Wool. Felt.

I remember! I remember! Crafting is SO fun!! Aaaargh!

Ok. So. Big Alice really hooked me up. The other day when I wrote about my longing for some affordable wool felt, she left a comment real casual-like about how maybe I should try this place.

(I'm realizing this post may turn into a gush-fest, so you might want to put some galoshes on.)

Over at this place, the wool felt is totally affordable. Not only that, they've done you the giant favor of making color bundles for you. Really adorable bundles! In adorable colors! So many great combinations, it was all I could do to order just one. I have my prudent and wise mind to thank for this.

You've never ordered from them before, and neither has Big Alice. You don't even really know how you feel about wool felt. Yes, the colors are great. But let's just take this slow.

But also? Right next to the bundles? Embroidery floss. Floss that coordinates with the wool felt bundles. They went all Garanimals on my ass! No agonizing over which color goes with which thing. All I had to do was pick the color combos I liked the best.

Dude, slow down. Yes, they've done you the giant favor of making everything go together. But, to reiterate, you don't know how you feel about wool felt. And your plan is to make garland with this felt. Nowhere in the garland recipe is embroidery floss called for. Slow your roll.

So all I did was order the Carnival bundle. That was it. I showed restraint. I was testing it out.

And then it got to my house super fast!

Just because it got to your house really fast doesn't mean you should go right back on there and get more! You haven't made anything with it. You just took it out of the box! Your ability to be wowed is really remarkable. Really.

But look look! 

Is this not the perfect bundle for the garland?! I say yes! Perfect! And it's the perfect excuse to go into that room that I'm trying to make into a craft room and get crafting!

Oh! The excitement is almost too much to handle! I will push unpacked boxes aside. I will find extension cords. I will properly install the new lamp that my Sidekick bought me, and I will officially get crafting!

Way to show restraint in this post. You and I both know you have already begun sewing the garland and that you have photos of the whole hilarious process, and yet you are doling it out across several posts. Prudent. Wise. Stay strong, crazy lady. Stay strong.

I forgot

In the time I've been away from crafting, I've managed to completely forget some pretty fundamental things. How to thread my sewing machine. Where I put my knitting patterns. Things like that. But there are three really big things that I should've remembered but didn't, until today:

1. There are * a billion * beautiful items to make out there in the world.
2. The Purl Bee is a source of many of those beautiful items.
3. Purl wants all of my money. ALL of my money.

So, I want to make this garland, right?

 

Photo from The Purl Bee

Yes, yes. We all want to make this garland. Well, it's a MILLION dollars. So if you have an extra million lying around, this is the project for you. It calls for 10 colors of wool felt at $ 8.50 a pop. That's eighty-five dollars, y'all! For garland! For adorable garland, sure, but ow-wee.

I really want to make it, though. So I thought I'd be all clever and do some bargain shopping for wool felt. I figured it was worth a try.

First, I tried this place. Felt was a little less expensive there, but I couldn't really be sure about the colors. So, I couldn't pull the trigger.

Then I remembered that this place is right around the corner from me now. If it's good enough for the LA season of Project Runway, it should be good enough for me! I went there, thoughtfully looked at all the colors, carefully touched all the weights. Then, before I got in too deep, I checked the prices. Hey! $25-35 a yard! Great! Oh, wait. Not great. Not great at all. Still around the same price as my beloved Purl, I'm pretty sure. I left the store with the invisible thread that the garland pattern calls for, spending a whopping $1.92.

Can you imagine how beautiful my garland is going to be? It will be 5 strands of invisible thread draped from my dining room ceiling. It'll be grand. 

Harumph! The only thing that may save me here is a Purl gift certificate from a year and a half ago that I still have not redeemed. I could throw that at this problem and see where we get. But, really? Shouldn't there be some other way? (Please don't say acrylic felt. I'm so very afraid you'll say acrylic felt. Isn't it a fire hazard? Aaaaargh.)

