I had a great time making these Cupcake Potholders - added a few of my own touches to make them my own, like hand-sewing with embroidery thread and yo-yo button flowers.  You can buy the pattern From etsy seller Whosiesandwhatnots or buy the ones I made at my shop Artreverie.

I had this Boucle Wool Sweater that I shrunk in the wash, it’s soo warm and soft I decided to recycle it into some leg warmers & I even had a little extra fabric to make a silly hat to match. Here is a quick tutorial from Thread Banger on how to do it.

I am very excited to be setting up at the Georgia Apple Festival! I have been working hard this month to get some seasonal works done for the show. I’ll be bringing along these fun fabric pumpkins and some goofy folk art face pots, not to mention that I’ll be making 100 gourmet candied apples this Friday for the show.  Please come up to the festival, there are over 300 vendors with hand-crafted items and demonstrations, and even some puppet shows for the kiddies. It makes for a lovely afternoon. Come find me in booth #87!

I worked up at Mom’s house this labor day weekend working on some sewing projects. I have been wanting to make a coupon organizer for production because, well, everyone is broke these days and I think more and more are clipping coupons. I couldn’t find a good coupon organizer for myself so I thought I should try and make some. I have a couple things to work through with the pattern, but I’m very close, thanks to mom’s expertise. First coupon finatic to comment on my coupon prototype gets one of them free! (FYI - they aren’t perfect but they are functional)

We also made a really cute ruffled flower bag that was a lot of work - the ruffle flower taking up the majority of the time - but was also a great skill to learn - I think i’ll transpose the ruffle flower idea onto some pillows. Be looking for these types of products at my etsy store!

I’ve finished a group of 7 reversible tote bags over the weekend and uploaded to my etsy site! The fabrics were fun, there was a good mix of japanese prints, 1930’s reproduction fabrics (feedsack) and some cute stripes and polka dots in red, chartreuse, green, peach, yellow and blue. These bags are perfect for the grocery store, now that paper and plastic is finally being phased out. I went to the market with two of them, spent 80 dollars and still had some room left.  They are reversible and can also work as any type of tote bag, for books, shopping, school, knitting, etc. Prices are dependent on the cost of the fabric. Thanks for looking!

So I’m learning how to knit and I have a couple great books that I bought, in San Francisco last year. I thought they had the best diagrams and instructions in them. Learn to Knit by Sue Whiting and Stitch’ N Bitch, The Knitters Handbook by Debbie Stoller. The Learn to Knit is very straight forward and the Stitch’ N Bitch book is quirky and humor lends well to learning how to knit, cause if you don’t get it at first it can be frustrating. After all we are dealing with two small sticks and a string, I mean how hard can it be?!

I needed new needles and so I went to a great little knitting store in Virginia Highlands, called Knitch, and got some #8 bamboo needles with ends, a good beginner set. Knitch was a little tricky to find because it is located in the back alley, behind that little row of stores on St. Charles Ave. Very nice location once you find it, has a nice garden patio and is quiet and peaceful like a knitting store should be. Once I get this knitting down, I may join that group of ladies in the store just knitting away and chatting about every day things - charming. If I still have trouble I may take one of their classes.

So last night I got my books out and needles and yarn and began trying to “cast on” the needle - I became frustrated, I was doing it wrong, the stitches were too tight, etc etc. After an hour of knotting (not knitting) my husband had a brilliant idea - I should get online and check out You Tube! So I did and it was awesome. I was able to watch someone else (better than those diagrams in the book) and could stop and start and rewind their actions until I got it right, I was knitting in 10 minutes. Just knitting rows, mind you, I’ve yet to understand a pattern. Not only that but I discovered some really cool crafters, Threadbanger, using You Tube as a weekly programming event, definitely worth checking out. It was this Threadbanger video that I used to learn from.

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