Events
Birthday weekend!
I turned 26 on Friday and I had a super-fun day/date night with my Bear. We hung out in the down town, got some pizza and rented We’re the Millers (hilarious, by the way). Other than Friday, I basically knitted all weekend! Hooray!
Earlier last week I went a little crazy on the yarns and got me some pretty Debbie Bliss felted tweeds, ShiBui sock and some MadelineTosh Vintage. Mmmmmm….
Knitting some swatches (pattern submission central)
Working on a handsome hat for Bear since the last one got accidentally washed. I’ll post a pattern for this one once it’s done. Pretty simple and classy rib hat out of MadTosh Vintage.
Fun (if not a little late) news: I just had my second pattern published in Knitscene Summer 2014! They named it the “Krypton Hat” and it’s looking pretty great! I’ll have a follow up post in a bit in that one. Check it out on Ravelry In the meantime!
Happy Late Halloween!
A little late, I know but I had to wait for results! Hooray! I won 1st place in my company’s Halloween costume contest with my handmade plush sandwich costume. Made from Eco-felt, poly quilt batting, lots of stitching and a fair amount of glue, it took forever to make and it warm as heck. It’s won 3 costume contests to date and has garnered a couple of buy offers (not for sale, to answer that question). Runner up was Mike the nun.
And the sandwich in her natural habitat, processing online orders for a photo lab.
Hope everyone had a great holiday and an even better two weeks in between! Now to go shopping with my $25 Target gift card prize!
Too late to celebrate?
Hey there friends! Something happened to my Fourth of July post and unfortunately it’s taken me a while to realize it! Well, here it is again, albeit a little late at this point.
I’ll just summarize but I’ll say, my day was pretty patriotic! It started with a parade (Garrett and Ethan were jazzin it up in the Boy Scout float) with my parents, aunt and little cousins. The Scouts made a tank with cardboard and added a propane powered flamethrower! Wowza!
Very cool! After the parade I spent some time crocheting (surprise) and unfortunately a little time crying about the fact that i had forgotten sunscreen that morning. By the end of the day I had a nasty sunburn and a new hat to show for it. Thank goodness at least one of those is useful!
Where My Stitches At?
In Santa Clara, Ca! A couple of weekends ago I was lucky enough to go to Stitches West with my good friend Dana. We were a little overwhelmed at first but only because there was so much to see! Armed with our matching mini notebooks and our love of fiber, we went in.
Dana loved the trims and buttons booths and I was instantly drawn to any booth that had spinning fibers. We found new patterns, fibers, yarns and books to order for the store and my goodness, it’s exciting! I ended up pinched between buying a enormous braid of merino wool hand dyed with red, purple and blue and a beautiful skein of sproingy wool yarn in dark blue and greeny grey. I went with the yarn… 420 yards of gorgeous aran weight deliciousness! How could I resist? That’s right, I couldn’t 😉
Happy Corduroy Appreciation Day!
11|11|11 – the date that most resembles corduroy (ever).
Today is Corduroy Appreciation Day and I have to say, I just love corduroy! I would encourage anyone interested in texture, luxury, class, wales, and/or scholarly fabrics to try creating something with corduroy. My everyday messenger bag is made in part with this golden fabric of the Gods. It has moon faces on it as well because, well, it’s just out of this world. I think I will soon be making myself an autumn skirt with one of the many choice corduroys available to me. Perhaps the Plum wide wale, it’s delightful.
I thank you for sharing this beauteous day with me and I implore you to never underestimate the power of dressing in a classy fabric and remind you to remain wary of velvet.
HAIL TO THE WALE!
Treasure on the Island!
I’ve officially reserved myself a booth at the Treasure Island Flea for the weekend of November 26th and 27th at which I will be peddling my wares. Be there or be square, I say! I beg of you, attend, attend! Please oh please come see me at my fair! Ok, enough of that silliness.
Seriously though, it’s gonna be so much fun! I’ll be selling mostly bags (messenger style, big purse style, mostly organic, classic or otherwise cool fabrics) and knitted/crochet treasures such as hats, fingerless mittens and cowl scarves.
WHO: dinomeg and other fine artists as well as antiques, food, fun and games
WHAT: Open air market with artists, makers, creative people ($3 admission)
WHERE: Treasure Island, San Francisco
WHEN: Saturday and Sunday November 26th & 27th 9-4pm
WHY: Because you love handmade things and supporting this amateur blogger
Happy Halloween, my friends!
