Craftside

Quarry is a sponsor of this year’s Holiday Felt Club! Come visit me and several of our other authors!

What is Felt Club you ask?


Felt Club is...A CRAFT FAIR Sunday November 16, 11 AM-7 PM

Felt Club is an annual indie craft fair featuring the best and brightest of today's creative scene. Felt Club's carefully juried shows highlight a wide variety of handmade goods, including handbags and jewelry, baby gifts and paper products, clothing and housewares, one-of-a-kind plushies and original artwork. In between shows, they host a variety of craft-related events around the city, including how-to workshops, craft supply swaps, and more.

Felt Club features a varied crew of rotating artists, crafters, designers and indie businesses, including My Paper Crane, Cathy of California, boygirlparty, Nervous System, and many others. Their events feature amazing shopping, tasty food, crafty workshops, great music and more. You can check out photos from past events in our Flickr pool.

Holiday 2008 happens @ the Shrine Auditorium Expo Center, 700 W. 32nd St., LA CA 90007. Click here

for directions.

Lisa Sonora Beam will be there signing copies of

The Creative Entrepreneur
A DIY Visual Guidebook for Making Business Ideas Real

Angela Cartwright will be there signing copies of:

Mixed Emulsions

and

In This House

I will be there signing copies of my book:

Sweater Surgery
How to Make New Things from Old Sweaters

and you can come and make an ornament out of a felted wool sweater and use needle felting tools provided by Clover Needle Craft.

Lisa will be demo-ing as well...details to be announced shortly!!!

In addition to these books we'll have lost more of the fabulous Quarry, Creative Publishing international and Voyager craft titles perfect for gift giving to that special crafter in your life!

Not only will there be great shopping, there will be:

To see pictures from the last one that I attended click here.

Come on by to see us while you shop!

Felted Eyeball Halloween Ornament Decorations Part Deux

So when I get into something, I really get into it.
What have I really gotten into now you ask?
Why Halloween decorations, specifically eyeballs, and felting of all kinds.
Today I have eyeballs made with a technique from:

Felt Inlays
Making Textured and Patterned Felt for 23 Creative Projects
By
Nancy Hoerner

It’s not just another felt book. Besides teaching this unique wet felt inlay technique, it includes 23 projects.

Felting has always captivated the yarn and fiber craft audience. Whether you know how to knit/crochet or not, you can do this kind of felting. Wet felting gives the crafter/designer complete freedom and control from the beginning. Hand-painted and solid-color roving--wool that has not been spun into yarn--is arranged on a surface and subjected to hot water and agitation to create felt fabric. With Nancy’s freeform methods, wool yarns, novelty yarns, bits of felt (called prefelt), and other fibers are worked into the felt to create highly textured and patterned fabrics—felt inlays. Each felt inlay (individual piece of hand-made fabric) is unique and creative. But what’s really great about this book is that Nancy takes it one giant step ahead by including 23 projects to show what you can make with your felt inlays.

Nancy Hoerner is an accomplished artist and designer developing her artwork for the past 30 years. She has published art dolls and bead projects in nationally known magazines and studied doll making and beading with renowned artists. Many of her art dolls and bead work are held in private collections. Nancy also works with manufacturers in the craft industry.

Aren't these little eye slice ornaments cute on this Halloween tree?

So here's how I made them:

I prepared the three layers of roving, white for the outside, black for the pupil, and bright green for the iris.

I followed the great directions in Felt Inlays and I ended up with my snake. After it dried I cut slices and ran a wire through each and formed a loop on one end to hang each eyeball.

One final tip I have for you is a bit about the mat I used. I didn't have a mat as called for but one night I was out for a walk before garbage day and in someone's trash there was one of these bamboo curtains, well it occurred to me I could recycle this into my wet felting mat! And I did. I just cur a small square out of it and retied the strings.

The Chrome Cowgirl: Guide to the Motorcycle Life

Motorcycles and Crafting, two of my fav-or-ite subjects!

The Chrome Cowgirl: Guide to the Motorcycle Life 

By
Sasha Mullins

A girl's gotta have a passion--why not a motorcycle? Like a love letter from the wild side of life comes this book from "chrome cowgirl" Sasha Mullins.

A primer for women who ride, or want to, or might simply like to jumpstart their lives, the book covers the ground in a way thats as entertaining as it is informative. Whether it's how to ride, what to do to your bike, or what to wear, Sasha has the advice.

What's more, her bike savvy and street strategies pack powerful lessons, offering a friendly word from the wisecracking on how to get the most out of life's wild ride. From choosing, maintaining, and repairing a bike to honing your vocabulary and checking your attitude, there's something here for every woman who ever dreamed of saddling up and becoming an easy rider in control of her destiny.

I just love reading this book!

Sasha speaks my language and I can personally testify to the pure joy of riding! I don't actually drive the motorcycle myself, I sit on the back and enjoy the ride!

Just to prove that riding a Harley can also be crafty and practical, I thought I'd share this fun picture of me one year getting my pumpkin on a ride. I became an expert at packing for 2 wheel travel. Sasha has some great tips on the subject!

If you have been reading this blog for a while you know I love crafting with motorcycle parts, here I made mosaic stepping stones, here I used a part to make prints in my altered journal and here I used parts for purse handles. Click on the links if you missed those posts to check out the fun motorcycle craft projects.

