You know about the Maker Faire, right?
October 11, 2007 at 9:10 am | Posted in Conference/Fair, Nerd Craft, Weekend Warrior | Leave a commentAustin’s mayor, Will Wynn, just declared October 20 and 21 Maker’s Weekend in honor of the Maker Faire that will be in town that weekend. If you don’t know about the Maker Faire, it’s a giant … well, fair that brings together people who like to do it themselves and show you how to DIY too. It’s sponsored by the same folks who bring you the Make zine and the Craft zine (the O’Reilly publishers). And it IS for Crafters as much as for Makers. I think they oughtta change the name to the Maker/Crafter Faire! But this is only the second Faire (the first was last spring in San Francisco) so maybe it’s too early??
So… The “Maker Weekend” is in collaboration with the Keep Austin Weird idea that epitomizes much of what makes Austin a great place to live and work.
I’m going to copy for you some of what the Maker folks had to say about it all:
“The geek-loving, gadget-happy, DIY-fest, known as Maker Faire Austin is less than two weeks away! Tickets for the Oct. 20-21 event are selling fast, and geeks and hackers from across the country (and even overseas) are making their travel plans. To welcome them, Austin Mayor Will Wynn has officially declared the weekend ‘Maker’s Weekend.’”
“Austin is such a creative, vibrant town, and Maker Faire fits right in to our vibe and spirit,” explained Mayor Wynn. “America has such a thirst right now for creative self-expression. We also have an incredible need for out-of-the-box innovation. Maker Faire embodies the best of both of these worlds, and in a way that’s smart and fun. Therefore, we couldn’t be happier to welcome Maker Faire to Austin and to declare Oct. 20-21, ‘Maker’s Weekend.’”
Maker Faire Austin
- When: Oct. 20-21, 2007
- Where: Travis County Expo Center, 7311 Decker Lane
- Hours: Saturday 10am-6pm and Sunday 10am-5pm
For more info see the Make post on the blog or go to the website.
Weekend Work: October/Halloween craftiness
October 3, 2007 at 12:45 pm | Posted in Finished Projects, Halloween/Thanksgiving/Fall, Weekend Warrior | 5 CommentsThe months of October, November and December are my absolute favorites of the year. I get a big kick out of three solid months with big holidays at the end of them. So. I love fall. I love crafting in fall. I love holidays. I love crafting in the holidays. Pumpkins and harvest and leaves and holly berries and ever-greenery and gift-giving occasions inspire me. And the food. Can’t forget the food. So this here project represents just the introductory salvo into what I have planned.
Last week I came upon a project via the Craftzine from the Frugal Law Student‘s sister Shannon for making a countdown-to-Halloween calendar. It’s taken from a 2006 Pottery Barn design (follow the Frugal Law Student link to see those versions and to find directions). Both the zine and the sister claim this calendar is for kids who are excited for Halloween. No no no. Adults are also excited by this holiday, and some of us think we don’t have can never have too many Halloween decorations. Besides, it reminds me of Advent calendars, and I always loved Advent calendars.
And honestly, folks, what’s better than treating yourself every day just because it’s another day? What’s better than having something fun to look forward to when it’s all done?
So here’s my rendition of the October/Halloween calendar with its little pockets stuffed with candy (more photos on Flickr). I changed it from the directions some, which I talk about below. Each individual pocket is part of a scene or is decorated in some way. I started running out of ideas after a while. Hence we have three ghosts. Some shapes I thought of – like Dracula – were impossible because I cut all of these shapes out freehand, and my skills go only so far. There are fangs on day 26, does that count?
Jeff and I each have favorites for the days. Mine is the witch legs on the 8th, and Jeff likes the mummy on the 19th. I made each of the little square pockets and the backing from felt. The backing is actually 2 pieces of felt for extra stability, sewn together where the ribbon edging is. The pattern called for orange rick-rack for edging, but I found some shiny ribbon with spiders and spider webs on it and used that instead. I also chose to use pinking shears to edge the pockets because I liked the way it looked.
I’m fond of Husband Jeff’s eyeball monster with green tentacles, and of the full moon. I decided to mark the year I made it by accurately representing the full moon on the 25th and the quarter moon on the 4th.
The calendar is a little bigger than what’s called for – about 4 feet by 2 feet. Each square is 3.5″ x 4″. It took a yard and a half of black felt, about a yard of orange and then thin sheets of orange, lime green, purple, yellow and black foam. I also used sheets of really stiff sticky-back white and orange felt. The craft stores sell sticky-back foam sheets for a few cents more, but I’ve found that regular foam and felt glue holds a lot better. I do want this to last!
Other favorites are the spider & web and the two kitties I put on here. I often double-layered the materials for added interest, and made liberal use of ribbon, sticky eyeballs, pre-cut sticky-back foam letters, sharpie markers in black and silver and puff paint in black. Oh – and lots and lots of felt glue. The whole thing wasn’t very expensive for all the supplies.
