To sum up, Maker Faire blew my mind. It was the most fun I’ve had in a very long time, and I generally have a lot of fun. The vibe of creativity and community was nearly palpable. There was an utter lack of pretentiousness – no matter a maker’s passion, ideas were shared and lessons taught. It was like a creative, educational UTOPIA. I’m not even kidding.

More thoughts in upcoming posts. For now, photos!

A member of the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild* made a the QR code of the guild's URL.

The Guild had a design wall set up where people could mess around with quilt squares. (That's my dad with Guild president Kalin Whyte.)

Paper lanterns in the form of a Dalek and Mr. Spock!

The famed Mondo Spider made regular tours of the grounds.

Disaster Area had this wicked array of torches that was controlled by a kid's piano toy.

Members of the Fraser Valley Knitting Guild taught countless people how to knit (and not only women!).

The place was PACKED.

And of course I was there as a maker! That's what my next post in the series will be about.

People of all ages, boys and girls, men and women, made a lot of ugly creatures. It was AMAZING.

*I’ve told you I joined the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild? I’m very excited about this, even though I can’t attend my first meeting as a member. Still. This is a group with some serious creative energy.

Vancouver Mini Maker Faire is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

When I woke up Thursday morning, I found a Twitter message from Amy Swenson asking me if I’d like to write about it for a sports site run by women writers. It was exactly what I needed to do to work though my thoughts and feelings about it all. She put me in touch with the editors, and you can find my essay here.

Please comment over there – I’d love to know what you think, and I’d love to give the site lots of comments after they gave me a much-needed outlet.

It was a long slog to write the essay. I edited it to death, then managed to resurrect it – I hope. It started out ending in despair, but as the hours passed and I chatted with strangers and acquaintances I discovered my initial despair was being slowly overwritten by comfort and hope. And really, thank the gods for that.

This Is My Vancouver (Canucks Colors), by Geoff Heith (CC-A licensed)

After the Riots is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

But I’m not terribly disappointed, because next month Vancouver will host its first community-organized Mini Maker Faire. Sanctioned by O’Reilly – the folks behind MAKE magazine, CRAFT online, and Maker Faire – these smaller, local “mini” events are pretty freaking awesome. And the one in Vancouver is going to be anything but mini. It’s going to be huge. And I’ll be there, doing a Mighty Ugly workshop once each on the Saturday and Sunday of the event – June 25th and 26th.

I’ll write more about the event as it grows closer – about why I’m so excited for it and how I’ve been involved in helping to put it together – but for now I’ll embed a wee documentary from the Toronto Mini Maker Faire last earlier this month. It’s fabulous.

And as a teaser for what the Vancouver event will include, check out the Mondo Spider:

Maker Faire Excitement is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

Last winter I followed my friend Lisa‘s good advice to enter contests, and I was lucky to win an Olympics transit pass from Vancouver Is Awesome, a local blog I’d only just discovered. I schlepped across town (by bus, natch) to meet the editor, Bob Kronbauer, to pick up my transit pass.

The short story is that I ended up joining the blogging team at VIA. I totally fell in love with Bob’s mission – the way he described it to me, he created VIA to highlight the great things about our city, so it can be the last thing people read after getting down reading all the other news and blogs. Like Cute Overload, but a city blog.

There are a couple dozen writers at VIA, all of us volunteers. Bob incorporated the project as a registered non-profit. He’s the only full-time employee, and he works his ass off. His passion for promoting and supporting arts and culture in this town is downright inspiring.

And once a year, like many a non-profit, he runs a donation drive to help cover the operating costs of the business. If you’re a Vancouverite and you enjoy the good times you’ve had with Vancouver Is Awesome, and you appreciate the vast number of events VIA sponsors each year, please consider a donation in any amount. Oh, and there are some rad prizes.

I love being part of a project dedicated to highlighting the greatness of this city, and I very much hope you enjoy reading it.

And now I’m going to “enjoy” the coldest cold spell I’ve experienced in my eight years living in this “mild climate” by pulling the blankets tighter and sitting closer to the space heater.

Spreading Around the Awesome of Vancouver is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

When we moved to Vancouver eight years ago, I followed Greg’s lead when we were choosing a neighbourhood to live in. I was young, and it was a mistake. We bought a house in what I now think of as the deep West Side*, a quiet area with single-family homes, sleepy streets and housing prices that have risen so dramatically since we moved in that I’m sometimes embarrassed to tell people where I live, as my peers struggle to afford to buy into the market at all. We probably should have moved to the Mt. Pleasant area, farther east, or somewhere in or near Downtown. I’m a city girl. I like being surrounded by strangers. I like it when stores are open later than 5PM. I like walking to run my errands.

Still, I’ve grown to absolutely adore our suburban-feeling neighbourhood, despite its suburban feel. Mostly I love it for two reasons. First and foremost, our block is a proper neighbourhood. We know our neighbours and they know us. We have a yearly block party. I know the kids on the block. When one neighbour’s tall ladder comes out in the fall, we all borrow it in succession to clean out our eaves troughs. This, more than pretty much any other domestic factor, makes me happy to live where we live. (No, I don’t think this neighbourhood magic is due to the location of our neighbourhood; we just lucked out when we moved onto this block.) The second is that we live close to Pacific Spirit Park, a massive woodlands where I love to walk the dog.

