Have you spent the last few months awake at night worrying about how to make the perfect broccoli costume?
Didn’t think so. DECA’s Kat Senyk has.
She tossed over the duvet fabric she bought at Value Village. Would it be too abstract?
She opted instead for new fabric, sewing the florets by hand using pillow stuffing, buying dense batting for the structure, and searching supermarkets for organic broccoli stickers to copy, scan, enlarge, modify and print onto an iron-on heat transfer. (In the end, she torqued an organic banana sticker )
She even made her own bias binding tape, which if you know about this stuff, is a big deal.
“It was fun. It will be fun to see it. I don’t want to make anymore,” Kat told me when I picked up the fabulous costume from her house last week. Her 1.5 year old son Rayner was upstairs sleeping. Her husband, Tim, was all-but passed out on the couch from another long day working at the pool company they own together. “If I hear one more word about broccoli….” he mumbled.
Why would anyone slave over a broccoli costume for DECA? For our farmers’ market, of course. You might have seen one of us dressed as a pea or carrot or apple outside the subway station with market flyers in hand last year? We needed to boost our supply.
“We moved to the east end 1.5 year ago, and found both farmers markets were a walkable distance from our home,” Kat says. “I love going there with Rayner. We’ve met some good friends there this year.”
A secret: While Kat now works as a project manager for a local engineer firm, she was in the fashion industry for ten years, even running her own label, biokat, for a time. (http://www.biokatonline.com/Home.html). She is case-in-point of the talent we have in this hood.
Check out her work on your way next week. One of us will be wearing it outside your subway station handing out flyers.
Thanks so much Kat!
If you would like to help promote the market this year, we need you! You can hand out post cards (in boring old regular clothes or in fabulous veggie wear). Let us know at natasha.granatastein(at)gmail.com
The 5th fabulous year of the East Lynn Farmers’ Market starts Thursday, June 7th. 3-7 p.m. at East Lynn Park, on Danforth west of Woodbine.
(This post cheerfully brought to you by Catherine Porter)
FANTASTIC broccoli fashion! Well done Kat!
one of my past lives was as a costume designer – and Halloween is still my favourite holiday! If you need help next year, let me know!
cheers, Deborah d80boyd@rogers.com
p.s. i love this neighbourhood and community spirit!