Are you in Chicago? Do you want to take a super fun crafty class?

Steff Bomb, winner of TLC’s Craft Wars, is here to help!

Chicago Makes presents: A Plush Toy Sewing Workshop by Steff Bomb. Wednesday, February 5th, 2014 7pm – 9pm. @ Sew Crafty Studios, 2320 N Damen Ave, STE 1E, Chicago, IL 60647. Learn how to sew a plush piece of cake! $35 per person, materials included. Free booze, snacks, and cake! Beer provided by Revolution Brewery. Must be 21+ to attend. For more information visit sewcraftystudio.com or email: info@sewcraftystudio.com

I have taken the liberty of showing y’all some of my favorites from Steff’s plush portfolio!

Ahhhh I feel so lucky!!! The adorable Em Somerville of Lick My Cupcakes doodled me and just sent me a print as well as two cute stickers! My biz partner liked them a lot and stuck them on some of our Yummy You packages, so if you’ve ordered recently, you may have seen this, too!

If you are looking for a cute commission, you should definitely hit Em up if she has time!

Sometimes I’m like, “Ugh, I have nothing interesting to blog about! I’m just making orders and shipping them and doing a bunch of boring stuff!” But sometimes I forget that stuff could be mildly interesting as a peek into my day-to-day.

I’ve been having fun including pins in orders that kinda match up with the item I’m sending, like this sweet radish-on-radish action.

The other reason I wanted to blog about the radishes is that I have ALWAYS had a bit of a problem with figuring out how to stick my branding on these guys. Normally with my crochet work, I can sew a clothing tag somewhere, but there is not a lot of surface for sewing labels when it comes to the radish lariat scarf.  In the past, I have tried sewing a label to one of the leaves. I never really wanted to sew one to the radish itself because it seemed ugly.

One alternative solution I’ve been using is these jewelry tags (sorry it was hard to photograph them!)

But I’m not sure if people really like that up in their radishes, either. The cool part about the jewelry tag is that people can easily remove the if they don’t like them.

I know there is probably some difference in preference from person to person regarding branding on their items. Some people request it specifically because they like knowing they have a Twinkie Chan item. But I’ve also received complaints in the past, regarding t-shirts, they they wish I didn’t include branding in my graphics. So I get that there are two sides to the story.

When it comes to branding on items that I buy, I don’t mind supporting indie businesses and wearing something with their brand on it, especially if the brand name and logo are cute. I’m less likely to care about having a giant ADIDAS or JUICY across my butt. If you have any specific thoughts regarding my little radish buddies, I’m interested!

I’m finding it a little hard to get into 2014. Part of me wanted to take a week or two to just relax and not work for once after the holiday rush, but that didn’t really happen. I had some stressful personal stuff happening (not health-related, don’t worry, just first world problems) that stretched out for a few weeks, but I hope that I’m seeing the end of that right about now. We’re butting up against Valentine’s Day, and part of me wanted to give up and not have any kind of Valentine’s Day-related shop update, because I didn’t think it was worth the stress, but we will have a few items in the next week or so. Some of them will be assorted cupcake ring boxes.

We’re also sending my book proposal for Crochet Book #2 to potential publishers, which is always kind of a weird experience. For my first book, I didn’t even know that my licensing agent was pitching the book. He just sort of rang up one day and was like, “Hey, we have a book deal.” I didn’t even write a proposal. I actually wrote a proposal this time, and I have a new literary agent, my buddy Pickle, and there’s actually a submission list and pitch calls and the whole kit and caboodle. Having done all this from the agent’s side, I know there are a lot of “no”s when it comes to pitching books, and we have already had a few. It’s hard on the writer’s side to stay positive about the whole thing, as I’d rather not self-publish, but keep your fingers crossed, and we’ll see how it all goes. I’ve already replied to a few of Pickle’s emails saying, “I’m a lemon! I’m a lemon!” although I did include the words “rue the day!!!” in one of my more recent email responses.

I was also asked to contribute to a bookazine that is coming out some time in February (yes… as in, a few weeks from now… REALLY fast turnaround!), and I’m excited to show you guys that. It includes a really fun new crochet pattern by yours truly, and whenever the book comes out, I will also release the mystery item from that pattern in my shop as well. Can’t wait to show you guys!!!

Last week, I noticed that Bibi was going up the stairs in an odd way and really hesitating sometimes go up them. Unfortunately, the only way she can get outside to go to the bathroom is to use a set of stairs (which is one of the reasons why I know I can’t stay in this house forever….when she gets old, I won’t be able to carry her up and down stairs to use the loo!).

I took her to the vet, and she got some x-rays, and luckily she didn’t have any tendon or arthritis issues, just a little bit of swelling in a back knee. I was told to keep her activity limited and to give her Metacam for the pain and inflammation.

Unfortunately, the Metacam seemed to give her CRAZY DIARRHEA. I wasn’t sure if it was just a coincidence or not, so I kept her on the Metacam and put on her on a bland diet of rice and cottage cheese. After 2 more days,  I took her off the Metacam to see if it would help things. But she only got worse. She lost interest in eating, plus, the stuff coming out of her butt started to look alarmingly like strawberry syrup (sorry if that’s TMI!).

I called the vet to ask if I needed to bring Bibi back in, and she said that since Bibi had been on Metacam before without incident, that she might have caught some giardia or something, but to definitely stop giving her the Metacam and pick up some anti-diarrhea and anti-nausea meds for her. Bibi had also started to barf quite a bit. POOR BIBI.

I got all her meds and tried to keep her hydrated while she had no interest in food. Meanwhile, I caught some kind of icky cold or flu myself and had to take care of the both of us!

Hairy was out of town for the weekend, so Manda stayed over, and we ate lots of delicious dinners and lazed around a lot being slug-people and watching television.

We did have to run to the 24-hour Walgreens for toilet paper at some point, which resulted in a random and joyous TEDDYBEARPILEUP!!!!

And then it was back to feeling grody and doting on Bibi.

Bibi is now feeling much better. She is navigating the stairs fine, and she is excited about food again. I’m still getting over my bug. I have The Barf Cough and body aches, so I apologize for not blogging as much! I also planned to have some fun shop updates for Valentine’s Day, but my productivity has been severely hindered the past week by all of the above! Such is real life!

Stay tuned!