Venus Notecards

Venus of Willendorf
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.

I just put up a few of my Venus button-boob cards in the shop. There are three styles: Willendorf, di Milo, and on the half shell. I have more of each if you are interested, but have to zip over to do preschool pick up right now. If you don't find what you want in the shop let me know through email or Etsy conversations. Cheers, Michelle.

P.S. Hey! Thanks for the vote of blog non-suckage confidence.

Post something interesting already

You know your blog is sucking when your comments are down — and, when you mention this to your husband, he let's you know that your blog hasn't been all that interesting lately.* Nothing like a little tough-love to kick your butt into finishing a long-time WIP.

So, without further ado, let me introduce to you:

The Original Butt-Kicker Crochet Bodice Dress



This dress fought me the whole way. If it wasn't for blog suckage it probably would never have been finished. I won't bore you with the gory details — I tried writing them, and I almost fell asleep.



Props to Linda for the original inspiration, and to my sister for taking such lovely photos of her lovely self. More photos over here.

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*His comment was before yesterday's post, which he thought was nice.

In The Shop Today

****************We're Live!!!****************

We're on schedule for simultaneous Etsy shop updates at noon today (Pacific Standard Time):

Green Kitchen (Kanzashi hair clips)

and

Bitter Betty (Utili-Obis and more)

I'll be adding more to my shop later in the week.

Now off to bed. zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Five Years, Four Parties, One Day Late

Five Years, Four Parties, One Day Late
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.

Four parties in four days has given me a bit of a hangover. The Green Kitchen store grand opening is going to be postponed one day. Sorry 'bout that, please check back on Tuesday, November 27th at noon (PST). Thanks, Michelle.

Utili-Obis and Kanzashi: An Etsy Collaboration

Because Bitter Betty and I suffer from Craft Attention Deficit Disorder, and because I have a pathological aversion to posting packages, we decided it might be fun to try to list some things for sale at the same time. That way we might look cohesive, or, at least thematic, hopefully enticing. And, she'll be in charge of shipping, so all is well in that department. We'll each be posting our items (her Utili-Obis, my kanzashi) to our own Etsy shops at noon (Pacific Standard Time) on Monday, November 26th.

This will be the official grand opening for the Green Kitchen shop. Oh, my! There are more photos to preview over at Flickr.

P.S. I forgot to mention that I lifted the layout design from FAK! via Bits and Bobbins. How cool is the street fashion over there at the Ukrainian-based FAK! Fantastic!

Knit Dolls: Make Some!

guy_doll_hat_on
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.


bee_doll_hat_on
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.


dad_doll
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.

Remember these knit dolls? I finally found the book that the original pattern came from, "Woman's Day Book of Best-loved Toys & Dolls," 1982. I scanned the pages and they're over at my Flickr account if you want to download and print them out. I'm not sure how that works with a 25 years old copyright. If anyone thinks this is inappropriate/illegal to post I will gladly take them down and write up the basic instructions.

You can make up your own pattern for a knit doll pretty easily — it's basically a rectangle with some decreasing. The boy at the top is the only one I made from the original pattern. There are also patterns for a smaller boy, a woman, and a man. Here's a photo of the whole family.

The Bee Woman in the middle is a pattern that I made up as I went — her hat is a removable stinger. The guy doll at the bottom is based on my husband. He's wearing his basic work uniform: black Dickies and a white T-shirt. I still need to embroider the stripes on his Adidas.

These dolls are pretty easy and very enjoyable to make. The kids like to hold them. Hell, I like to hold them. They're very soft and comfy. The removable hats are fun, too, especially for the 18-month-old set.

My LYS, My LFS

I thought I'd put in a little plug for my local independent yarn and fabric shops. I love my online shopping, but the in-person experience has much to offer, too: like the time I brought in a quilt top to Round Robin looking for a sashing fabric and a customer started to help me before we'd even spoken; or, the time Khristine let me in The Swift Stitch to shop when she was closed; or, the wonderful events at Luminous Threads, like the meet-n-greet with Heather Ross.

These are the stores I keep coming back to. If you are ever in the area be sure to say hi to these kind, hard-working folk.

The Swift Stitch
Luminous Threads
Hart's Fabrics
Round Robin Fabrics
The Yarn Place

Who are your locals? If you post about your local yarn and/or fabric shops let me know in the comments so we can all visit.

A Sprinkle of Scraps

Here is a sprinkling of the scraps that I received from the kindly Emily in Linda's Patchwork and Scrap swap. The top three are vintage Japanese kimono fabric. The bottom three are Norwegian, I think. I'm all confused because, for a long time, I was thinking Emily lived in Finland. Ah, mamabrain — it took my vocabulary and my short-term memory. Emily has recently unveiled her wonderful blog, Ravenhill. Go check it out. She has lovely photos.



Thanks for waiting, Emily. My package to you is still sitting in a box by my front door. Bad swapper, no donut. :(

Kitchen as Craft Room

You don't have to
have a craft room
to make stuff.

The kitchen
has always been
a hub
of creativity.

Just make sure
you keep the iron's cord
out of the frying pan,
or the butter
for that matter.

Cat is for C

cat for C
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.


c_cat
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.


dog for H
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.


h_dog
Originally uploaded by Green Kitchen.

This was by far my simplest, most successful craft of all time. These critters are loved with a capital L.

While C was sick with a fever for four nights and five days my job was to carry him around the clock. Oy! My Back! My other job was to try and get those gnome costumes ready. Somehow, on the day before Halloween, C let me put him down just long enough to finish the gnomish garb.

Since I was working with fleece for H's gnome pants I got an idea to make a quick stuffed animal for C. And, since C LOVES cats (he signs "baby" for cats), I decided to stitch one up real quick.

First, I turned the fabric right sides together and drew a cat-like shape. While it was a work-in-progress I drew on some eyes and whiskers on the wrong side to let C know what I was up to. To save time I didn't even use pins. I didn't really care about symmetry or how it was going to look. I knew that as long as it had whiskers he'd be happy. I was planning on embroidering them after stuffing. But, after it was stuffed, he was wondering where the whiskers went. To keep him happy, I drew them on the right side with Sharpie marker. It worked! — even on the fuzzy side of the fabric. So I went ahead and drew the whole critter on. It was really fun and simple.

Then one had to be made for big brother, of course. The dog was not quite as easy because H is a little art director in the making. He wanted it slightly smaller than the cat. After it was stuffed and done he wasn't happy with the ear/face area. I altered it by cutting into the stuffed fleece and hand stitching it closed. Luckily fleece is very forgiving.

We've noticed around here that most of our dolls are either animals or guy dolls, or, now, guy/animal dolls. I'm seriously tempted to try and get one of Mimi's muscle men. We have a thing for the mustachioed set 'round these parts.