Summer So Far

Oh, hai Interwebz! I have returned with splendid tales of offline adventures!

The most exciting bit of news: I launched a second business last week! The new biz is Stardust Stitches, and it's lots of handmade little lovelies to help you have a more relaxed and serene life. Slippers/house shoes, rice therapy pillows, sachets, lap/receiving blankets, etc.

 

Why let your neck have all the fun? Now your feet can have Peter Pan collars too!

Check out the Etsy shop or the Facebook page for all the goodies. I might be crazy, what with Plushroom Soup, the day job, the 5 pets, the farm plan, and trying to have a social life too. But I'm super excited about the new biz!

 

 

Amy's reversible dresses

 

I'm also excited to announce that Amy, my BFF and favorite crafty partner in crime has revamped and relaunched Crabtree Studio. She's making utterly AMAZEBALLS heriloom-quality childrens clothing, so if you've got a little munchkin in your life, you should check out her stuff.

 

Lookin' snazzy before the show.

 

Last Sunday, we shared a booth at the innaugural Summer No Coast Craft-o-Rama in Silverwood Park (reunited and it feels so good. . . .). But holy hell, people, was it HOT. And STICKY. I felt like I was standing in a swamp all day. I don't think I've ever sweat so much in my entire life. But the park was gorgeous, the crowds were pretty steady, and we got lots of positive feedback about our work. I even made a few more sales than I had expected for both a first-time show and the first event for Stardust.

I didn't have much of a chance to check out all the other vendors, but our neighbors Oh Dier were really sweet and lovely people. And they make highly-covetable, beautiful objects to prettify your home. I think this sign in red would make a perfect addition to our reading room.

 

image © Oh Dier

They also had one that said "Library," but I can't find an image of it. Tough to choose which I'd want more, but I better decide before Winter No Coast!

 

In other news, I started a new day job in mid-June. I've once again picked up the red pen after my brief erroneous stint in IT. I'm VERY relieved to not be part of that madness anymore and am loving the new job so far.

 

My MIL's dog, Cal, helps us assess the north pasture.

The farm dream is also going strong. My local NRCS rep came out to the farm in June to help me assess the pastures and develop a rotational grazing plan for my future critters. Turns out I have abundant and species-diverse (if a bit overgrown) pastures, including awesome native prairie.

 

Sadly, all this activity has left little room for plush making. But I do have lots of fun ideas and the Plush You! 2012 deadline is starting to loom, so expect to see some fun stuff soon.

Also expect to see some changes around the blog in the next few months. I haven't entirely worked out what it will look like, but I know I want one cohesive space where I can write about Plushroom Soup, Stardust Stitches, and the soon-to-be-named farm. I'm toying with lumping them all under one blog called Farm Sewn (see what I did there? See? Yes, I'm a dork.). I know many of you run several businesses. Any advice for juggling their web prescences gracefully?

Happy Corduroy Day!

Yes, folks, today is national Corduroy Appreciation Day, since 11|11|11 is the day that most resembles that glorius fabric, corduroy.

To commemorate this momentous date, the Plush Team has teamed up with the Corduroy Appreciation Club. Eleven members of the Plush Team created a collection of 11 corduroy-inspired plush. These pieces will be displayed at the grand meeting celebrating all things corduroy at the Desmond Tutu Center in Manhattan on this most auspicious date. These pieces are available to the public to celebrate this every man's fabric in their own private collections. They may be purchased in the PlushTeam's Etsy shop.

I had the pleasure of being one of the 11 artists, and I created a "waling" banshee for this event.

According to Irish folklore, banshees are fairy women (or ghosts of women who died, commonly in childbirth) who wail when death is nigh. Their wails are most often heard at night near woods.

My banshee is dressed in baby corduroy, or pinwale, for a play on the word "wailing." Her tattered dress is accented with ribbon and lace, and her split dagged sleeves feature a silk blend lining (because I still can't get Game of Thrones costuming out of my head). Her body is made of 100% wool felt, and her hair is mohair locks needle-felted into place. Her arms and fingers are wired and jointed for full range of motion. She comes with a doll stand.

I love my banshee. Seriously LOVE. I did not want to ship her to New York, I loved her so much. I haven't been this in love with one of my plush pieces since, well, probably ever. Which means I will definitely have to make more banshees in the future.

