Sunday, September 30, 2007

Ooh la la!

Check me out, I'm on CRAFT! My summer slippers tutorial is up on their front page right now. How exciting!
It is a bit ironic because I have been looking at my slippers lately, thinking that it might be time to retire them. Sad, I know but it is getting a little chilly around here and I need slippers that keep my little toes warm. I've been contemplating a new slipper pattern that will fit the bill but I haven't quite worked it out.
I hope some of you folks will try out the summer slipper tutorial though. If you do, please let me know! I'd love to see what you make!

Friday, September 28, 2007

Consider Me Bummed or The Good and Bad of LA Crafting

Well, Felt Club is a no go for me. It's a bummer. There is a list of the accepted vendors up on their website. My would be Felt Club table splitter Marianne thinks that most of the people accepted are people with fairly successful webshops/cottage industries. Double bummer! How are unexperienced littles like Marianne and I to move up in this crafty world? Boo. I'm down. LA is a place with plenty of hipsters willing to buy awesome crafts but the opportunities to get your stuff out there seem to be few and far between.
Since I was really gearing up mentally to craft my ass off for Felt Club I think that I need to redirect that energy into revitalizing my Etsy shop. Well maybe just vitalizing it. I don't think there is any "re" about it. That thing has been a sad sack since it's inception. Well no more! Robot Chicken Season 3 is coming to an end and I will have two glorious months to sew sew sew.
By the way, have you all met Marianne? She is a super talented graphic designer and crafter and she is married to a coworker of ours. I do not know of very many craft bloggers who live in LA so you can imagine how neat it is to know someone in the real world and then learn that they are all crafty and bloggy! Marianne's blog, Conejo/Coneja documents her forays into all sorts of crafts including some great video game inspired projects like this Megaman block print.

You can read this post and this post to find out a little about how she did this. It is very cool.
And speaking of craft bloggers in LA, I recently discovered Mari's blog. I was so excited to find someone in my area who makes such amazing, beautiful things! Mari's style is very clean and fresh, very Japanese inspired. She also works at the PurlSoho warehouse which makes me extremely jealous and has posted a great tutorial on the Purl Bee blog. Mari has even inspired me to do some pro cat knitting. Her pusses look so sweet in these little "kitty pies" that I feel I must go out to my local yarn shop asap (they open in one minute, better get dressed!) and knit myself some pi.
And while I'm on the subject of LA bloggers, I certainly can't leave out Mary Heather of Rainy Day Goods. Oddly enough, Mary Heather was one of the very first people (who I didn't know in real life) to ever notice my little old blog, way back when. She is an amazing knitter who has patterns published in several books including "Greetings from the Knit Cafe".
It is very strange that Mary Heather was one of the first people I connected with in the blog world and she happened to live around here. LA craft bloggers seem to be so few and far between. Or is it just me? These three ladies are the only one's I'm aware of. Am I wrong? I know you must be out there! I don't know why exactly be I really love to read about the exploits of people who I have something in common with and since I am a New England girl stuck in LA I love to read about other people experiencing this city along with me.
Oh! I just thought of another. Crazy Aunt Purl is a great LA blogger who always has lots of fun/ridiculous LA stories. Despite the name though, she is much more of a super funny self-helpy kind of blogger than a craft blogger. She does live in the San Fernando Valley though, as do I and posts beaucoup photos of her cats. I LOVE that!

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Wish me luck!

I am sending in my application for Felt Club today!

I'm sending them this mosaic of my work plus these two pictures.
Fingers crossed!

Monday, September 24, 2007

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Quilt

Hello friends. Sorry to be gone so long. We made a quick trip to Atlanta this past weekend for my cousin's wedding and things were quite crazy leading up to our departure. On top of the regular packing and other traveling preparations we had a sick puss on our hands, had to find a puss sitter to give him medicine twice a day while we were gone, scrambled to put together our formal attire (Harv hadn't worn his suit in three years and we knew this because he found a chocolate favor and program from a friend's wedding in the pocket) PLUS I made the fastest quilt in the history of (my) quilts to give to the happy couple.
I finished the quilt the night before we left. Since we left for the airport before it was light out I didn't have a chance to take pictures of it before the trip (needing natural light and all). So before the wedding, Harv and I took this baby out on the streets of Atlanta and had a little photo shoot.

Actually, we took it to a park. Piedmont Park? Does that sound right? Well there was a beautiful lake, lots of sunshine and grass! Actual grass! Something that my backyard is sorely lacking.

I'm calling this design Audio 1. I was inspired by the random zig zags of audio waves. I see them everyday on the track sheets we use at work. The first time I remember seeing something like that as a kid was in Fantasia. I loved that movie.
It's called Audio 1 because I'm not sure that this is exactly what I was going for. I may try another version based on this idea. But we'll see.