This whole thing fills me with a gnawing, swirling, crazy mix of desire and trepidation. Hey, there it is! I'm pretty sure that very specific cocktail of feelings is the sign that I'm officially back! No matter what happens with the garland, it was all worth it to get to that.

Learn something new every day

I totally sewed piping.

The details might just be too glorious, nay, too exciting for you. Reading them might cause such a state of euphoria as to render you useless in your day-to-day goings-on. And I care for you and your goings, so no details. (This is also a part of a holiday gift, so that little peek is all you're getting for now.)

However. Allow me to reiterate: I totally sewed piping.

Also, thank you SO much for all your tips and comments on the placemats. Every bit of your experience, advice, and support really helped! (It was touch and go there for a minute.) It seems only fair that you should get to see what the tops look like in the sunlight:


These are much more representative of how they look than the last set of shots.

I've purchased the backing fabric (from a dude who was so complimentary about my work that I felt like I was being grifted), and I should finish these pretty soon. I'm gonna use a different thread in the bobbin than on the top, and never having done that before, I'm looking forward to some boo-hooing about that in the process -- e..g., "Boo hoo, how come this looks like crap? Boo hoo, what was I thinking? Boo hoo. Boo hoo. Oh, boo."

Won't that be awesome?

Learning new stuff. I'm all for it!

Items! Part Two.

Our trip to the East Coast for Thanksgiving was really great. The food was incredibly delicious, the weather was real weather-y, and some of my knitted garments got to do what they were put on this earth to do -- keep my tender neck warm.

The trip also entailed a serious appreciation of the out-of-this-world-ness of the shops in Brooklyn. They have cornered the market on cute and righteous, I tell you what. Hip clothing, beads, cheese, wine, baby stuff, books -- all distinct stores that are there simply to crush you. The worst offender, in my humble opinion? The Brooklyn General Store.

Man oh man, people. This store.

Do you ever have the experience of walking into a place and not being able to see anything because everything is just so compelling? Yarns. Fabrics. Quilts on display. Dark hardwood floors and cute styling everywhere you turn. I mean, seriously. It was too much. It was absolutely too much holy shit! all in one place.

So, get a load of this fabric. It's flannel.

Flannel! What will they think of next?

I was so overcome with dizzying confusion that all I could do was buy this flannel and a couple of skeins of Misti Alpaca and get the hell out of there. (As they say: If you'd have been there. If you'd have seen it. I bet you you would have done the same.)

My trip into the city to Purl? A horse of a slightly different color. Still overwhelming. Still hard to see everything. But I'd been there before, so I knew what to expect: light-headedness, lack of oxygen to the brain, drooling. All the signs you know you're in a good fabric store and/or having a medical emergency.

I'll tell you more about Purl at another time. For now let's just gaze upon two fabrics I bought -- buns and birds.

Bun.
Bun.


Buns!

And birds.

Motherfucking birds.

No idea what this is for. But I can't find enough expletives to capture how passionately I feel about this fabric.

Thanksgiving: If you come home cursing like a sailor, you know you did it right.

It takes two to make a thing go right

Oh, Quiltie.
Neglected for so long. Desperately needing to be re-basted and re-marked so that hand-quilting could continue.

So, so sad. Tragic, really.

Well, it was Quiltie's lucky day yesterday. It was Craft Day with my PIC!

Teamwork.

Determination.


And encouragement were the key ingredients.

My PIC and were able to do so many things yesterday that we each had been dreading.

She needed to put a new back on a quilt-in-progress. In the short term, very depressing. It meant she had to pull out hours and hours of hand-quilting; do mind-bending math; iron, measure, and cut fabric; and re-baste all the parts of the quilt sandwich together. She also had to thread the sewing machine. You can see how doing this together was superior to doing it alone. Alone? DE-moralizing. Together? Kinda fun!

Fabric FYI aside: If you're in the market for a nice solid brown (gross!) cotton, Robert Kaufman's new color Chocolate is the best brown we've found. (I tried to link to it at Purl, but looks like it's sold out; and at RK's site, the little square is so not the color.) Trust me. It's a good brown.