All the pieces my fellow Plush Teamers created for this event are amazing. There's a Woody Allen plushcature:

A nasty ass honey badger (if you don't understand this reference, click the link to watch the video NOW. Seriously, now. I'll wait.):
And a plethora of amazing whales:

And if that weren't enough awesomesauce for you, last night, Rachel Maddow of MSNBC purchased that nasty-ass honey badger, and then FEATURED THREE PLUSH TEAM PLUSH ON HER SHOW, including my banshee. How amazing is that?!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Big, big props to Abby of Abbydid for organizing all this plush corduroy awesomeness.

About the Club:
The Corduroy Appreciation Club is a social club which wishes to cultivate good fellowship by the advancement of Corduroy awareness, understanding, celebration and commemoration of the fabric and all related items. Club events are held on dates which resemble Corduroy.

All Hail the Wale!!!

Plush Exclusive

I'm thrilled to announce my first-ever exclusive plush design: zomberries! I only made 17 of these sinister fruits, and I made them exclusively for Schmancy Toys in Seattle.

If you're not familiar, each month or so, Schmancy's owner, the stupendous Kristen Rask (also the gal behind the annual Plush You! show), asks a different plush artist to make an exlusive toy sold only in her shop. I was beyond excited and extremely flattered when she contacted me to participate, putting me in the company of such plush superstars as Robyn Fabsits, Michal Wright-Ward, and Leeanna Butcher.

I made two different sizes, with varying levels of decay. You can read more about my inspiration behind the design in an interview on Kristen's blog, and you can buy your very own zomberry in her online shop. But don't delay! Once they're gone, they're gone!

Upcoming Events

I will be a vendor this June at the first-ever Unraveled DIY Festival, an event presented by the MN Textile Center, in conjunction with this year's Surface Design Association Conference. I have no idea what to expect, since this is the first year, but given the narrow focus of the show and the built-in audience of all the conference attendees, I'm hopeful that this will be a good show. If nothing else, it will be an excellent networking opportunity. Hope to see you there!

Details:
Friday, June 10, 2011
6 - 9 pm
Rapson Hall (University of MN)
89 Church Street SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455
You can park in the Church Street parking garage is located across the street from Rapson Hall.

Festival Admission: $3.

Also, I will once again be teaching regularly at Crafty Planet. I'm really looking forward to teaching others how to craft, and excited to stretch my skills a bit and hone my teaching techniques. I'd love to see you in one of my classes! More details to come soon for each class, as I'm still working out my syllabi.

Beginning Needle-Felting
Sunday, June 26
11 am - 2 pm

Make Your Own Plushie
Tuesday, July 19
6 - 9 pm

Beginning 3D Pattern Drafting
Thursdays, August 25 & September 1
6 - 9 pm

Beginning Needle-Felting
Sunday, October 2
11 am - 2 pm

Plush Monster
Sunday, October 30
11 am - 2 pm

 

I Want Candy

This weekend, the first ever Plush Team group show opens at Hot*Pop in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The show's theme is Candyland, which we were all allowed to interpret any way we saw fit.

For some reason, the very first thing that came to mind when I heard the theme was "Candy Mountain, Charlie! Charrrrrrlieeeeeee." If you're not familiar, go watch the video first, then look at the plush version I created below.

I painstakingly sculpted out of Fimo all the candy pieces for Candy Mountain. The lollipops were so much fun to make! Aside from that, I must admit that it was a bit of a pain in the arse to make such tiny candy pieces out of clay, and an even bigger pain to attach them all to the mountain. But it was well worth it, I think. I love the way candy mountain turned out.
I also love the way Charlie the Unicorn turned out, though I wish I had made Candy Mountain to scale.
The best part about Charlie is that if you turn him around, he bears the scar from his kidney removal, just like at the end of the video!

The second piece I made for the show is Grandma Sugarsweet: Forget about eating your broccoli. This "sweet" old lady caters only to your sweet tooth. Eat your sugar, dearie!

Again, the candy pieces, as well as Grandma's tray, were sculpted from Fimo. The candy ribbons were fun to make also. My grandpa always had a tin of these by his chair when I was growing up. 
Grandma Sugarsweet hits the candy a bit too hard, I think. She's always got a stray lolli or cane stuck to her!
And finally, my favorite piece, the Gingerbread Zombie (or as I like to call him, Gingerzombie, because it makes me giggle):
The show opens Friday, January 21 and runs through March 20. So if you're in or near Milwaukee, make sure you pop in and see the show! Many talented plush creators contributed awesome designs to the show.

