As I mentioned recently, I threw a little “make your own tacky holiday shirt party” at my house last week. The results, well, they were amazing.  I have too many pictures to put here, so I posted them on our facebook page,  click here to check them out. You won’t be sorry!

Check this out this bad-ass business!

No, not how awesomely I am air-brushing fighting my wrinkles, but my new necklace. Amy Kate got it for me from a craft fair and sent it out last week as part of my super cool birthday box. When I first opened it, I thought “pretty, but what on earth am I going to wear this with?”

The answer?  My boobs.  The necklace compliments my rack perfectly. Thanks, Amy!

A few months ago at Patchwork Craft Fair, a lovely woman named Mariko bought one of Amy Kate’s sushi bibs from me.  She emailed me a few months later telling me how much she loves it and she sent pictures of her son Reo wearing it. I am totally in love with this baby! He is so cute and looks like the happiest kid ever. Check him out:

Thank you, Mariko, for sharing these photos with us. We are so proud that Reo loves his bib and we hope he makes many happy messes on it!

Want to make your baby to be as happy as Reo? Then click here to buy your own sushi bib!

Hungry for meat? Love men who are good with their hands, and have a strong distaste for shirts? Then you should check out my new Beefcake Pillow Dolls.

I made one for my friend who needed a gag-gift for another friend, and I thought it was so darn silly and awesome that I made a few more. Collect all four and be the envy of all your friends!

Awhile back I was talking with Knotty Melody about knitting and the fact that I didn’t know how to do cables came to light. After first shooting me with a “what’s wrong with you?” look, she suggested I take a class she was about to teach to make a cable-knit purse.

I started knitting this back in April, and with Melody’s expert teaching I quickly ruled cable’s ass. However, thanks to an injured wrist tendon I had to put the project down for awhile. I sustained this injury during a very passionate game of Galaga in which I made it to levels previously unknown to me. As most athletes know, pushing yourself to the limit sometimes results in bodily harm.

My wrist was so F’d I had to go to the doctor. The conversation went like this:

Me: Hi, my wrist hurts something awful.
Dr: Do you know how you hurt it?
Me: Well, its been bothering me ever since I played Galaga like a month ago
Dr: You mean Galaga, the arcade game?
Me: Yeah, doing this *slaps hand up and down as if kicking Galaga butt
Dr: So you are saying you did this just playing Galaga once? A video game injury?
Me: Techincally, but I’d prefer you write “sports injury” in my chart there
Dr: Um. Anyway….

So after two cortizone shots and a big ass bill, my wrist was ready for some serious knitting time.

I finally finshed the outside of the purse, then I bribed Melody with lasagna and wine to come help me put the purse together. We interfaced the liner fabric, I sewed in some pockets then attached the fabric to the knitted part, added the snaps and then boom, I had a beautiful new purse!!

It’s awesome, isn’t it? I rarely make things for myself so I’m very excited about it. Please don’t ask me to make you one, ask Melody. She’s much faster than I am, unless of course she hurts herself bowling or playing checkers.

Here’s the outside of the purse:

Here’s what the inside looks like- don’t you love this Amy Butler fabric?

Here’s what it looks like with stuff in it. I cut up a cd holder to make the spot for my license then I put pockets inside, one the perfect size to hold my phone:

I picked the hot pink yarn since it was spring when I started working on it, but it might be a nice contrast to my drab winter wardrobe.  I’m very excited to take it out!

One of my favorite things about the inevitable death of summer weather is the footie PJ. When I’m fleeced out from head to toe, nothing says “Back off buddy, you gets no play over here” better. I’ve been rocking the footie pajama for years now and I manage to find something plain and pastel, the whim of some nostalgic Target buyer, sandwiched between the low rent Nick and Nora’s almost every fall.
 
Over the years, the effectiveness of my cushy chastity belt has waned a bit. Admittedly, the PJ’s do have a zipper that runs from neck to knee, exposing all the necessary bits fairly easily with one maneuver. As a result, I stepped up security a bit, and upgraded to a fancy robot number. The macho looking ones are able to aim and shoot their hands off at advancing perps, while the deceptively cute robots are equipped with a saltpeter laser for anyone who needs a stronger message. As back up, I will of course be employing my year-round acne cream spotted face defense.
 
