beaded hairpins at the Kitten!
September 29, 2009 at 12:28 pm | Posted in chatty, oregon | 3 CommentsI’m sewing away on Pearl’s Yoda costume so I only have a minute — but I wanted to mention that Teresa Sullivan has her new weekly project up for grabs at the Knittn Kitten!
You can still get copies of Heather Mann‘s Statement Necklace how-to from last week (I picked one up a few days ago and I’m going to make some of those soon… yay), and you can get a peek at some of the upcoming projects in the Knittn Kitten flickr pool, too.
Speaking of Heather, she is auditioning to join the blogging team at Apartment Therapy and has her first post up as of yesterday — focusing on the Mod Cross as a design element, very cool! If you like her round-up, please leave a comment for her.
the case of the missing hip holster
September 24, 2009 at 9:46 am | Posted in chatty, oregon | 3 CommentsYesterday afternoon, Pearl and I went out to Oscar & Albert with some friends for a toddler-friendly happy hour (I highly recommend the grilled cheese sandwich). Unfortunately, when we left I dropped my beloved hip holster with my wallet inside
on Division St. and didn’t notice until we got home quite awhile later. I called O&A and they hadn’t seen it, so I went right back up there, looked all around (it was pretty dark by this point), and asked at Petite Provence across the street… and a man had turned in my wallet, all cards intact (thank you!!) to the lost & found there. But there was no sign of my hip holster anywhere…
So, after one last look in the daylight this morning and no dice (I did end up getting coffee and a cheese brioche for breakfast, there are worse places to lose a favorite thing), I thought I’d ask around over here: were you on upper Division last night, and did you happen to see a well-loved battered hip holster on the sidewalk or in the street? Lucky for me, I am right around the corner from Queen Bee world HQ so I can replace it easily… but I loved that little bag, especially since Kate drew it for me.
Most importantly, a huge thank-you to the guy who found my wallet and turned it in! Let me know if I can get you a coffee or a cheese sandwich sometime!
and the costume is…
September 23, 2009 at 10:10 am | Posted in chatty, crafting with kids, holidays, I love to make things... | 5 CommentsYoda!
I spent 45 minutes wandering around the madness of the 30% off sale at Fabric Depot holding my trusty Yoda action figure up to different bolts of fabric, but I think I got some good ones! The polarfleece is super soft and cozy for her hat, and I liked the cheerful orange-stars quilting cotton for her snake — after I chose the dull green and dark brown, the bright safety-orange felt I’d originally picked up felt like it completed a miniature hunting palette or something. So since she’s one and a half and I get to make the costume, stars it is!
I’ll post photos and a tutorial when it’s done… I’m going to finish it early this year (unlike last Halloween when I was still fringing a scarf a half-hour after the party started).
Halloween crafting and statement necklaces
September 22, 2009 at 2:37 pm | Posted in chatty, crafting with kids, free crafty, oregon | 2 CommentsI just got most of what I need for Pearl’s Halloween costume at Fabric Depot’s 30% off sale… I figured I’d carry on the tradition of posting some of my craft supplies
last year’s sneak peek – I made her a Harry Potter costume!
and seeing if anyone wants to guess what the costume I’m making her is!
I’ll reveal all tomorrow.
On another note, Heather Mann* has unveiled her free Knittn Kitten pattern — for a statement necklace — and it is fantastic!
Just stop by the store this week and ask for the free pattern sheet at the counter — everything you’ll need is right in the magical Kitten inventory. Next week there will be a fantastic pattern up for grabs from Teresa Sullivan!
*another hint at what Pearl’s costume is if you’ve been reading my blog recently!
free patterns at the Knittn Kitten!
September 17, 2009 at 12:58 pm | Posted in chatty, crafty events, free crafty, oregon, vintage crafty | 3 CommentsI’m excited to announce that I’m helping out with a fun project — donating a free pattern to support one of my favorite crafty archives, the Knittn Kitten here in Portland!
Each week a different local crafter will be offering up a free project sheet to try, and you can find all the supplies for it in the shop to make your own version. There’s also a new flickr pool celebrating the shop — please join and add your photos of treasures you’ve found, projects you’re making with these patterns, or anything else Kittenish!
