Your drooling, four-legged pal has a taste for the finer things, too, and with its hand-stamped ID tags, gourmet raw food, and designer doggie duds, Leslieville’s The Bone House can cater to your canine’s every craving.

Click the gallery above for our favourite finds at The Bone House.

The Bone House, 946 Queen St. E., 416-463-2663, thebonehouse.ca.

Tucked away on the first floor of 401 Richmond’s art-and-design factory, Swipe is equal parts niche bookshop and home outfitter, stocking all the items you’d find around the house. A really, really pretty house.

Click above for our gallery of Swipe’s finest finds.

UPDATE, May 16: Also sold at Swipe, String Theory’s “Off Grid” shawl ($240) was used as a backdrop in photos two to 11.

Swipe Design books + objects, 401 Richmond St. W., 416-363-1332, swipe.com.

Brittany Holliss looks to her left and right to see if the coast is clear, before slowly kneeling down and taking a sewing needle from her purse. Then, she pulls out a crocheted red, orange, and yellow piece of knitting. It’s about the size of a human hand and actually looks like what it’s called: a dragon’s foot. Using the needle, she sews the “foot” onto one leg of a short stool on the fourth floor in the University of Toronto library.

Holliss (pictured below) belongs to the Bissell Bombers, a group of guerrilla knitters formed recently by U of T graduate students. The mission of these yarn-weavers is to beautify the campus. Their multi-coloured cozies “warm up” spaces and furniture around the school. Students now refer to library cubicles as “the green one” or the “red one” based on the colour of the legwarmers on the desk lamps. Recently, an unnamed wooden statue got spruced up—he now holds a giant pom-pom in the palm of his hand.

Yarn bombing is a worldwide underground movement that seeks to make urban spaces cozier and friendlier by knitting covers for everything from stair railings to potted plants to city buses. On June 9, 2012—declared International Yarn Bombing Day—covert knitters from Johannesburg to Santa Barbara wrapped phones, benches, and trees in yarn.

Magda Sayeg, the founding mother of yarn bombing, says that her hobby is just an extension of human kindness. “These little acts and interventions really make you feel a little bit better about where you live,” she says.

The Houston-born yarn enthusiast says her activities began eight years ago with the most unambitious object she’s ever targeted: a door knob. “Wrapping that handle changed the course of my life,” she says.

Infected with yarn fever, she moved on to create a cozy for a stop-sign pole. “I saw people get outside of their cars and take pictures of it,” she recounts. “It was so seductive to me!”

That seduction would inspire Sayeg to produce her most famous piece of work in Mexico City in 2008, when she covered an entire bus with colourful yarn.

The Bissell Bombers, who get their name from the Claude T. Bissell Building on U of T’s St. George campus, haven’t covered a bus (yet). But they were nonetheless inspired by Sayeg’s efforts.

It all began at The Green Beanery café at Bloor and Bathurst, where Holliss and three friends used to meet every Monday to knit. Last year, their first yarn bomb ever came in the form of a small cozy covering the leg of a table, one of the group’s signature “moves.”

“It was really bizarre: We were a group of girls sitting at a table knitting, but the idea was that it was all supposed to be really secretive,” Holliss says. As their guerilla knitting “attacks” got under way, the women adopted “knitnames.” They use their alternate aliases to post updates and photos on a shared WordPress blog. Holliss goes by the alias P-1, K-1, short-form for a stitching technique (purl one, knit one).

While the group only recognizes four “official members,” many students and friends-of-friends occasionally contribute their time and materials, especially for bigger projects. The group hosts “stich ‘n’ bitch” social nights where newbies and veterans alike can gather to knit together.

The guerilla-knitting movement is still small in Toronto. Back in 2009, Martha Brown, a kindergarten teacher, appeared in the Toronto Star in 2009 for her yarn bomb in McCormick Park, near Dundas and Dufferin Streets; she and her family stitched up a pink pole legwarmer. An anonymous, well-meaning stranger by the waterfront yarn-bombed a park-bench handle. And last month, mysterious crocheted hearts appeared along Ossington Avenue. But these have all just been isolated, one-time endeavours.

