News and more news

So a bit of news to catch you up - first, Etsy Dallas announced their 2010 team roster and once again I am proud to be part of this group! I hope to become even more involved this next year, participating in the spring and fall bashes, writing for the team blog, and promoting team projects. 

I am also excited to announce that I have been juried into the Renegade Craft Fair in Austin, May 15-16. This is a very competitive show and I know many people that were disappointed not to be selected. I am so honored that they chose my shop and I'm going to be working very hard to take advantage of this opportunity. I know I need to completely rethink my booth display and I have some exciting ideas. Think installation art / scene setting with a heavy DIY emphasis. I want to present my designs creatively and thoughtfully, but never in an overly commercial pre-packaged generic way. I know this show means I have to step up my game and consider the entire exhibition space as an extension of my work. Excited!

Finally, I am so happy for my friend Regina who is the featured seller for this week on Etsy with her amazing soap shop Soapopotamus. She gave me a shout out as the maker of her favorite handmade item - a custom hood. I've mentioned this hood before in my blog (Post-Pop Anime Hood), but I here it is again. I thought I was going to go blind while working on it because I was using so many colors at the same time. I wish I had taken more photographs of it, but I'm working with 3 skeins of alternating colors for just about every row. It was so much fun! Congratulations to Regina for being the featured seller!

Warm Memories

This picture is dated 1975. That's me on the left and my older sister Karen on the right. The weird line across the picture above is from the plastic sleeve of the photo album. I didn't want to take the picture out to scan it. I love the weird compositions in snapshots. Karen's face is clearly in the center. I'm off to the side, but still nicely in the frame. The pink chair on the side and the bottom of the picture frames, well, those add interest to the side and top, right? Or, for me, it firmly locates the picture in my grandparent's formal living room. I remember fondly this coat, and later Karen's coat when I grew into it, and the detachable hoods with faux fur lining and black drawstrings. 

I've been a hood-kick lately. Designing and making hoods for adults that are playful, nostalgic, warm, and one of a kind, like this one. I love red and blue together and I've been inching my way towards more complex color switching and patterning. After finishing this project I can confidently say that I have this skill. Images are next! Playing with the geometric patterns was fun and easy. No mistakes here. The gusset is new too. I've been creating blunted points for the hoods by angling the last few inches and knocking off the sharp point. Here I stitched it up straight, as usual, then repositioned it and stitched straight across to create the gusset, which I tacked to the side-back, rather than the top. On the whole, I'm very pleased with this project. I can't wait to think of my next design.

Minty

Think of this post as a tiny memorial to an item that sold that I now miss. I ordered handspun tomato orange flecked mint yarn from circuspony and was giddy when I saw that it was even more amazing than I had thought! I worked and reworked the body of the hood three times because I kept running out of that yarn. I added the alternating squishy orange alpaca rows and finally went and bought the cream wool to be able to finish it. I then added the ruffle at the bottom, just because! Well, to balance the design and add an extra touch of whimsy.





I don't work with handspun yarn as often as I would like, so I feel like I have a special obligation to take someone else's beautiful work and try to do my absolute best with it. This hood sat proudly on my hat stand at the Etsy Jinglebash last Fall and was featured on a few blogs before making it to the front page two days before Christmas and finally selling on Christmas day! I'll make other hoods, but this one was magical.

Melancholia and Wool

I know I mentioned this hood at the bottom of my last post, but since then I went on the Etsy Forums and asked for a general critique that took this item in particular to task for being overly dark. I prefer to think of it as dramatic and moody, but they are right. It's dark. I reshot it and you can see the new sunnier, happier photos on Etsy. I tried to play up the whimsy of wearing a hood with a funny pointy top and big soft poms at the ends of long strings. But still, I'm attached to the original photos (the three photos shown in this post), which say more about how I'm feeling this winter.

Winter is a tough time of year; it's dark and cold. Like many before me, I use the long hours trapped indoors to challenge my hands and try to "make" my way out of the winter-blahs. I made a brightly colored hood to distract/shield/protect me. I turn inward, away from the light and become a darkened silhouette.

Winter is a very fertile time for my wooly imagination. I think of ways to stay warm, new patterns and designs, and develop hand and arm muscles that rival a marathoner. And, as excited as I am about the ultimate handmade gift exchange opportunity (Christmas), I am still slowed and pulled down by Winter's forces: an enveloping gray sky during the day revealing the dead leaves and grass and at night a chilled dark blankness. I appreciate the opportunity to slow down and reflect, even mourn for the year that has passed. I know I wasn't the only one to have a rough year, so I won't go into it. Like winter, this will pass. Who knows if 2010 will be any better, but at least we'll have the opportunity to make it our own.

Leaf-ing

I have been very busy working towards the holiday shows this weekend. Not only have I been working to replenish my inventory after the Jinglebash, but I've been developing new things as well. I do become bored very quickly with repetition, so I like to try lots of new things, including these individual leaf pins. I designed the leaf sets originally for hats, but now I'm trying them out at pins. I wore the one I had completed to the Jinglebash and sold it off my dress. I also found a stash of vintage buttons at the thrift store that add more color than my usual brown buttons.

I still haven't had time to work on the fingerless gloves I've designed. I've made two pairs, but that hardly seems like enough to put out. We'll see... I'll be at the North Haven Gardens Holiday Arts and Crafts Fair, 10-5, Sunday, Dec. 6. My fall leaves and hats should fit right in.

My big accomplishment for the Thanksgiving holiday was the completion of a hood crocheted in wool and then felted. The felting was so tight I had to do a running stitch with needle and thread to create the loops to add the mohair trim. It has my first foray into intarsia with crochet - just a simple repeat of three stitches. I also changed colors on almost every line. I'd gone to the yarn store earlier that day and I was feeling the need for lots of color! The little balls at the end of the strings are made from hand-dyed and spun yarn (that I bought) that was un-spun to make perfect soft little puffs.

(See more on this item in my next post)

Hooded

I just completed a new hood in hot pink and gray. The new one is shorter in length compared to my earlier ones, shown here, above and below. The red one was an accident after the original project didn't work out. I had a length of red and gray crocheted fabric that I folded in half and decided would make a really cute hood. From there I decided to repeat the accident on purpose and I made the gray and orange version. The hoods are so cute and have sold well to cold places, like Portland and Amsterdam! There's not too much use for a hood like this in Texas, but we have some cold days. It was 65 F today!