My friend Laura recently started making sock monkeys, and their darling little faces made me want to write a haiku in their honor:
Monkeyface cuteness
socks too sweet to put in shoes
have a banana
Get your own monkey at Laura’s etsy store by clicking here!
When my nephew Shane was born, I knitted him a teddy bear using Blue Sky Alpaca’s Baby Bobbi Bear pattern. He’s five now, and this year he got really into stuffed animals. The bear became one of his favorites; he calls it “Cuddly Bear” and takes it everywhere, which is just all kinds of awesome. However, the poor thing has been loved hard and is pretty worn out. I told him I’d make him another, and this time I’d make it fatter and more cuddly, since he uses it as a pillow so often. His sister Paige told me to make her one, too, in purple. I was scared it would look like a Grateful Dead bear but it came out pretty cute. Here’s the final product:
And the happy recipients:
It’s a really good pattern, and much easier than you would think. The hardest part is dealing with four double-point needles at once, but if you aren’t clumsy like me than it’s not hard at all!
Not what you want to see a few doors down from your hotel room:
Okay, now this might sound like yet another justification, but I HAD to buy a new New Machine. The old New machine went haunted. For real.
I hear a noise. I go down into the basement to see what’s up. The sewing machine is like, “Oh, what’s up you? Just down here sewing some invisible stuff while you watch Office reruns.”
It has obviously been sewing on it’s own down there for quite awhile, because its light was glowing an exhausted yellow orange and there was a wad of bobbin thread the size of a marble under the plate. The needle had said “hellz naw” a long time ago and along with the pin that tightens it, had worked itself loose and made it as far as the floor beneath the sewing table before I intervened.
I know what you are thinking, and I did indeed check for industrious singing mice and elves hungry to be paid in first born children. Nada. All I had was one haunted machine in the midst of a major crisis.
So I was pretty much screwed at this point. It’s my main machine. I have loaned out the old Old Machine to someone else, all I have is this lunatic; unreliable at best and possessed by demons at worst. Maker Faire is looming at the end of July, I can’t put this thing in the shop and there’s no getting Stephen King’s ass on the line when you have a demon possessed piece of machinery.
And then I saw it. IT. This gorgeous piece of aqua steel, refurbished by a very nice French Canadian man in Québec. Angels purred. Milk turned to honey turned to wine turned to Newcastle. Fireworks went off in parts my brain that are only dimly lit by 2 watt bulbs any other time. I had to have it. Look at it….I don’t really think I need to explain. At least if this beautiful thing goes haunted there’s a pretty good chance that it’s haunted by some kick ass lady in kid gloves and pill box hat, who is just basically coming back to let me know it’s really not ladylike to sew skulls onto handbags.
I’m thinking being haunted by whoever owned something this amazing, is going to result in some pretty cool stuff. At least until the next new machine comes along.
According to the Sent box on my phone, several of my friends got this around 2 am this morning:
“Crap, I just fought a tree because this dick-head bird was being an asshole. Guess I won’t win the ‘sober person of the year award.’ “
And that, kids, is why drinking and texting do not mix. That bird was really being a fucktard though.
Well, it’s finally here. Tonight ABC will air the last-ever new episode of Lost. I have seriously mixed feelings about this; six years is a long time to be in a relationship, and I just don’t know how to feel about it coming to an end. Part of me is relieved to finally be getting out of something that was only fulfilling some of my needs and this clean break will force me to move on with my life. We’ve had the kind of relationship of which Lifetime Original Movies are born- passionate, angry, loving, deceitful. Sometimes it worked and sometimes I felt it just wasn’t right for me. When we came together in 2004, my devotion was unwavering and well-earned on Lost’s part… then a few years later I was bored, frustrated, sure we were going nowhere and I almost broke it off. Before I could, Lost turned his act around and brought the spark back to our relationship, bringing me surprises and joy, and yes, a bit of pain, like we had when we first got together. I didn’t know what Lost was going to give me each week and the anticipation kept me interested, big time. Now I’m mostly scared that our ending will be a disappointment, and that I’ll have to try to move on with so many questions unanswered. All I hope is that Amy Kate is wrong and that the whole saga does not turn out to have taken place on the back of a sea turtle.