This Halloween unfortunately landed on a Monday which meant I couldn’t have very many late night plans. Too bad, so sad you might say. The Sunday prior, however was quite a delight at Dana’s house! She dressed as a sunflower and was just the cutest (I mean spookiest?) little plant there ever did grow.
I was in rare form the few days before… dare I say prepared?? I Made James’ costume on Saturday and my costume the night before. James was the ever charming, oh so handsome Commander Riker and I had a Halloween spirit manifesting itself as a creepy forest dress. And awesome witch boots.
I made my dress from a cool fabric from the Haunted Mansion collection by Sanae and used my own design. It has pockets and ruffled elastic for the straps, so cute! James’ I mean the Commander’s uniform top is made from organic cotton spandex and organic cotton soy fabrics. Our friend bought a star trek shirt online and I traced the pattern pieces from that to make one for my hun. Pretty Dashing, wouldn’t you agree? Commanding, even. Below you will see him in Danger Mode, ready with his phaser, aka my stun gun (it’s for safety when I come home from sewing dates late at night. Can’t have hooligans trying to jack my Singer).
On Halloween night proper, I watched a scary movie at Julia’s but before that we needed to wait for our pizza so we wandered down town and costume spied. We saw some awesome costumes, there was the American Gothic couple with their giant picture frame on wheels, a few characters from Adventure Time, a great Doctor Who and TARDIS and then there was the Telescope Guy! He had a super cool homemade ball joint telescope and we got to look at the moon and at Jupiter with it’s moons. It was raaaaad! Julia (dressed as Red Ridinghood with her wolf fur lined cloak) is seen here in this “action” shot.
All in all, we had a pretty rad Halloween weekend. Boo!
Tell me what you love about Halloween!
New Life Plan
James and I are experiencing a variety of difficulties with continuing to live in Santa Cruz. Issues include but are not limited to cost of living, cost of living, and cost of living. It’s really expensive. We find ourselves working way too hard at our sort of okay paying jobs and then paying more than half of what we make to rent, bills, food and pet supplies (granted we have 4 cats, it’s still too much money gone on pay day). What else is there to do but wallow in our own depression, moping around and feeling sorry for ourselves? Haha, okay seriously, we aren’t that pathetic.
We sat down (well, more like went on a stroll) and made a plan!
Our stratagem is as follows:
- Move forward with our lives as if we have no lives (i.e. do nothing, no going out, no extra spending, pretend we have zero dollars)
- Save the heck out of our paychecks, pay down the credit card, fix the Camaro
- Sell all of our junk that we don’t absolutely NEED
- Have a ton of money
- Throw the kitties in the car, drive to North Carolina and set up camp
In the mean time I’ll be working on my crafts to add to our money banks! I’ll be applying to the Treasure Island Flea in San Francisco for the November market, adding things to my Etsy shop, selling things in store fronts where I can, you name it! Check out my shop, come visit me at Treasure Island, go buy my stuff at Eco Carmel!
I need your support to follow my dreeeeeeeaaaaaaaamzzzz!!
Renegade Update
If you’ll remember with me, a few days ago we were waiting to hear from the Renegade folks whether or not we would have a booth at the Holiday show this year…
Alas, our dreams have been stomped upon. Never fear, dear readers. We’ll try again in the summer and we’ll try again the winter after that. We’ve got other crafty adventures ahead of us this year and one day we will vend to the Renegade masses!
SF Renegade?
A few of my delightful friends and I have decided that we must craft for the Renegade! Now if you don’t know what the Renegade Craft Fair is then… well gosh, I don’t know. Ok, ok, just kidding, I’ll tell you! In a word, it’s Spectacular. Every summer and winter there is a show somewhere in the country (big cities like Chicago, Houston and San Francisco) where hundreds of independent artists come together to put together any crafter’s dream shopping mall. They set up 10’x10′ booths and showcase their handbags, handspun yarn, plushies, jewelry, paper crafts, EVERYTHING! It’s so the coolest thing ever! Now there are only 250 booth spaces and not surprisingly sometimes up to a few thousand people apply for a spot. That’s where we come in.
Here’s a little line up of some knitted things that I made that I’m fond of:
We four are called Fates and Furies and I oh so hope we get a booth at this crafting phenomenon called the Renegade. Broken up, we are Julia of Alchemy Tea, Dana of Peapod Design, Meri of Little Meri and me, Dinomeg! We are obviously cool so, you know, all we need is recognition.
We put in our application and we are excited to see whether or not we will get a space to show our wares.
Fingers crossed!
dinomeg 