And here’s a couple more I think most of the Halloween tropes are represented. As mentioned, I can’t cut out vampires, and I also can’t cut out felt doggies howling at the moon. But I wanted to. The one thing left that I will be doing through October is stitching the little pockets to the felt. This would never have gotten done if I’d tried to do that first. I’m not that patient. So I’m doing one a day as I eat my candy. Yum.
Hope you enjoyed!
Craft Brunch
October 1, 2007 at 8:15 am | Posted in Fabric-Related, People Doing Crafts, Weekend Warrior, Why craft? | 4 Comments
Happy October!!
Yesterday I had the happy fortune of having brunch at a cafe here in Austin with a friend. After noshing, I provided what I hope was a relatively decent explanation of crochet for a friend who wants to learn the art. Sunday Brunch is my favorite meal – husband and I often had brunch on Sundays at a cafe down the street when we lived in Manhattan, and I’ve continued to love the idea. And sharing crafting is one of my favorite things to do. It was a *great* Sunday afternoon.
Yesterday’s get-together was occasioned by my friend Paula’s receipt of a crocheting kit. Paula would like to make a blanket eventually, but when she wrote me last week all she had was yarn , a hook and completely confusing directions for making a granny square scarf. It is true that providing directions for crochet is hard: crocheting is essentially the art of making various types of knots into a piece of cloth using a single hook. And at the moment, Paula is in that really interesting stage of trying to get the feel of manipulating the hook and yarn together while not having the whole thing fall apart. I remember that stage well, and in fact Paula’s beginning efforts yesterday were a great deal more effective than my own a couple of years ago. I know she doesn’t think so, but she’s never seen how I started out. 
Although she now knows my little “secret” that I only manage to create a “real” slip stitch about a quarter of the time, I did hopefully manage to show her how to do a chain stitch and a single crochet.
Jean Railla, in Volume 4 of Craft, talks about how one of the important aspects of today’s crafting movement is how many crafters & artisans are intent on spreading the love of DIY around. So many of us post tutorials, tips & tricks on our websites to share what knowledge we’ve gleaned about our crafts. Even on Etsy, in a lot of cases you can not only buy a crocheted object but the pattern as well.
Crafters are usually not a jealous bunch – the point is not knowing but doing: making stuff & creating something, not keeping our proprietary knowledge squirreled away. When it comes right down to it, someone else’s version of my craft isn’t going to be the same anyway – I’m sure that they will add their own unique elements to it, their own style, their own sense of self. They won’t choose the same yarn or color, and they’ll probably tweak it, improve it. I like that, and I do that myself to others’ patterns. If I provide a pattern for something, I don’t even care if someone else makes it to sell – if it works for them, great!
Crafting is a skill: something to learn and to get better at, something that provides a medium for expression, something to take pride in. Crafting is also a pasttime: something to do when you’re bored, something to spend time doing when you read or watch a movie. Crafting is friendly: passing on skills, connecting at craft fairs, reading and writing blogs online. And hopefully, it’s enjoyable most of all.
Weekend Warrior: 2007 Hot Sauce Festival, Houston, TX
September 23, 2007 at 10:19 pm | Posted in Finds Out-and-About, Food-Related, Indie!, People Doing Crafts, Weekend Warrior | Leave a comment
This last weekend I got a rare treat – I attended the annual Hot Sauce Festival in Houston, Texas with my husband, dad and stepmom (that’s us to the right with all the dust in the air). There’s also one in Austin, but we missed it – this one, however, was NOT missed and turned out to be a singular experience in the delights of Really Hot Peppers.
This was real Texas-style event: it was held at the Farm & Ranch Club where rodeos tend to be held. There was also cheap beer – that is, cheaply made but not cheaply sold. And lots of folks with Wranglers and boots, just like you’d expect.
I personally tasted 90% of the hot sauces offered at the event on various chips and crackers. My taste buds were in heaven. The vendors at this place really know what they are doing, and I benefited a great deal. The event wins its way onto a Crafting Blog because I met the majority of the people who actually made/come up with these hot sauces, olives, relishes, salsas and the like. These are Food Crafters, and they know what they’re doing. And they’re trying to make a living at it – more power to them!
So here’s what I bought:
1) The top Prize for me at the event is divided between these two, who coincidentally had just won prizes at the August Hot Sauce Festival in Austin:
1A) Big Daddy’s sauces (Houston) – Jeff likes the original Ass Burn Hot Sauce (no, I’m not kidding) and I favor the Amplified Heat Mean Smokin’ Green Hot Sauce. But we also bought the habanero-spiked High on Fire Hot Sauce. We were lucky enough to get our samples (which burned my face off) from Big Daddy himself, who coincidentally plays in a band called Whorehound. I’m pleased also that Big Daddy uses St. Arnold Lawnmower beer in his sauce – St. Arnold is a local brewery in Houston. No wonder it’s so good!
