tomato plants are ALL coming out today. It’s hard to say goodbye sometimes.

Today I will plan our very very late fall garden and I’ll go get some starts at Annie’s tomorrow. Please lord let Jack not be sick tomorrow!!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

We have a kick ass new blender. A BlendTec in a snappy red color. The BlendTec is in the same family as the Vita-Mix, one of those blenders that will basically pulverize anything into a delicious smoothie in 2 minutes or less.

I haven’t been particularly creative with my shakes. I use spinach, kale, banana, ginger and fresh or frozen berries in all combinations. Spinach, kale and ginger is very good and spicy and has the added bonus of making feel so very accomplished to have eaten 2 servings of leafy greens for breakfast. It’s like I expect some kind of angel of leafy greens to come down, bless me and give me a medal every time I have one. I’m so fucking smug about it I want to kick my own ass.

Our cute strawberry plants are steadily dribbling out 3-4 ripe strawberries a day and they are sending out runners like crazy. 3-4 strawberries is great and all…. but sometimes you just need LOTS of strawberries so today Jack and I and some friends took a mini road trip down to Davenport to Swanton Barry Farm to their U-Pick farm. I picked 14 pounds of strawberries! Okay, Jsack helped a little. Although mostly he ran around with his friend making up games until it was so cute I almost forgot how much of a huge pain in the butt he was this morning (almost).

There are quite a few places to pick strawberries around here but note that Swanton is organic and a union farm. It felt good to buy from them.

In local news the city of Oakland is going to change some laws so that people can legally grow food (read about it on Oakland North blog) on their residential lots and sell that produce. How cool is that? I’m so glad. I know that Ghost Town Farm was having some trouble with the city an I hope this helps Novella out a little, although I think she already shelled out like 3000$ for a conditional use permit. It also means that I’ll be sitting out on my front lawn selling snow peas tomorrow from 10am-12pm. (just kidding) (sort of).

On a totally different note – The food truck craze continues to explode into more and more ridiculous awesomeness. The other day Jack and I were at the playground and we got the most delicious potlatch seasoned french fries ever made on the planet from the Doc’s of the Bay truck. And our local play cafe has died a natural (if very sad) death in order to allow it’s owner to start a food truck called Sue’s Sassy Pies. Their menu sounds delish and I can’t wait to try them out. I can’t approve of the word sassy really in conjunction with food but I’ll let it slide.

If you’re in the East Bay I recommend coming to the Friday evening Bites on Broadway. Food trucks flock from all over the bay area like 3 blocks from my house and you can sample all kinds of stuff and then hang out on the Oakland Tech lawn. I hope it isn’t too crowded…

Is the food truck craze all over the US? Anyone?

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

– flowers are good for drying and are nicely aromatic
– has a bunch of medicinal uses including fever reducer and, get this, can be used as snuff for a mild stimulant. heh.
– likes full sun, well drained soil and does not need to be fertilized
– spreads by rhizome
– can be propagated by root division
– attracts good insects,lady bugs and predatory wasps
– good companions plant for raspberries.

I think i will put it over by the comfy. the chickens are going to eat it, darn it. We really need to make the new coop but don’t have time until like 3 weekends from now. I really don’t know how to build stuff so i have to wait for Vim to do it. And i can only badger him so much. This makes me very nervous and makes me feel out of control of my own life.

Our coop idea has morphed into a coop/shed. i sketched up a design a few nights ago. It’ll go along the back wall and will be a very effective barrier between our yard and the post office truck parking lot and it won’t block any sun there either and will still comply with Oakland laws about chicken coops.

OR we could just spend 600-700$ on a coop that someone else has built… and then we will have to buy or build a shed. I’m not having one of those shitty plastic sheds.

We just spent some time flipping the grass and dirt in the front yard. the front yard dirt is interesting, the top 3-4 inches is a very loose combination of soil, dead and composting grass (some tallish variety) from several years and also several years worth of detritus from the weeping blue atlantic cedar that towers over our house. i love our tree. When you pitchfork and flip a patch over you can see how it is decomposing with the help of some mycelium and it’s easy to flip it.

why am i doing that? Well… eventually I am going to put in a native grass meadow. obviously I can’t spend time and money doing that until after construction on our house. Or front yard is small and I’m picturing massive construction machines, porta-potties and hunky sweaty half clothed men drinking diet cokes or shoveling dirt or whatever.

