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!

I miss you blog

Ok, SO I have been seeing other microblogs (BrightKite, Twitter). It’s because they are easily accessible through my phone – I only even really need to post on Brightkite and it takes care of Twitter and Facebook for me. Not to worry, though – your posts are still updating on Facebook, in its very own tab (I checked to make sure). And, look, if it helps you feel better, when i’m posting on Brightkite, I’m thinking of you, WordPress. Really.
So, I really wanted to try something with all that crazy shiny pastely green fabric I got loads and loads of and I ended up making this “scarf”/”collar” thingie. My first attempt was with the legs of some of McKay‘s old pants – it was a bit too short after all that pleating, but it was a good starter. ‘Gotta go make sweets for Barcamp. Who’s going?

Happy Birthday, Yvonne (Delayed Broadcast)

Are these images too small? It was out friend, Yvonne’s birthday last week and I wanted to make her something. I spent a couple of weeks mulling it over and could not think of anything I would make that she might want to use! (Sorry, Yvonne!) So, I woke up the morning of her party, really still wanting to make something and still drawing a blank. I was also feeling bad because about a year ago, she started planning for this birthday and wanted to invite a couple of friends to celebrate it with her in Hawaii. Being the slacker I can sometimes be, I never really committed to coming along.
So, she did end up making plans to go but she ended up having a birthday bash instead, courtesy of Holland and Kristen (hubby and sis). It was awesome – we had some very yummy food and in a nutshell it was a party of meat and cupcakes. We ate, we laughed, we ate, warmed ourselves by the firepit while the sun was still out, ate some more, played scattergories, and then ate some more. Did I mention we ate a lot of food?
Well, I decided to make her an island-themed birthday card. I’m particularly excited about how the “happy”, “birthday” and “YVONNE” came out because it was 6 in the morning, i had not had my coffee and i did not pencil it in before i cut out those shapes – Yes, I did it FREEHAND! (is it obvious that I’m proud of it?) I’m in fact so excited about it that I’m posting a bigger one below so you can have a closer look. (I guess I should have taken individual pictures of the shapes, too, but it’s what I’ve got so there – incidentally, as I’m writing this, I’m realizing that the coffee i had today appears to be kicking in).

Bonus: The only picture I took at Yvonne’s party is of McKay and Pieter. Just two dudes. Hanging out.

Second Etsy listing!!!

Eventually, I’m just going to post them up there, but I am still slow at it and it is still really exciting to complete my projects and be able to get them up there, so, check out my second etsy posting. I hope you enjoy the purse.

This time, I also used a “model” for my purse – I found a dress form at a thrift store that was closing down. I haven’t yet decided whether I am going to keep it or sell it, but I thought she can be useful in the meantime.

I also decided to start selling some stuff on ebay again. Here’s a link if you want to see what I’ve got up there. (Of course, I’m a bit more excited about my etsy stuff since every piece, so far, has been somewhat of a labor of love).

COFFEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

It’s midnight thirty and i am now trying to figure out how to force myself asleep. This weekend, McKay and I went thrifting and I found this great linen sheet that had an embroidery pattern on the edge. Without measuring it, I assumed it would be enough fabric to make curtains out of for our bay window. Besides, it was 10 bucks and I figured that if I can’t use it for that, I can probably use it for something else – it’s good fabric and cheap to boot!
Well, I made it home, unfolded the fabric and found that the edge had been patched on and the embroidery pattern overlaid on that – that edge, only able to fit one or two of the panels I’d be making, would have driven one of us crazy (or maybe both of us). So, I needed a new strategy.
I went to another thrift store and, what a lucky surprise – I found another flat sheet in ALMOST same fabric – a shade darker and a hair thicker and plain (no embroidery) for 8 bucks! Of course, I thought it was the same exact fabric until I got it home and compared them side by side. Fortunately, the second piece I found is actually big enough to make all 4 panels… maybe it was King Sized.
After some deliberation, preliminary designs, meetings with my husband/housemate/co-designer of our place, I decided to do what already was thinking of doing when I realized the fabrics didn’t match…
I’m cutting out the embroidery from the original fabric (sorry, I forgot to take pics BEFORE I started hacking away – it WAS 2 rows of flowers one one end of the sheet with some kind of squarish geographic pattern in between – the one with this post is of the “detached” flowers in progress), one embroidered flower at a time, and use each flower and applique (is that a verb?) it onto the other fabric. Now that I’m about 12 flowers cut into it, I ask myself, “WHY?”, which is immediately followed by the question “HOW… am I going to applique these flowers onto the other linen and not make a big mess of this project?”, for which I am still formulating an answer. Tune in to find out…

Meanwhile (speaking of tuning in) I also setup my blog on Feedburner and now have nifty buttons that you can click on to subscribe to my ramblings (or the responses to them). Yayy!!! (?) Here’s one now:

Hello, Etsy!!!

I made a purse this week (with my own pattern!) and finally got
my first Etsy posting off the ground. Yayy! I’m worried about all sorts of things, and I can probably write it all out and psych myself out, so I won’t… anyway, it’s out there now. So, there.

Another Weekend, Another Purse

I have been determined to stay in my pajamas all day long today and so far, so good. I spent some of yesterday and part of today finishing ONE purse. I’ve gotta get faster at this stuff! Thanks again to Cesar for my abundant fabric supply!

Well, this one is made with denim on one side and some kind of stretchy cottony greenish fabric with a bit of a sheen on it. I tried a new technique – pulling the edges to square off the bottom (makes triangles of the corners.

This morning, we went to Starbucks and I realized how awesome my house barista is! I used to love the SB cappuccino and this morning it was just alright. It even had more milk than what McKay makes at home and it was still not nearly as smooth. How lucky am I feeling right now? At least I managed to stay in my pajamas – masked it with a scarf a coat and some boots (and now that I’m reading that it sounds like I might have been planning to flash someone).

Goodbye February

I was a little shocked and sad to find out that ThingADay was only for the month of February. I was just about getting geared up for the rest of the year and all of a sudden, it ended! So, I’ve been trying to keep myself busy despite my separation anxiety and I have actually continued to make stuff!! Yayy!

The picture above is of my first purse – still from my free fabric stash. Click on the link and you’ll see more pics of my recent projectsincluding a couple of vinyl purse/wallets I completed – the yellow one with Kariel’s artwork as the main design/art on the purse. I need to find craft time now.

(28) What is this?

It’s not quite done, but I am hosting a party today and I really won’t be doing anymore for it today, so I thought I’d get it in here now and maybe post some updates later…
I was inspired by a scarf I saw somewhere on the web, and ended up staying up all night to make this: Using mostly the free fabric I got this week I cut the flower shapes; used some other fabric I already had as the spine/scarf-ish part; used my new sewing machine and some fancy stitches and now I just need to attach the flowers (all but 2 are still just pinned) and bead the centers.
We were watching a movie last night and I fell asleep. When I woke up, I went to check my email; one thing led to another and now here I am. It’s one of those projects where you just let the voice inside take over and you don’t really focus on what you’re making, so now I have this THING and I’m not really sure what it is or what it’s for…It’s about scarf length and width, but I’m not really convinced it makes a good scarf… thoughts?

(27) A cheesy greeting card

I put together some origami just to have a TAD for Friday. I am, however, very curious about 28 and must give it its own post…