I made a quilt-as-you-go version of Amy Butler’s Weekender bag. Here are my notes.

I think that one of the most popular quilted versions of the Amy Butler Weekender Bag is the one by Oh, Fransson. Like Oh, Fransson, I used cotton duck (from my stash) and lots of long scraps of batting leftover from the edges of quilts.

Materials and construction
I bought my pattern locally at Stone Mountain and Daughter. The zipper is a #5 36″ separating zipper in buttercup from Zipperstop’s Etsy shop. The purse feet were purchased locally at Laci’s but if I had to do it again, I would check out Jo-Ann’s. I bought the biggest ones they had at Laci’s, but I think there was one slightly bigger made by Clover and Nancy Zieman. I recommend getting 6 feet. I tried to use only material from my stash. The outside is obviously scrappy patchwork and the inside was cotton ticking that I bought as a remnant a while ago. I used iron-in interfacing on the pocket panels, and 1 layer of Peltex in the bottom.
All parts were sewn using my Singer 201. I used the walking foot for the quilting, and cording foot to make the piping. The Singer 201 has tons of power, but I still had to go slow at the end when I was sewing through all of the layers of fabric.

Modifications

I used a lovely piece of laser-cut bamboo for the bottom of the bag. I didn’t enclose it in anything should I choose to remove it. Plus it looks nice just like it is. If you want one, you can order one from my Ponoko shop, and I can send it to you in about 2 weeks.

More references

The icing on the cake was the discovery that this bag makes the perfect carrying case for my singer 301.

Kimchi, Bread and Butter Pickles (cukes with onions and celery), Rhubarb Liqueur, Grapefruit Rhubarb Marmalade

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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I went all out this time – I pulled the jumbo canning pot from the garage and kept going until I ran out of jars.

I made: Dilly Beans, Dill Pickles, Bread & Butter Pickles, Caraway (Purple) Cauliflower, Spiced Figs, Dill Pickled Okra, Random Dilled Leftover Vegetables from the Fridge.

Favorite canning reference materials in no particular order:

– Ball Blue Book of Canning I think I bought this at the store at the same time I bought my canning pot, but I am not quite sure. It has fantastic recipes and very thorough instructions for the beginner.

– Mustards, Pickles and Chutneys I got this at Half Priced books a long time ago. All of the measurements are metric, and I re-evaluate the acidity/preserving capability of each recipe because I think many of them were written for refrigerator storage.

– Summer in a Jar: Making Pickles, Jams, and More.. Genius book that has single-jar recipes. The smallest batch possible! I don’t have a full review of this yet, but the method involves adding many more spices directly to the jar than I am accustomed to. I am used to simmer ing the spices with the vinegar, and only adding a small selection of spices to the jar. I wonder if these recipes will be dramatically different in flavor….

Favorite local places to get canning supplies. In particular order with my favorite first:

1) Ace Pasttime Hardware, El Cerrito. Nice selection all year long. Ask an employee to show you where the canning supplies are, otherwise you could get lost in the maze of aisles.

2) The store formerly known as Big Longs (now converted to CVS). Tons of supplies all year, and open late! For your midnight jam sessions….

3) Berkeley Bowl. They have some canning supplies tucked under the produce. Limited selection that was totally picked over and not replenished by the end of October. But it is handy to get your dill heads and jars at the same place.

The next time you see it, I will be wearing it at Stitches.

Thanks to Jamie at Urban Fauna Studio (booth #1036) and Krista from Pigeonroof Studios (booth #637), I am not just a Stitches West shopper, I am a seller! UFS has both my stitch markers and fiber, and Pigeonroof will have my stitch markers. Yay! I am really excited about this and plan to break some rules and snap some camera phone pics of my items on display. I am headed to stitches tomorrow and Saturday and will be helping out in the aforementioned booths so say hi if you see me. Also I will be doing a Hazel Rose loom demo on Saturday at 1 pm in the Demo area so come by if you want to see a little loom in action. I plan to tweet my adventures, so follow me for pics and updates.

Note to self: Go to Target tonight to stock up on “Adult Juice Boxes.”

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!

Some things I want to do…

• Make hard tack candy – I love clove candy canes and I can’t find them anywhere out here. I used to make hard tak candy all the time, and this year I am really jonesing for some cinnamon and clove. (Separate, not mixed together).
• Make a tiny japanese santa Found via Mochimochiland. Hmmm… the link seems to have disappeared now, but I downloaded a free cute santa pattern (yes, I said cute santa) from the website of designer Gera, but it is gone now…. Sorry I can’t share!
• Work on a vintage crewel pattern How I acquired these is a story for another day. Let’s just say I have several vintage crewel patterns new in the package that I have been dying to try.





• Spin some fiber It is taking over my apartment and must at least be tamed into yarn.





• Major gocco project – top secret. Involves so much work it doesn’t really sound fun right now.
• Take a trip to the East Bay Depot This would likely be counterproductive as I would probably end up with more material or partially completed craft projects, but I haven’t been in so long and I wonder what they have.

Not that I promise to stick to your suggestion… but I might! I can’t decide where to start. What do you think?

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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!

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!

The last two of my favorite self-stripers hold their own with creative color combos that always look good to me.

Sknitches

Photo courtesy of flickr user Wannabeknittin’

Take sknitches for example. Yes, I am clearly a fan of blue and brown, but don’t these socks look so good? Sknitches also has a wide array of non-striping yarn in beautiful colorways, so if you order from her site, you can get a great mix of sock yarns in fabulous colors.

Ravelry Yarn page

Knitterly things

Photo by Flickr user Wooly interlude

Some of the first handmade self-striping yarn that I ever heard about was Vesper sock yarn. As a spinner, the shop’s curator also has a beautiful assortment of hand-dyed roving. It can still be kind of a challenge to snag the sock yarn, but it seems like there are shop updates many Wednesdays, and the Ravelry Group can a be a useful guide to shop stalking.

Ravelry Yarn page

Speaking of ravelry groups…. a long time ago I started a Ravelry group for those that love stripes – Better with stripes. Pop on over and say ‘Hi’ if self-striping yarn is your sort of thing.