Holliss’ biggest project was inspired by her curiosity of how the public would react to seeing yarn-bombing in an exhibition context. Her dreams were quickly realized when students at the Ontario College of Art and Design invited the Bissell Bombers to participate in a show being held Feb. 7 as part of the Art Gallery of Ontario’s 1st Thursdays party series.

“We wanted to wrap something that was exposed to the weather a bit more,” says Laura McPhie, a recent Bombers recruit. “We make things that are cold, warm—that’s what we do.”

And so the group yarn-bombed the “A” in the AGO’s outdoor sign. “The ‘A’ had that warm, fuzzy, your-grandmother’s-sweater type of covering,” McPhie says.

Kelly McKinley, the director of education at the AGO, says the knitted graffiti inspired a lot of “giggles and pointing and photo-taking. It’s a wonderful collision of high art and craft. The public can look at things in the AGO in a new way—it’s humorous.”

For the AGO takeover, the Bombers did a call-out to the community asking for help and materials. People from as far away as Waterloo, Guelph, and even Canmore, Alberta mailed out yarn pieces. McPhie recalls one kind stranger in particular who contributed an envelope of delicate knitted flowers and hexagons that were used as building blocks for knit patterns.

“She went out of her way just to drop something off,” McPhie says. ”It was a really humbling experience to see that people were willing to dedicate their time to help with something that they would never see.” The decorations were put up and taken down on the same day.

Inside the gallery on the night of the show, AGO visitors walked past big wooden ribs covered in hexagon patterns, knitted hanging garlands, and flowers with LED lights in their centres. They could also sit down and learn to craft pom-poms from yarn. “Some were beautiful and some were disasters,” McPhie laughs.

Since the AGO show, McPhie says the Bissell Bombers have received all sorts of “please bomb us” requests, including from the Museum of Inuit Art in Toronto and a heritage site in the city. A window display for Artbarn, an art school near Yonge and Eglinton, has recently gone up. Holliss says future plans include posting tutorial videos for different patterns of knitting and basic skills on the group website.

In the meantime, she warns that bike racks and flag poles around U of T should be on high alert.

With its eye-catching flora, rustic home décor, and saucy mugs, Sweetpea’s popularity has rapidly bloomed since opening in Roncesvalles in 2010. (We suspect the in-store great dane helps, too.)

Click the gallery above to check out a few of our favourite finds.

163 Roncesvalles Ave., 416-537-3700, sweetpeablooms.ca.

Attention shoppers: Know of any one-of-a-kind stores in your neighbourhood? Email inventory@thegridto.com.

When David Demchuk was a young boy growing up in Winnipeg, his mother taught him how to knit. He became proficient at it, but abandoned the hobby until the age of 22, when he started his first job at an employment office in Toronto. His female coworkers were avid knitters, and he soon joined the needle-clicking ranks on lunch breaks.

These days, Demchuk knits socks on the subway and in the atrium of his office building, where he works as a communications specialist for the CBC.

Demchuk’s passion for knitting surprises his coworkers, like the one who initially didn’t believe he’d knit his own patterned scarf. To prove his point, Demchuk pulled up his pant leg to show her his hand-knit socks.

“She was floored,” Demchuk says. “And the crazy part was, that was one of the easiest scarves I’ve ever made. That’s always the way.”

Male knitters and yarn spinners are a growing part of Toronto’s crafting communities. In taking up needles and drop spindles, they’re part of a bigger movement that’s turning this ancient handiwork into a downtown hobby.

Mathieu La Rose also attracts attention whenever he knits in public. He’s a hit in yarn stores, where La Rose says women often tell him they’re proud of him for joining what’s traditionally been labelled a woman’s craft.

“People will gather around just to watch me knit,” La Rose says of his penchant for knitting in pubs and cafes. “It’s like a spectacle.”

