I am so pleased to announce that my friend Nicole Vasbinder’s beautiful new crafts and sewing studio, StitchCraft, is open for business today! I got a sneak peek at it a few weeks ago and it’s just gorgeous inside.

Nicole is such a talented seamstress and designer, and her classes look fantastic — she is an inspiring, encouraging teacher of all things crafty! Here she is at Felt Club XL modeling one of her Queen Puff Puff handbag and headband sets.

So if you are in or near the North Bay, StitchCraft is open Tuesday - Sunday every week, with new classes added all the time. And she’s offering hourly studio time, too — perfect for finishing up that project that has been on your back burner for way too long.

If you go:
StitchCraft
133 ½ Kentucky Street
Petaluma, CA 94952
707-773-4SEW

Just wanted to mention over here that I posted a mini-interview on the Adorn blog with Nancy Flynn about her new craft book, Jeaneology, this afternoon. She and her publisher have generously offered up five copies of the book to readers, so head over there and comment for a chance to win!

Nancy modeling two of her book designs!

In sad news, I read last night that Blueprint is vanishing after the January/February issue. Apparently some of the content will be folded over into Martha Stewart Weddings, and the Bluelines blog and Blueprint site will stay active, but the print magazine is done. I’m really disappointed — I loved the magazine and the look of it was just gorgeous. I’m treasuring my back issues!

And I do love all things Martha, but I’ve been married for two years and I don’t particularly want to buy/subscribe to MS Weddings and flip past all the engagement ring and white dress ads and reception features to get to the lifestyle stuff. (And from the comments on these entries, apparently a lot of Apartment Therapy and Blueprint readers feel the same way!) I wish Blueprint could live on independently, become part of MSL, or go quarterly… it really was amazing and it really wasn’t very wedding-y.

Here are just two of the zillion ideas I loved from the December/January issue:

The gorgeous pink Christmas tree, love those glistening soap-bubble glass orb ornaments!

And such a cool spin on displaying vintage costume jewelry… subtracts all the preciousness.

I’ll miss you, Blueprint!

I wish I could teleport to Texas this weekend! I’ve always wanted to make it to Stitch and so far it’s never worked out… hopefully next year, though. If you are in town, it should be a super crafty weekend of fashion, drinks and fun!

First, of course, there’s Stitch itself: close to 20 runway designers, make-and-take booths galore, super amazing goodie bags to the first 500 attendees, DJs, and ice-cold beer!

And then there’s the guerrilla craft bazaar, featuring over 100 crafty vendors — here’s a tiny sampling of all the indie goods you’ll find there:

One of my favorite designers, Queen Puff Puff, will be selling her beautiful handbags, totes, and accessories. Love her stuff…

And then after the show winds down, stop by the afterparty!

If you’re not within shouting distance of Austin (sob!) here’s a crafty assignment for the weekend: whip up a Prairie Girl-inspired apron for CRAFT’s contest! Just send in photos of your handmade apron for a chance to win.

Taunton has generously offered a copy of Jennifer Worick’s new book, the Prairie Girl’s Guide to Life, to each of the five winners, and their aprons will be featured in the Curio section of the next issue of CRAFT. Send photographs of the aprons you’ve been working on to curio@craftzine.com by November 12th. (Be sure to include your website or Etsy shop!)

I just got a copy of the book and it’s lovely. There’s such a nice mix of 19th-century-meets-21st craft projects to try (think mixing up lavender linen water, making a nine-patch quilt, canning cherries, designing calling cards on a home printer, making candles… even predicting the weather!) and it’s charmingly illustrated and full of sweet little extras. There’s a great CRAFT interview with Jennifer Worick to check out too. I grew up reading all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books and this is the perfect complement to them — don’t miss it.

I was so excited to see Beth Slovic’s “Crafty B*tches” cover story in today’s Willamette Week! She interviewed me and dozens of other crafters for the feature and I really appreciate her graceful, layered approach to crafts and feminism as well as culture and commerce, and Portland as a community inclusive of all these things. So if you never knew that my mom and I marched for the ERA in 1982, or that I tried to take auto mechanics in high school and lasted all of two days before transferring into yet another art class, well, now you do!

Beth highlighted some of my own projects like susanstars and West Coast Crafty, and included some things very near and dear to my heart: my collective PDX Super Crafty, Crafty Wonderland, Diane Gilleland’s craftypod blog and Church of Craft, Jessica Neuman Beck’s Cranky Pals, Amy Karol’s Bend-The-Rules Sewing, Handmade Nation, getcrafty.com, BUST, Etsy, and the Museum of Contemporary Craft. And thanks to the article, I just checked out Mother Made and Andi Zeisler’s embroidered pet portraits for the first time.

Here’s a photo of me in my studio from the article, surrounded by craft implements (the numbers correspond to a list of essentials here in the article — if you’re interested, scroll down):

photo by Chris Ryan for Willamette Week

A few of my favorite things are mixed in there too: a copy of Super Crafty, two of my log cabin pillows, my Cathy of California mushroom pincushion, my shim+sons wall+pocket board, and my Totinette crocodile earrings!

ps: why b*tches? well, I already get a lot of junk traffic and comments from spammy google searches and I figured I didn’t need to tempt fate by spelling it out!

