mmm.... coffee.....

skin as white as a cuttlefish bone

oh how i have neglected you, little journal!  i am still dreadfully camera-less: a whole holiday of fun & visiting & not a single photo to show for it.  and i'm going to see abby this weekend & won't be able to take photos!  erg.  that above shot was taken by my sweet ibook - i'm playing with my new toy, a nintendo DS lite, which i have been rather attached to since receiving it for christmas.  it was gifted to me along with Super Mario Bros and Mariokart, but that wasn't enough!  oh no, i just had to go out & buy Animal Crossing!  needless to say there is ZERO crafting going on in my studio, with the exception of whipping up a vinyl case to carry my dear DS around in with it's tiny games.

here, at least, is a little montage of photos i don't think i've shared:

my friend jim & his adorable little daughter emma,
tasty local purple potato

monster i made for my friend ryan,
paul & i at the Harmonix holiday party
 
if i can find the card i'll tell you what amazing little
china shop that is (it's somewhere near Purl Soho)

the inside of the Time Warner building where we had breakfast,
my sister & jo at our thanksgiving dinner.

i missed the ark, but i could've sworn you'd wait for me

i spent this past weekend in NYC with lee & jo.  there was much playing of Dr. Mario & eating of delicious food!  we went out to Marseille friday night & i ordered the bellini martini & the salmon with eggplant, saturday lee & i had brunch in the park - bagels & lox from Cafe Lalo, jo cooked some tasty tasty steaks for dinner, lee bought me some ridiculously cute shoes, more nintendo playing, we watched the world cup finals & ate delicious NYC thin crust pizza.

my new roommate, emily, arrived on the 1st & my old one had finally moved out the day before.  there wasn't much time in between, but i squeezed in a little party that friday night.  i drank lots of champange, played my parents' records real loud & danced around in the empty room.  quite a few people came by, some crafty ladies, teresa's brother was visiting with his girlfriend, ana cooked some tasty fried tofu & bok choy with ben who was back from Transylvania & armed with a mysterious bottle of "romanian home brew" that made your tongue revolt from your mouth.  a fabulous time was had by all, or at least me!

the way you parked your car sideways

(that's your view + my view)
wow, renegade was great!  the weather on saturday was perfect & we lucked out with a lovely spot in the shade.  sunday got a little stuffy, but still not the "oh my god, i'm gonna pass out" kind of heat we had last year.  much thanks to everyone who came by, particularily lynn who i hadn't seen in almost 9 years & erin fae who i hadn't met before!


we drove down to my sister & jo's apartment friday evening, teresa & kristin had a little late-night preparation to do before we could sleep.  driving in & setting up went smoothly, they hadn't mowed the grass so teresa did a little pruning.  to one side of us was the lovely annabuilt & her husband who tried to drown out the ice cream truck with some great music.  we had the fabulous department of craft on the other side.

there were some assorted film crews wandering around talking to people, they didn't come by our table, but i did get my photo taken supposedly for a taiwanese newspaper!  i wore my new skirt both days & hopefully the bugs didn't creep out tara of plainmabel too much as she came by to say hi with her boyfriend!  i ran around a little saturday & said hi to mypapercrane, carryboo, mymy, misshawklet, jillkilljoy, qylaar, badbuttons, wonderland q, my fellow rhode islanders fishcakes, rainbow sugar, if'nbooks+marks & jen corace, oh too many more to name, sorry!  i saw stella of momomoogie, but missed dayna the crafty scientist!  new people i was enamored of were Dale Hunt who had super cool creatures & creature painting things, also a tent of amazing screenprinters from Pittsburg (etui, mike budai & strawberry luna) that made me nostalgic for the bygone days of Fort Thunder.


we finally got to see lee & jo sunday night, they took us to dinner with Stephan to a little italian place.  sadly i wasn't feeling too good, but the walk through Morningside Park was surprisingly beautiful, well, except for all those damn stairs!  no one told me there'd be stairs!  teresa, kristin & i spent monday walking around downtown.  i bought soda candy & chocolate pocky at Pearl River Mart, i also dared to enter the marc jacobs store to procure a bottle of the eau de parfum, but please don't ask how much i paid for it!