Although they do now sport a cloth bottom on the feet, eradicating the nasty sweaty foot problem (which causes my sister to yell “STINK FEET PAJAMAS!” in personal defense every time she sees my four-year-old in his). The downfall of the “Give me my space suit” is the unbearable rise in body core temperature that occurs if you try to wear them to bed.  The best use of the PJ’s is to greet the man at the door, already ensconced in the pajama when he comes home from work. This sends an early message, and the coziness of being wrapped from head to toe makes the evening of enduring his pouting almost worth it.

Check out this awesome baby blanket I made. The front has 9 panels of Our Lady of Guadalupe fabric and the back is cozy black flannel.

What baby wouldn’t want to be wrapped up in the blessed virgin? I mean, really.

I have two big ones plus two smaller 4-panel ones that will be great for wrapping infants and using as floor padding, like when you are changing diapers on someone else’s carpet.

Now, my fabric picking skills are way better than my photographic gifts, but you’ll get the idea:

And here is a close-up of a couple panels. The fabric has such lovely details! 

I can’t wait to see if they are a hit on the craft fair circuit!

Ohh yeah, big time!! Go to images.google.com and type in the three words Fractured Walking Boot. What comes up first? That’s right, my broken foot and beautiful walking boot of doom (click here for the original story).

Number one baby!!!! Massgeneral.org and healthgearmedical.com can eat my dust and suck on my awesome key word fabulosity! FACE!

I’d like to thank all the freakos in Germany looking for gimpy girl porn for making this possible. Danke! Here is the boot again, this time in motion at my birthday dance party. 

So, you may be wondering what a mother of four does for amusement out here in the Midwest. Well, around here, it’s about the simple pleasures: beautiful scenery, horse drawn carriages, pie, and gobs and gobs of socks.
 
Every year at this time, I make a trip down to the heart of Amish country (well, okay, not the heart, but maybe the lung), good old Shipshewana, Indiana. The official reason for the trip is that there is a gargantuan flea market that needs going through, but the underlying, and much more powerful draw, is the pie. 
 
There is nothing like spending a day among the Amish, simple people abiding by centuries-old rules that celebrate self restraint and discipline. I suppose it’s a little ironic that I’m there to celebrate greedily obtaining mass quantities of nearly useless junk, following it by eating myself into a sloth-like stupor at the Mennonite owned family style chicken place just outside town. These family-style places are a wonder to gluttons like me. You get your choice of meats, carb loaded sides, (well except for the green beans with bacon, oh gawd!) gravy and breads, all to be refilled the second you empty them. It’s heavenly. And when all that is done, there is pie. Awesome pie. Ahem, whipped cream covered pie.
  
You may be starting to get the idea that I am only there for this food of which I speak; I won’t lie, the food is the major draw for me. The “retail” at the flea market is more geared towards the greyhound buses of seniors that pour down the aisles than someone like me, and said merchandise doesn’t change much from year to year. It is because of this fact that you usually end up with a longer list of requests from family members than you do for things that you wanted. That being said, I have compiled a list here that includes some of the hottest selling and most reliably available offerings at the Shipshewana Flea Market.

1. Any item that allows you to be as old as the dirt on Abraham Lincoln’s lapel’s, yet still get around an 800 stall flea market in its entirety. No need to hurry back to the motor home Granny! Try this nice shopping cart that turns into a chair, never disturbing your sleeping 90-year-old Yorkshire terrier. Here’s a handheld battery operated fan with built in mister! Do you love this hat that is actually a tiny umbrella for your head, or this fanny pack with the built-in cooling strip? 

2. Geese clothing. No, not clothing with geese prints- I’m talking about outfits FOR the little concrete geese that are required for residency in every mobile home park in my county. Those geese need lots and lots of tiny outfits. Sometimes they like to look like they are ready to fight in Iraq, sometimes they dress for square dancing!