Here’s a list of the crafters participating so far…
September 22 – Heather Mann
September 29 – Teresa Sullivan
October 6 – Diane Gilleland
October 13 – Joey Groendes
October 20 – Christine Blystone
October 27 – Susan Beal
November 3 – Lee Meredith
November 10 – Bridget Benton
All of us will post photos of the new projects on our blogs every week and of course you can also see them all in the flickr group as they’re unveiled! Thank you to Diane and Christine for coming up with this great idea. The Kitten is a very special place and I am grateful to have it just a couple of zip codes away, so I’m very glad to support it with some fun craftiness!
Please help spread the word about the pattern giveaway, and if you’re local and have a chance to stop by the Knittn Kitten, I’d love to see what you make!
Here’s a hint about my project… it will involve some of each of these things:
and
crafty writers talking
September 16, 2009 at 3:04 pm | Posted in bead simple, books and mags, button it up, chatty, crafty events, free crafty, oregon | 1 CommentWe’ve been on a pretty blissful eastern Oregon vacation for the last week and off the computer and the cell phone circuit, but I’m back in Portland and loving this gorgeous summer-fall weather… I’m already thinking about Halloween costumes and making a new quilt and tempting stuff like that.
I also wanted to let anyone local know that this coming Sunday (September 20) I’ll be part of Crafty Writers Talking, a panel with Alicia Paulson and Diane Gilleland over at Hollywood Library on books, blogs, craftiness and everything in between. I am really looking forward to it and honored to be on the panel with these two superstars, and would love to say hello if you can make it! All the info is over here and it starts at 2:00.
I’ll be back with more crafty stuff later on this week too… it’s been a crazy end of the summer but I have gotten to do a few things I’m excited about!
p.s. I recently made the not-so-fun decision to change all my photos of Pearl to friends and family only on flickr after an incident where one of them was taken off the site and republished without my consent. Things are resolved now, but I do have a bunch of holes here where the formerly public photos were — I’m leaving a few up where she is a small part of a larger photo for now, but that may change too. So please bear with me while I do some blog-mending over the next while, and my apologies in advance if the re-edited posts all show up on readers again or anything like that.
chic & simple sewing & home ec
September 4, 2009 at 2:17 pm | Posted in books and mags, california, chatty, reviews and interviews | 1 CommentI got a copy of Christine Haynes’ lovely book, Chic & Simple Sewing, a little while back and had a chance to sew myself one of her pieces — the Retro Shift. It’s one of my favorite dresses ever!
Christine gave me some advice on grading the pattern up slightly. (I’m about a size 12 in ready-to-wear sizes, so I just added a little width on each side of the front and back pieces following the cutting lines, but used the L collar piece provided in the book’s patterns as-is.) I made a simple sash to give it some shaping, but I really like the way it fits without it.
I added a layered set of vintage buttons and some tucks to my neckline too. When I have time to sew for fun again, I’m definitely making another one, but this time I think I’ll make the Back-to-School version, which has sleeves and (optional) patch pockets.
What I love about Christine’s designs is how utterly adaptable they are. I was able to change the size of my dress pretty easily, and the simplicity of the lines on many of the pattern pieces give you an idea of how to adjust them to fit you in either direction. Even more, I love the custom bits and pieces you can add to her basic shapes — they make the clothes totally yours.
Diane sewed herself the Back-to-School dress and it’s gorgeous!
She used vintage fabric from the Kitten and added a casing with a drawstring tie belt as well. So cute. I also adore the fabric flower she’s modeling here, from her wonderful book, Kanzashi in Bloom.
I saw Karissa Jo’s fantastic Baby Doll dress in the Chic & Simple Sewing flickr pool and just loved it too.
She made it as an anniversary dress, and added some very cool modifications, like custom pockets and contrast fabric, which you can read more about here.
Meanwhile, Christine has some fantastic sewing classes lined up at Jenny Ryan’s beautiful new Home Ec. store in Los Angeles!
She has some amazing classes for fall: Sewing 101, Baby Doll Top, Reversible Wrap Skirt, and a couple of others.
