grandmother's last name - because she had a big influence on my life and was really into fashion. She is the woman featured on the front page of my website www.spruceclothing.com.

I live in High Park with my husband Peter and I love riding my bike, indie music, cooking and makin' stuff."

Meet Haji!

We are the only store in Toronto who has a visting Japanese engineer installing the window display!

It's not only the designers at Fresh Collective who help to make the store awesome! Haji is our newest intern! Here from Japan to learn English, he approached me because he's interested in fashion and wants to learn to sew. He's so easy-going and ready to help out with anything. After he did an amazing job on the window, we were starting a photo shoot, and I asked him how he felt about modeling. After a little laugh, he shrugged and said "Whatever!" so we put him to work modelling the Yasmine Louis men's tops.

Here's how the window turned out. (I'll post the modelling shots later!)

Here's our very own Odd Bird- and her bird, Loki!!

Tara Campbell is the designer behind the label Odd Bird Designs. She's famous for her hand-printed, hand-coloured domino pendants with a range of images from the very off-beat to pretty to funky and everything in between!

She's our most senior member, being with Fresh Collective for years and she is absolutely crazy about birds! (Whenever I talk to her on the phone, I hear the squawking in the background.) She works full-time at her day job, yet seems to have endless energy for being involved in the shop and working on her line.

She is a one-woman show in her work on Odd Bird Designs, printing, colouring then glazing all the dominos. She has other styles of jewellery too: the "bric a brac" line, Scrabble bracelets and more, and she has recently added tee-shirts!

She wholesales her line to other stores too, and top of this she works every other Saturday in the shop, some Sundays, plus takes on other jobs like working on our website, planning our sale parties and general organizing and planning to keep the shop running smoothly. She's a fun, funky gal with a great attitude and a lot of creative energy!

Here's Fred (and Sam! ) from Utility Grade

Frederica Tomas was born in Toronto, Canada and attended the Ontario College of Art, where she studied printmaking and won a scholarship for Book Arts.

After graduation she started Utility Grade to distribute her handmade cards and original prints.

Her linocuts are primarily portraits of Saints, Sinners and Strange Beasts, with a bit of Pop Culture commentary. Linocuts are printed onto japanese paper using a vandercook SP15 proof press and rubber based inks, then painted with watercolours.

In response to many customer requests, she recently added a line of t-shirts and tank tops with imagery derived from her original prints. These are screen printed onto cotton using black ink, then hand pinted with fabric paints, sewn onto the back of the t-shirt with a window cut out to reveal the image. The shirt becomes the 'frame' for the print.

Frederica lives in Toronto with Jim and her canine companion, Sam. She listens to Bob Dylan everyday.

Introducing Nicole Boudreau!

Nicole is one of our many fabulous designers at Fresh Collective. She's been with us over two years now, and her business just keeps growing and growing. When she joined us, she was "just" a jewellery designer with her line Precious Pink Designs.... I say "just" because she's since expanded into skirts and aprons for her line "Desserts and Skirts". She recently moved her production into a gorgeous studio, and I'm sure I'll see Nicole go full speed ahead throughout 2009!

Here she is at a photo shoot for her aprons, goofing around as usual! Nicole is an awesome lady- super fun, funny, positive, hard working and all in all just a cool person to be around. I love it when my schedule gets switched around and I get to spend a Tuesday working with her at the shop!

And Nicole is just one of the many personalities that keep Fresh Collective the fabulous beehive of creative energy that it is! With almost 20 local designers sharing the space and selling their work, there's always something going on in the shop, and if it's a Tuesday when Nicole works in the shop, it's often something funny!