kitten projects + enchiladas
October 28, 2009 at 2:13 pm | In I love to make things..., chatty, cooking is crafty too, free crafty, oregon | 1 CommentI’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!)
kitten crafts revisited
October 14, 2009 at 10:50 am | In chatty, free crafty, oregon | Leave a CommentWow, 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.
![blackcatbag[1]](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2552/3952029018_6570210344_o.jpg)
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!
Halloween crafting and statement necklaces
September 22, 2009 at 2:37 pm | 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 | 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 | 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.
crochet, creatures, + cinema
August 13, 2009 at 2:04 pm | In art and craft, books and mags, california, crafty events, free crafty, oregon, washington | Leave a CommentI hardly ever get to use all three of my mighty Oregon, Washington and California tags for a single post, but today is an exciting exception!
Here in Portland, we are in for a treat tonight: Linda will be at Powell’s at 7:30, talking crochet and signing copies of Crochet Adorned! You can also check out this interview with her on the Oregonian’s knitting blog, and her live segment on this morning’s AM Northwest show — and she took this lovely photo of her book while visiting the Rose Garden yesterday. So pretty.
I’ll be writing more about her beautiful book tomorrow with some photos from her event…
And tomorrow night August 14, Ryan Berkley has a fantastic art show, Creature People, opening at Schmancy in Seattle!
I wish I could make it in person, but luckily for those of us not in the Evergreen State there will be plenty of online awesomeness to admire.
And all weekend, Handmade Nation is showing at Cinefamily in Los Angeles! Woo hoo!
Check out the Cinefamily site for lots more info on the gift bags, giveaways, book signing, mini-craft fair, and more!
If you go:
Linda Permann at Powell’s, 1005 W. Burnside St, Portland
Thursday, August 13 at 7:30 pm
(and at Yarn Garden, 1413 SE Hawthorne Blvd, Portland on Saturday August 15 from 1 to 3 pm)
Ryan Berkley at Schmancy Toys, 1932 2nd Ave, Seattle
Friday, August 14 from 6 to 9 pm
Handmade Nation at Cinefamily, 611 N. Fairfax, Los Angeles
Saturday, August 15 at 12 noon and 7 pm
Sunday, August 16 at 3, 5, 7, and 9 pm
urban craft uprising!
July 30, 2009 at 2:24 pm | In books and mags, crafty events, free crafty, washington | Leave a CommentI’m very excited about heading up to Seattle for Urban Craft Uprising on Saturday!
I’ll be signing copies of Button It Up (plus a few copies of Bead Simple for good measure) from 1 to 2 that afternoon.
And from 2:30 to 3:30, Kristen Rask and I will be doing a super fun crafty demo together, Button Mania! You can make yourself some button hairclips or sewn accessories in your favorite colors — we’ll have all the stuff you need for both projects and you can wear your new fanciness home!
There will be tons of other crafters and authors there, too, including Diane Gilleland, Becky Stern, Jenny Hart, Jennifer Worick, Brookelynn Morris, Tonia Davenport, and Moxie. Check out the crafty demos and author signings schedules for all the details. I’d love to say hi so please come by if you’re free!
And I am thrilled that some of my favorite crafters like Berkley Illustration and Ex Libris Anonymous are on the vendor list.
Hope to see you Saturday!
Megan Nicolay at Powell’s tonight!
July 20, 2009 at 7:21 am | In books and mags, crafty events, free crafty | 1 CommentI’m so excited that my friend Megan Nicolay is doing an event at Powell’s tonight for her new book, Generation T: Beyond Fashion. I snapped this photo in the window at Powell’s last week…
I have to run, this morning is the first day of my class (after an amazing weekend in the same space piecing quilt squares and thinking about color all the time) but I’ll be back with more about the Denyse Schmidt workshop soon and I hope to see you tonight!
If you go:
Megan Nicolay at Powell’s
tonight (July 20) at 7:30 pm
1005 W. Burnside
Portland, OR 97209
Denyse Schmidt’s lecture tonight!
