Month: March 2011

Leondra from Alternative Revolt magazine interviewed me for this special feature in their anniversary issue. I was kinda surprised they contacted me, since it’s mostly a tough-looking music mag, but I was happy cuz Leondra gets it. My line looks really cutesy-poo and young, but my pieces are really for older girls with an appreciation for all things girlie! My interview is on pages 22-23, and the issue is free to check out online!

Hairy and I are back from visiting London and Ireland. I have quite a few photos but thought I would start with my book signing/crochet cupcake party at All The Fun of the Fair off Carnaby Street. (Click the link to see the shop’s blog entry about the event with LOTS of photos!) Pretty much all the photos I’m posting are stolen from All The Fun of the Fair, and lovely ladies Boopetta, Little Miss Delicious, Tet’s post in my Ravelry group, Cakemix, and Cat from Cut Out & Keep! A few days before the event, we were in the ‘hood and decided to scope out the adorable venue, but the shop was closed! On the day of, we bought 2 dozen cupcakes at Candy Cakes. It took a little while because I didn’t realize that buying 2 dozen cupcakes was a to-do there, and it was a bit of a mess but worked out ok! Then we ran upstairs to the shop, only to realize that Zoe from the shop had also baked a bunch of cuppies at home!!! Cupcake overload! Here’s a snap that Hairy took before he went to find some manly stuff to do. And here are the rest of the photos that I done stole: It was really cool meeting new friends and some of my girls from my my Ravelry group, and also my cousin, and two reps from my book publisher came out to support! I also got to meet some of my cute Twitter buds like Teese and Little Miss Delicious. All in all it was a joy to hang out with everybody and maybe a once in a lifetime opportunity to have us all in the same room. Too bad we can’t do that every week! Frankly, I was a bit nervous and anxious about it beforehand because I’m pretty much an introvert who spends all day alone working with the dogs, but the event was super duper fun, and I appreciate everybody who came :). Oh yeah! I forgot to mention that there was a giant 500,000 people protest against the government that day, too. Hairy and I experienced a bit of it on the way back to our hotel from the book event. Loads of people in the streets. Tube stations closed. Traffic everywhere. TopShop got hit with giant paint splatters. I hope everyone made it home without too much ado!!

Sorry for major lack of blogging! We are leaving for the UK tomorrow, and you always have to do MORE work to go on vacation! I’m trying to get organized for Renegade Austin in May, get some things settled with Yummy You, finish up a wholesale order, pick up the house a bit cuz I hate to leave a dirty house. I wasn’t able to accomplish everything I would’ve liked, but I tried! I gotta go do laundry now!! I closed up my Etsy and BigCartel shops, but will re-open on April 1. I’ve been sketching all kinds of fun new scarves. So I’m excited to get home and make them 😛 We are headed to Dublin and London. London, I love. Dublin, I’ve never been to before. So all in all, should be a good trip 🙂 Remember if you are in London, to please come stop by my booksigning and say hi! It’s at All The Fun of the Fair, in Soho, Unit 2 – 8 Kingly Court, Carnaby Street, Saturday March 26, starting at 1pm.  I am hoping we can have a little time to just say hi and eat some cupcakes and sign some books before beginning the crochet class, so people who don’t really want to crochet but want to say hello should still swing by. I’d love to see you!! Also if you’d like to actually take the class (I’m a terrible teacher so it’s more just like hanging out and crocheting together as I try to sort out crochet problems clumsily!), please click on the shop link and RSVP so they can prep enough yarn for everyone :). OMG that reminds me, I need to print out pattern handouts!! Thanks for reminding me, blog!   Oh, and p.s. if you shop at Forever21 right now they are donating 100% to relief efforts in Japan. Also, a bunch of pals have donated time and love and their art to the #PrayForJapan art show that opens tomorrow/Saturday at JapanLa with 100% proceeds going to the Red Cross. Also you can just donate directly to the Red Cross. I am donating a crocheted item to a friend who is organizing an auction, so I’ll let you know the details when I know as well. Ok, bye!

Shop Shop Shop! (Sorry in advance for the crap photos…..My light-kit and regular set up are sort of held hostage in Hairy’s man-cave right now while we half-attempt to paint it.)