However, the front yard, being in the front of the house, is what everyone sees and comments on. There’s this guy that I really like that lives a block away and is a horticulturist and as i walk Jack to school he often accosts me and gives me advice about the front yard. Friday he told me i should do this pitchforking of the grass to help kill it off and make sure it doesn’t go to seed again. It sounded possibly like a satisfying activity and it was for about 6 sq ft. then i got tired and went inside.

I’m feeling annoyed and helpless and generally stupid because there is this pallet in my backyard that i have been trying to nail some boards into for like.. ever. Finally today I went down to the garage and got some nails, Vim’s nails ie not ones i would ever have bought or chosen to use, and they were too big and i couldn’t nail them in and the boards split and WTF. really, it’s just like 3 boards that need to get nailed! I decided to give up and ask Vim to do it. Now it is almost 6pm and i am finishing up my coffee from this morning. SMRT.

Do you like how i go from not posting at all to rampant posting about stuff no one gives a crap about? me too! Whee!

oh, one more thing. I am feeling proud of myself for not getting involved in someone else’s drama. I ALMOST let my self enter but this time I actually stopped and thought about how if I entered at all i would get sucked in and stressed out. So i stepped away even though it was kind of hard. I did my time and now it is someone else’s turn.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I bought this little balsa wood doll bed the other day and then decided that it needed a mattress and bedding. I sewed the mattress and pillow with yellow ticking and stuffed them with poly fill.

I used an old Holly Hobby sheet to make a fitted sheet and pillow cases:

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I’m also super excited about our new house. Vim just stopped amidst our disgustingly messy kitchen and said, “i’ve got apartment senoritis”. Not that our place has ever been kept clean… but now I feel no incentive to clean AT ALL. My new theory is that I will just move the clean stuff that I can see and then I’ll just fucking torch the rest of it. My other new theory of packing and moving is that I will only pack the things I can see nd that I know already have a place to live at the new house. Like, I got a bug up my ass to move all of our board games. it was CRUCIAL that we get Big Boggle and Ice Towers over to the new place like yesterday. Now they are unpacked into the hall closet all waiting… for something.

I’ve bought 365000 million dollars worth of Ikea curtains. I also bought some chicken coop plans today The Garden Ark on the recommendation of @craftleftovers. Vim has a line on some RI Red chicks from a dude who has a guerilla chicken farm in west oakland. Then, I want to get either an orpington, an easter egger or a silver cuckoo marans. I confess, I want a colorful egg basket.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

In 2006 I found this cute Sailor Jerry swimdress at Macy’s:

But now, four years (and 20 pounds) later it got all stretched out and the elastic is all old and creaky. The fabric, though tired, is still great and I may have to work it into a new dress.

Board shorts are good but can chafe and ride up ones ass. So,make one I must. Kwik sew had two patterns that looked good. I went with the one that was just a swimdress without a suit attached (kwik sew 3416) to it because it looked easier.

I’m so pissed I waited too long to buy the rainbow fabric and it sold out! duh, because it was AWESOME! So I ended up with leopard print, pink stars, and cherries. All 6 oz (the cherries may have been 8 oz), 4 way stretch nylon spandex.

I was planning on taking pictures of the process but it went so fast that I didn’t bother.

I used my sewing machine and my serger. For the serger I used 3 spools of wooly nylon with a narrow 3 thread overlock stitch. on the regular sewing machine I used wooly nylon in the bobbin and regular thread as the upper thread. I couldn’t figure out how to get the serger spool of wooly nylon to work with my regular machine. There must be some attachment that makes the spool fit, but I don’t have it.

I used the cherry fabric for the first dress and I made it in a large size. I (almost) always trace my patterns on to new pattern paper or tracing paper and then I cut into the traced pattern since too often I have cut into a pattern only to realize later that I needed a different size.

see overlap here:

no over lap here:

I swear, According to my measurements the large should have fit, but no. I thought it was great until I tested it in the hot tub and it was clear the it was not fitting in the bust area.

I traced out the medium size and used it with the stars fabric. I found an old Paul Frank bikini bottom with the cute skull on it and used it for one side of the top, it was a string bikini so I just left the string attached and then cut off the other string and used it for the other side and made this dress a halter. I also overlapped the two top pieces which seems crucial but is not the way the pattern works.

I used a rolled hem on the bottom of both.

I think I’ll go ahead and make the leopard print one this week and I’ll use an old red bikini top to add some accents.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The thing is that the reason I didn’t wear these shoes very much was that they are too big and guess what?! They are still a bit too big.

