Saturday Crafternoon (Another Great Weekend!)

This Saturday, I had the pleasure of hosting a bunch of awesome crafters for the first ever Saturday Crafternoon. This craft event was made possible by Adam and Kelly, some folks I had known about 5 minutes from a brief interaction at Barcamp; my OG craft buddy, Crystal with her daughter, Pape; Kat (who I met once at Crystal’s last birthday party), her son, Colin; a friend I hadn’t seen since high school, Ferrie with her daughter, Hailey; Ferrie’s friend and fellow crafter, Tina (who I also went to high school with, but we looked at each other with the same, should-I-be-embarrassed-not-to-know-you-? followed by but-that-was-a-long-time-ago face); and my mommy. Chain-mail making, Jewelry beading, scrapbooking, sewing, fabric cutting, knitting and organizing – oh, and ice cream! – left me mushy with an overstimulated brain. And while we all definitely earned our craft badges, I’d also like to hand out some adventure badges:

• Ferrie and I attended the same Junior High and High School and I really hadn’t seen her since then. So, it was a wonderful surprise to me that when she found me on Facebook a couple of days before the craft party, we quickly discovered that we both liked to craft. After a few email exchanges, I had invited her for the crafternoon and she’d accepted, noting that she’d be bringing another friend who likes to sew and, by the way, did I want any of the left over fabric they discard at work? (Of course, I said of course!) Even better than her showing up, she decided that she wanted to learn how to sew and managed to make and stuff a couple of pillows during the crafternoon (that’s her in the pic with one of her pillows). Congratulations, Ferrie!
• Similarly, I’d briefly met Adam and Kelly at Barcamp two weeks before. We probably exchanged no more than 5 sentences with each other, tweeted a few more and without hesitation they RSVP’d, were the first ones to arrive and were one of the last to leave. *** Extra props to Adam for being our token fella for the day. ***

Despite my habit of taking as few pictures as possible during my most memorable moments (probably because I am simply busy enjoying myself), I hear Kat took some (which I KNOW she is going to post – right, Kat?) so we might actually get to see our works in the making!

THANKS for the vibe and inspiration, crafternooners! AGAIN! AGAIN! AGAIN!

20090520 update: Kat posted about it in her blog, too!

(15) Knitting Needles (for Socks?)

‘Wanted to go with a bigger picture so I can show my sharpie handywork (the stripes).

A few weeks ago, just before TAD started, I posted some instructions on how to make knitting needles. Then, yesterday, while buying veggies for our shabu night, I found a 100-pack of bamboo skewers! I can’t post how much that bag cost me for fear of present receivers seeing how much I spent on their present (just remember, if that’s you – there was and effort investment post-purchase). Anyway, these make perfect knitting needles for those very thin yarns (used, I think, for socks) – and the best part… they are skewers for bar-b-que, so they are already pretty smoothly sanded with the expectation that you may be inserting them into your mouth. I supposed you could still do that, but I still prefer that with the meat option. I still used the sandpaper – mostly on the tips I shaved.

YAYY, BLOG!!!

what a month! let’s see (i actually made a list of things to blog about and still haven’t gotten around to it… let me try to summarize:

1. successful 18th birthday party planning, through a nasty sinus/lung infection
2. made a neck warmer that had so many iterations and ended up being pretty plain in the end
3. came up with my own mac and cheese recipe:
   
4. made a sock monkey:
   
5. made a cape
   
6. made a pincushion
   
7. got our meat slicer (ya, shabu!)
   
8. watched a lot of craft shows and cleaned up the dvr to only record the ones i liked (sorry, sue hausmann – i will pick you up again when i am more advanced and can follow you – i am just currently overwhlemed by your amazing skill level)
9. sewing machine died (and oogling a bunch of new ones while i borrow my mom’s spare – what a horrible time to break down – just as i am actually starting to use it)
10. got a road bike (yayy!)
    
11. fish eye soup (soooo good!)
    
12. started going to bike oven
13. made some knitting needles and lived to tell about it
14. oh, ya – and joined thing-a-day