1B) The Salsa Picante Medium from Rancho Bravo in Peru. I met the son of the maker, who had a t-shirt out front that proclaimed he was sold out. I was lucky. I got a jar anyway, probably because I told him his salsa was heavenly and asked all kinds of questions about it. It turns out his dad was an oil and gas man – he sold his business and bought a tomato farm in Peru. And those tomatoes take center stage in this sauce. It’s sweet and spicy and chunky, with the taste of tomatoes fresh from the garden. And if you’ve ever had a fresh tomato from the garden, you know what kind of great I’m talking.
2) The Sausa from Chile Beach Jams in San Antonio. Jeff also bought a gift pack of their pepper jams to take to his work. The Sausa is sorta somewhere between Sauce and Salsa, hence its name. It’s really spicy, but not so far over the edge that it’s not perfectly edible. I think it’ll be great on grilled chicken, myself. But the nice lady at the company offered me a Bloody Mary made with it, and that just kicked it (add to it olives stuffed with jalapenos and you’re set). Yes, definitely, you can’t forget that many libations are also good with hot sauce, in addition to the beer that all proper Texans use to put the fire out when they’ve had too much spicy stuff.
3) Winston’s Hot Sauce and BJ’s Hi-Tech Habanero Pepper Sauce. Ultimately I bought Winston’s Jamaican Hot Pepper Sauce (Winston was there) based on taste. These two were both really hot and of the same style. I have to say, though, that BJ’s was the hottest sauce I tasted at the show, by far. The t-shirt below is Winston’s, and the other pic is of the very tall guy that was kindly brokering BJ’s Habanero to the crowds.
4) The Texas Gourmet – he and his whole family were there, and were very persuasive! – had the best jellies I tasted (apart from the ever-favorite Austin Slow Burn). I bought some of their Mandarin Orange Serrano Jelly, while the parentals opted for Kiwi Jalapeno. Yum! They also put out pads of recipes for their jellies and BBQ etc., which I thought was a really nice addition. I plan to make egg rolls and dip them in my mandarin. Anyone want to join me?
5) Tony Legner’s CAT-5 Food Polish from Rockport, TX tops off the list. This powdery spicy stuff kicked butt on the nice sizzling sausage they had. Also, I’d been craving Cheetos, and they had a bowl full of them sprinkled with their hot powder. I wanted to run away with the whole bowl, but I restrained myself. Cheetos are NOT on the health food diet, y’know. Turns out Tony Legner’s is a restaurant in Rockport… probably yummy!
In other news, my Dad (hot pepper face below, right), who I believe can eat anything spicy, came up against stiff competition – he munched a raw Tabasco pepper (that innocent plant below) off of some plants that someone had for sale, and discovered that it was just about too much! The woman selling the plants was highly amused, my dad was sweating and swearing … it was crazy.
Below are additional pictures of the Fun To Be Had By All Pepper Lovers. This was truly an independent food artists event, and I was pleased to attend. I think the largest pepper vendor there was Austin Slow Burn, and that’s just because Central Market here in Austin sells them, so they’re a bit better-known. But not by much. It was awesome to see so many people there with their handmade stuff. Oh, and a shout out to Cin Chili & Company, whose chili was featured on Bobby Flay’s Showdown not long ago. I got to meet Cindy of Cin fame and sample her chili – it is indeed awe-inspiring.
Cheers and happy hot stuff! What a great weekend!
Weekend Work: practice & more practice
September 16, 2007 at 7:05 pm | Posted in Fabric-Related, Finished Projects, Weekend Warrior | Leave a commentLast Sunday I posted that I would be working on several projects during the week, and I did indeed finish all of them. I found it really interesting to tackle experiments projects I came up with myself and projects that created by other people online – and then compare those with the projects one can buy at the store. Usually, a totally different experience in sewing!
Below are two of the projects that I completed: a fabric card-holder (right) from Little Thing by Magda and the “CD poket” from Mushroom Villagers (left) – both things I’ve been trying to get to for some time! Takes me a while. But! I was so pleased with the way these turned out – both are really good designs with clear instructions. They’re also things I’m interested in playing around with more, and seeing what else I might be able to do with them.
I also made the quilted fabric wallet from That Darn Kat, but I was not pleased with the way it came out – some of my fabric ripped and it messed up the closure pretty badly, and I was not a happy camper. Particularly because it happened right as I was finishing. I’m going to try again at some point, because I think it’s basically a good pattern, and now that I’ve messed up made one, I think the second will go pretty well.