The leather dye and paint were both pretty easy to work with.

I have a pair of white Miz Mooz boots (leather) that I could use the blue dye on and it would stay more true to the dye color. But those boots are too big for me too. Anything pre pregnancy, before I realized that I am actually a 6.5 not a seven, is too big for me but I can’t seem to let them all go. I think I’ll put a toe insert in the blue pair to see how that improves the fit.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I want a Rhode Island Red, at least one!

Check out this hilarious backyard chicken coop hat is disguised as a trashcan

I also like this movable chicken coop from My Backyard Chicken Farm.

GreenFoot has an article about a chook dome that you can make yourself from pretty cheap hardware store materials. This is the one I would want I think.

I’m pretty sure in Oakland and Berkeley you can have backyard chickens. I’m not sure if it changes by neighborhood though!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

A crappy picture of it anyway. It’s hard sometimes to take a good picture of yourself. It’s not that my camera doesn’t have a self timer but more about shot setup. I could have gone outside with the good camera and tripod but I’m lazy and the inside of my house is just too cluttered to make a good backdrop. This shot includes some cat barf and my husbands yellow crocs and the strap to the camera. Sorry about that!

I made this skirt with Timeless Treasures bicycle fabric that I bought at Hart’s Fabric in Santa Cruz. and some plain black lawn and some super cute ruffle trim from Joann’s. I with I had bought more of the black ruffle trim, I did buy a few yards in red that I haven’t used yet.

I copied one of my favorite skirts onto muslin and then used that as my pattern. It’s just a simple A line and only took a few hours. Here’s how I do it:

- cut main fabric and lining.
- take a lining piece and a main piece and sew them together at the top, right sides facing. Do the same for the second pieces.
- flip up the lining. on one side sew the lining pieces together and then sew the main fabric pieces together. on the other side sew from the bottom up about 3/4 of the way or to where ever your zipper comes down to.
- flip the lining into the skirt ans sew a top stitch along the top edge.
- put your zipper in
- hem the main fabric and hem the lining in towards main skirt fabric.
The End

How do you make a basic lined A line. Does my way sound easy?

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I made a blurb book and it turned out AWESOME. I love it! It’s like an actual book! It’s small and square, hardcover, with a dust jacket and is about 100 pages of all full color photographs (some text), is great quality and cost about 30$. Well worth it, IMHO, for a book you will be ordering as a keepsake for yourself and family.

I’m feeling pretty grumpy right now. I’m PMSing hardcore. Once a month I become SO AGGRAVATED with EVERYTHING. Things that only mildly annoy me at other times become huge issues that make me stabby.

For instance, you know how everyone thinks their baby is totally awesome and cute and smart? I’m sure it is, but even if I love your baby and think it is perfect it is still a giant lumpy BLOB. So when you think MY BABY is a giant lumpy blob then welcome to the club, fuckwit. ALL BABIES are giant blobs unless you spend a lot of time with them. Talk about how great your baby is all you want but don’t then point out some other lady’s baby and whisper about how it seems like kind of a blob because I guarantee you that everyone thinks that about your baby as well.

Also, I swear I have been the recipient of no less than 3 fucking stupid junior high school moments in the past few weeks. OMFG! Grow up! I’m a little slow on the uptake sometimes like 10 minutes or a day later I’m all, “wtf just happened?! Did they really insinuate that? WHY?” In my hightened PMSy state I keep going back over the moments to try to figure them out instead of just forgetting about it.

I just read an article in Vim’s MIT magazine about a drug that they can give people that dims emotional memories. So they ask the person to recall them memory in detail and then give them this drug and the memory loses it’s emotional charge. They don’t forget it but it just no longer triggers an emotional response. To this I say, “DISTURBING!” Well, fuck, if soldiers get PSD we’ll just give them this drug and it won’t matter anymore! Go ahead rape somebody! the state will just give them this drug so that they won’t care enough to prosecute. OMG. But then also, If you’re incapacitated by emotional memories maybe it would be an okay thing… but still, EW!

Fish tacos, chocolate and bouncing on the trampoline with kids made me feel slightly better. As did some retail therapy. I got a cute black dress on sale, some underwear, some shampoo and some crap at IKEA.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I was in Peidmont Fabrics the other day when my hand reached out for this gorgeous Liberty of London cotton lawn print. I mean look at it?!!! Doesn’t your heart go out to it? However, my hand trembled and quaked as I check the price tag at 37.00 a yard. Instead of a dress then, I bought a tiny bit and made some handkerchiefs. Raise your hand if you think I am nuts.