We did her whole thing together, then did my whole thing. She cheered me on as I re-measured and re-marked. Her "You're almost there!" and "Just one more!" really made the difference.

The Sweet, Salty, and Nutty Trek Mix didn't hurt either.

Good problems to have

I've been buried under crafts.

Wait. That's not true. I haven't been buried under crafts. I've been paralyzed by the possibilities for crafting.

I'm afraid all of my stockpiling has created an overwhelming sense of confusion about what to do next.

As a response to this confusion, I've been doing what any person would do: I've been wandering around my house somewhat aimlessly, petting my fabrics...


... staring at my unfinished embroidery...


... and drooling on my books. Well, mostly just still drooling on this one:


If I'm honest, it makes me want to start a new Chevron scarf. (What?!)

Enough is enough, people! No more acquiring! No more starting something new! I'm using what I have and finishing what I start! Gosh!!

Crap. I just remembered I have a Habu Kusha Kusha kit on its way to me.

Starting after that! No more nonsense! NO! MORE!

Bye, bye plastic bag. Hello, gorgeous!

This blogging thing is really working out.

Look at this delicious and super-glorious bag, handmade just for me by Ashley of Dogged Knits:

Oh, I own this bag. It's mine. Can you believe it?

It's got the perfect innards -- pretty blue and perfect pockets. (Pretty Blue and Perfect Pockets are best-sellers in my line of dolls for young girls. They're adorable.) This is some serious quality, dudes. Ashley is not kidding around.

And it's soft and beautiful and look at that fabric!

The best part? It was part of a swap! She asked if I'd make her a card like this one, and she offered to make me something in return.

I'd never done a swap before, and I didn't want to blow it by sending one little card in exchange for one big bag. Since it was impossible to find a currency conversion chart for handmade cards to handmade bags, we just did our best. I made her a little handful of cards featuring pigeons, and she made me the bag to replace this foolishness.

So here's the audience participation portion of this post:

At one point Ashley suggested that my Pidge for All Seasons card collection (Get Well, Congratulations, Happy Birthday, and blank inside pidge) might be reason enough to start an Etsy shop. For those with Etsy experience, what say you about this? For those of you who would buy something from Etsy, what do you think? If I started an Etsy shop, which of my things would people be interested in buying? Handmade cards? Embroidered items? Sewn things? Anything?

Discuss.

Also? Please give Ashley her well-deserved props! I lovelovelove my bag!

Delicious Purl

I have a very dear friend who reads my blog, despite his having zero interest in crafting. He is a fine, fine friend indeed. Being an outsider to the crafting world, he makes observations about it that are astute and humbling.

"What I find truly fascinating," he once said to me, very sweetly, "is that the crafting movement seems to be all about hand-making things, standing up against corporate culture and consumerism, and yet..." He paused here for a moment to sheepishly chuckle, "you guys are always buying stuff!"

Yes. Yes we are. It's a puzzler.

From Purl (clockwise from left): Kacha Kacha row counter, knitting needles, bias tape maker, quilter's curved safety pins, and wool felt.

Oh, let me get you a closer look at those needles I bought.


Wait. That's not really clear. Here you go:


That shot is dedicated to my former LYS. You're welcome. (Instead of "You're welcome" I wanted to say "Peace, bitches!" but thought better of it. See how I did that? Smooth move, me!)

ANYway, let's briefly discuss the felt! It was expensive, but it is so beautiful. It has a really subtle herringbone pattern in it, and it's just great. Here's another photo of it.

Scrumptious!

Side note: Pleased with how those photos were turning out, I thought I'd give the embroidery another try in that same warm sunlight.

I'm starting to believe it just can't be done.

Oh, Irony. Is there nothing you can't do?

I have so much fabric. So, so much fabric. A shameful amount, really. I have lightweight fabrics and heavier-weight fabrics. You want whimsy in a fabric? I've got it. All class? Got that too. And yet...

I'm carrying my knitting around in a raggedy-ass plastic bag.

