Got Craft December

One of our favourite fairs in Vancouver is Got Craft. It always has a fabulous group of vendors and equally fabulous customers who appreciate unique, handmade items. It just has a great vibe with fun, upbeat people (which makes a huge difference when you're working at a fair all day long).

The next Got Craft fair is December 7 (details in the sidebar) and they've just announced the list of vendors - check it out. Looks like it'll be another great fair! Lots of new vendors I don't know, which is exciting.

We still have some products to finish but we're very happy with some of our new items that we dreamed up just for this craft fair season, including the new neckwarmers and more uses for our collection of vintage buttons!

Bootie Tutorial Link

I saw this awesome tutorial the other day when I was looking for mini-projects to make out of our felted sweater scraps. If you've got some and have babies in your life you must look at it.

New Product!

We're very excited about a new product we've been working on for the holiday craft fair season.  They're all ready to go and I couldn't resist listing one on etsy because I think it needs to be shared with the world - such prettiness shouldn't be kept under wraps!

These are our lacy neckwarmers.  Perfect for those jackets that don't leave enough room for a full scarf but still let your neck get cold.... this pretty item will keep you warm without the bulk!

We used fabulous hand-dyed and hand-spun wool yarn by a local artist: Yummy Yarn, crocheted up a pattern design by Kalin (Maked girl),  put on vintage plastic buttons and voila: prettiness!   (click images to get bigger versions)

Winter Warmth

We are in the middle of our production for the two winter fairs we are doing. There's partially made stuff at all of our houses, but there's also completed stuff too.

One of our new items this year that we've already mentioned are the crocheted neckwarmers. (Also good head/ear warmers!) These are complete except for putting tags on them. Here's a sneak peak:


One item is not new, but we only do them for Christmas and haven't ever sold them online. They are Hot-water-bottle cozies made from felted sweaters. We have a larger selections of colours this year and are putting appliques on some of them. The aren't fully sewn together yet, so this preview picture is a bit mysterious:


Then we have an item we don't sell at all. For Got Craft! we have to submit "Swag" that will be put into giftbags with items from other vendors and given to the first 30 people in line for the fair. These bags are awesome so it's definitely worth waiting early for them. In the spring we did fabric covered buttons, and this time we're doing pins made from vintage buttons. Here's step two of the process completed:


Also, I have an interview for the yarn shop on Wednesday. Send lots of good vibes my way. And I have another crocheted related job opportunity I have to send info out for tonight. exciting all around.

best job ever?

ok, so that's a huge exaggeration. However, it is a pretty awesome job opportunity. I'm looking at getting a second job and I found out one of the local yarn shops is hiring!! It's only one day a week, and probably not much pay. However, it would be super fun, I'd get to help people craft(!!!!) and get a discount. I'm going to go tomorrow and drop my resume off, with a cover letter detailing all my fiber skills.

And just so this isn't picture-less, here's a cross stitch project I started, but some where I must have miscounted because it's off. This project is doomed to incompletion because I hate un-stitching cross stitch. Does anyone even do that?

Bath Bombs

You may recall a few weeks back when I mentioned that Peter and I had scored a whole pile of supplies for soapmaking for cheap. It was actually supplies for bath products (which included soapmaking stuff). I recently took the time to find out what a lot of the things were for - making bath bombs and bath salts. So, since I had all the stuff to do it, I got a book from the library and did it!

First up - Jasmine scented bath bombs. Easy. I'll have to find time to draw a bath and test them out though.

Since we have about 53kg of sea salt (ridiculously inaccurate estimate), I made a batch of bath salts too (no photo).... so I really need lots of free time so I can test all my new bath products. ;)

Crocheted Spiral Scarf

I saw this scarf on Ravelry one day and thought it would make a fantastic gift for a cousin on my Christmas list.   I picked up some cheap yarn to try it out (Patons Lacette), thinking that if I liked it, I would do it in something prettier.... but the cheap yarn actually worked out really well so it might be good to go as is.   

Anyone have any thoughts?  What are your feelings on receiving a handmade scarf made of acrylic yarn?   I usually prefer to use natural fibres but I don't want to be a total yarn snob.

Details: the pattern is a free one you can find on A Little Slice of Life, it's very easy to follow and doesn't require much concentration to work up.   I think the end product is very pretty and romantic.    

And, I just noticed that she has another free pattern up for another pretty lacey crochet scarf!   (That is going into my queue on Ravelry!)

New Product

Now we are doing button necklaces!