I do like it a lot. I hope that the bride and groom do as well. I'm not totally sure of their tastes. The nice thing about making a little throw like this for people is they don't have to feel obligated to have it out on display if it doesn't exactly suit them. It's perfectly acceptable to store it in a closet and bring it out for a snuggle every once in a while.

(PS Stabone is on antibiotics and he should be better soon!)

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Great Big Pants

A birthday gift for the legendary Jenny Towner.

The pattern is from Amy Butler's In Stitches.
I had read elsewhere on the internet that these wide legged pants were reeeeeeally wide. It's true. But Jenny liked them.

I used the same He-Man bed sheet that I used to make this pillow for another friend's birthday. I was a little limited in the placement of the images. I only had just enough fabric widthwise to make the pants the images aren't in the most ideal spots. I taped the front and back pattern pieces together at the side seams so that I only had to cut out two pieces of fabric. It seemed like it would be easier to get what I wanted out of the fabric by doing it this way. Plus, that's two less seams to sew. There really wasn't any reason not to do it this way since the legs are so straight.
I don't think that this is quite what Amy Butler means when she suggests using vintage fabric. But how can you not love these when Skeletor looks so bad ass?

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Pinned

Thanks so much for all of the sweet comments about my Zipped Up quilt. I'm sorry that I didn't give any details about my method. If I do share I would like to write up a proper little tutorial. Or at least a half-assed one. So I hope you don't mind being a little patient and wait until I have a chance.
In the meantime I made this little pin cushion.
I just made this up but I know that I have seen many pin cushions very similar to this in many different places. The only ones that I can think of right now are these little babies by Maritza of Soto Softies. Not exactly the same but they clearly influenced this design.
In other news, I have almost one hundred percent decided that I am going to apply for Felt Club XL this November. It makes me a little nervous! I've never participated in a craft fair before. I really don't even know if I could get accepted and if I do there will be a lot of crafting pressure. But I think that could be good for me. It's always nice to have a purpose to my sewing. So wish me luck and I will keep you posted!

Zipped Up

Ahhh...at long last, it's cooled off. This means my craft room is once again habitable. I'm so glad.
I finished this wedding gift for a friend who was married recently. The colors were inspired by the wedding colors.
I had the idea for this simple design a while ago. I came up with an easy little trick to make the colored panel. You're probably thinking, "Really Liz, it's not that complicated...trick schmick." But really! It was a nice simple little trick.
The only snag I hit was that I accidentally miscut the panel at one point and I ended having to make it narrower than I had initially planned. But I think it worked out.
This design actually came to me in a half-sleep half-drunk weird dream. I came up with it, thinking of a black and white quilt inspired by the teeth of a zipper and I thought it was such an amazing idea. Like really really incredible. Like I thought it was an ingenious idea. Then I woke up and thought "Huh, I guess it's not that great." And I was kind of bummed out. It was like one of those dreams where you're all of a sudden really rich and you're so psyched about it and then you wake up and you don't have very much money at all.
But as I thought about it once I was awake, I started to see how it could be cool after all. I came up with the random fabric choices which made it much more appealing to me.
I was going to call the design "Zipper" but I thought "Isn't there a quilt in this book called Zipper?" So I checked and yes there is. Not only that but there is a quilt called "Confetti" a name which I unwittingly pilfered for this doll quilt. Whoops. So this one is named "Zipped Up". I'm sorry if I'm taking that name from anyone else, I really don't mean to steal.

Friday, September 07, 2007

Snail's Pace

This little guy is a very fitting mascot for Lady Harvatine crafts of late. Things have been happening verrrrrrrrryyyyyy slowwwwwwwwlyyyyyyyy.The recent heatwave made my craft room unbearable and kept me from using my sewing machine at all since I made this in the bedroom. The doorstop was somewhat forgiving but I didn't think quilting on the bed was such a great idea. Having these little Wee Wonderfuls hand sewing patterns to play with in the air conditioning has saved me from total craft shut down.Thankfully, it has now officially cooled off. In fact, morning and night could even be called chilly! Well, maybe not chilly, maybe just a bit nippy. But still, I can sew again! Last night I did a little quilting and this weekend I think things will be speeding up around here.

Saturday, September 01, 2007

Wonderful Wee

Well it's hot as you know what. Maybe you don't know what, but I'm not going to tell you because this is a family friendly blog. But just trust me, it's bad. It's hot as a bad bad word.
Now look at this picture I just took.
It doesn't look so bad, does it? Look at the pretty flowers and the pretty pretty sky! It's beautiful! No, you're wrong. It's hell, in my own backyard.
At least I have this sweet little butterfly already finished, made from Hillary Lang's not-surprisingly great Wee Wonderfuls Hand Sewing for Fun pattern cards. I braved the heat of the yard (which is oddly hotter than the unair-conditioned house at 2 in the afternoon) to take these pictures so I can share them with you and feel like I've accomplished something today aside from sweating and eating the Fresca popsicles I made last night.
Phew. Sorry for ranting.

PS Fresca popsicles aren't very good. I wouldn't recommend you try them.