The 4th member of our group, Megan, has been off living in Japan for the past year. We've definately missed her crafty-genius self and are super happy now because.... she's BACK!
So this weekend I'm headed down to Portland with the hubby and some friends. This was already exciting because I haven't been to Portland in ages and it's so full of wonderful things. Hubs is especially looking forward to all the coffee and bike shops, all of us can't wait to get our grubby little paws on the books in Powell's, we're trying to figure out how to visit 12 brew pubs a night . . . but more than anything I'm looking forward to the crafty shopping. I mean yarnia anyone? How cool does this place look? Very cool. I'm actually quite overwhelmed. I even found a google map that just fills the whole city of Portland up with this little arrows pointing out all the fun places I'll never make it to. So, already I've decided I'll have to go back every weekend.
Then as I'm poking about the internet I start hearing about a quilt market/trade show thing.
Rhiannon's train of thought:
1.Oh, that sounds kind of neat, I should look into it.
2.HOLY CRAP this sounds awesome.
3. Boo, it's all officially trade and not open to the general public.
4. Wait a minute, I work for a company that deals in embroidery thread. Hmmmm....
So today at work I very casually bring it up with my boss.
Me:"Umm, Fran, any chance I could photocopy some credentially like stuff off of you to swindle my way into this trade show."
Boss/Fran: "Oh, our American division is a vendor at that show. I'll have them put aside a pass for you."
Me: "Yeah, sure, whatever, no worries."
Me in my head: Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!
I'm actually really nervous about posting this because I feel like it's a little to good to be true. So for now I'll just say that when I get back from Portland you will all at least get breakdown of how it all went horribly wrong.
We've started listing stuff in our etsy shop again!
Yay! Listings will increase once we get photos of more of our new products. In the meantime, to celebrate the awesomeness of etsy - here's a link to my latest etsy find:
This is the fabulous work of Sea Glass Designs - a fellow Dartmouthian who takes sea glass that washes up on shore and turns it into super stylish jewelry. Her work is stunning. The piece shown at left is unlike any seaglass I've ever seen before - I love it. My other favorite piece is this one.
We had a great time on Sunday at the Got Craft fair - hanging out with so many great crafty people and people who love to buy great crafty stuff (us included!)!
I have more pictures from our Crafty Sunday that I wanted to post but the internet has been down since Monday.
Monday is significant because it was monday at about 6:00 that the huge cedar tree in my front yard was hit but lightening. Seriously. my house and two others have broken windows from wood flying all over the place and we have three holes in our roof. Here's some pictures:
(Can you rotate pictures in html?)
But I saw this idea for using a quilt as a headboard in my Martha Stewart newsletter and I really quite like it. I just might adapt it for my own bed. 
Also, you might be able to see at at another craft fair this coming month. We'll post the details when it gets confirmed.
We all met at my place on Tuesday night so we wanted to post a few pictures.
First, soap! We're doing some new soaps and some ones we've done before. Here's our re-formatted Grapefruit Loofah soap while still in the mold:
Second, as Lisa mentioned the first 30 people in the door at Got Craft will be getting swag bags. One of our new items this year are sets of fabric covered buttons and magnets as inspired by the amazing ones Megan sent us from Japan. So, we decided the swag we're contributing are fabric buttons.
Last, is a new item that I will be making. They are reusable cup cozies. I used to drink coffee or tea every morning so I used to bring a reusable cup. But now I only have it sometimes so I don't carry a cup with me like I used to. This is a small way I can reduce my waste. Plus they're cute. We'll have them in an assortment of fabrics.
We're very excited to be participating in the Got Craft? fair again this year on May 4. We did it last year and had a splendid time - met a pile of fantastically creative indie crafters and artists.
This year looks to be bigger and better with a stellar lineup of vendors, including some people we recognize: Toodlebunny I remember from Portobello West where I fell in love with a necklace at her table and had to be torn away from it (broken hearted), It's Your Life - fabulous new jewlery made of vintage bits, Anabella Designs - more amazing jewelry*.
People we haven't seen before that look awesome: Bootyfly Bags, Irit Sorokin Designs (jewelry), RumahKampung makes tweed Ipod cozies from recycled suit jackets, need I say more?
The biggest problem at this fair will be keeping myself from spending all my money on the fabulousness that will surround me.
Hope some folks in Vancouver can come check it out. The first 30 people in the door get a swag bag filled with free goodies!
*Why does anyone shop in those big generic chain jewelry stores when there are so many fabulous, unique, independent jewelry makers out there?
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Rhiannon here! I just wanted to add something. See those awesome signs there? They were designed by Jaimie of Crookkid who I've blogged about in the past. She's also going to have a table at the fair, where I hope she will be selling these.
I made this simple scarf recently - copying a stitch/yarn combination that someone on Ravelry (Ravelry link) had used to great success. It's a diagonal box stitch scarf (crochet) done with Paton's SWS yarn which I love. The colours are fabulous and with this pattern it makes it look like you've switched yarn colours for each diagonal row where in fact you do nothing at all! You can be lazy and just crochet along and the end product looks like you were all fancy-pants with colour changes. That's my kind of pattern.
The scarf now lives with my mom in New Brunswick where it will get a good workout with all the cold weather.
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