Girl on the Rocks

Christmas Craft Marathon December 23, 2009

Just like last year I am planning to fill my Christmas break with wall to wall craft time. Last year was a huge success that culminated in the addition of the owl embroidery floss organizer to my product line. I have several projects up my sleeve and was hoping that you would help me prioritize them.

Projects I am considering:

• Latch Hook rug Vintage. New in Package. And I already have the tool!
  
• Punch Needle embroidery: I purchased PlanetJune’s punch needle embroidery e-book and Moon pattern ages ago. I finally found a punch needle, so I’d like to give it a try.
• Crochet blanket I want to add a least a few hexagons to this languishing crochet project.
• Spinning My apartment is full of fiber. I would like to convert some of it into yarn.
  
• Wee knitting
  • Boot toppers
  • Acorns and tinier acorns
  • Hedgehogs: This one is the cutest but I already have the pattern for this one
• Needlework pattern Just like last year I still have some vintage crewel patterns that I would like to stitch up. Now I also have an Amy Sedaris cross stitch pattern (from Lauren at Sweet-meats) and a few recently procured Japanese cross stitch patterns to try out.
• Marshmallows I like to make homemade marshmallows. Last year I experimented with some homemade marshmallows with bourbon in them, and I would like to perfect the recipe this year.

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Crewel for christmas January 12, 2009

I haven’t yet posted about my christmas break craftiness because there is so much to report that it is a bit overwhelming. But i figure I’ll break it up into a few pieces and it’ll be okay. Let’s see… where to start… “Start a vintage Crewel project” was the big loser in my poll, gathering only 1 vote. Let’s start there because not only did I start a project, I finished it! Take that voters!

As a wee crafter, I spent many a holiday working on little holiday needlepoint and cross-stitch patterns that my mom hoarded during after-christmas sales. The first step (and the one that drove me INSANE when I was young) is to baste the edges of the canvas to prevent fraying. I dreaded doing it, but it was not nearly as tedious as I remember (can I possibly be more patient than when I was 8?). The next step was always to take of the thread from the project and attach to a yarn organizer. Miner were always butterfly shaped. Did anyone ever have one that WASN”T a butterfly? Anyway, i realized that this would be the step to stop adult-me in my tracks. I didn’t have a yarn organizer. With nothing to do all day but craft, and an awesome idea from Carmen, i decided to make my own.

i whipped out a sheet of Brown shrinky-dink plastic and threw together a retro-fabulous sketch of an owl. I planned out where to place holes that I could punch with my circular craft punches.

I made it the size of the entire sheet of plastic, and then cut it out (note pen for scale)

Then I popped it into the toaster oven at 300 until it shrank up (i used chopsticks to pull apart any areas that got stuck during shrinking).

I am really pleased with the holes of varying size – it is very satisfying to put the fat wads of yarn in the bigger holes, and the thread in the tiny holes. I added a rare earth magnet (with E6000 glue) to the center to hold on to needles, and then I got busy!

So busy, in fact, that I completed the whole thing!

The project was a new in package 1972 Caron Crewel 5 x 7 (#6306). The yarn was all wool (in some of the older projects the included yarn is acrylic) and the instructions were thorough. Highly recommended!

Is the Holiday Craft fair season over yet? December 11, 2008

Almost… One more this weekend. I was invited to peddle my wares at the first ever Knit One One Craft Fair. Knit One One is a local knitting studio offering classes and space for knitting and spinning meet ups. They are very close to my house (and next to a delicious bakery), but somehow I have never paid a visit. I went last weekend to check it out and it is beautiful and cozy. I am so excited to hang out there for the afternoon. I don’t have much space so I’ll be heavy on the knitting buttons and stitch markers and light on the fiber. Let me know if there is anything you would like me to bring so you can see it in person.

And the previous craft fairs…

Felt club was great…

And so was the SF Bazaar Bizarre (I snuck that one in there and forgot to post about it. You really should sign up for my mailing list if you want reminders). I shared a booth with Abmatic and was next to Sweet Meats. I window shopped for meat all day and brought home some prime cuts. I also had some enthusiastic moustache customers.

You want to know a secret… I am not sick of craft fairs yet! I love writing receipts and processing credit cards… I have a new found love for my credit card ka-chinker thanks to a bit of handy work from a crafty friend. I can’t wait for the summer fairs to roll around!

Felt Club Holiday 2008 – this weekend! November 11, 2008

Well, I am hitting the road. A minivan filled with my friends, my moustaches and my fiber will be headed down to So-Cal for the Felt Club Holiday 2008 Event on Sunday Nov 16th. I am still wondering how I will fill a 10′ x 10′ space without Abby’s bags and wallets. Also I wish I had a classier way than a wooden drying rack to display my roving… I doubt I will pull anything together in the next few days..

I didn’t remember seeing any fiber or much yarn when I was a shopper at last year’s event, so I teamed up with a couple of other felt club fiber vendors to try and encourage lovers of the fiber arts to stop by the event.

Traveling Rhinos, Beemiceelf, and myself will give you 10% off a $25 or more purchase at each of our booths. Hopefully this will help to offset the $5 entry fee…

And of course all of my moustache and woven items qualify for a discount too. If you see anything you might want me to bring, let me know!