  When I heard about Toffee Mag at KitschyDigitals(whose house I want to raid) a few months ago, I totally fell in <3 with it! It’s beautifully laid out and also comes with a “chewy center,” i.e. downloadable printable papers and fun craft projects. When Toffee put out the call for contributors, I raised my hand! So please go check out Toffee. There is a fun surprise in there from me to you! Let’s just say it has to do with the forest, as well as your favorite hot beverage :). EDIT: ok I broke. How could I not post any pics here? I’m too excited! We’re here to fox you up!   Time to sniff each other’s butts! We had that funny forest/sky background already since it was one of Hairy’s art pieces, and one of my craft tables is covered in astro turf, so it all kinda worked out perfectly. Another cool thing about the pattern in Toffee is that I’m pretty sure you could modify my fingerless mitt pattern (in my book) and make some cute fox gloves! 🙂 I was actually planning to do this, but never made the time. I think they would be adorable (I’d probably leave out the tail, though!). Oh yeah, wanna see some “sketches” of forest friends before I decided on the fox? Hello, humans! Ugh, p.s. what is the DEAL, wordpress? When I host photos on WordPress rather than Flickr or Photobucket, and I try to center align everything, the photos NEVER center align! *FIST SHAKE*

Thanks everyone for voting for my book on About.com’s 2011 Readers Choice award thingie. It really means a lot to me to be getting so much positive feedback about the book, and I love how much fun everyone is having making the projects :). I believe there may be a small feature/interview in the future, so I’ll keep you updated on that! p.s. Don’t forget, if you live near London, I am having a book signing/crochet-along at 1pm on Saturday, March 26th, at the yarn shop All The Fun of the Fair in Kingly Court off Carnaby Street. I would love to meet as many of you as possible while I am out there! I am going for vacation and to visit family but decided to try to have one book event to hopefully meet you guys and say hello eat cupcakes and crochet them! (You don’t have to crochet … you can just nosh and chat, too!)

So I’ve been working on these mini cake hair clips, right? I always have a difficult time choosing between the alligator clip and the french clip. I think the alligator clips are easier on the hair and easier to put on and take off, but I also think the french clip provides more stability for a 3D piece, and that’s why I use the french clips on the ice cream hair clips. I’m still trying to decide what to use on the mini cakes. I am thinking I might let people choose and just attach-to-order, although I’m still leaning strongly toward the french clip to avoid any wobbling. At first I had the alligator clip on it, and I wasn’t a fan of the resulting wobbliness. Then I tried to rip off the alligator clip. That didn’t work very well. I kind of had to cut it off, and then use the glue and the new french clip to “mend” the slices I’d made through the crochet! Here’s me testing out the french clip. Check out the rigorous dedication I have for bringing you quality product. 🙂    

Soooo, I wasn’t really on board with wearing oversized shirts and leggings until I very recently realized that this was my uniform in junior high. Holy flashbacks! I was actually made fun of for not wearing jeans like everybody else, but I thought jeans were really uncomfortable and weird, and I would much rather show up to school in what would pass for pajamas. These days, I live in my jeans, so it has been comfy but strange to run around in leggings today without a dress or a pair of shorts over them! Also, I have ALWAYS been anti-Uggs, espesh when girls wear them with a mini skirt or Daisy Dukes. That just makes no sense to me. However, when I saw this polka dot pair, I had couldn’t resist. I don’t wear them out of the house, though. They’re my House Fuggs, and they keep my feet warmz when socks don’t cut it. Shirt: Coco de Coeur Leopard Leggings: Betsey Johnson, bought at FredFlare Shoes: Refuse to be Usual Socks: Sock Dreams Cardi: Target At first I tried to take pics in Photobooth, but it’s always so grainy. So then I strung them together to make this animated gif. Sorry the cardigan got all weird and pixely and funky. GIFS! SHEESH! Just think of it as *:.:**.:.*sparkle*:.:**.:.*.

For the past few days, I have been having fun working in 3D a little bit to create a new small batch of fun hair clips or mini hats. There’s a lot of pastry coming your way… Also right now I’m shooting more pics to put more stuff in my closet sale. Thanks so much to peeps who already bought stuff. You’re helping me clear out my craft room!