Plush You! Seattle

The 6th annual Plush You! show opens tomorrow night at Schmancy in Seattle. I'm super stoked to be attending the show for the second time (though it's my first time representing Plushroom Soup). I can't wait to meet many of my fellow Plush Team members in person, as well as many other plush superstars.

This year, I decided to send a fractured fairy tale: my own twisted version of Little Red Riding Hood.

Little Dead Riding Hood, the Woodsman, and the Big Bad Werequatch (or Werefoot, if you prefer).

Little Dead sports the epitome of zombie girl fashion: a completely removable cloak made of soft buttersuede and lined with cotton canvas, a skirt featuring creepy spiders and spiderwebs, striped tights, black boots, and fashionable little pigtails held in place with coordinating ribbons.

Little Dead carries a basket of moldy bread and rolls, with a stow-away black rat. Eeeww!

Little Dead keeps some pretty questionable company, in the form of a Werequatch. The werewolf that encountered this bigfoot definitely bit off more than he could chew, and never lived to tell the tale.

The Woodsman sure has his work cut out for him with this pair! Fortunately, his wool pants, hiking boots, flannel shirt, and knit cap keep him toasty while hunting, and he's very well-armed. In addition to the traditional hatchet, he carries a special double-headed axe and a special rifle as well.

His axe serves him well when fighting zombies, as long as he remembers the cardinal double-tap rule (kudos to the readers who get this fairly nerdy reference).

The Woodsman's rifle is loaded with special silver bullets, the only weapon known to effectively dispatch Weres.

I had so much fun crafting this trio, despite a couple of challenges while doing so! Clay is not really my forte, so the weapons and Little Dead's basket gave me a few fits and aren't 100 percent the way I wanted them to look. But I'm proud of myself for continuing to refine my people-making skills, as I've been wanting to do fractured fairy tales for a very long time. I hope this bunch enjoys their time in Seattle and can hold their own next to all the amazing plush talent that will be present.

If you're in or near Seattle, go see the show! It's on display until November 8 at Schmancy, Fancy, and Nancy. But if you can't make it, don't fret. I'll be sure to post a recap of the show when I return from Seattle!

The Poppies

I've been nominated for Poppytalk's first ever handmade awards, The Poppies! My nomination is in the Crafters category. I have some outstanding competition in this category, but I sure would appreciate your vote! Click the Crafters link above for details and to vote.

In other news, I've been sewing like a madwoman so that I can bring you a sizable shop update; frogs, froglets, owls, owlets, and giraffes. Stay tuned; I hope to have them all in the shop within a week.

Buy Zombie!

Ah, the power of Twitter. This afternoon, someone I follow reposted a Tweet (retweeted) from a user named BuyZombie. Since I craft zombie critters and generally like most things zombie, I was intrigued and clicked over to their profile. BuyZombie.com is an awesome Website that is "an ever-growing database of everything Zombie related you can buy or do
on the Internet" and has "grown to be a hub for zombie news, media,
reviews, and announcements!" Naturally, I had to follow someone who runs such a cool site and I swear, not even an hour later, I saw this Tweet from them:

How cool is that?! Thanks to Stuart for such a nice write-up of my zombie critters!

Introducing Patterns and a Giveaway!

I'm pleased to announce the arrival of my first patterns! Now you can make your very own alpaca herd or a happy little horse.

Amy and I cooked these
up during our Crabtree days (mega props to her for doing all the
interior drawings!) and will be debuting the print versions at No Coast on December 5 and 6 and Craftsmas on December 7. The patterns are also available as a PDF download in my Etsy shop.

The print version of the pattern includes full-sized pattern pieces
and detailed instructions folded together in a cute little
half-letter-sized booklet. The PDF version also features full-sized
pattern pieces and detailed instructions and is
set up to be printed double-sided on standard letter-sized (A4) paper,
landscape orientation.

To celebrate the new patterns and the launch of Plushroom Soup, I'm
hosting a giveaway! Just leave a comment here about your favorite item
to sew (or sculpt, or draw, or whichever craft medium you do best) and
which of the two new patterns you'd prefer if you won. I'll randomly
choose FIVE people to receive a print version of the pattern
(if you prefer the PDF, that's fine too; just let me know!)—two readers
will win the alpaca pattern, two will win the horse pattern, and one
very lucky reader will win both! Winners will be announced on December
8.