Hope to see you there!

Here’s what’s happening July 2, 2008

After nearly a month of not blogging, i thought i should let you know that I am still around.

I’ve done a little knitting

Ravelry Project Page

A little spinning

California Red locks from A Verb for Keeping Warm Raverly page

and…. i adopted a kitty! Introducing… Bean!

She’s mouthy (like me). This last picture is a video…. Click through to hear Bean!

insane number of kitty pics in my flickr stream.

Together at last April 30, 2008

I have finally created the perfect product to unite my love of the Fiber Arts and my fascination with disembodied moustaches. The ‘stache for your stash, or a ‘stache sachet, if you will (the anagram was irresistible).

There are two versions available. The Stash ‘stache is filled with the natural moth repellents cedar chips, and lavendar with added pennyroyal essential oil to protect your yarn and fiber from bugs. A variant on the original contains only lavender and can be used as a traditional sachet – perhaps finding a home in a drawer with your unmentionables.

Abby, Ingrid and I printed up the bags on my gocco. They have a ‘stache on one side and “Girl on the Rocks” on the other.

Head over to my shop and pick one up!

Why I am still saving my junk mail April 16, 2008

I am a little kitschy, and wouldn’t necessarily say I am always tasteful and stylish. Oh, and I am SO not a designer. So it is cool to see that the smarties at design*sponge think like me sometimes – they posted an inside out envelope tutorial too. I can’t resist pointing out that I did it a month earler

After I posted my inside-out-envelope tutorial, some back linking led me to the Junk Mail Gems blog. Wow! Gretchen is a master re-purposer with a shop filled with awesome recycled projects.

So with security envelopes still on the brain, and a giant pile growing on my desk, I used some to decorate some 3×5 recipe cards. I used a few round hole punches to add some accents.

Nice nice nice. It is the greatest free paper around. I even used some to make product tags for my fibery goods in prep for the upcoming Color Fiber Festival. (Can you tell that I am trying to link to the festival in every post… Is it obvious?)

Get more security envelope inspiration from the Flickr Security Pattern Group.

Luck o the irish March 17, 2008

Happy St. Patrick’s day!

last week I was goofing off with my crochet hook and thinking about St. patty’s day. i thought I might make a four-leaf clover… I found a few shamrock patterns, but none of them had 4 leaves! After a few failed attempts, here is my version.

This pattern is probably intermediate in difficulty: it requires that you are able to cast on in a magic ring, double crochet (dc) and treble crochet (tr). it can be done in any yarn as long as you use an appropriately sized crochet hook. The larger one I made used caron simply soft worsted weight yarn and a size F hook.

- [sc in ring, ch 1] 4 times end sc 1.
- sc 2 so you begin work in the space created by the ch1 of the first row.
Work each leaf in the space created by the ch1 of the first row.
- ch1, tr1, dc1, tr1, ch2. slip stitch into sc from first row to end the leaf. sl into space created by ch1 from first row to start the next leaf.

Repeat the leaf pattern 4 times (3 times more) and you should be almost all of the way around.

Make stem:

- ch 5
- sc 4 starting in second ch from hook. (you are working your way back up the stem toward the leaves.
- sl st. break yarn, pull through and weave in the end.

Let me know if you have any problems with the pattern! See if you can trade them for some free beers tonight!

I don’t speak or read Japanese. Is that a problem? March 10, 2008

Pretty much without even a second thought, I recently bought a few Japanese craft books in Japantown. These are my first, and while I don’t speak or read Japanese, everyone always says the diagrams are so good that you can figure everything out from the pictures.

Well, they are mostly right. So far my experience is just with crochet which hasn’t been too bad. Instead of having row by row directions, all of the patterns are represented in charts. In each book there is a section where they define what the symbols mean, and have some of the best instructional diagrams I have ever seen. I dare say the ambitious could teach themselves to crochet from these diagrams.

I made it through my first pattern by flipping back and forth between the chart and the instructions with almost no problem. Now I am not sure that I even want to ever read a non-charted crochet pattern again!

Every once in a while I do wonder things like “What is the title of this book?” and “That little arrow is labelling something that is clearly important. I wish I could read what it says…” I am trying to compile a list of helpful online sources for translation, but many are for knitting… i’m working on it…. in the mean time, if you have a japanese pattern that you are trying to read, I have found some friendly, helpful Ravelers in the Japanese knitting and Crochet group and Tawashi Town.

If you don’t know what a Tawashi is (I didn’t until last week), stay tuned because they are cute cute cute!

It’s like a wooden frame but it’s not March 7, 2008

i felt so lucky when I found these at the east bay depot, and the price was great. They are the nicest emboidery hoops I’ve ever seen

The outer ring is flexible rubber with a faux bois pattern. They are much easier to deal with than the flat sided wooden or plastic ones, and they wouldn’t look too bad hung up on the wall. I thought I was super-special and a few ebay and google searches revealed that these were pretty widely available in the UK. I smugly thought about how much cooler that made them, but then lamented the fact that I couldn’t get more.

I found them at Michael’s this weekend. When they go on sale… Watch out!! I’m stocking up.