Then i made a tiny one. Raise your hand if you have changed your mind.

The handkerchief goes really nicely with the pair of delicate rose colored with pearl trim spats I just made too.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I think we all have our go-to local fabric store – for me, the big chain store is Joannes. Joannes is fine for cheapish everyday fabrics. The Joannes near me recently closed and so I had to journey to a nearby town to go find one but that one is a SUPERSTORE. It’s huge and has a way bigger selection of fabrics and notions and I’m pretty excited about that.

There are a couple of smaller non chain fabric stores near me that I frequent often as well. But what about other sources?

Tiny neighborhood shops. You can search online for small shops. Yelp is a good way of finding them. I found Happy Stop Fabrics right in my own neighborhood this way!

Upholstery shops are another great place to check out. Upholstery weight fabrics are fairly easy to sew with (depending on what you are making) and you can discover great finds there and besides they often have a spectacular remnants bin. And don’t get me started on the notions…

Cheap ready to wear shops. Think Target or Dress Barn. If you find some crappy dress made out of lovely fabric buy the largest size they have and cut it up!

Thrift and vintage stores are next on my list. It takes a bit more time to rummage through these shops and you’re unlikely to find actual yardage. Still, reworking an old dress (think huge prom dresses and the like!) made with great fabric into a shirt or skirt can be rewarding. Thrift shops tend to be cheap too which is a plus.

Antique marts – you know those larger antique stores that have many vendors all selling in one spot.  You just might find yardage in one of these places and if not then you will definitely find some great vintage pieces of clothing. Don’t be afraid to cut up old clothes for fabric!!

Online is of coucrse your next good bet, I could go ON and ON. There are a TON of fantastic online shops. reprodepot.com, fabric.com, hancocks-paducah.com, sewmamasew.com to name a few.  And here are a few more: fabrictales.com,  nuno-plus.com , reproductionfabrics.com , purlsoho.com, craftyplanet.com and (one of my favs) superbuzzy.com .

Search engines are your friends when it comes to searching for fabric. You can try all kinds of searches, be specifi or vague, you never know it might work! You could try: ‘fabric remnants’, ‘quilting fabric with bees’ or ‘alexander henry fabrics on sale’.

I don’t know anything about buying fabric wholesale but I bet that is an option.

Where are your favorite places to buy fabrics?

This is cross posted on blogher.com.

Don’t neglect places like ebay or etsy to lok for fabric yardage  or remnants either. Also, just go ahead and use a search engine to search for’vontage fabric’  or ‘antique fabric’, you’ll be surprised at how many small site yoiu can find selling fun fabrics.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The problem I sometimes have is that everyone is using the same pool of materials. The internet makes the world a smaller place and I can acquire fabrics or papers or whatever from anywhere… and so can everyone else. What you come up with out of this mass pool of materials is still unique and creative and one of a kind. Still though! I want to see MORE uniqueness and creativity in the form of materials as well.

Two (newish) online sites are providing help for that form of start from scratch creativity, Ponoko and (still in beta) Spoonflower.

What is Ponoko?

Ponoko is a service that lets you design 3d items from a variety of materials. You can design a wooden table and they will manufacture it for you and then, free of charge, you can set up a shop on their site to sell it to other people as well. It’s a wonderful ‘green’ approach to manufacturing as each one made is going off to a good home right away!

What is Spoonflower?

Spoonflower is a husband and wife team fabric printing company. You create your own fabric design and they are reasonably priced and offer swatches, fat quarters and fabric by the yard.

Jessica Rosenkrantz of nervous system design has created this lovely fan using Ponoko. You can buy it on Ponoko as well!

Kim Fraser from Spoonflower upkeeps the Spoonflower blog.

Shopworthy has blogged about making a backpack for her son out of fabric that he designed and was printed by Spoonflower. So cute!

Cross posted on BlogHer.com

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The fair is November 2nd at the San Francisco County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park and is focusing on hand made Plush Art. Here is the description from the web site:

You Bazaar! will be on November 2nd 2008 from 10am to 5pm at the San Francisco County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park.  You Bazaar! will feature 30 select craft vendors selling quality handmade wares and a series of rotating workshops throughout the day with some of your favorite plush designers. While we would like to use this event to promote plush art we welcome all crafters to apply for a vendor space. This will be a fun family friendly event to kick off the Plush You SF Show, opening Friday, November 7th 2008 and excite customers for the holiday shopping extravaganza Bazaar Bizarre San Francisco on Sunday, November 30th 2008.