I posted about the pieced pillows I made earlier in the week as well. As suggested, I do tend to experiment – it’s the creative part of crafting that keeps me coming back. I thought that I’d show the picture of the sketch I made to come up with the pillows, and then show the pillows (again, sorry!), so you can compare the two One thing you may notice is that they don’t always end up exactly how I plan when I experiment – stuff goes wrong, I decide I don’t like stuff, whatever… it’s just kinda a work in motion. I do love my graphics, though. And now, I’m going to go offline and make some more!!!
Weekend Warrior: Craft Replenishment
September 9, 2007 at 9:52 pm | Posted in Domesticity, Fabric-Related, Weekend Warrior | 3 CommentsSometime back in July I’m pretty sure I overwhelmed myself on crafting (I signed myself up for too many projects) and I’ve felt pretty uninspired about doing any crafting myself since then. I had several things in process, but couldn’t seem to bring myself to do anything about them.
This weekend I wanted to sort of get back in the swing of things, and I figured some shopping would do the trick. For all the men who think that Home Depot has the lock on gadgets – they’ve clearly never been in a craft store. I love gadgets from anywhere – I have a mean tool collection complete with multiple ratchet sets, two drills, a laser level and my very own collection of nails, screws, hooks and other things.
On the other hand, my craft stuff needs a bit of replenishment. My next purchase is going to be a couple of new self-healing cutting mats (mine has warped, if you can believe that). I did add several neat new tools to my arsenal. These are the sorts of things that you can’t believe that you did without before -
1) Grid ruler for quilting. If you are trying to do quilting, or really any craft that requires piecing together fabric, get one of these. See what they’re doing in the picture? Cutting fabric so that it has straight edges and is of an even width and length is a whole lot harder without a grid ruler. A whole lot harder. The kind of harder you really don’t want to encounter. What did I do without this thing?
2) Temporary fabric adhesive. Back when I made my quilt and it was time to do the quilting, I didn’t baste the laters together. It was so much of a Pain in the *** that I gave up. If I’d had fabric adhesive, it would’ve been a piece of cake. This stuff does just what it says – it sticks fabric together and washes out when you’re done. Brilliant.
3) Tear-Away Embroidery Stabilizer . Again, what was I doing before? This makes keeping your embroidery looking neat and tidy possible. Me and the embroidery have a tendency to yell at one another and get all saggy and upset.
4) Pinking Shears. OK, first of all, when did scissors get so expensive? What’s the deal with paying $75.00 for a pair of shears? And second, yeah, pinking shears. I never had a pair before. Heck, since I’m self-taught, it took me years to even figure out what they were for.
There are several other tools that will be added to the arsenal in the near future. Then I’m going to get myself one of those pegboards and put hooks in it above my desk, and I’m going to paint it, and then I’m going to have a view of tools. Awesome.
Projects this Week – a busy week ahead, I think
This week I’m attacking several projects which I’ll be posting about as they get completed:
a) two-three pieced pillows made from the scrap material from the bedroom quilt. I’ve finished one already, hence my transports over grid rulers and spray adhesive.
b) Fabric card-holder, courtesy the tutorial by Little Thing by Magda. This was my excuse for buying pinking shears. This was also in a recent blog post about stuff you can do for your office.
c) Quilted fabric wallet, courtesy the tutorial from That Darn Kat. The fabric I’ve picked is either going to be really neat or really bad. I don’t need a wallet, but this looks really neat.
d) The “CD poket” from Mushroom Villagers – a kind of CD holder I really like and which I desperately need for work, as all I have right now is a disorderly stack of CDs that my husband reclaimed because they were so disorderly.
Weekend Warrior: Bat Fest 2007
September 4, 2007 at 9:42 pm | Posted in Conference/Fair, Weekend Warrior | 1 CommentLiving in Austin means bats. We have a huge bat population in Austin, and a crowd of them – in fact the largest urban bat population in the world- lives under the Congress Avenue bridge over Lady Bird Lake. Three years ago they began the annual Batfest, which is a combination craft fair and music venue in addition to food, bat watching and other stuff.
Here are some pictures of my time at the craft festival – water in hand, thinking about the sunburn I was likely to get, listening to Texas rock and zydeco, wandering down the middle of a bridge. Sadly, it started pouring about an hour after I got there, but not before I got a good look at some things.
This is my husband, Jeff, on the Congress Avenue bridge with the craft fair and downtown Austin behind him.
This next is a lovely display of stained glass. There was a particularly nice sun piece I would have gotten if it hadn’t started pouring rain.
This is the booth for Fleegal Farms handmade soap & body care. The owner is there on the far left. I tried a bunch of stuff and talked a while to the owner and bought …
Two bars of soap! The Lavender Fields is for my mom, who is a Big Fan of Purple. The clay soap is for me, as I love facial clays.
Jewelry booths always seem to be the most popular, such as this brightly colored display of necklaces. There on the right is the necklace I bought from this very table.
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