Slow News Summary: the summery edition

There's so much great stuff to share from the past couple of months! Let's get right to it:

On slow design, slow making, and slow home:

• I've mentioned the Slow Textiles Group in London previously - you can now buy the first Geometrics exhibition catalogue. 
• I love this post (subscription required) on how retrofitting postwar/inner-ring suburbs to appeal to today's market can improve walkability and sustainability - and Spacing Edmonton's examination of the inner-ring communities in my own city and how they were originally planned.
• Thor ter Kulve's brilliant temporary playground installations got a mention on Grist (along with a raft of design-geek blogs).
• EcoSalon's list of incredible urban parks in unlikely places includes the railway bridge intervention (the LIVINGbridge) here in Edmonton.
• This gorgeous mirrored tapestry by UK artist Lee Borthwick leaves me weak-kneed.
• A brilliant design concept: empty office building to pop-up hotel. I'd stay there, wouldn't you? Let's hope someone makes it a reality.
• At my own slow-home-in-progress, we've been planting our garden and found these articles on building healthy soil and building wicking beds really helpful.

On slow fashion:

• Ecouterre continue to dominate coverage of the sustainable and ethical fashion scene, including recent stories on Heel Condoms to change your shoes' look, a gorgeous boho inner-tube handbag, the challenges facing silk jacquard hand-weavers, a farm-to-hanger fashion business, and revolutionary jeans created using eucalyptus pulp and digital priniting techniques.
• EcoSalon have been no slouches, either, with profiles of ethical fashion weeks in New Zealand and Berlin, textile certifications 101, a waterless fabric dyeing method, a fashion incubator in NYC, and a soul-searcher on clothes hoarding. 
• In response to the tragedy in Bangladesh, Sweet Cycle Apparel explained their t-shirt to promote slow fashion, the marketing gurus at MarkLives talked about trends toward slow fashion, and Ecouterre pointed out that a consortium of North American manufacturers' alternative safety plan threatens to neuter the reforms being proposed. I know which companies I won't be shopping with anymore.
• Rewardrobe describe a luscious London menswear shop devoted to slow fashion. 
• The Valente's slow fashion thesis project.
• Nadine Riopel asked, "What can a regular person with a limited budget living in a mid-sized city do to clean up her clothing supply chain?"
• A slow fashion webstore in the US is getting some buzz.  
• Not Just A Label, Blouin ARTINFO and even HuffPo are featuring editorials calling for slow fashion. 
• Modular childrens' clothing? Brilliant!
• One I'd missed that Pinterest brought to my attention: a great post on creating a capsule wardrobe on a tight budget.
• Canadians, you've got to check out Edmonton-based made-to-measure footwear designers Poppy Barley, if you haven't already. (The link is to their new, complete manufacturing information, explaining why they are working with a group of Mexican artisans.)

I love this idea, via Nutfield Genealogy: an old family recipe, woodburned as it appears on the original recipe card, into a cutting board. 

On slow food:

• NRDC's primer on the Slow Food movement.
• This film about Slow Food looks brilliant.
• I've already talked a little about the Canadian Food Experience project; the first round-up post and second round-up post (and all the link love therein) are must-reads. Personally, I'm excited to compare these two authentic bannock recipes, and the maple syrup pie and maple whisky butter tarts, and to try this poutine recipe and this saskatoon ice cream.
• An interview with the brilliant Anna Brones about her new cookbook The Culinary Cyclist.
• An affordable good food box for remote communities and food deserts? Genius.
• The Atlantic had a long, thought-provoking read on the role processed food could play in ending the obesity epidemic by making healthy food more widely and cheaply available. (Read it before you scoff.)
• On feminism and slow food - worth pondering.

On slow travel:

• A fabulous post on travelling round-the-world with your family that gives both serious advice and daydream fodder.
• Slow Travel 101 from Flashpacker Family.
• Gran Tourismo talk about using smaller towns as home base.
• The pros and cons of slow travel.
• Carl Honore on Living La Vida Local in Paris.
• How to tell if you are a slow traveller.
• Great posts from new fave The Way of Slow Travel on slow travel on the cheap, slow travel when you're pressed for time, and a thoughtful travel-focused response to my own musings on privilege.

On slow living, slow parenting, slow money, and so forth:

• In praise of slow tech - as in older technologies that force us to slow down, think harder, and focus our creative energy.
• Another take on slow tech: high tech, but human-centred, following the slow food tenets of "good, clean, and fair". What an interesting alternative to the low-tech/handmade version of slow tech!
• Scott Laningham on The Slow Fix, with an interview with Carl Honore
• A review (en francais) of the gorgeous-looking SLO magazine.
• Diane MacDonald on Slow Consulting.
• Australia's Storyology talk slow journalism.
• American friends, check out Slow Flowers to find florists who design using US-grown blooms. (Here's hoping they expand their reach to the rest of North America.) It's from Debra Prinzing, who literally wrote the book on local bouquets.

On sustainability and environment:

• EcoSalon had a great two-part post that might make you rethink your birth control routine because of the environmental and health implications of conventional methods.
• A fascinating story about oil pipelines and journalism.
• Ocean acidification is very bad news for krill. Not good.
• Inhabitat have a top-5 post that you really need to read.