La Rose says it was his best friend and roommate, Cindy Cole, who introduced him to knitting and spinning after a cheesy horror movie marathon. The two of them watched and worked to the point that La Rose had so much extra yarn, he opted to sell it the following week. La Rose and Cole soon started online shop ManSpun, which features a photo of La Rose, shaving cream smeared across his face, gripping a skein of wool. La Rose balances his part-time hobby at ManSpun with a full-time day job as an IT analyst.

Mathieu La Rose demonstrates the art of yarn spinning.

Actor Kirk Dunn began to knit on the set of children’s TV show Girls Can! Boys Can!, and kept up the hobby during his stint playing the titular role on Dudley the Dragon. He recalls sitting down in the famed dragon costume in between takes, which was too cumbersome to take off, and knitting away.

Now, he uses knitting as an art form. He has created two quilt-sized knitted “stained glass windows” based on symbolic images from Christianity and from Judaism. He’s now working on one for Islam.

“People find it surprising about me. One of my friends said, ‘You look like a football player, but you’re a knitter.’ It’s helped me start up conversations with women who wouldn’t normally talk to me,” Dunn says.

Demchuk is openly gay, but he says it’s wrong to assume knitting is strictly a gay man’s hobby. “It was a factor, but not the reason I started knitting,” he says.

The many stereotypes surrounding the hobby frustrate La Rose, who is straight, has a girlfriend who knits as well.

“There is just some assumption: ‘Oh, you have a penis? You can’t knit,’” La Rose says.

He says he tries to knit in public, partially as a way to challenge the notion that knitting and spinning should be attached to any gender or sexuality.

Kate Atherley, a Toronto-based knitting teacher and author of knitting books such as Knit Accessories: Essentials & Variations and Beyond Knit & Purl, has a theory about knitting’s place in contemporary gender roles.

“Many of these crafts skipped a generation,” she says. “Our grandmothers knitted and sewed because they had to. They knitted to clothe their families, and [learned] to sew so they could maintain their family’s clothes and pass them on to the next kid.”

Consequently, Atherley says, Boomer generation women often saw these activities as a chore. Through the ‘70s and ‘80s, she says, women began to think of handmade items as less modern than store-bought ones. The rise of feminism also helped encourage these women to abandon the fibre arts.

Atherley believes that simply isn’t a factor for the millennial generation.

“We don’t have the association with work. We also see fibre arts as separate from gender roles. Now, it’s a fabulous creative outlet and the ultimate expression of who you are,” she says.

One of Kirk Dunn’s knitted “stained glass windows”

Knitting stores are ground zero for this movement. Haley Waxberg, owner of Knit-O-Matic, has seen an increase of male customers in her stores over the past few years. She says these men are slowly getting comfortable being the ones doing the shopping.

“They still are some of the quietest customers in the store. They don’t tend to ask very many questions.”

Atherley adds that all knitters are keen to create custom items that can’t be found anywhere else. With handmade hats and socks, the fit, colour, and style are unique creations, and there’s also the added bonus of bragging to friends about not having bought it in a store.

Demchuk holds knitting interventions for his friends, stopping them from spending too much on knitwear and giving them free knitting lessons. He once knit a hat to save a friend from spending $65 on a Club Monaco hat he admired. Demchuk gave the friend a handmade $15 version and promised him knitting lessons.

He says the $65 is better spent on beautiful yarn for luxury socks. For the people he cares about, Demchuk says he’ll regularly knit socks, even for men with “feet the size of skis.”

With DIY classes, mad-popular crafting meets, and plenty of local goods made from creatively recycled materials, Nathalie-Roze Fischer’s eponymous shop has become Leslieville’s hub for knit fiends and the big box–averse.

Click the gallery above to check out a few of our favourite finds.

1015 Queen St. E., 416-792-1699, nathalie-roze.com.

Attention shoppers: Know of any one-of-a-kind stores in your neighbourhood? Email inventory@thegridto.com.

Even artists need to get organized from time to time, and when they do, they hit this family-run art and office-supply shop in The Annex.

Click the photo gallery above to check out a few key items for creative thinkers—smocks and staplers aside.

Midoco Art & Office Supplies, 555 Bloor St. W., 416-588-7718, midoco.ca.