And Jenny is throwing a party tonight to celebrate her beautiful new space — I wish I could go!
Lots more details are here, and Jenny says:
Our Grand Opening Celebration is Friday, September 4 from 7-10pm. We’ll have snacks and drinks, and there will be fun crafty surprise giveaways to boot. Be there!
Home Ec. Silver Lake
3815 W. Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90026
geek crafts!
September 3, 2009 at 1:49 pm | Posted in geek crafts, oregon | 1 CommentI’m so excited to announce that I’m contributing to the fantastic geekcrafts.com blog every Thursday now! This morning was my second post so I wanted to do a mini-round-up over here to let folks know…
Last week, I spotlighted two fantastic Yoda crafts from Heather Mann — her Yoda hat and market bag tutorials. Heather makes the coolest stuff, and these two are some of my favorites out of everything she crafts (which is saying something!). Her Dollar Store Crafts blog is awesome — tons of inexpensive, fun and accessible projects to try. The cost of everything you need for stitching up a Yoda hat is under a dollar!
And today I posted about geek crafts at the state fair — we spotted some gems there, and my favorite was a giant, super-intricate Yoda in the LEGO competition!
I also found a wood-burned Twilight plaque and some amazingly rad 4-H stuff. And Natalie was nice enough to leave a comment with some of her finds from the Michigan State Fair, and let me post a couple of her photos, so now you can admire a Gollum cake and some great kid geek crafts and collections too. Awesome!
I’ll be writing over there every Thursday, so if you make (or see) any geeky crafts you’re excited about, please let me know! And thank you so much to Shayne and Renee for having me.
our second trip to the state fair
September 2, 2009 at 1:23 pm | Posted in chatty, crafty events, oregon | 5 CommentsWe got up early Saturday and headed to Salem for our second trip to the Oregon State Fair!
We got there in time for an early lunch, so the first order of business was eating some delicious fried food. We stuck with tradition and had deep-fried zucchini, but this time we ordered a sampler platter with mushrooms, artichokes and onion rings, too. Along with that magnificence, we split a corn on the cob, a huge Coke, a vegan Polish sausage dog, and of course some chocolate-dipped cheesecake on a stick.
(photo from last year, this year it disappeared too quickly to document it…)
Pearl had a great time! She loved seeing the horses, cows and sheep, pointed at everything cool-looking, danced to the music, and swiped Andrew’s Tillamook cheese sample and triumphantly wolfed it down.
Last year she was such a little baby… here she is peacefully napping with her new airbrushed hat, at four months old. Now she’s a speedy toddler who wants bites of everything!
We saw so much cool crafty stuff this time, just like last year. Pendleton hosted a wool-felting booth that was awesome, they gave each person some hanks of beautifully dyed wool and a bar of soap to put inside.
Here’s mine, once I’d picked my wool colors, and just before the soap stage:
I started my project there and brought it home to finish — but (don’t tell my Mee Mee) I realized I don’t actually own any pantyhose, the crucial last-step ingredient to the felting itself. So I don’t have an after photo to show yet, oops.
And we visited the Weaving Guild booth, where you could try carding wool (on that wild-looking contraption, and a couple of others) and spinning your own yarn, as well as check out some incredible finished art pieces. It made me even more inspired to try the Weaving Un-Loomed projects I’ve been dreaming about…
I saw this rad necktie quilt that instantly reminded me of Diane, too!
I love the Oregon Sesquicentennial (and the 1959 Centennial, too), so it was great to see some handmade 150th birthday cakes on display…
There were also a couple of Sesquicentennial Lego concoctions!
And I was thrilled to see Natalie S. Barnes’ Oregon Centennial table setting in the competition too, so cool. She wrote the sweetest letter about using her family’s collectibles from 1959 — it was such a charming effect.
If you’re nearby, don’t miss the fair this year! It runs through Labor Day (next Monday) so you still have plenty of time to head on over. I’m seriously tempted to go back again and try carding and spinning this time… along with another round of cheesecake. And maybe get an airbrushed t-shirt this time?
If you go:
Oregon State Fair
Corner of 17th St. & Sunnyview Ave., Salem, Oregon
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