But on to some new ideas:

Click on the pages to read all these great craft ideas!

I have actually made one of these, the rearview mirror sconce, it was with a car rearview mirror, but still cool hu?

I have a tire that is for sure going to be a wreath, I promise to share it with you when it's done. I have to go cruisin' for parts to decorate it with!

But for now if you need to see more inside The Chrome Cowgirl: Guide to the Motorcycle Life   pop on over to Amazon for some more inside pages.

Crafty Blogger Links Monday and some crafty crosses

Swelldesigner
Alexa crafts up some swell cupcake pics/picks to remember Halloweens of yesteryear

The Crochet Dude
Drew has the perfect recipes for a Halloween party: Bloody Eyeballs and Maggots!

The Impatient Crafter™
Madge shares part one of her two part final project for Terrorific Tuesdays. It's a Gothically delicious tale of friendship.

About Family Crafts
If you are in search of creative costume ideas for 2, 3, 4, or more, you have come to the right place.

Aileen's Musings
Looking for a new paper technique, Aileen has a colorful one using glossy photo paper and Color Mists. This technique works great as backgrounds for cards, collages and even scrapbook pages.

Cathie Filian
Check out the Halloween Videos from the Emmy Nominated television show, Witch Crafts, where Cathie and Steve, make some awesome Halloween Projects & party ideas.

Crafty Princess Diaries
No more babies in your life to crochet or knit snuggly blankets for? No worries, the Crafty Princess has the low-down on a baby blanket contest as well as a non-profit group that makes blankets for babies in need.

Cross Stitch at About.com
This week, Connie has been spending a lot of time in the kitchen - no, not cooking. Dyeing fabric instead. Find out more about all the ways you can change the color of your fabrics.

Layers Upon Layers
Cyndi has gathered together her most popular tutorials on creating great background papers for your artwork.

Stefanie Girard's Sweater Surgery
Check out a ring project inspired by Sherri Haab's book Felt, Fabric, and Fiber Jewelry done Sweater Surgery style.

I hope you check out all the craftiness lurking about in these here links.

To make the crosses all you need is some scrap wood.

Cut to the size you like and nail or screw together.

Paint white and let dry.

I used a big black permanent marker to write on the crosses.

Then simply put them in the ground. A few rocks around the base can be added to help hold them up if needed.

If you need more Halloween ideas just click on the link below or on the right to see lots more!

Spider Web Sweater Crocheted with a Simple Chain Stitch

To make today's project all you need to know is a simple chain stitch for which I found great directions and illustrations in this yummy book:

The Crocheter's Guide to Yarn Cocktails
30 Technique-Expanding Recipes for Tasty Little Projects

is a hip instruction book for needle artists of all types.

The new needle arts enthusiasts are young and hip. Most are either new to needle arts or are crossing over from knitting to crocheting and vice versa. The Crocheter's Guide to Yarn Cocktails presents crochet as a fresh and exciting leisure activity, dispelling any former notions of the hobby as grandmotherly. Each fun project in The Crocheter's Guide to Yarn Cocktails teaches a specific skill so techniques can be learned in easy increments. The simple patterns offer a mixture of techniques which are the ingredients for learning more advanced projects. Angled toward the younger, emerging needle arts enthusiast, each project is inspired in name and attitude by a popular drink. By completing a "Yarn Cocktail" pattern, the reader will have created a beautiful unique accessory or garment and mastered a new crochet skill, and be empowered to tackle a more challenging project. Each pattern is accompanied by a recipe for the drink that inspired it, encouraging needle artists to knit as a social activity. But remember, the authors' motto is: Yarn Over, not Hangover!

Anastasia Blaes was taught to crochet by her grandmother at age six. Too rebellious to follow traditional patterns, she soon began designing for herself. Discovering that others were interested in her original designs, she sold original finished garments locally and in a baby boutique in Chicago. Anastasia has designed for such companies as Lion Brand Yarns and Jeanette Crews Designs. She is a member of TNNA and the Prince William Purlers knitting guild, where she served on the board as publicity chair for the years 2002 and 2003.

Kelly Wilson, a self-taught crocheter, has taught people of all ages to knit and crochet. She is the author of several booklets published by Leisure Arts and Jeanette Crews Designs. A former knitting editor, Kelly has proofed patterns for Leisure Arts, Herrschner's and Jeanette Crews Designs. Kelly is a member of TKGA as well as CGOA, where she serves on the Education committee.

So if you can do this:

(click on image to enlarge)

You can make this:

I didn't crochet the whole sweater because, well, I'm into "Sweater Surgery"

I grabbed one of my old crocheted sweaters and my trusty scissors and cut the back off.

I then reclaimed the yarn from the back panel of the sweater.

Then following the instructions in The Crocheter's Guide to Yarn Cocktails I crocheted 8  "spokes" for the web. I stretched them across the back of the sweater area. I wrapped one horizontal spoke around the center and one vertical spoke around all the others to secure the center of the web.

I then crocheted a long length to make the spiral section of the web and stitched it through the spoke with a yarn needle. I started toward the center and worked my way out.

I then simply wove in all the ends. It only took me a few hours and I now have a fabulous festive sweater to go out in and enjoy a few "real" cocktails!

Always practice safe crocheting! Have a great weekend.