Buy your tickets for the Austin Mini Maker Faire

If you haven't gotten your tickets yet for the Austin Mini Maker Faire, buy them here!  Only 12 days left to get them - prices go up at the door.  :)

Busy Bee

I've been busy this past week, trying to check things off my to-do list.  I feel pretty positive overall with what I've been able to accomplish.  I have a number of cozies blocked or in the process of being blocked on my ironing board (blocking is the process where you wet your finished piece and pin it into the shape you want it to dry in - it gives the crocheted/knitted piece a more finished look.)  My desk area distinctly smells of wet wool, but the end result is worth the trouble.

I finished a number of projects this week and have a total of 40 finished pieces!  I have a couple more that shouldn't take much work to finish and I just uncovered another pile of 1/2 finished hair pieces that just need buttons sewn on.  I still have two weeks left, so I'm feeling great about meeting my goal of 50 pieces.  Getting my fabric labels sewn on each piece is another story but I'll worry about that later.

Since I worked hard finishing up old pieces, I let myself have some fun tonight and play with new yarn.  I've been wanting to make something with this yarn for months and I'm really hooked on the coin purses w/ clasp handles I finished this week.  I tried it combined with a black yarn and a grey yarn and I think I'm going to work it with a turquoise yarn next!  (I realize I may be the only person excited about using the different colored yarns, but that's ok.  I agonized for 10 minutes in Jo-ann's the other day about what embroidery floss to get for one of my coin purses - they just didn't have the perfect shade of reddish-orange with a touch of brown!)  I'm out of purse handles, so they'll have to wait a few days before I can finish them.

On top of all that crazy crocheting, I started working on my table setup.  I've bought fabric for my table and some display cases to show my work off.  I also did a mock setup - 8 feet by 30" is a big area to cover with little crocheted pieces.  The biggest thing I did this week, though, had nothing to do with yarn or fabric....

I bought a cell phone, and not just any cell phone, an iPhone!  This statement may seem less than exciting if you don't know me, but I haven't had a cell phone for about four years, so it's pretty huge.  I've been thinking about getting one for a while and I really really wanted to take credit card payments at the mini maker faire, so voila, I bought a phone.  I also signed up for Square and they're sending me my credit card swipe thing in the mail.  It's funny that something as seemingly old fashioned as crochet has brought me so fully into the 21st century.  Most of my online presence is due to crochet - website/blog/twitter/etsy, the crochet classes I teach are scheduled through a website, and now I have a smartphone.  A big thanks to women of yore who wanted to make lace cheaply and so crochet was born - you're the reason I have an iphone now. 

Falsely Positive

I know it's only been half an hour since I wrote my post about how I have things under control, I have a doable to-do list, I will not panic - I am panicking.  The Mini Maker Faire website has "18 days and counting" listed on their website and although I had done the math in my head, seeing it on the site gave my stomach a huge jolt.  *deep breaths deep breaths*  I won't panic, at least not yet, at least I'll try not to.  I will try to think positively, stay calm, work hard, and believe that somehow it will work out.

If only I could do all-nighters like I used to in college...damn full time job and bills to pay.

A Doable To-Do List

So I have less than three weeks left before the Mini Maker Faire takes place and I've been getting nervous.  I decided to do what I always do when stressed and overwhelmed by too many things to do, I made a to-do list (sorry for the bad photo, I'm at a coffee shop, not at my desk.)

I'm relieved and a little worried that it's only one page long.  There must be more to do to get ready for the fair than that.  I have thought of a few things already that I've forgotten to write (make sure I have a table and chairs, register myself and my helper for the event - one lucky person gets in for free just by helping me with my table for a few hours!) but nothing really major or time consuming.  

Some of my tasks are understated on my list - like my goal of having 50 items for sale.  I have 30 completed items, so I'm doing well, but it will be difficult, maybe impossible, to make 20 more items from scratch in under 3 weeks.  Luckily, I have a number of works in progress (wips in the fiber world)  that if I can only finish, should add another 10 or 15 pieces to my pile.  As I have discovered though, and really always suspected, I like starting things more than I like finishing things.  I have this big stack of half finished things, often they just need a zipper or button sewn on, but do I finish them?  Oh no, I'd rather pick up that pretty new ball of yarn and design a new project.  I must curb my desire to design if I'm to hit my goal of 50 items!

To show that I am, indeed, trying to be good and finish pieces, here are a few pictures of projects I've finished (or almost finished - just a button or two to sew on) this week.  Hopefully my next post will be about the arrival of my custom fabric labels, courtesy of Tags & Labels!