July 17, 2009 at 7:45 am | In art and craft, crafty events, free crafty, oregon | 4 CommentsI’m so happy that the Summer of Making is finally here — the craft portion begins tonight, when Denyse Schmidt is giving a lecture at the Museum of Contemporary Craft! She’ll describe her work, her process, and her approach to craft, and share images of new and in-progress projects… including a very special sneak preview of her upcoming Hope Valley fabric line! Denyse’s talk starts things off before her two-day workshop this Saturday and Sunday — which I am thrilled to be taking.
I had a chance to speak to her for a few minutes yesterday about the workshop, her current projects, and her thoughts on contemporary quilting.
image courtesy of American Craft magazine via Summer of Making
Can you tell me a bit about the two-day workshop? I know you usually teach one-day classes.
Denyse: Yes, this is a new experience — more a combination of the regular and advanced Improvisational Patchwork classes. There’s so much more time that I think we’ll be able to take things quite far. Everyone will be working quite hard, and hopefully we’ll be doing some really cool stuff! I’m glad everyone in the class is giving themselves the gift of time to focus on making.
What have you been working on lately?
I’ve recently completed some quilts and and I have some others in progress. I’ll be sharing images of all of them at the lecture, as well as previews of my new Hope Valley fabric line! I don’t have fabric in hand yet but I will be able to show the designs. [Hope Valley will be coming out this fall - check out this tantalizing preview post at True Up for a bit more on the line!]
What are your thoughts on quilting these days?
There’s such a powerful interest in quilting now. I started my business 12 years ago and in the last 5 years I’ve seen interest build on the do-it-yourself end. There was such a renaissance of knitting a few years ago, and it seems to have carried over into “domestic crafts” now. Quilting has some built-in challenges, like the time factor and the need to use a sewing machine, so it’s been great to see the interest in it grow.
The Gee’s Bend quilts have been a big influence, too. And before that, there was a pivotal show of quilting at the Whitney in the 70s (“Abstract Design in American Quilts,” 1971), and I ran across the show catalog, which was a whole book of images, when I was starting my business. Jonathan Holstein wrote the introduction. He (and Gail van der Hoof) collected American quilts and in this show they were treated like contemporary paintings — put on the wall to view in that context for the first time.
Not all of them were masterpieces, not all were well made, some were quirky and simple, but they were so individual. In a world of traditional quilt shows and art quilts, they were really making a statement. And the Gee’s Bend show that opened in Houston and then went to the Whitney in 2002 was the first time since then that quilts were shown that way.
Design and the straightforward approach are what’s so interesting to me. I always make it up as I go along — the work seems more true that way.
Thank you, Denyse!
If you go:
Denyse Schmidt’s lecture
Friday, July 17, 2009
5:30 – 6:30pm
Museum of Contemporary Craft
724 Northwest Davis Street, Portland
The lecture is free and open to the public. Hope to see you there!
win a free class in the Summer of Making!
July 8, 2009 at 3:10 pm | In bead simple, button it up, free crafty, oregon | 3 CommentsI’m very grateful to PNCA for generously offering up a spot in my Bead + Button Jewelry class for someone to win — the winner will take the class for free, with all tuition and fees are covered, a $275 value! Just leave a comment here on their blog, on their Facebook page, or mention it on your own blog or Facebook by this Saturday, and you are entered in the drawing. All the details are here.
The class meets July 20-23 from 10am – 3pm at the college, and you can find out lots more information and download the class syllabus here. I’m very excited about it! I would love to see some crafty friends there, so if you’re interested in learning new jewelry and embellishment craft techniques, and having a whole four days to try all of them out, please go ahead and comment there!
The other Summer of Making classes are all so fantastic — Artful Blogging (which meets every Wednesday night, so convenient), By Hand: Needlework + Macrame, and Contemporary Fiber Arts.
Thank you again to PNCA for hosting this program and for offering the chance to win a class!
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