The affront is not just that this bag is ugly or that it makes a lot of noise when you touch it. (Like people turn to see what all the commotion is about when I take it out of my purse. It's that kind of noisy.) The real rub is that I could make myself a perfectly glorious project bag. A really, truly spectacular little tote. I've got the fabric!

And yet somehow it just doesn't happen.

So I crinkle, crankle, crunkle in waiting rooms, at the car wash, at a friend's house. I apologize for the noise and try to keep it down.

Ah ha! Maybe that's why my Chevron Scarf isn't finished!

I'm so concerned about all the noise, I don't ever reach in to grab the little guy.

My poor little scarf is trapped in a loud bag 'cuz Mama won't make a quieter one!

Does that sound like excuse-making to you in any way? No? Yeah. I thought not. It's too airtight an argument to be an excuse.

Awesome.

An Embarrassment of Riches: The Parade

Do people still go to parades? There are some that are always immensely popular (your Rose Bowls, your Gay Prides, your Weiner Dogs), but as a popular form of entertainment, I think the parade has pretty much been replaced by other (dare I say) more entertaining things.

That being said, a virtual Parade of Items has potential, I think. For starters, you are probably more comfortable right now than you would be if you were outdoors sitting on bleachers. Also? Maybe your choice of snacks is a little more varied than a pile of spun sugar, ice with syrup on it, or a snout tube on a stick. (Unless those are delicious to you, in which case I hope you have them handy.) Finally, if you're lucky, right now you aren't smushed up against a bunch of sweaty dudes, their kids, and... well, sweaty dudes. (Again, unless that's what you're into. And if that's the case, again, I hope you're knee-deep in them.)

Did you get lots of soft things to protect your precious bones from breaking when you see the awesomeness?

Ok, then. Cue the trombones, the clackety-clacking drums, and the flag wavers! Here comes your Parade of Items from My Birthday Shopping Spree!

First up... pandas.

You'll see here that the Pandas come in two colors -- delicious pink and fantastic yellow. Nice one, pandas.

Here come the sheep!

Those sheep are always a favorite with the knitters. These are on an especially hefty fabric. Who knows what this fabric could become?

Get a load of these guys.

Bears. What's the matter, fellas? Why so stunned? Out in the woods and don't know what to do? Come on. I'm sure you can think of something.

(As I side note, I hadn't really realized how many animal fabrics I'd grabbed in my frenzy. Plenty, apparently.)

Next up, a few representatives from Echino, the teeth-smashingly good line from Japanese designer Etsuko Furuya.

Stripes, dots, and more stripes.


Now, prepare yourselves to behold the Frenzy Maker. The big finish to the parade!

The fabric you are about to see is the last yard that Superbuzzy had of this colorway of this fabric. Getting it before someone else did was the reason I was so reckless with my purchasing.

When I tell you I squealed out loud when I saw it online, and then again in person when it arrived, I'm not lying.

Here it is.


It. Is. So. Beautiful... to meeeeee. (that's the high one at the end)

Hooray!! That's the parade, folks!

There are many other fabrics that were purchased that didn't get their floats together in time. But I'm sure they'll make some special appearances in the future. Keep a lookout.

We'd like to thank my PIC for her generous contribution to the madness, and we hope you found today's parade enjoyable. Drive safely!

(See? Another upside to the virtual parade. You may already be where you were headed! But, drive safely anyway. It's good for everyone.)

An Embarrassment of Riches: The Teaser

I got so caught up in the yarn store story from Friday, I neglected to present the obligatory Parade of Items from that little spree I went on. So in that spirit, I offer you the teaser above. I don't mean to play games with you or anything, but I can't really parade until tomorrow. You understand. I still need to find a marching band and a baton twirler, and they aren't as easy to come by as you'd think.

Lucky for you, the delay should give you ample time to surround yourself with lots of soft things so that when you start freaking out at how cute and beautiful the items are, you won't hurt yourself.

So, between now and tomorrow, ensoften your surroundings. 'Cuz it's gonna get real cute, real fast.