It’s quieter than I’d like out here, but I rejoiced several years ago when, at the corner of Dunbar Street and W. 18th Avenue, two construction signs went up. Several old, dilapidated one-story storefronts were torn down on either side of Dunbar street. Two four-story mixed-use buildings went up. I was giddy with the excitement of growing density in the neighbourhood. Density that might lead to better transit schedules, more interesting businesses and more people to say hello to when I walk around. I had new hope that young people might afford to move to the area. Maybe we’d get a corner grocery. Maybe we’d get a pub!

The first business to move in was a Starbucks, in the corner storefront of the eastern site. My first reaction was one of eye-rolling disappointment. It couldn’t have been a local indie cafe? Whatever.

But then something happened. People were in the Starbucks all the time. From morning till closing (at 9PM!), there were people out where there used to be none. Young families on weekends, business people picking up their caffeine fix on their way to work. And although not all of the apartments have sold, even a couple of years since construction was completed (a depressing fact), there have been more and more people waiting at the bus stop in front of the Starbucks.

We had hopes the Starbucks would draw great businesses to the other storefronts. Alas, no. We have a Dairy Queen, two nail salons, and a now-closed leasing office for a retirement home. A convenience store has been under construction for a few months, but I’ve grown cynical enough to stop hoping they’ll carry fresh produce.

But still. For a good couple of years we had that Starbucks, that magnet for people at all hours of the business day, and beyond.

And then suddenly it was gone.

Paper on the windows, a truck carrying away the espresso machines and chairs and outdoor umbrellas. A note on the door thanking patrons for their patronage.

I can’t make sense of it. Was it part of some larger corporate strategy, or was it really possible for the place that was always full of people to have failed?

I feel like the bootstrap my neighbourhood could have pulled itself up by has snapped. We were better off with just the single-family homes and shitty businesses than we are with vacant apartments and empty storefronts. It’s an odd juxtaposition, this idyllic affluent neighbourhood and its inability to support commerce and density.

Starbucks, I mourn your leaving. Where I had hope I now have none.

Unless a pub moves in. Now that would rock.

—

* Don’t get me wrong. Vancouver goes on west of here. But we live so far west of our peers that I stick by my inclination to refer to our home as being in the deep west side.

Missing Starbucks: A Vancouver West Side Story is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

The Museum of Vancouver‘s had a craft exhibit on for the last few months, and in January they held an epic night of crafting to go along with it. It was such a successful and popular event, they’re holding another this Friday night. For $15 you get materials, workshops, music and a cash bar. You must go if you’re in town (I know this for certain because I went to the event in January and had a blast). And if you do, come find me so we can craft together.

Vancouver: DIY @ MOV 2 is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

I’ve spent much of this afternoon trying to write about the Olympics – not in the I-was-there way I’ve been doing, but to sum up my emotional experience of the Games.

I can’t do it. It’s too much. But I can sort of cobble some thoughts together.

Vancouver is my home. It’s the home I chose for myself and it’s the place where I feel safe. Having felt very much not at home in many of the places I’ve lived since I was a kid, this is a very big deal for me.

The first time I ever felt the feeling people call patriotism was when I sat in the stadium here in 2003 and learned that Vancouver was chosen to host the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. That feeling was a revelation.

I haven’t become a citizen yet, but this is my home. I root for Canada.

I’m not anti-American. I don’t dislike my native land. But Canada is where I have that feeling. And during the last two weeks, my home abandoned the reserve that’s the one thing that drives me nuts about living here (I will always be a New Yorker, see, and we are not reserved). The people of my city smiled at strangers and struck up conversations at the bus stop. We whooped and cheered in the streets and we rooted for our athletes. We had fun without apologizing for it. We were respectful and we weren’t nationalistic.

It’s an important distinction to make, between feeling patriotic and feeling nationalistic. The former is a pride and a togetherness; the latter involves feeling more important than or better than. We aren’t more important than anyone else, but it seems we’re finally ready to be proudly together.

I didn’t know I could love my city any more than I loved it for the last eight years, but I do. Just by showing up, we created something rare and beautiful and special and free. It isn’t ours, it’s everyone’s.

I hope that feeling lasts, and I hope we use it to create more good in this world.

And I hope you enjoyed your visit here, whether in person or through the screen. I hope you got a bit of that feeling, and that you’ll remember us fondly. We’ll never forget you.

This is my home. is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

We went Downtown yesterday afternoon to see what Vancouver’s like during the Olympics. (We live in the city of Vancouver, but about a half-hour from Downtown by bus or about a fifteen-minute drive. I wrote more about my neighbourhood for the Raincoast Books blog series 5 Things Vancouver.)

Most interested in people-watching and experiencing the general vibe, we chose not to wait in line to get into any special sites or pavilions (I’ll do that another time, for sure). So we spent about five hours just walking around. Here’s some of what we saw (click images for the option to view them larger on Flickr, and for more/different descriptions):

The cauldron is at the north end of Thurlow St., and it was surrounded by hordes of people. We didn’t even think of trying to get close to the hideous chain-link security fence blocking it off.