I really love Meg Mateo Ilasco’s creative business bible, Craft Inc., and I’ve been poring over my copy — it covers everything from pricing to PR, and copyright to craft fairs. She interviewed designers in all walks of craft, like Jill Bliss, Lotta Jansdotter and Denyse Schmidt, and includes their advice, triumphs and war stories in special sections throughout. The well-organized chapters walk you through the very beginning stages to the ins and outs of sustaining a thriving, viable business, with plenty of specific examples to help you make decisions along the way.

And tonight, the book launch party is going on at 111 Minna in San Francisco, with some pretty incredible prizes to win!

I wish I were in town for it, it sounds fantastic! I’d love to hear about it if you have a chance to go.

For those of us in other places, tune into the Martha Stewart Show tomorrow (warning: sound) to see Charles Phoenix guest-star! I can’t wait to see his amazing vintage Halloween slides and ephemera. If you have not had the pleasure of seeing Charles’s work yet, you have a treat on the horizon. I have to thank Cathy for introducing me to the wonder of Charles Phoenix and his incredible take on all things vintage and kitschy.

Can you believe that this month is three years since The Sampler started up?!

So I’m sending my best wishes for a happy birthday to Marie, Jennifer, Lynn, and Judieann — you do such a beautiful job with the Sampler each and every month. xo

I got my September Sampler last week and it is just phenomenal. Here’s a snapshot of the lovely contents:

The upper section is all paper goods and cards, the lower left side is jewelry and accessories, and the right side is magazines and a coloring book. So many cool things! My absolute favorites are the Manic Trout necklace, the Wabisabi Brooklyn pendant, the Absolutely Small print, and the Lizard Press letterpress and Imagine That block printed cards. To see some other reviews, check out the Adorn staff’s picks, Natalie’s CRAFT review, and Diane’s Craftypod posts about their Samplers, too!

Meanwhile, to celebrate the big 3, the Sampler is offering a limited edition Sampler Select — only 3 are available! There’s a house theme and and the super cute box is filled with cool handmade things for every room of your home.

Viva Sampler!

Etsy has just premiered its new online magazine, The Storque, this month! They’re posting an ever-changing mix of features like This Handmade Life, How-To, and Craftivism, and spotlighting the crafty goings-on that they’re most excited about.

I’m interviewing Rebecca Pearcy of Queen Bee Creations for an upcoming Storque article, which I’m really looking forward to. By the way, Queen Bee has a new feature: some amazing one-of-a-kind bags posted in a special monthly flickr set. If you see one you like, just call them up and order it over the phone. Plus, you can get free standard shipping on any Queen Bee or Chickpea purchase online (just enter FREEQUEENBEE at checkout) and 20% off all purchases made in the studio through September 20…

In other crafty news, Faythe Levine has just posted a new extended clip from her film, Handmade Nation, featuring even more crafters and business owners. I love the film excerpt and I’m so eager to see the full-length movie — Faythe has done an incredible job. Don’t forget to stop by the HN Etsy shop to see all the cool handmade stuff for sale and support the film project, too.

I’m a huge fan of Craftypod, Diane Gilleland’s fabulous blog and podcast. I just marvel at her energy for all things crafty and the sheer volume of her writing, crafting and podcasting — so inspiring! But let’s face it, we all burn out at some point. It’s so tempting to keep saying yes and doing more and more and more cool things until you realize that you haven’t had a weekend, or made or written a crafty thing just for fun — that’s not to be published, blogged, or spoken for immediately — in months. Oops.

So Diane rounded up six uber-productive crafters and asked them how they balance life, work, and creativity, and the result is her latest podcast, Crafty Overload. Some of my favorite designers, like Cathy, Linda, and Kayte, weigh in with their insights about staying organized and staying sane in the face of it all. Don’t miss it!

Speaking of Diane, she has just overhauled and streamlined her brilliant Portland-centric project, DIY Alert. The newsletter is now totally free of charge and has a more stylish, magazine-like feel, and the site hosts details of all the ongoing classes and events, so the email announcement is freed up for more fun stuff and visuals rather than an endless list of each time and place.

On that note, I’m off to get things ready for our first show later tonight! Hope to get my crafty equilibrium back sometime next week… I definitely hit that crafty overload wall recently, with our show looming and a decent number of high-maintenance deadlines hanging over me, and just shamefacedly realized that I’ve had this skirt cut out and waiting for me to sew it for a month. I can’t wait to finish it and wear it in triumph! Soon, I hope.

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

My write-up of the amazing Renegade Craft Fair (Brooklyn 2007 edition) has just gone up at Venuszine.com if you’d like to check it out! I loved the fair, there was so much incredible handmade stuff to look at… I sold there last year and that was great too, but it was really cool to walk around all day instead of running a booth this time.

Sue and Kathleen, organizers extraordinaire!

My flickr pictures are here, the Renegade flickr pool is here, and the Venus round-up is over here, if you’re interested.