On a related topic, I was searching the job listings online today and found this:
Wanted! Enigmatic visionary to take over guardianship of large island. Must know how to lead through vague messages, inappropriate touching and complicated use of lighthouse mirrors. Candidates must not be allergic to Black Smoke, immortality, polar bear dander, or corrupt humanity. Should have experience in weaving, donkey wheel maintenance and manipulating managing difficult personalities. Extreme Mommy and/or Daddy issues a plus. Free lunch of mango and wild boar will be provided daily. Contact Jacob for more information at 481-516-2342.
A divine combination of coincidence, sheer will, and the ability to justify doing anything I really want to do, no matter how impractical, will land me in North Carolina in a couple of days.
Last month, while wanting to execute myself for ever saying I would create 40 new bags for Stef and I to sell at our spring craft shows, I was simultaneously reading “Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records”. I came up with a plan. A wonderful, horrible plan.
See, I am painfully in full on crush mode for the founder of Merge Records (and leader of the band Superchunk) Mac McCaughan. Well to be honest, I have been for years, but the combination of reading this incredible, improbable story of how Mac (I call him Mac) and his band mate Laura Ballance made a huge success out of a tiny record label, combined with the long hours of sewing and dreaming of how someday Stef and I would create a super empire of Made With Luv, and wanting to get the hell out of dodge as soon as the craft fairs were over smashed into a remarkable (go with me, this is the rationalization part) coincidence.
While stalking Mac’s blog, I saw that Superchunk, who rarely plays out anymore, would be playing in Chapel Hill. Chapel Hill. The virtual BIRTHPLACE of Indie Rock. Chapel Hill. Located in my favorite state in the nation, save one, North Carolina.
CHAPEL. FREAKING. HILL.
Okay, no, I’m alright. So, I decided; if I was able to get all I wanted done, and then able to beat my previous sales at this particular craft market by at least 150% (whatever that means, like I can do math) I would buy tickets to the show IN CHAPEL HILL, and go down and breathe the same stale, beer soaked air as Mac for one glorious night.
Thanks to much plaintive begging, I beat my goal by 2 hundred bucks. I then raced home, bought the tickets, and by this next Saturday morning; I expect you’ll be sending your congratulations on my recent bigamy. I plan on A) being offered a job of my own at Merge, B) breaking down just outside of Bowling Green OH, or C) having a legal document with both my and Mac’s name on it.
Marriage License….PPO…whichever. As long as it’s notarized.
I’m going to have a booth here, selling pillows, napkins, photo albums, baby bibs and Amy Kate’s one-of-a-kind amazing bags. Should be a super fun event with bands, food, beer and art! My booth will be somewhere between 30th and Ray Sts, come say hi!
Lately it seems as though everyone is having a baby or a birthday or something to where I need to give them a present. You already saw the amazingly silly baby bib I made for my friend Nate’s son, but here are a few other things I’ve made for people lately.
My friend and hairdresser Katie is expecting a son any minute, and because she’s the best hairdresser in the entire universe (seriously, you should see my hair right now. It’s amazing.) I had to make her something good. Since she’s doing the baby’s room in owls, I picked up this Alexander Henry fabric called “Spotted Owl” in green tea and made a blanket out of it, with brown minky fabric on the back.
Here’s a close-up of the owls. I love that they aren’t cute so much as arty and interesting:
My friend Lysa had a birthday, and since she and her man recently bought an awesome mid-century dining room table, I figured placemats were the perfect gift. Actually I only got the idea because Lysa showed me a picture of this mod fabric and strongly hinted about the fact that it would make great placemats, but I am totally thrilled if someone wants to guide me into making them something they’d actually love and use. Makes life easier and means I won’t waste my time creating something they just shove in a drawer.
I used the fabric she selected on the front, and made them reversible with the back being brown corduroy. I choose the corduroy to give the mats a bit more weight, and because I liked the contrast of basic brown cord with the more whimsical and colorful front fabric. If I make placemats again I’d probably include some interfacing, because though the cord helps weigh them down, I’d like them to have just a bit more heft. Here they are:
Next up, making products to sell on the store and at future craft fairs!