so there it is, my little synopsis of the weekend.  sorry for not posting right away & thank you thank you to everyone who attended, especially if you bought something!  now may i test drive that amazing avocado colored sewing machine?

strange looking patty melts at Norm's

i finally started to feel better on sunday & got inspired to cut up my ragged old army surplus bag & make a new & improved version.  it wasn't easy, but that's mostly because i just started sewing without planning it out first & sewed myself into some difficult corners!  it didn't take long, i made it in less than a day - a day in which i disappeared for 5 hours with jodie & george to get coffee & run around lincoln woods.  here are more terrible photos that don't convey how really cool it is that i made myself a messenger bag this weekend!  (do note the presence of the beloved pink hat & the mini-clapotis scarf)

i don't think i'd make many of these to sell, but i am considering making a few, perhaps taking some custom pre-paid orders?  the next one will be much better.  you can't quite tell, but the lining is this soft velvety stuff in a rich brown.  man, those photos are awful, sorry!  just close your eyes & dream it up all pretty...  and, too continue the trend, here are some odd photos i took from the bus in nyc:

when you had little voice or none

the olympic sock went to NYC for a long weekend so i was unable to post about it until now!  the sock visited the dream coffee machine, played nintendo til 4am, slept late, saw some of the city, did a little shopping & hung out with my sister & jo.  it was finshed just in time, despite gross amounts of unknitting (which i am now quite skilled at) and it even fits.  perhaps a lace sock pattern was not the wisest choice of a first sock, but i think i would have otherwise been rather bored.  i knit a bit at lunch times last week, so i took a few in-progress photos of the sock at work with me:

i was making a giant box for an artist's book that is shaped like a fan & in the upper corner you can see the sadly broken porcelain ring that used to close it up.  i also started another sock while in NYC, a toe-up version of grumperina's jaywalker, my neighbor on the bus was quite entertained & watched me knit for an uncomfortably long time:

some things have been stressing me out lately & it was really great to go away for several days & see my sister on her little vacation.  there was, as always, good food & great company.  we talk of moving other places, but it will be sad one day when we're farther apart because i have so enjoyed getting closer to her.

look, but don't look like you're looking

can you spot what my sister is wearing on her wrist?
the first blanket of snow arrived in providence thanksgiving morning.  i crept out onto my front porch & listened to the amazing sound of snowflakes falling through the leaves still on trees.  my little street was all asleep, but then one by one neighbors came out & greeted each other with a happy thanksgiving.
last week was good, my parents drove up to providence for the week & we drove down to my sister & jo's for the night.  jo cooked up a delicious meal with little birds & we had a nice time all being together.  on friday we walked around the city a little bit, i managed to spot the amazing Yarn Co. where my sis bought me a little skein of brown & pink wool yarn.  we met up with jo at Galleria illy for delicious coffee (i can't believe i forgot to bring my camera!) and on to a delicious dinner at the restaurant Lupa where i ate a bite of tripe.  i'm pretty sure i know what it is, but please don't confirm my suspicions!  after a rowdy game of spit with lee we zipped back to little ol' rhode island. then there was a morning of yarn drooling & quilt planning with my mother... 
 
i didn't get much work done & i'm now very overwhelmed by upcoming deadlines.  there are many things i want to make & people i want to send things to!  thank you so much for the enthusiastic response to all my new work, vinyl & quilted.  you won't hear much from me in the coming weeks because i will be attached to my sewing machine & rotary cutter, but look out for my stuff at places like PlainMabel, Boston Bazaar Bizarre & Craftland...

like t' hear it, here it go

 

finally!  here are the first bunch of pictures from renegade last weekend (was it really only last weekend?)  this is our little tent set-up with our lime green sign that attracted people to our table - especially coffee drinkers!  they'd walk up to me & ask "are you the coffee drinker?"   
one of our neighbors was the Amazing Talking Paintings & they were amazing & talked & some were rather suspicious...  on the right is heidi of mypapercrane & her husband with all her yummy stuff: i ran up to her pile of hand-spun yarn & just hugged it because it was so wonderful!  i love her cute pink hair, too!

my sister lee took us to Patsy's for real NYC pizza, note the life-sized portrait of Frank Sinatra behind her.  it was the most delicious thin crust pizza & we ate 2 whole pies of it!  kristen was telling a story in the picture on the right, but i don't remember what it was about...