Here it is, closer up. The smaller torches don’t look so much like giant phalluses when they aren’t in the process of rising out of the ground, eh?

I wasn’t lying about the size of the crowd.

Over at the Vancouver Art Gallery (also home to the British Columbia Pavilion [Sunday was BC Day downtown]), some folks were demonstrating against the use of fur in fashion. I don’t think they were specifically responding to anything regarding the Olympics, but please correct me if I’m wrong. UPDATE: Twitter KelaineD tells me US figure skater Johnny Weir has been criticized for using fox fur in a costume.

We walked through Robson Square while the mascots were doing their ice show. It was PACKED. I couldn’t see a thing but managed to hold up my camera and get this shot, which I like for the colours and other people’s cameras.

Managing to elbow our way out of there, we saw this crowd looking toward the skating rink, though surely not to see what was going on because they certainly couldn’t.

Walking around the Art Gallery, we spied BC Premier Gordon Campbell chatting folks up (he’s the white-haired man in the centre, to the right of to the man in the blue hat).

I loved this girl’s pair of flags. On the left is the BC provincial flag, on the right is Canada’s. We saw her on our walk from Downtown toward Yaletown and Chinatown.

We left our house too late to catch even the tail end of the Chinese New Year parade, and in going to the see the cauldron and Robson Square first thing, we managed to miss any other festivities in Chinatown.

Still, we did catch this sticker on an RBC ad on the bus shelter in Chinatown where we waited to catch our ride home. It’s not related at all to the New Year, but it’s a theme to many protests.

That ride was one of the most fun I’ve taken here. The bus was crammed full of people, and some men at the front that I never managed to lay eyes on sang almost the whole ride, first in a language we couldn’t identify and then in French. They had most of the passengers happily singing in a call-and-response Allouette and everything.

I’ll take this moment to send a massive jolt of internet love to Translink, the Vancouver transit authority. They’re dealing with massive crowds right now, and in addition to keeping their buses, trains and boats moving as smoothly as they can, they’re all over Twitter announcing disruptions and delays.

This afternoon we’ll head out to the University of British Columbia to see a women’s hockey game – Canada vs. Switzerland. We’re going to bike, because dudes, we live a fifteen-minute bike ride from an Olympics hockey game!

Got questions or comments about what’s going on around town? Fire away!

An Afternoon in Downtown Vancouver During the Olympics is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

Where Vanoc (the Vancouver [Olympics] Organizing Committee) has done an utterly terrible job of engaging the people of Vancouver leading up to the Olympics, there is one thing that’s made people feel included and excited: the torch relay.

Last night the torch went through the University of British Columbia (some hockey events will be held there, including the Canada-Switzerland women’s game we’re going to see Monday – oh, yeah!), and on its way to the Yaletown Live City for festivities at the end of the night, it travelled pretty close to my neighbourhood.

So I put on my rain boots and coat and went to see if my sleepy part of town would represent.

First stop: Urban Yarns, which is located on the torch route. It had been ages since I’d been there, but it’s my proper local yarn store so it was great to see the place and to catch up with the owner, Anina. Little did I know they were throwing a wee party just for the occasion, and I showed up just in time for snacks and wine (and to buy some yarn for the as-yet-not-chosen project I’ll cast on tonight for the Knitting Olympics).

Anina told me all of the business owners she’s spoken to say business is way down, that people have been successfully scared into staying off the roads (not scared for their safety, but scared by warnings of brutal traffic). She’s hoping folks will make it out to the store in the Point Grey neighbourhood, and I encourage all crafty visitors (and locals!) to do just that. Bonus: there are no parking restrictions in the area, and the 99 B-Line bus stops a block away.

Next stop: the streets. There was a brass band playing in front of the RBC bank at W. 10th Ave. and Sasamat, which was festive even in the rain. I think it was a firefighters band, and would love confirmation if anyone knows for sure.

Just as I began to relax into the realization that this sleepy community really was filling the streets, the most ridiculous pre-torch spectacle came through: neon-adorned Coke trucks with people dancing and shouting for excitement. Eye-rolls all around, and also some whooping.

And, about ten minutes later, the torch.

And just as soon as it came, it went.

And people crowded into the streets and followed it, and I felt so excited for my community and to be a part of it all.

And then it was over, as signaled by the streets opening up to traffic again and the #9 bus doing its part to get people back to the sidewalk.

I’m so glad I went, and my cynicism is certainly at bay today as I get really excited to watch the Opening Ceremonies on television tonight with friends.

So, crafters, what are you making during the Games? And non-crafters and crafters alike, what do you think of the Olympics as they ramp up?

When the Torch Came to Town is a post from Kim Werker's blog.

Cat and Dog Raindrops 1 by WooWork on Flickr

How much do I love this? So much that I’m going to try to swing by to see it this afternoon, at the Davie Community Garden at Davie St. and Burrard St. downtown.

More about Howie Woo‘s awesome on the Crochet Me blog.

Raindrop Yarn Bombing in Vancouver is a post from Kim Werker's blog.