ok, it took me an entire week to get back to a normal work flow since my trip to maker faire. we had a fantastic time and i’d love to show you all the things we saw and did, but i can’t. i can’t because my camera turned out to have been totally buggered most of the time i was there. take that, and add it to the fact that paul could get a phd in crappy photos of moxie, and i’ve got practically nothing i can show you.

this is literally the only photo of me that is light enough, mostly in focus, and in which i don’t look like somebody just egg-farted:

here’s one of me and stacey that arwen took. and here’s one that somebody took of me and brookelynn. (looking at these, i’m starting to think that the egg fart face is disturbingly my fault/problem.)

you can see brookelynn’s photos of the needle felting playground here, thank goodness.

one of the coolest things was meeting people that made their own monsters from my tutorial. for instance, i met this great kid whose name i forget. she helped me during my monster demo for craft. the second day of maker, she came back and brought me this:

she made it herself and i’m completely honored to have it. i’m blushing even writing about it.

oh! also, i ate my very first “funnel cake” ever. that stuff is really good.

you shoulda been there, man.

i don’t care if you don’t live in the bay area, maker faire is worth the trip. here’s a link to the CRAFT schedule. don’t miss brookelynn morris giving a demo of her amazing felted fruit from craft:02.

brookelynn and i will be rocking the needle felting playground again this year, now with more seating! i’ll also be doing demos at the craft stage and maker shed for mini monsters and needle felting. paul and i will be driving down in a few days. sometimes we post photos of our drive… not sure if we will this time but here’s the bunch from last year. i also happen to know that a ton of other crafty hot shots are making the journey too.

one of my favorite seattle superstars, kristen rask, will be there to chat and talk about all things plushyou! (and, she’ll be signing my copy of her book ’cause i’m gonna ask her to!)

i’m also unbelievably excited to meet my long-time craft-crush stacey rebecca. (i’ve raved about her before because i loves her so!) she’ll be traveling all the way from arizona to play with the people and spread some of her puppet love.

another highlight for me is what seems like my bi-annual chance to marvel/gawk at and then hug the stylish and savy natalie zee drieu. (she’s also hilarious and often makes me snort laugh.)

here’s a video that natalie and craft put together, giving an overview of fun times to come. (when i saw this the first time and heard my name, i swear i looked around the room like, “wait, was that on everyone’s computer?”)

finally, there’s a blog post at craft with lots of event info. go there now and then come hang out with me at maker faire, ok?

i had a fantastic time in portland yesterday. pictured above are my two new favorite women, sister diane gilleland and susan beal, giving away raffle prizes to the people. see how fun and kind they look? that’s cause they are really fun and kind! did i mention that i really really love them?

anyway, we had a lot of fun in portland, which you can see here.

while we were having our portland fun, there were monsters being born all across the nation. seriously, when i saw these photos today, i swooned. here are a few of the monsters made by party people:

more photos in the craft release party flickr pool:
chicago – clicky.
new york – clicky.
los angeles – clicky.

i’ll be headed to the portland festivities, being hosted by the prolific, inspiring and amazingly kind people known as susan beal and sister diane. sunday march 9, 1 – 4pm @ twisted.

btw, make sure to hit crafty wonderland while you’re out and about. it’s a great event and a big part of why the portland craft scene is so happening.

for more info about all the launch party events, get thee to craftzine, stat!

this took about 4 hours to film…i’m not gonna even count how many hours it took to make the puppets themselves. worth it?

hells yes.

after buying myself a gocco on ebay in december, it was stolen off my porch. it’s taken until this week for the horror to be sorted out and now, at last, it is here.

i had so much fun making these notecards, i’m already scheming about the next project. clicky.

it’s a silent, choppy, flawed test run, and the beginning of big fun times to come.

heads up seattle people: i’m giving a needle felting basics class on saturday, with a focus on bead making! we’ll do lots of styles, shapes & sizes, embellishment techniques and more. there are a couple of spaces left and i hope you’ll snap ’em up so we can play together.

the class is being hosted by the wonderful folks at beadworld. they don’t have a website (!) so to register or get more info, give them a call!

before i get into the meat of this post, i need to tell you that i don’t like talking about my flair. i do like to share good ideas and glorify the work of others and i even like sharing photos of the things i make.

what i have a lot of trouble with is talking about cool neat things that happen to me along the way. it’s a perverse, white-knuckled humility that i haven’t figured out entirely, but those that are close to me have done everything short of attacking me physically to shake me out of this weird self-consciousness. so, here i take a deep breath and share a couple neat things:

i’ve mentioned kristen rask, owner of schmancy and curator of plush you here before. she’s one of those people who’s teaching me about the value of reasonable amounts of pride. a smart woman, a funny woman, a taker of no crap, kristen is one my heroes. (she did kick me in the shin once, but i totally deserved it.) anyway, kristen invited me to an interview for her constantly inspiring plushyou! blog and she posted that interview today.

here it is.

the other neat thing is that i have a tutorial coming out in issue 06 of craft magazine. if you subscribe, you have it already but for everyone else, it hits news stands on feb 5. it’s the longest tutorial i’ve written and i think it’s pretty cool. it isn’t needle felting related but teaches you how to make hand-sewn plush monsters. the kind of unbelievably cool part is that the craft folks have seen fit to put my monsters on the cover of that magazine. i don’t have a good shot of the cover but the monsters look like this:

of course, i’m completely amazed.

and now you know what’s up in my neck of the woods. and now i need to have a lie down.

i don’t normally do holiday-themed ANYTHING, but i couldn’t resist the challenge set forth at dabbled. i mean, “darker/creepier than your average valentine” is a fun constraint to play with.

so, i felted the base from scratch with three shades of red corriedale. i cut the heart from bright pink commercial felt. the straps are felted from scratch and then felted onto the base along with the heart. inside my paper stash i found a great shiny piece of wrapping paper for the love note that i cut to fit inside the syringe. i hammered some grommets on there for hanging. (i am new to grommets…and i LOVE them.)

the syringe came from creation station, my favorite surplus upcycle supply place in this area. they are a hoarders worst nightmare, but they have so much stuff that inspires me to create. they also just opened an etsy shop. (i love those folks so you’ll see some of my creations over there as examples from time to time.)

you should enter the dabbled contest too! clicky.