 

a little photo of teresa enjoying some coffee from the corner store before attempting to navigate the BQE for the second time.  after the sale ended on sunday my brother-in-law jo insisted we go out to a german beer garden with him so here jo is with his giant glass of beer & plates sausages!  (there was also potatoes, but mostly sausages)

i hope that is enough for now, i'll post more when i get teresa's pictures & still to come are the photos of the awesome trades i brought home...

geometry improv'd

i went to NYC to visit my sister & jo last weekend.  there was good food & fun times even though lee had a ton of work to do.  i went to her office friday night straight from the bus & met her office mate who is very proud of his strange creature (red & black flames.)  the weekend after next i'm going to visit my mom & dad down south, it's also a family reunion of sorts.  i hope to get some sewing done on my mom's gorgeous bernina.  maybe i'll mail supplies ahead of me...
  i cut out piles of creatures until i ran out of pins, but there are many more fallen between the floorboards!  my goal is to have 100 strange creatures for renegade in june.  i can do it, but only if i stop knitting!  i made that many back in december, but i got up every morning at 7am & sewed before work & sewed til late at night when i came home.  i was kind of burnt out afterwards, but it was still really fun.  i enjoy really intense work like that, getting completely sucked in.

wee-hoooo!

i got it!  i got the job!  man, oh, man, do i feel relieved, it's wonderful to get good news when you're feeling down.  so for at least the next 2 years i will be working in the John Hay Library making all sorts of boxes & other enclosures!  i'll be working less, but making more per hour, so the plan is to have the time to make all that stuff i was whining about wanting to make!

speaking of which, i'm sorry, but i had teresa take down the slithy tove & mome rath from her shop because i need to start making creatures for the RISD Alumni Sale on April 30th.  we also got into the Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn on june 25 & 26th and i'm making some creatures to send to Art Star in Philly!  if you really have to have one of the jabberwocky creatures i might be able to make some more in a few weeks & i still have a couple more to sew.  thank you all for waiting & the rest of the little guys are getting mailed out once the torrential downpore ceases in providence!  the talented mimi kirchner just got hers...

< thank you so much to everyone that sent me kind words last week, i really appreciate all of your support & encouragement.  teresa has been so nice to drive me places & make sure i eat dinner & kristen gave me the little coffee book at craft night.  i ran off to nyc for the weekend to be comforted by my sister & fed bagels & lox & mimosas.  it was super fun & i hope i'll get down there more often in the coming months...  if she can afford to keep feeding me!

 

am i really home?

i apologize to anyone who's emailed me lately & hasn't gotten a reply!   i ran off to new york city for several days to visit my sister & jo & eat delicious food.  in addition to fleeing the state, i've started getting tons of creepy spam virus emails again.  at least this time they aren't masquerading as fellow crafters, but they sure are filling up my mailbox.  i went to the city quilter in manhattan & bought a little bit of fabric (they were closing & i ran out of time)  my sister & i tried to go shoe shopping, got hit on a lot & shared a delicious beard papa's cream puff.   i skipped craftygroup tonight to do some sewing on my sewing machine, catch up with email, watch the west wing  & the project runway finale.  (i'm hoping that jay wins, but i'm happy as long as wendy doesn't!)  i'll put up some pictures soon & now i really need to email people back!  i don't know why i'm so terrible about that, i check my email all the time, i think about emailing people back all the time, i just don't do it.  i'm sorry.