YAY! Everyting is fixed now! Should work fine 🙂   I opened a BigCartel shop to finally unload all my unworn clothing! There’s a button in my blog sidebar, too, which is super ugly, but a placeholder for now! CLICK HERE TO SHOP! I uploaded 25 items, which is my maximum, so the more people buy, the more new stuff I can put up 🙂 Check out the ugliest shop banner ever created.

Click on over to Rock N Roll Bride for my latest tutorial AND giveaway!!! Late in 2010, Kat asked if I might contribute a how-to to her blog. I kind of scratched my head, because I couldn’t immediately think of something cool, foodie, AND wedding-y! Lucky for us, Kat is a genius, and suggested making garlands/bunting for wedding decor! Love it!! Go see!! And enter to win one of the garlands I made 🙂 You also get a few tiny peeks of our house!

Soooo I think putting together actual, organized, chronological blog entries about my book events in Seattle and Portland last November/December is just too overwhelming of a task right now, so I will share short, unorganized, bursty nuggets of traveling fun with you instead! This first bursty nugget is a compilation of sped-up video clips of me eating cupcakes baked by the lovely Miss Cuppy. She ever so graciously baked us 9 chocolate cuppies, and we had to eat them all before getting on the plane in 2-3 days. Tough job, right!??! I am actually a huge cupcake snob. The cake needs to be tasty and moist, and the frosting needs to be light and fluffy and not to sweet. I often find myself wiping off most of the frosting on a cupcake so I can just get at the less offensive cake part. But trust me, Cuppy’s cupcakes are 100% thoroughly DELISH!!! And I’m not just saying that cuz she’s my pal, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered to blog about it. Them thingz are GOOOOOOD!!! Oh I’m dreaming about them now….. I’m sad I didn’t capture all 9 cupcakes getting eaten, but sometimes Hairy refused to be filmed whilst eating, and I think there were times we shoved them in our mouths real fast and ran out of the hotel room! Just to round out the Cuppy and Moofs Seattle adventure: we all walked into Elliott Bay books to get Cuppy a copy of my book, and as we were walking around with the book, one of the store employees asked if it was Cuppy on the cover of the book. TOO FUNNY! It’s true, that day, Cuppy’s hair probably matched the cover more than mine did. I don’t know why I look so worried in that photo! HAHA. This is the only photo we took on that trip. We suck. Next time: MORE! Anyhoo, my other favorite memory with Cuppy on that trip is when we were walking around Urban Craft Uprising after my book signing, and we were shopping, and it was SO FREAKING HOT inside the venue, we were sweating bullets! We shared girl talk about our sweaty, stinky armpits. Then, while I was browsing around some cute jewelry booth, I FREAKED OUT!!! I was like, “CUPPY!! THE WORST THING THAT COULD EVER HAPPEN JUST HAPPENED!!!!!!!!” While shopping, I’d shoved a brown paper bag under my arm so I could have extra grabby hands, and when I removed the paper bag…it had a nasty SWEAT MARK ON IT!! AHHHHH!! Also I had fried pickles for the first time.

I was asked to show a pic of what I’ve been working on lately, so here’s a peek! I’ve been trying to catch up on custom orders for a little bit, since I always lag on them. I just had a big meeting for Yummy You, so I’m trying to do as much with my Etsy shop as possible before diving deep into Yummy You stuff again! A reader from New Zealand recently emailed me and asked: Anyway just wondering if you could let us readers know what you do in your day? (Monday to Friday) Are you at home crocheting all the time or do you hang out with your mates like Manda? I actually don’t get to hang out with my pals very much. Both Manda and I are really busy. I’m “busy but flexible” (stole that phrase from KerinRose ) and Manda is busy on a schedule, as she’s getting her MFA in Fashion Design, designing costumes for a children’s theater, AND interning! She’s crazy busy! For new readers of my blog, you may have missed my Q&A with Gala Darling for her “I want to be…” series, and it is chockful of info about my life and what I have been up to. It’s hard to say what a typical day is, since my focus changes a lot…from Yummy You… to new designs for Etsy … to working on a collaboration … and just keeping up with all the social networking, which I think is important, since I don’t really hit up events regularly around here that would be productive to me business-wise. I found myself quite busy lately writing fun tutorials for various magazines and blogs, which you’ll seen soon! 🙂 I am the classic workaholic, and I don’t leave the house a lot except to shop for yarn, take packages to the post office, walk the dogs, and eat food! 🙂 Also tonight, I uploaded a few more cupcake coffee cup cozies to the Etsy shop, so check it on out! p.s. A big project on my list is to redesign my website. I LOVE THE FRIDGE, but it’s hard to add or subtract sections to it … like links to my book … or Yummy You … or whatever new fun stuff comes up. I keep trying to figure out how to keep the fun fridge idea but also make my site more easy to navigate and to manipulate with new information. Not sure. I might just keep the fridge as my portfolio hub or something. Sigh. I dunno yet!

