If you’re in Portland on Sunday, I hope you’ll swing by the Crafty Wonderland Super Colossal Sale! There will be over 200 vendors selling all things handmade and awesome, plenty of food, a full bar with signature crafty cocktails, and a full day of free craft projects to try at the super-sized DIY table.

In fact, I will be one of the craft demo-ers — so if you’re there between 1 and 2:30, please come say hi and make some Button It Up Hairclips with me!

Here’s the full schedule of craftiness:

11:00am-12:30pm Personalized Fortune Cookies
with Kristen Rask of Schmancy and author of Plush You!

1:00pm-2:30pm Button It Up Hairclips
with Susan Beal of West Coast Crafty and author of Button It Up and Bead Simple

3:00pm-4:30pm Vintage-Themed Glass Tile Ornaments
with Maria Raleigh of Collage

5:00pm-6:30pm Embroidered Holiday Cards
with Diane Gilleland of CraftyPod and author of Kanzashi In Bloom

Cathy + Torie announced something else cool about this year’s sale, too:

DONATE SMALL HOUSEHOLD ITEMS FOR COMMUNITY WAREHOUSE!
This year we are proud to team up with the Community Warehouse, a local non-profit agency that collects and redistributes donated household goods to individuals and families in need. Stop by the Community Warehouse booth (#11) to learn more about their organization and also to make a donation if you’d like. They will be accepting gently used small household items like toasters, pots + pans, utensils, can openers, alarm clocks, towels, blankets + sleeping pillows.

Hope to see you!

Crafty Wonderland Super Colossal Sale
Sunday, December 13th
at The Oregon Convention Center, Hall D
(777 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Portland, OR)
from 11am-7pm
FREE + All Ages

I’m so excited that our collection of Kitten-inspired projects has been turned into a snappy new e-book, Crafts for the Knittn’ Kitten (courtesy of Diane Gilleland and her tireless Craftypod Publishing). The beautiful craft supply photos are by Lee Meredith, and the Kitten projects graphic is by Diana Schreiber. So thanks to Diane, the book is all ready to go… and it’s completely free, just click over here to download* a copy for yourself!

The e-book includes all these how-to projects:

Bib-Style Statement Necklace, by Heather Mann
Crocheted Ribbon & Bead Necklace, by Heather Mann
Knit + Stitch Zipper Pouch, by Lee Meredith
Seed Bead Hairpins, by Teresa Sullivan
Dress Up A Dish Towel, by Diane Gilleland
Felt Halloween Bag, by Joelle Groendes
Cupcake Applique, by Christine Blystone
Jersey Doily Scarf, by Bridget Benton
and
Fabric + Button Pincushion, by me!

We’re so happy to share these projects with everyone — all we ask in return is that you support your local independent craft stores. They need you!

And if you make any of the projects, we’d love to see them — please add them to the Knittn Kitten flickr pool! You can also see the photos of our projects there, along with plenty of other vintage and crafty Kitten delights.

*Diane says: When people click on the ebook graphic, the download should start automatically. Some web browsers will display the PDF immediately. For others, the customer will have to look in his or her Downloads folder and click on the file there to open it.

Just want to announce (a bit late) that Lee Meredith and Bridget Benton have unveiled their lovely craft projects to wrap up the free Knittn Kitten pattern parade!

Lee designed these extremely cool knitted zipper pouches — they are darling. I love the contrast vintage fabric lining.

and Bridget made a great series of pieces with repurposed t-shirts and crocheted doilies — this shirt she said was inspired by Crochet Adorned, and a scarf inspired by Generation T.

All the project sheets are available at the shop, and even better for those who are not local, and probably very sick of these Portland-only posts — Diane is hard at work on turning our projects into a free e-book, which should be coming soon! I’ll post about that when it’s ready to go.

On another note, I just want to say again how much I love The Sewing Room (fka Sewing Center West). I bought my Pfaff from them two years ago, which has been a dream to sew with. Yesterday it freaked out for the first time ever, and this morning they fixed it for free in less than ten minutes and even carried it to the counter for me while I wrangled Pearl. If you are in the area and looking for a good shop to buy from, or get your machine tuned up (here is a coupon for that by the way), they are awesome.

Also, they are right next to a big giant Fred Meyer, and thanks to the race car shopping cart that Pearl loves to drive around the store for about four times as long as she likes to sit in a regular cart, I got all the ingredients for the sweet potato gnocchi with mushrooms and spinach in this month’s Sunset. Not the worst time my sewing machine has broken down on me, that’s for sure!

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!)

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 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.

I 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

I’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!