They use sterling silver wire to hang on the same fabulous neckwires as the delica pendants. They are lightweight, colourful and good for work or play. I'll have more designs ready by the end of the week. If you're interested in buying one of these let us know and we'll get it up on etsy asap, otherwise we may hold on to them for the holiday craft fairs!

Knitting Season

Well the weather is turning again. It's getting cold enough that I"m starting to consider bothering to blow-dry my hair in the mornings and my ears need a little extra help staying not frozen. The blow-drying thing requires waking up earlier, so we'll see how that goes. But the ears, well that requires warming/wind protecting garment/accessory things, and hey, I know something that can handle that. Oh I've been hit with a knitting craze hard.

Now I have quite a few pairs of hats. Not just any hats, but hats that I made myself and think are quite cute. But honestly, regular hats are not the perfect solution for me. To start, most hats are just too warm. And although I love wool, my skin is sensitive (especially my face skin) and it doesn't take long for hats of all fiber contents to start irritating my forehead. And finally, hat-head. But this season I have finally embraced the answer to all of these issues (I have no idea why it took me so long.) Enter...the slouch hat.

Partly I've avoided them because they're annoyingly trendy. Partly it's because I feel really silly trying on hats in stores and so never got around to seeing what all the fuss was about. But I sucked it up the other day, tried one out, and I am in love. My ravelry cue is now full of slouchers.

Wanna join in on the bandwagon? Yeah you do.

Maybe you like a knitting recipe. Here's one. Make it with any yarn, any gauge, any amount of slouch... You're unstoppable.
Crocheter? Here's a cute one. Oh, did I say cute? I meant super cute.


Like them poofy but not super long and overly slouchy? That's how phoeknits feels.
Love a good mock cable?


Always have a place in your heart for garter stitch, lace and all things Elizabeth Zimmerman? Sockpixie is on it.


But remember, slouchers are just regular hats that get wide. So for my first I am going to steal QuadMoms's idea and slouch up a normal hat pattern.

I never warmed to foliage in it's original state, but baby, get ready to slouch.

Tutorial Linkfest

There are TONS of awesome, free tutorials online.   I love the internet.  I've got bookmarks coming out of my ears for more projects than I will ever have time for (and that doesn't even begin to take into account ravelry).   This is the beauty and the curse of the internet.  Sometimes I find I've wiled away an entire afternoon that I could have spent crafting, surfing and looking at other people's crafts instead!

Here are a few of the projects I really really want to do, so that you can add them to your to do list and we can all dream about doing them:

From CraftyPod: A great way to repurpose playing cards into a cute notebook.

From Evie S.:  a super simple Christmas tree decoration.

From Skinny laMinx : putting your drawings/graphics onto ceramic - easy!

From Folding Trees: awesome paper beads.

Snow?

It occurred to me the other day, as I donned my winter coat for the first time this season, that it was time to list the Let it Snow card I've been holding back on!   

Megan (the 4th member of Maked who has been out of town for a year and a half, but returns soon!) made this adorable card with white snow puffs sewn on.  I love its simplicity.   

It's now listed in our etsy shop - we'll see if people are doing their holiday shopping yet!

Birthdays research

My boyfriends birthday is coming up and luckily he doesn't read the blog so I can post about my plans.

He's new to Canada, so I wanted to get him something "Canadian" without being obnoxious. My first thought was a t-shirt from Identify Apparel. The line can be found in a few shops in the city (and Canada) but my housemate is also friend with the designer. I haven't settled on the actual shirt yet. We joke a lot about curling so I like that one, but I think the blue might be too bright for him. She might have new designs for this winter though, so I will have to ask about those before I make a final decision.

I was a bit stuck on what else to get. I was browsing etsy last night for pants and shoes for my blythe doll. I was sitting in his living room and remembered he needs art. He's furnished his place, but it's full of blank white walls and brown and black furniture.

Next on my etsy search was wall decals. I did notice there aren't too many that are masculine. Lots of birds and swirls and a ton of stuff *I* loved but not so much for him. I did find Circle Line Studios who had some more man friendly ones, such as bikes and pine trees. I also found Fame which is located in Vancouver and have an awesome Tetris decal pack.

I'm still not settled on either gift but I'm feeling like I have some ideas and am on track. It's like a warm up to Christmas and I'm devoted to buying all local or handmade this is. 100%.

Oh and here's the shoes I found for Georgie:

Winning Streak!

I'm having fantastic luck lately!

This time I won a set of super cute lampwork polka dot beads from May Beadz who has a whole shop full of lovely glass beads.

I'm going to have to think up a project worthy of these babies!