mmm.... coffee.....

honk if you love the truth & please stop watching tv while you're driving

i upgraded my flickr account because i keep taking all these photos of things (especially books at work) and not getting around to showing them here because, well, for one, they're not things that i've made & two, i feel like i need to have something clever to say when i post.  it won't be taking the place of this journal because it will mostly contain different photos - like photos of pamphlets advertising Hires Root Beer.  but it will also have some repeats like this wonderful little edward gorey book:

yes, that is indeed a tiny edward gorey signature!  how fabulous is that?  edward gorey's books have definitely had a huge influence on me, i blame him for my insistance on drawing everything itty bitty & buying .005 micron pens.  i used to draw everything with thin little rapidograph pens & have been thinking about returning to that again... 

at work right now i'm surveying the small books section of the Harris Collection of American poetry & plays.  to be a small book you have to be under 3" tall, but anything else goes!  these are leather books, cloth books, pamphlets, accordians, scrolls, matchbooks, poetry, music, psalms, primers...

it's true... the three of us will always have Ikea!

hey everyone, a couple of my crafty friends need a little financial help:

thanks to the IRS & a sad little car, my friend Jodie is having a photo sale!  Jodie, a fellow reformed graphic designer, is doing a second year of Americore up in Maine (i am so very jealous) and recently traveled to Honduras to document a medical brigade at Hospital San Felipe in Tegucigalpa.  you can order jodie's prints (either framed or unframed) from her website & if you want to see even more of her beautiful photos check out her flickr page.

recently Alison of WonderlandQ.com had emergency surgery & was in the hospital for almost a week.  yikes, alison is going to be okay, but, like many crafters, she has no health insurance so a friend of hers set up Wonderland Retreat, an online shop to help raise money.  it's full of donated crafty-goodness & all the money goes straight to alison - etsy even waived their fees!

tess of madebytess.com rescued a sweet little dog, lily, but the poor girl is very sick & needs some expensive medical care.  i only recently internet-met tess, but i'm already in love with her aprons.  she has an online shop so check it out & see if you can buy a little something to help them out because how can you resist this cuteness:

i went out into the night, i went out to find some light

i have a wonderful therapist: he understands that the things i sew are extensions of myself, they are a form of expression.  i can show up to a session with a quilt or something like this & not only does he get it, but we can sit & talk about it in the context of everything else in my life.  and, since he has his own private practice, he's very good at giving me business advice!

definitely inspired by the Capreolus Polycoros from Ulyssis Aldrovandi's Monstrorum Historia, this creature is about 14" tall with button eyes surrounded by felt, the body is some weird ultrasuede upholstery fabric & the horns & antlers are sculpey/fimo clay.  i made a little button shank out of jewelry wire so they're sewn into place & then glued down.  unfortunately i broke the antlers shortly after this photo was taken but i'll make a new set tonight.  i guess i didn't have to tell you that part, you'd never know, but hey, it's part of the process!

thirty years from now someone will spill juice

what am i doing?  i'm making creepy, but cute things...  i stayed home from work today because i hurt my leg helping neighbor susan move from a 1/2 basement apt to the 2nd floor.  it's just a pulled muscle, but it's cold & rainy outside, it would have taken me forever to hobble to work!  creature making is probably not what i should be doing, but i'm really excited about the strange creatures i've making.

a funny thing happened earlier: i was looking for my spool of pink thread, you know, the one i've been using all day?  it suddenly disappeared & i searched everywhere for it.  is in on my table? maybe it's under a piece of fabric or rolled off to the side.  oh, maybe it rolled onto the floor or into the trash!  can you find it? it's here somewhere...

if you don't cry you just don't feel it deep enough

oh, hello there!  sorry i've been falling behind on my updating - i have many things to share with you, but for now a quick announcement:

May 5th  teresa & i will be at the RISD Alumni Sale. it's probably your only chance to come see us for a while because we have decided to not apply for the Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn this year.  the first year it was miserably hot & dusty & there was a softball game going on (people & dogs actually got hit with foul balls!)  then the second year the weather was better & we were thankfully under the trees, but this time they've moved it to a giant cement pool.  no shade.  anywhere.  i hear it's a great place to have outdoor concerts at night...  despite the possibility of making money, i'm not risking another weekend of dehydration & heat exaustion.  i've done enough of these outdoor sales to know that they can be a hell of a lot more fun than that!  speaking of which, we applied to Somerville's ArtBeat Festival in July.  we did it last year with a whole mess of crafty newengland ladies & it was a great show.  keep your fingers crossed we get it...

and some sad news: tara closed Plain Mabel!  i'm sorry, i meant to tell you earlier so you could make some last-minute purchases, but maybe i didn't want to believe it was really happening...  i'm so very happy i got to meet tara & sell things with her over the past few years.  out of everyone i've dealt with, tara has been the most amazing, she's always been prompt & organized (which i am not) so it was a dream to do business with her.  although i'm sad the website is over, i understand tara's reasons & am thankful for the real-life friend i got out of it.  so thanks, tara, you're awesome!