3. Schmaltzy Country crap. My favorite thing this year was rustic hand lettered sign that read “I smile because you are my sister. I laugh because there is nothing you can do about it.”

4&5. Socks and NASCAR. I put these two together because they both fall squarely in the “Huh?” category for me. Until you get to Shipsy, you will never know how much NASCAR stuff, or how many socks, people apparently require for survival.

6. Any fad that ended within the last ten years. I am happy to say that the last of the Lotto shoes and Gucci bags have left the flea market. They had to- there was no room for the incoming stock of John Deere gear and fake Crocs.

7.”Red Hat Society” underwear. Not lying. There was a huge group of gray hairs surrounding the table of enormous purple panties with a softball sized red hat embroidered on the fanny. What exactly goes on at these meetings? Please tell me there is no panty-only tickle fight.

8. Red-neck Barbie T-shirts (Actually my favorite thing from last year, disappointed to find it sold out this year). Picture Barbie, in cornrows, leaning out the window of her mud bogger, which is complete with a front license plate that reads ”Hell Yeah!” That bitch does have everything!

I have chosen some of the best and brightest products that Shipshewana has to offer us, but if you find that nothing on this list really appeals to you, then you are my kind. Don’t worry, for us, there’s lots and lots of pie!

*Yawn! Ok, the North Park Craft Mafia’s Spring Line Up event has been over for a week now, but I’m STILL exhausted. I have to say, I’ve been in craft shows before, but now that I know how damn hard they are to put together, I will never complain about a booth fee being too high again. 

My brain is still too fried to get too detailed, but basically the day was freaking awesome. We had over 50 vendors, three bands, a fashion show, craft and drawing demos, and just the coolest people both as crafters and shoppers. 

I had a minor stress breakdown a few days before the event where I couldn’t do anything but worry that no one would attend. Like we spent months doing all this work and no one would come and the vendors would all be pissed and it would be the worst thing ever.   Well, I was wrong. Over 1000 people attended the event. It was totally busy and crazy!  

I sold a few pillows and some of Amy Kate’s bibs and magnets, but as usual I bought WAY more than I sold. It was impossible not to- over 50 super awesome artists selling their wares, and not like I can just pop over to Target to buy one of these things if I still wanted it the next day, right? RIGHT?!   So now, on to the important things- the shopping! 

First up, I bought this beautiful skirt from Random Nicole. I wish you could touch it to see how soft it is. It’s a soft brushed fabric with a cute little owl on it. It will be perfect with sandals and one of my tank tops this summer.   

Next, I got this awesome pillow from Angie of Pixelknits. How great is it?! She machine knits, which involves math, so naturally I’m very impressed. The pillow is super squishy and has a zipper so I can get the cover washed. Nice!  

I also got this great headband, and I totally forgot who I bought it from. What a jerk! I’m extra sad about that because it’s awesome, holds my hair back and doesn’t slip around too much. But I can’t buy more since I forgot from whom I bought it.  

Hee ok how great is this one-sie? I got it from Dot the I Creations. My friends are having their first baby, and I made a bunch of stuff for her but also am putting a gift bag together for him. I think he’ll really really enjoy dressing his kid in this and passing the blame for his drinking habit. 

I don’t have a photo, but I also bought really yummy yet soothing lip balm from Naiad Soaps. If I had known it was going to work so well I would have picked up a bunch more!  

And finally, I bought these fabulous prints from Steph of Hearts&Laserbeams. She must be sorta insane, because what normal person would dream up and create Dracula and Frankenstein’s school photos? Of course I love them so much! I can’t look at them without smiling huge. Maybe I should hang them above my sink full of dirty dishes so to distract from my pain. And the Robot puking is #3 in a series that starts with him drinking, then moves to him wearing a lampshade on his head, then this one where all the fun comes spewing out of him. It’s AWESOME. 
  
 

 After all this I thought I’d get a few weeks off before I had to sew anything again- but turns out Amy Kate got accepted into Flint City Handmade on May 3^rd, so I gotta get back to the craftin!

THANKS AGAIN TO ALL MY HOMIES IN THE NORTH PARK CRAFT MAFIA. JOB WELL DONE, LADIES!