Heather Black Smartphone Cozy

Green Smartphone Cozy

Tweed Kindle Cozy - I'm obsessed with cables right now!

Yarn bombing for education

So I took some time off from crocheting kindle and iPad cozies to crochet a tree cozy today!  A few Kealing Middle School students were creating a radio documentary, through Texas Folklife, on yarn bombing and knitting groups.  They contacted me as a representative of yarn bombing to help with their radio documentary (Thank you Magda Sayeg and your lovely assistant for referring them to me).  I was joined by The Knitting Nest's owner, Stacy Klaus, a veteran yarn bomber. 

We first met a few weeks ago at their school for interviews.  The girls were very professional and asked a number of interesting questions, like how we felt about yarn bombing as a form of graffiti and what is yarn bombing and why is it important, i.e. not a waste of good yarn.  It was really great having Stacy there to hear another side/viewpoint on yarn bombing.  She's done quite a few projects, including helping with the  Komen, Race for the Cure, pink bra yarn bombing project last fall.  While we were there, the students also decided what they wanted to yarn bomb.  They picked a tree in their courtyard and after taking measurements, we dispersed so we could get our knit/crochet on.

We met again today with our knitted/crocheted fabric in hand.  Between the three students (and their parents/grandparents) Stacy, and myself, we created enough yarn fabric to go around a 40" wide by 60" tall section of the tree. 

Here are two of the students hard at work joining our pieces together.  I love how different each piece is and how great and colorful they looked once sewn together. 

Here's the lovely tree!  I crocheted the blue, green, purple, and yellow striped section towards the top.  It was great to see the other students' reactions as they walked through the courtyard.  Most of them were very excited to see a yarn covered tree. 

The radio documentary should be available sometime in the summer on KUT.  It will be played in the "Stories from Deep in the Heart" series.  I'll post a link to the audio once it becomes available.

Back to crocheting kindle and iPad cozies!

Unexpected time

What was going to be a day filled with non stop activities has suddenly opened up into an afternoon of free time.  I could do laundry, go grocery shopping, go to the bank, clean the house - be a responsible adult, basically.  Instead, I think I'm going to sit on the couch, listen to a Stuff You Should Know podcast, and finish this lovely.

Noah looked at my other iPad cozy and described it as "70's retro."  I guess my brain was on 70's color mode when I was buying yarn, because this one is very retro, too.  The 70's are vintage and in now, right? 

New yarn, new design

So as a way to celebrate being accepted into the Mini Maker Faire, I went yarn shopping, big time.  Over the course of Easter weekend, I went to two local yarn stores (there would have been a third one, but they were closed),  two craft stores, and two online yarn stores.  I now have a fresh stash of yarn wanting for me to make delicious things out of them.

Plus some funky new buttons I found at Joann's - I'm going to use them on a new design I created over Easter weekend - and a few other accessories for works in progress or ideas floating around in my head.

 After spending most of Sunday designing a new pattern, I worked on and off all week on two pieces using the new pattern.  I just finished one tonight - it's my first official piece I've made for the mini maker faire, woo hoo!

Before

 

After

 

 

 It's a cozy for your ipad or android tablet - you may notice a suspicious white color peeping through the fabric.  That's because I don't actually own a digital tablet and had to use foam core as my sample.  Maybe if I sell enough of these, I can buy a real one!  And yes, those are cables and that is crochet, not knitting - pretty cool, huh?

Besides finishing that, I worked on another version using 100% recycled yarn - very neat to work with - and I finished all the registration paper work and paid my commercial maker fee.  I am officially a maker now!

Austin Mini Maker Faire

Finally!  I actually stuck to one of my New Years Resolutions - to sell my crocheted crafts at a craft fair this spring.  I was accepted as a commercial seller for the Austin Mini Maker Faire.  Yippee!  If you have never heard of the Maker Faire, it's an event created by Make magazine to "celebrate arts, crafts, engineering, science projects and the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset".  The Austin Mini Maker Faire 2012 is created and run by Kami Wilt and Austin Tinkering School.  The event itself takes place on May 12th, from 10 am to 6 pm, at the Pine Street Station. 

This will be my first craft event that I'll be selling at.  I've sold a few things through my etsy store, but this is the real deal.  I'll be blogging about my experience, chaos, frustrations, and all.  I have 31 days to get ready - crochet as many items as possible, make labels and business cards, document every item, create displays and pricing for the day of, and a million other things - ready, set, go!