Go on over to the SF Bazaar Bizarre blog to see my first interview. I can guarantee that you will fall in love with Planet Tokki and it’s creator, not only is her plush art divine but the complex and detailed background of Planet Tokki will make you giggle and swoon.

Be sure to come visit the You Bazaar! Fair on November 2nd!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Read my previous post about our planned labyrinth here. We chose a spot a little closer to the Container house as the labyrinth ended up being a bit bigger than I thought. I _think_it ended up being about 16 feet across each spiral.

We spent two days hauling rocks and gently arguing about how to lay them out. At the end of two days we had a perfectly laid out 5 Auspicious clouds labyrinth with one layer of rocks denoting the walls. All we have to do is fill out the walls with more rocks and get gravel and sand for the pathways.

How to build a meditation labyrinth using only some beer, a golf cart and a few river rocks:

Step One: get beer and a big flat space:

Okay seriously… I read around on the internets to see how other people did it but didn’t find a whole lot. So, just now, in searching for the site that was helpful I found a couple more that look good, here they are:

Labyrinth Enterprises FAQ

Labyrinthos

Labyrinth Society

KT weed wacked and we raked and moved large obstacles form the area.

We started out with a rope with tape marked every 18 inches. Rebar staked in the center help the rope in place as we used inverted tip marking spray paint to mark the perimeter.

Of course, I picked a complicated none standard design for the labyrinth. The design has 5 spiral arms and so we  marked 5 lines at 72 degrees (aprox) and along each of these lines we marked each 18 inch segment with the spray paint.

I had decided hat we would draw each spiral arm from the center out and that seemed to work fairly well although I believe the engineers in the group did not agree. One of the best parts of this was seeing how my friends all differently went about working on this large group project. I think we all did pretty well for a group of horrible OCD control freaks.

The best part was that Acrobat snuck back after we all left an RE-DID much of it. Hahaa.

We hauled rocks from the river bed to outline the walls and we will fill in with the more eventually. If you can get free materials like that I highly recommend it. Have you ever priced rocks? They are expensive! Sand and gravel will mark the path and a friend has just offered some pretty sounding paving stones as well. Which is great because I was originally envisioning paving stones but then did the aforementioned pricing…

September is flitting by so I need to get back up there before it gets to cold and the rains start

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I really like how each size has it’s own pattern paper. I would have been seriously annoyed it I had to use chalk to size it. This one is size 2.

I used some left over black fleece that was Vim’s (I think left over from his scary-ass bunny costume). And I took apart the very first thing I ever sewed with my crappy kenmore – a blue corduroy ‘body pillow’ pillow case. I was pretty proud of it then but since I no longer use the comforter that matched it I figured I was in the clear to rip it up. I also used the cute bunny buttons that I bought for Vim (i can’t remember why I bought them).

It;s kinda pimpin’ with it’s shawl-esque collar, dontcha think?!

I am planning on making Jack a ‘smoking jacket’ version. Black velvet with pink tie material will look outrageously awesome on him I’m thinking.

I recommend the sew baby wonder jacket pattern. The look and feel of this jacket are so easily altered by the materials, I guess that is true for anything… but I really like the way his jacket turned out. It’s cute and cozy for him and I feel pleased that I was able to make it.

I’ve started a new one already with this baby wale corduroy and some brown minky.

My next project for jack will be a pair of pants made form this fabric… heh.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

And then I turn around for ONE SECOND.

And all hell breaks loose as Jack grabs the tin and not only turns it upside down but done so in such a  ‘flingy’ way that buttons go into every single crevice possible for button kind. Then the rampaging starts. As I am frozen to the spot in utter horror he takes the opportunity to bend over and spaz his hands in the buttons while shrieking with joy. Then he starts running around and little buttons are stuck to the bottoms of his feet and make little clicking noises. Its hilarious but is such a disaster than I am almost in tears.

I’m racing around trying to gather buttons back up and he is flinging them everywhere making lunges for the tin I am trying to refill and doing a tiny godzilla tap dance of joy every time he moves.

Things will never be the same. Buttons are lost for sure and I see three still over by the dresser right now.

This was on Wednesday I think. So then, yesterday, he and I are in the baby killer craft room and I am sorting through my fabric stash and I come across one of those bags of pom poms that you can buy at Michael’s. You know when you need like 5 pom poms but can only find the HUGE BAG of 1000. So I think, “hahaha, it would funny to give him this bag”. HAHA. Indeed. Now it looks like a clown threw up in my craft room.

