Tres Holizaar 2010

My first craft show!!

And some of the things I was selling.

I have been incredibly busy over the last two weeks with work, stage managing two shows, and trying to prepare for this event.  I pulled it together in the end, though I did show up more than fashionably late to set up because I was still trying to get ahold of a table.  

My table ended up looking pretty good, and I got lots of compliments and sold some jewelry, some ornaments, and a knitted baby cap!

I was sharing a space with the a fellow crafter who crafts under the name of The Crafty Bandita (find her on facebook!! She does really neat custom silhouettes.)  She made mistletoe headbands out of felt, white seed beads, and red satin ribbon, and I just fell in love with them.  So we did a little swapping of pretty things, earrings for a headband.  

It was a very enjoyable day, and I got a lot out of the process of preparing, as well as being there.  Thanks to the Craft Heroes (http://craftheroes.blogspot.com/) and The Studion@620 for hosting the event!

Finally, Phil and Lil pictures!

So I finally have pictures of the Rugrats costumes I made for my friend!   Here they are:

Halloween... way over due!

It has taken me forever to post about my Halloween projects because I've been waiting for photos from Lil, which I have still not gotten.  So I am plowing on without them.

I pulled together two different costumes for myself, one for a dance 

(Frida in 20 minutes!)







and the other for my party at Doug and Jessie's.





(1970s soul backup singer using my aunt's dress that she made for going to parties in Nigeria in the 70s.)







The party was much fun!  Good folks, everyone had great costumes, and good food!
Jessie and I spent most of the day preparing.

I went a little overboard with the spiderwebs.  But I love the little black spiders I cut out of construction paper!





We had a lot of fun with the food.




Jessie and I collaborated on the "monster toes"- pizza dough with green olive toenails and parmesan cheese knuckle hair, and spicy marinara "blood" dipping sauce.  (Mazzaro's Italian Market rocks! www.mazzarosmarket.com)

I froze rubber gloves filled with cranberry juice (if you try this, make sure they aren't powdered on the inside!)  and we made sangria with cheap wine from Doug's mom.  Hands in the punch!

The beautiful fall leaves were a surprise from Shannon, who had her mom send them down for my birthday!!  So sweet.

The spread!  Notice the neat pumpkin cake Jessie made on the far right?  And lots of beautiful dishes made by various ceramic artist friends.  I love pretty things made by friends!





Anyway, that was my Halloween fun.  I've been working on several fun projects, and trying to get things made for Tres Holizaar, the 3rd annual holiday hand-made market at The Studio@620 (http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=142831552420917), where I will be selling my stuff.  I am most excited about my first attempts at designing my own knitting pattern for a hat! I'll be posting about all that soon.

This week

This week was mostly focused on finishing halloween costumes for some friends of mine.  Since their names are Phil and Lilly (Lil for short), they decided they wanted to go as Phil and Lil from The Rugrats cartoon.








I was enlisted to make the green jumpers for them. I had a lot of fun working out the pattern.  I started out with a basic circle skirt, then reworked it a bit.  I found the perfect fabric at Jay's Fabric Center, and started cutting.

I've got them mostly done now, just have to find the duck patch, and put on the pocket with the white hanky.

Funny, not entirely craft-related, story

I do not have anything interesting to share about my crafty-ness today, but am trying to keep the two posts a week goal, so instead I will tell you about a funny thing that happened to me today.  Please excuse the somewhat scatological nature of the story.  I will be so bold as to sugest that in a very small way it is related to crafts, as it involves craft materials.

My true loves are making things and working in the theater (behind, not on, the stage.)  Neither of those activities are supporting me at the moment, so by day I am a nanny.  

Today it was the Thursday Boys,  twin 6 year olds and a precocious three year old. (I originally took care of them on Thursdays and the name was catchy- boyfriend said it sounds like a christian rock band.  My family and friends now all refer to them as the Thursday boys, and have been entertained by numerous stories about them.)  

The twins had the day off from school, so we decided to go to the local children's museum.  As the boys ran around playing, I noticed the little one's pants were looking a little saggy.  He is completely potty trained, but with some trepidation I called him over and patted his bum to investigate.  Definitely something squishy, but not like the thing I had hoped I wouldn't find.  Confused, I took a peek.  Stuffed down the back of his underpants, the kid had a whole unraveled skein of green yarn.  I started laughing histerically in the middle of the museum.  His brothers wandered over to see what was going on, and one of them volunteered that he had put that there. Before we left the house, the boys had been in one of their potty humor moods, which seems to happen often with little boys.  I had walked into the living room to find them pretending that the laundry basket of clean cloths was a potty, and encouraging the little one to pretend to... use... it.  What I had missed was one of the twins shoving green yarn down his underpants to stand in as the excreted material.  When I put an end to the game, they all forgot about the yarn, and went to put on their shoes.  I love these little guys. 

I am now questioning the appropriateness of this story, but I got a pretty good laugh out of it, so I'll post it in the hopes that someone else may as well!

My methods worked!

So I did not try to finish the quilt late at night.  And it is looking great!  Or great to me, anyway.  I'm excited.  I pinned the batting to the back panel, sewed it down 1/2" in from the edge,  trimmed the batting (so it was not sewn into the next seam, making it bulky), pinned the top to the back and batting, sewed the edges, turned it right side out, pinned top to batting and back, then ironed and sewed along the edge again to keep it from shifting.  Is this a standard way of putting a quilt together?  I imagine it doesn't work as well with larger quilts.  Now I have to tuft it, and it's done!

26" does not equal 36"

Lesson learned: do not cut fabric late at night.  In the morning the pieces will not be the right size!

I was cutting out pieces for a simple quilt I am making for my cousin's baby. (I think it is for him, anyway. Sometimes the planed receiver changes several times when I am making something.)  When I came back to the project the next day, I discovered the strips of brown corduroy I cut for a border were too short- by up to 10"!  Luckily it was a simple fix.  Cut the center fabric down an inch, add squares of fabric at the corners.  Looks like I meant to do that!

Now, does the no late night rule apply to batting?  And I have a feeling I am not doing this part in the "right" way.  I'll let you know how it goes.

In the beginning...

After living through several months of devastating lack of motivation and income, during which I felt very sorry for myself, I have "bucked up" and committed to the deliberate creation of pretty things as a practice, with the intention to sell what I make.  I do not know what this endeavor will look like exactly, but I have resolved to keep doing, and see what comes of it.  I've started this blog in the hopes that writing about my efforts will help keep me, if not motivated, then at least continually recommitting to the exploration of creative processes that make me happy.  And I know a few people who might find my adventures interesting.  So here goes.

My starting goal: two blogs a week