West Coast Crafty

We found our china hutch on our first visit to Hawthorne Vintage, and ever since then I’ve been a huge fan of the shop — there are dozens of vendors selling there, and each space has amazing furniture, collectibles and trinkets to look through. But my favorite is Galen Murphy’s incredible Vera Neumann collection. I have always loved her gorgeous prints and thanks to Galen, I’ve picked up some new treasures this month!

Kayte and I visited the shop during her visit, and then yesterday Cathy of California, Cathy (of Bossa Nova Baby/Crafty Wonderland/PDX Super Crafty, to keep things straight!) and Diane headed over with me for an encore.

Galen has a display case full of Vera scarves, and I found these three I couldn’t live without…

He also has tons of her sheets, tablecloths, and linens in his space.

I love the red flower especially.

And this set reminds me of Amy Karol’s Modern Table Runner from Bend-The-Rules Sewing.

I also found some pretty flowered pillowcases and matching flat sheets, and I’m going to make a comforter cover with one of them. Pictures to come soon, hopefully!

If you go:

Hawthorne Vintage (Galen’s space is straight back, in the second room)
1515 SE 48th Avenue
Portland, OR 97215
(503) 230-2620

I’m late in posting today, but wanted to let anyone within striking distance of Portland know about all the cool stuff going on this weekend!

On Saturday, there are two craft sales happening: Rock Paper Scissors (which is part of the Division-Clinton street fair!) at Motokitty, 1117 SE Division, and Crafty Mamas at Milagros, 5433 NE 30th.

And then on Sunday there’s a free pendant-making workshop at Church of Craft from 11:30-2:30 at Rimsky-Korsakoffee House, 707 SE 12th. I’ll be there, embroidering the new tea towels I bought by the yard at Bolt. Afterwards there are two craft sales to stop by: Rebel Rabbit, 1847 E. Burnside, and Handmade Bazaar at 226 SE Madison.

Be sure to check each event’s site for directions, hours, and vendor info… they should be a lot of fun!

My Around the World in 80 Girls travel guide to Los Angeles is on page 48 of the latest issue of BUST (with Rosario Dawson on the cover) — I’m so pleased! I got to shout out to so many of my favorite places: ReForm School, Pull My Daisy, Felt Club, Griffith Park, Michael Levine, Clifton’s, the Hollywood Farmer’s Market, the Getty Center, Mashti Malone, the Rose Bowl flea market, and about thirty more! I really miss LA these days and I can’t wait to visit. It’s been far too long.

A big thank you to my lovely editor, Lisa, for the catchy subtitle and for making it look so good!

Speaking of LA, Cathy of California is coming to visit for a couple of days next week, which I’m so excited about. Diane and I will be taking her on our Portland Crafty Tour and I have a few vintage treasures I’ve been saving for her vast collection.

The all-day opening party at the Museum of Contemporary Craft on Sunday was amazing — and exhausting, hence the day off I gave myself yesterday. We taught crafts for nine hours (!) and people flooded in all day long to make things with us! I had really hoped to do more walking around to check out the other craft tables and see more of the museum, but things were pretty wild and Andrew and I had a wedding picnic to go to mid-afternoon (thank you Cathy and Torie for covering for me while I vanished for two hours!) so that was pretty much my break. However, Diane has a lovely post and series of photos up if you’d like to see more than just the alt-craft craziness! (Also, the action photos below are hers too — thank you, Diane.)

The ladies of PDX Super Crafty offered a matchbox shrine craft table — and it sure was popular… we ran out of everything by the end of the day!

We had tons of vintage and new bits and pieces for people to use — I especially liked the ballerinas, telephones and scissors — and we picked out some fun papers too, including Martha Stewart’s gorgeous new patterns from her crafts line (you can see my favorite polka-dot print lining the poodle-parasol shrine on the lower right).

Next to us, Diane of Portland Church of Craft taught hordes and hordes of enthusiasts how to make bracelets out of recycled water bottles… the variations everyone came up with were very cool!

She had felt, beads, ribbons, buttons, electrical tape, yarn, and all kinds of other stuff to wrap, glue, sew, and wire on, plus a neverending supply of bottles coming her way all afternoon.

And Jen and Melissa of DIY Lounge kept busy all day with an Artist Trading Card-making marathon, using lace, fabric, photos, decals, and anything and everything that can be affixed to cardboard. Melissa also offers a free ATC swap every month at Collage if you’re here in town!

It was an amazing spectacle and I’m very glad to have been part of it. I am so excited to see the Craft In America exhibition again this week now that the museum is open — I caught a tiny bit of a panel discussion with the director and four of the artists so I’ll definitely be writing that up separately. Thank you again to everyone who came by our table to say hi and make something cool!

One quick PSA: if you come to a craft demo, please don’t take the project samples away with you. They’re to use on the spot for inspiration, not walk off with — it’s more fun to make your own piece to bring home instead, anyway. We lost most of our own handmade shrines in the first few hours and had to whip up more on the fly and keep a sharp eye on them going forward, making a busy day busier. Sorry, I’m sure I sound lecture-y, but in case it isn’t clear if something is up for grabs, please ask first… we really, really appreciate it.

I just wrote this up for the Adorn blog with more details if you’re interested… but if you’re around on Sunday, please come by the Museum of Contemporary Craft for their grand reopening celebration. The crafts, music, and workshops are all free and open to the public!

I’ll be there with PDX Super Crafty teaching people to make matchbook shrines, Sister Diane of Church of Craft will demo recycled water-bottle bracelets, and Jen Neitzel of DIY Lounge is teaching artist trading cards. It should be super fun!