Yesterday I was struggling with my addiction. My mind was on buttons as you know and I was itching to try making my own fabric covered ones. So my sponsor happened to call and I confessed my thought crimes. “How can I justify buying one more craft tool? “. I whined. And instead of the voice of reason she’s all, “oh that sounds awesome you should totally go get that!!” Thanks Mom.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Five Auspicious Clouds

Originally uploaded by not halfway there
A while back I told KT that I would try to plan out a labyrinth for the ranch property. KT, MamaPajama and I scouted out a decent location near Kt’s house in progress.

I’m not exactly sure what prompted me to want to do this. Labyrinths are cool but this is actually a pretty big project and I’m not quite able to get my mind around how much work it will be. Supposedly there will be a bunch of other people there to help? I hope? If there are other people then I think it will be fun and rewarding.

There are a few web sites out there detailing how to create a labyrinth and most of them use the 7-ring classical pattern. I want to use the pattern pictured here even though I have never seen another labyrinth using it. In the picture the black line will end up being the path you walk. I like how it will make you visit the center of the whole thing 5 times and that five other times you will visit the center of the particular spiral you are in. Okay that sentence was sort of grammatically confusing but I am too lazy to rewrite it.

So my problem now is to figure out how to lay it out and build it. Here’s what I’m thinking so far.

How to Build the Five Auspicious Clouds Labyrinth
Materials:
string, rebar, gravel, spray paint, shovels

Offsite:
knot a string (lenght being the radius of the labyrinth) marking the points of the path

Onsite:
Measure whole area of labyrinth
plant rebar, one in center, one at each of five points on outer edge
dig out an inch or so of earth ( ?)
use string and spray paint to start marking out the path, have 5 cans of paint so that five people can be doing this part at once. after marking the initial points the rest can be freehand i think.
use dug out earth to pile on ‘walls’
use gravel and river stones to mark the path

After:
shrine-y thing in the very center. maybe a really nice pinkish rock from the river as a large flat table-y surface
benches around area
sign with suggested usage/rules?

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Now, normally I would consider this distinction to be about whether or not one used ONLY ones hands to produce an item or whether one used a machine at HOME or otherwised produced something in a non factory assembly line type setting.

But this person was making a distinction between SUCKY and NOT SUCKY. Handmade being the not sucky and homemade being the sucky. Handmade is neat with attention to detail created by a skilled crafts person. Homemade is an unskilled creation by some jerk.

Somehow this struck me right in the heart of my insecurities. OMG! My stuff is homemade in the worst way. Lines are crooked, there’s a spare thread hanging off it, she SO OBVIOUSLY fucked up right here and tried to fix it in her UNSKILLED, BACKWOODS way. She means well…

I’ve been stressing about this FOR A WHOLE YEAR! I took down my Etsy store because of it, in fact I never even told anyone about my etsy store while it was up. Now, this crappy untrue distinction is all I can think about and I almost feel like it’s sucking out my joy of sewing.

I like the things I make and, usually, I have fun making the things I make…

When I order something from Etsy or another online venue I can usually tell if it is someone with a slick company or if it is someone crafting from home in their spare time. I order from both types and I genuinely lurve both types of items.

I’m sort of sad that I’m not a neater seamstress. I used to be perfectly okay and even reveal in my slapdash fun way of creating stuff and trying new things. Now I miss it and feel bad all around.

SO! Identity crisis and insecurity lameness aside! Let’s have a give away of my imperfect stuff! WOOT!

Random Commenter Shall Get Imperfect Yet Perfectly Cute and Useful Baby Lovey!

Comment on this post and on Monday I will pick a random commenter to win this cute little orange minky dot and sushi quilting fabric with satin edging baby lovey sized blanket. Great for traveling! great for young babies who can’t have full sized blankets in crib with them!

Comment away folks!

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

In other news I made two more baby blankets yesterday. HAhaha. I fucking HATE satin binding right now. I tried a new binding technique that Vim used and it’s a total pain in the ass. I used this piece of an old t-shirt, blue minky and blue satin binding.It came out messy but still hilarious.

Then, I made a small lovey without the binding. It’s black minky with red flannel and a fucking PIRATE HELLO KITTY pocket. Ha.

.

.

.

Should I reopen my Etsy shop?! I’ve been making totally cute lingerie bags out of recycled shirts as well. Plus the usual spats.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.