Attention shoppers: Know of any one-of-a-kind stores in your neighbourhood? Email inventory@thegridto.com.

Known for her collection of culinary publications that cater to experienced cooks and newbies, alike, Mika Bareket of Kensington Market’s Good Egg rounds things out with covetable tools to spice up your kitchen life.

Click the gallery above to check out a few of our choice finds.

Good Egg, 267 Augusta Ave., 416-593-4663.

Bloordale gem General Tao is a ramshackle temple of fun and quirk. Bursting with stationery, gifts, and gadgetry, it’s also stocking-stuffer heaven.

Click the gallery above to check out a few of our choice finds.

General Tao, 853A Bloor St. W., 416-516-4404.

Director Peter Jackson isn’t the only one repurposing J.R.R. Tolkien’s works this holiday season: U of T civil engineering student Lee Hamu has upcycled some of the author’s classic works to create eco-friendly jewelry, household items, and various paper products. Currently constructing Tolkien-themed glass Christmas bulbs (among other projects), the 23-year-old Hamu spoke to The Grid on the eve of The Hobbit‘s Dec. 14 theatrical release about some of the Frodo-friendly items for sale—or soon to be available—at her Etsy store.

Elven necklace, $75 (pictured at top)

Materials used: various turquoise beads and stones, origami leaves from The Fellowship of The Ring, brass chains, and brass filigree leaves.

Hamu strives to reflect Tolkein’s portrait of nature with this double-stranded, bib-like necklace. “In Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, there’s a real focus on the elves and their attachment to leaves in the forest,” says Hamu. “It seemed like a natural choice to choose a leaf origami.”

Hamu doesn’t necessarily expect the necklace to sell for its current $75 price tag, but she’s proud of how this large piece showcases what paper crafting can achieve.

Coaster set (4), $20

Materials used:  4×4 ceramic tiles, varnished pages from The Fellowship of the Ring.

These ceramic tile coasters feature pages scattered from Tolkien novels sourced at Goodwill and second-hand stores. “I try not to have four pages that are back to back; [the coasters feature] scenes throughout the story,” Hamu explains.

Using a couple layers of brush-on wood varnish, Hamu does not recommend these coasters for dishwasher use, but they are spill-proof and can be hand-washed.

Origami leaf pendant and earring pair, $25 for the set

Materials used: ornamental beads, a bronze chain, earring backs, and varnished pages from various books.

Style garments for the typography enthusiast, these accessories are available in a variety of upcycled books including Tolkien’s LOTR series, vintage Webster’s dictionary pages, and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Although Hamu’s go-to earring set is made with brass, fishhook-style ear-wires, alternative backings can be requested in brass (no charge), or sterling silver for an additional $5. All earring backs are nickel-free and lead-free.

Hamu has tested the strength of this paper pair by tossing the varnished leaves in with two hot-wash cycles. After the first cycle, the creases were slightly wavier, but the text was unaffected. By the second cycle, the finish had begun to crackle. She doesn’t recommend experimenting with the jewelry like this, but is sure that the accessories would certainly survive a cold walk in the rain. “When you get home, lay them out to dry and they’ll be as good as new.”

Fridge magnets, buttons, keychains, and pendants (prices vary)

Materials used: Cut-outs from The Fellowship of the Ring, and The Return of the King are readily available. Other Tolkien material is available upon request.

These items all feature a 1.25-inch glossy button made with a Tecre button press; colours vary depending on the condition of each book used. (Pinback buttons are $2 each, or three for $5;  fridge magnets and keychains are $3 each, or 4 for $10; button necklaces are $5 each.)

Various origami note cards, $4, or 6 for $18

Materials used: 100 per cent recycled, 40 per cent post-consumer craft-card stock, and matching envelope, with various upcycled book origami.

Items currently in stock include an upcycled The Fellowship of the Ring in dragonfly origami, as well as a Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone origami owl, and bat cards. The eco-friendly cards are the only unvarnished item in the bunch.

With all of the above items, Hamu is happy to take requests for customization within reason, keeping in mind that all of the book supplies come from second-hand stores.