I’m happy to announce that it’s my week to have a free craft project sheet at the Knittn Kitten! The week actually started Tuesday (ahem) but I’m a little swamped right now, so here’s a peek at my project a day after Diane and Heather were nice enough to write about it…

This is an ultra-simple, very customizable little pincushion project — very easy and quick to make. If you buy a half-yard of a cotton print and a half-yard of corduroy at the Kitten you can make 44 of them, believe it or not!

I’ve included instructions for a tufted version and a button-decorated version, but you can also embroider, gocco-print, or embellish them any way you please. They would also make nice sachets if you’d prefer. Okay, now that I’ve finished the hard sell, the project sheet is waiting for you over at the shop, so stop by anytime to pick up some pretty new things and a project sheet (or all of them!).

Last week’s project was Christine’s darling cupcake patches! I got a copy of her instructions yesterday and they’re fantastic. You can still get hers and the other project how-tos — each one is in its own section with the materials you’ll need for the craft.

In other news, I have a new favorite recipe… we ended up with pounds and pounds of green tomatoes before we pulled our garden out

(this is after making three rounds of enchiladas — looks like we’ll have at least two more to go)

and the Oregonian ran this great idea for using them: squash, bean and cheese enchiladas with green chile and green tomato sauce. We’ve made three batches, each one slightly different, and the last one was the best. It’s definitely on heavy rotation around here and it’s so easy to double the recipe and freeze half.

My adaptations are: use half black beans and half pintos, use one and a half chipotle peppers instead of one, and add chopped red peppers to the filling. (Oh, and I left out the cilantro, I hate that stuff but you probably like it so feel free to leave it in, of course!)

I wanted to mention two super cool craft classes going on tomorrow here in Portland…

Alison Wood is teaching Stamp Carving at 100th Monkey Studios!

12-2 at 100th Monkey, $15
110 SE 16th Ave, Portland

And Cathy Pitters is teaching Sugar Skull Decorating at DIY Lounge — with music and refreshments, too!

3-6 at DIY Lounge, $40
1639 NE Alberta St., Portland

One last thing: I am so excited that my Modern Heirloom Quilt will be part of the Aurora Colony Annual Quilt Show, which opens today (Friday the 16th). We’re going on Sunday afternoon — I can’t wait to see the quilts!

Old Aurora Colony Museum
15018 Second Street NE, Aurora, OR 97002
(503) 678-5754
October 16-25, 2009
10:00 am – 4:00 pm Daily

Wow, this week (month? however long?) has been crazy and I have been hoping to find the time to post about some stuff I’m excited about, but that has been in very short supply. I have a big deadline November 1 and after that I hope to resurface and actually make some fun things and write about them! Thankfully Pearl’s Halloween costume is already done (in personal record-setting time thanks to CRAFT:) and the 14 pounds of apples I haven’t made applesauce with yet will keep for awhile. I have high hopes for November!

In the meantime, I went to the Knittn Kitten last week with Benedikta and got a good look at some of the new free craft patterns! Ethel has arranged them all around the shop so you can see the finished projects in their natural habitat. There are still free pattern sheets for all of the crafts to date up for grabs, so no worries if you couldn’t make it to the store until now…

This week’s new project is Joelle Groendes‘ appliqued kitty bag! So cute.

There are also Diane’s pretty patchwork tea towels in the fabric section,

Teresa’s fancy hairpins near the seed beads,

and Heather’s striking statement necklace with the jewelry findings.

And my pattern sheet will be over there as of the 27th — here’s a sneak peek at my project on the vintage fabric table!

I made some super simple button square pincushions using some favorite prints, corduroys, and buttons from a long-ago Kitten haul. You can see some of the current vintage treasures in the mix now — any of those patterns would be so cute with a button or two mixed in.

And by the way, if you’re not within range of the Kitten, we are planning to put together an ebook of all the patterns sometime next month! More on that soon.

p.s. The library has posted a podcast of the Crafty Writers Talking event last month that Diane, Alicia and I were part of — thank you again to the library for organizing the talk and to all of the crafty folks who came to it!

I finished the Yoda costume for Pearl this week and I’m so pleased that the tutorial is up over at the CRAFT: blog!

I had a lot of fun making all the bits and pieces, especially the hat (I actually ended doing a set of three, in baby, small toddler, and big toddler sizes — they are super easy to sew up!)

and the snake.

You can see the whole tutorial with lots more photos over here — thank you, CRAFT! And now, instead of frantically knitting away on Halloween afternoon (ahem), I have a whole month to do a few little costume extras. First order of business: add some snaps to keep that snake securely on a speedy Yoda’s shoulders!

p.s. just a friendly reminder, please ask my permission before using any of my photos… thank you!!

I’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.

Yesterday 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!

Yoda!

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).

I 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!

I’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

We’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.