P.S. Thank you all so much for your supportive comments about the yarn store thing. I really appreciated your sharing your experiences and sage advice. (Isn't it sad that most of us have had similar experiences? Sad! Urgh.)

Why do you hate cute things so much?

All I'm saying is Superbuzzy is having a sale. There are honest-to-goodness discounts on many items.

Between my PIC's generous birthday gift certificate and my own willingness to spend money, I just ordered a boatload of fabric. And the boat I'm referencing? Large. It's a large boat.

I could've been more measured and smart about my purchases, but I got all caught up in the frenzy. It was a little like this experience, only without the updates part.

See, what happens is, when you're looking at a particular fabric on Superbuzzy, you can see how much of it is left in stock. When I saw that there was only 1 yard left of a super-great fabric, I felt like I needed to race through my order to be sure to get it before someone else did. The only problem was that the fabrics are in alphabetical order, and the one-yarder started with "E". There were 705 fabrics, and I was only at about 180 at the time. (I would've linked to the fabric I'm talking about just now, but it's gone now. Because I bought the last yard!)

So, I may have been reckless. I may have just thrown things into my cart with arms a-flailing. There were things I'm sure I missed and things I grabbed without enough thought.

But, it's my birthday tomorrow, and I figure a little fabric-and-notions shopping spree isn't the worst thing in the world. (Even if the size of the spree was Large Boat.)

Huzzah!

I've got your soft dreamy layers right here, pal.

The sweet UPS guy just delivered my order from Purl (which got here so fast), and it is full of glorious random items.

Sure, I'd gone to Purl to buy a magazine for a particular pattern, but while I was there, it seemed only reasonable to get some stuffing for a someday pillow, some tester sizes of the soap that people love for their handmades, and three Robert Kaufman fabrics - berry, coal, and cocoa - also for the someday pillow. Right? I don't want to make a big plane fly and a big truck drive all the way here just to hand me a magazine.

I am overwhelmed with excitement and confusion.

What will become of me and my dreamy layers?

Aaaarrghh!

Quick! There's a sale on fabric!

Tonic Living, people. Another online wonderland of amazingly good fabrics.

And! Until this Sunday (the 20th), all of their fabrics are 15% off!

I've never ordered from them, and I don't remember how I found out about them. But go take a look. Really cute. And! A sale!

How about that owl fabric? (In what seems to be a trend with my links lately, the blue is sold out, but the pink was still in stock last time I checked.)

Let me know if you see anything you like over there!

What are you looking at?

Why, yes, I do have an X for a belly button.
Would you also care to comment on how I'm pantsless and wearing a bow tie?
Go ahead. Be my guest.
If it makes you happy, have at it.
(Why you must judge, I'll never know.)
But, I highly recommend this style. I think you'd find it very breezy, yet formal.
To each his own, I suppose.

More on that guy, and on these:




Later, my pretties. Later.

Fabric makes me woozy

Right?

I'll tell you all about it, once I'm able to get up off the floor.

Also? I still love Ryan Gosling.

That is all.

Approved!

The designer and creator of these awesome slippers gave the go-ahead in yesterday's comments to post photos of said slippers. So here they are!

I did not make these. But I want to make them. Real bad.

So cute!! Want the pattern? Click here.

Want to go to Superbuzzy, who has shipped my bird fabric and made me all atwitter with anticipation, and who alerted me to these slippers in the first place? Click here.

Now. Here's the next question.

Do you want some awesome/geeky/clever/great badges that would look really cute on some slippers if they really existed as badges? I know the answer is yes.


The Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique has constructed many, many super kick-ass nerdy badges, including an arts and crafts badge. The duck pictured above is the "destroyer of quackery" badge:

"In which the recipient never ever backs down from an argument that pits sound science over quackery."

Click here and look at all the glorious badges. If you're a hard-core nerd/geek/cool/hip kid, you won't be disappointed. (via BoingBoing)

Hey! After you look around, come back and tell me:
(1) which badge(s) you think you deserve, and
(2) which badge(s) you would get in that other life you didn't get to have because you were so busy having this one.

Badges and patches are cool!