If you go:

Craft PDX Block Party
Sunday, July 22 from noon to 7:30
724 NW Davis St (on the North Park Blocks), Portland

This month is two years since I started my getcrafty column, and though I just took a few months off from posting so I could move and deal with a big stack of work projects, I’m so glad to be contributing to the site! Here’s my new column, cross-posted… or read it over there!

A few months ago I got the chance to hostess Pink Craftie (aka CRAFT: magazine’s adorable traveling robot mascot, handcrafted by Heidi Kenney), which was so much fun. She was the perfect excuse to do all kinds of crafty stuff, and snap lots of pictures.

We went to the Craft and Hobby Association convention in Anaheim (where we hung out with Jennifer Perkins, Vickie Howell, Kathy Cano Murillo, and Martha Stewart herself!), visited Superbuzzy world headquarters, admired the gorgeous vintage fabric in All Buttoned Up’s sewing room, hiked up to the Observatory in Griffith Park, had lunch at Clifton’s Cafeteria, learned to crochet with wire courtesy of Sister Diane, saw a sneak preview of the Institute For Figuring crocheted coral reefs show, went to Lisa Congdon’s opening at ReForm School, shopped for fabric and beads in downtown LA, checked out the craft books at Powell’s, visited Cathie and Steve on the set of “Creative Juice,” and taught a Super Crafty workshop at the library.

And then, on a whirlwind trip to New York, we visited Kayte of Love Forever (and fellow getcrafty columnist!) and saw her lovely studio…

Pink Craftie even got to hang out with Kayte’s house rabbit Potato!

My nephew Julian and I made some Pink Craftie-inspired shrink art…

Here she is relaxing pre-shrink, and also traveling on a rocketship post-shrink.

She seemed to have a good time at Grand Central Station — I think she enjoys trains. Like her cousin Gray Craftie, she likes spinning quickly in a circle.

All in all, I got to hang out with her for about a month and a half, and in that time we did some serious running around!

States visited: five
Flights: five
Train trips: four
Art openings: two
Martha Stewart speeches: one
Studio visits: four
Collaborative art projects: three

She recently hit San Diego to visit Mandy of Sappy Moose Tree, and an update of her latest adventures is over here on her blog. I miss her! I might have to talk to Heidi about getting a custom-order pink robot…

Superbuzzy just did a major update, and sure enough, the sought-after elephant canvas is back… in five different color combinations. Yay! I snapped up four of them in 1/2 yard and 1 yard lengths, since I missed them last time. I’m so excited to have a second chance at crafting with elephants! I wish I had gotten some blue, especially since it seems to have sold out already, but I am very happy with my green, orange, yellow and gray guys.

If you want to see what other people have made with the print, here’s all the elephant-related stuff in the Superbuzzy flickr group, too — so inspiring. And there are 232 new products to check out on the site…

I don’t know what I’m going to make with mine, I think I might just look at it all for awhile, to tell you the truth.

Kayte was in town this weekend, which was so much fun! One of our first stops after her train got in was Cupcake Jones, a new mini-bakery in the Pearl. By mini, I mean not only that more than five customers couldn’t possibly cram in there, but that they have tiny versions of all their cupcakes, too. I got a Pearl, which was vanilla topped with a teeny-tiny pearl, and Kayte got a Belmont with a blackberry on it. It was a fancy but not very economical treat at $1.50.

Kayte had her camera with her (unfortunately I didn’t so I don’t have a corresponding photo of her!) and snapped this picture of me wearing my gorgeous new Totinette wood jewelry I got at Crafty Wonderland. I love the jewelry Torie makes — it’s sleek and pretty at the same time. These earrings are on heavy rotation and every chance I have, I wear the necklace too. She has some lovely stuff up in her etsy shop and at Mabel and Zora here in Portland, so if you are looking for just the thing to wear with a sundress, she’s your girl.

More on our Portland crafty adventures coming soon to the Adorn blog!

I wish I were back in Los Angeles this weekend… there are so many great things going on. But I have plenty to do up here, and Kayte is visiting tomorrow, so Portland is not such a bad place to be!

On Friday, Billie and Tootie of ReForm School are hosting one of their amazing art openings: “Totem,” a solo show of Savanna Snow’s work.

On Saturday, Tinlark Gallery is showing “Modern Day Fables,” new work from Laura Normandin, Ann Wood and Maggy Rozycki Hiltner. Carla and Goli from CRAFT will be teaching you how to make your own beads from recycled paper, too!

And on Sunday there’s the spectacular Felt Club: XL Summer show, with swag bags for the first 250 people, door prizes, free craft classes, food from Auntie Em’s, music, and of course the stylings of the incomparable Charles Phoenix.

Jenny was interviewed for an article in today’s LA Times — don’t miss the shout-out to Cathy of California’s lovely mushroom pincushions!

I am a new but devoted Sewing Center West customer, and bought my Pfaff ClassicStyle Quilt sewing machine there last month — it’s been a dream to use, which has been especially nice since I am in the middle of a big quilt project.

I went back over to the store today for my free machine class #1, which is mostly orientation, troubleshooting, and lots of specific little tips and tricks… and found out that the store is changing its name to The Sewing Room. Who knew?

I love this place — it is so worth driving over to the west side. Everyone is super friendly and they are always running cheap tune-up specials — print this coupon out for a $29.97 overhaul!

My new machine set to zig-zag stitch. I love it so much.

Next week is my second free class: beading, cording, buttonholes, stitch in the ditch, and quilting. Exciting!

If you go:

The Sewing Room
11439 SW Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy (next to Fred Meyer)
Beaverton, OR 97005
503-643-4666