When I shop on Etsy, there are a couple of keywords I always fall back on: puff sleeve peter pan collar babydoll dress space mod (also for fun house stuff!) So I received my latest Etsy dress from meetmeinmontauk. I love it! Groovy citrus colors , puff sleeve, cotton and not polyester. I’m in babydoll bliss! Except the back zipper doesn’t have one of those claspy things on top so the zipper keeps falling down! I gotta fix that somehow. Also I am boring and always wear my jeans under my dresses these days. No colorful tights or fancy shoes. I still am not convinced that tights are just as warm as jeans. I would like to be convinced, as I think tights are cuter, but I don’t wanna freeze my beans off. Also today I did the The Bar Method exercise dvd, which is supposed to “integrate the fat burning format of interval training, the muscle shaping technique of isometrics, the elongating principles of dance conditioning, and the science of physical therapy to create a revolutionary new workout that quickly and safely reshapes your entire body.” My thoughts: For people whose excuse is that they don’t have time to work out…this is kind of a long DVD. Almost an hour if you do the whole thing, including the warm up. If you are looking for some cardio and some sweat, this is not for you. If you are looking to squeeze your butt a lot, this is definitely for you! My triceps and my thighs feel pretty worked out, but I didn’t get that over all feeling of satisfaction from this, whereas after I do a Carmen Electra DVD, I feel like I got run over by a bus. So I guess the Bar Method might be good for “body sculpting,” but to get some of this jiggle off my wiggle, I would definitely want to do more regular cardio, too, at the gym. But since this is only the first day I’ve tried the Bar Method, who knows yet!

Hey gang. You can now get some ice cream scoop hair clips and cupcake coffee cozies at ShanaLogic :).    

So the other day I popped into Imagiknit to buy some yarnage, and they got in more yarn from Knit Collage. Ugh, how can any self-respecting yarn lover not lust over their yarn!? I picked up two skeins! Bubble Gum Twist and Emerald Rainforest. I love all the little flowers and sparkly bits and sequins and just all the little neat surprises that are sewn into these yarns. (above images pulled from Knit Collage site) This yarn is SO lumpy and bumpy and CHUNKY. With crochet being so dense, I knew I couldn’t complete a whole project with just one skein of Knit Collage, so I pulled some other chunky yarns to go with it: merino wools from Cascade and Knit Picks. When it comes to wool, I’ve found I can only wear merino close to the skin! I decided to make a moebius cowl since I think that cowls with a twist tend to look less weird on me. And I snapped some pics in my bubblegum bathroom! I still kinda don’t “get” cowls. I like that they work up really quick. I like that they just kinda stay put. But they just don’t seem that warm to me. If it has to be big enough to get over my big ol’ head, then it doesn’t really make contact with my neck, and it seems like all the cold air can rush in and attack!! So outside, I didn’t think this was very warm. However, just for noodling around in the house, it did make me feel cozy, like being hugged by a sheep. Am I approaching this whole cowl thing wrong? Are they not supposed to be superwarm? Are they more like a snazzy woolen necklace? Is my head just too big?!? I might have to be one of those cowl girls who has button-up cowls, so that they fit a bit more snug around my heck, and I don’t have to get it past my noggin!

Thanks for participating in my giveaway everybody! Using Random.org, I drew 10 winners. You can click on these pics to view them bigger if you like! Congrats, everyone! I’ll be emailing you for your mailing addresses 🙂