Projects

I feel like I’ve been recovering from the Art Fair for a long time! But really, I’m sure the recovery didn’t take that long; after recovered I was just enjoying doing other projects. That is: not sewing!

But I’m gearing up again for a busy fall and finishing up a few outstanding projects.  The first was replacing a coat lining. It was a wool coat with one of those pathetic satin-type linings that wear out and shred to pieces – you know, the standard lining in coats these days? I carefully removed the whole lining and took mental notes on how the lining had been put together and put into the coat. I ironed out the pieces, pinned them to the new fabric, and cut out new pieces.

 

 

Here’s a close-up where you can see the shredded arm pit region:

 

I have to admit I’m always surprised when these things turn out. I actually know what I’m doing!! Or at least, I was lucky? Anyway, I got the lining sewed back in, the sleeves were long enough, and it turned out pretty nice.

 

 

 

Yes, I even sewed the care instructions back in right where they had been.  =)

 

Next projects? Replacing a coat zipper (doesn’t seem like a fun photo essay though) and making some new cushions for a pair of chairs.  The foam is cut out and the top and bottom of each cushion is cut out, with cording sewed on.  I’m just waiting for zippers so I can finish these up. I liked how they’re looking so far.

 

 

 

Just so you know, I did NOT plan for the cording and cushion patterns to match up perfectly… it just sort of happened that way. =)

After this I’ve got a lot of sheep tea cozies to make. Those fuzzy tea warmers are needed everywhere!

Mark your calendars for my upcoming shows this fall/winter and I’ll give more details later:

• November 9-10, Craftastic in south Minneapolis
• November 17, Green Gifts Fair in south Minneapolis at the Midtown Global Exchange
• December 15, Women’s Art Festival in south Minneapolis at the YWCA

Yep, I prefer shows that are no more than 10 or 15 blocks from my house.  It narrows the options, but there are some good ones even in that area. Alright – back to sewing!

Just in time

I’ve been working away the past few months preparing for the Powderhorn Art Fair, which is THIS weekend!  Just in time, I finally finished that scrappy rainbow quilt I’d been working on. I like how it turned out, though I kind of wish now I’d had a friend machine quilt it. The hand-quilting is fine, it does make for a more pillowy finish – but it takes forever!

I also got these chubby little chick quilt hangings done. I don’t think I’d even mentioned I’d been working on them. My mom sent me the chubby chicks pattern and I’ve been working on them on and off for probably a year. I have another half dozen chicks in process somewhere. But at some point I decided to make two small wall hangings instead of a bigger quilt and I like how it turned out.

Oh, and for those of you who were interested, I’ll have a pair of my mouse hot pads up for grabs, in a giveaway, in a couple weeks. Stay tuned and I’ll let you know how you can enter to win!

All you local folks, I hope you can drop by and see me at the Art Fair this weekend! It’s in Powderhorn Park and I’m on the lake, space #17. If you don’t want to drive, you can take the bus for free!

Chickens galore

I’ve been sewing a lot in the last month or so – building up for the 21st annual Powderhorn Art Fair. I’m pretty excited about the fair. It’s a great weekend with tons of people in a beautiful setting and lots of great artists. Hope you will be there!

Anyway, I made a bunch of chicken toaster covers last week. (This isn’t even half of them!) I kind of want them all to sell… but then again it would be nice if I didn’t have to make any more till next year. It’s a dilemma.  =)

we’re excited to protect your toaster!

Which gets me to thinking about chickens… At some point recently I was thinking I should have called my business The Ubiquitous Chicken… instead of From the Homestead. I mean, neither one is particularly descriptive of anything so that doesn’t matter. And The Ubiquitous Chicken is kind of fun. But how many people can pronounce (or want to try pronouncing) “ubiquitous”?  And spelling it? Ugh. It’s still there in the back of my mind though, partly since I make so many chicken-y things. There are the toaster covers, tea cozies, occasional tote bags and other items with chicken prints, etc.  Hmm, and now it seems I’m sort of branding my blog and Etsy shop with one of those (ubiquitous) chickens. I can’t help it! He’s just so cute!

We are surrounded by real chickens as well. Last weekend we had a birthday party for Jeremy. A bunch of us, family, friends and neighbors, were sitting and standing around in the kitchen (where ALL party-goers end up) and the conversation quickly fell to chicken talk. How did the chickens handle the heat; what do they eat; who has new chicks; who has a rooster; etc. Suddenly Jeremy interrupted the conversation and asked people in the room who had chickens to raise their hands. All but 2 people raised their hands! It was hysterical. Then one of our non-chicken neighbors started singing that ditty about “which of these things just doesn’t belong…”  (We’ll convince her to get chickens one of these days…)

So, chickens abound. But… I just don’t know. The Ubiquitous Chicken? What do you think?

Women’s Art Festival

The Women’s Art Festival at the YWCA is coming up in just 4 days! Oh my, I still have so much sewing I want to do!

This show fills up pretty quick and I missed my opportunity to be in it the first couple years I knew about it. I almost missed my chance last year, but then I got in at the last second – literally a couple days beforehand. Little did I know that space opened up for me because half the participants had bailed out. What did they know that I didn’t? They had been  watching the weather and knew an enormous, epic snowstorm was going to descend on us the very day of the Art Festival!

The whole city shut down and only half the vendors came. Some people skiied and snowshoed over to the event – Minnesotans, they’re tough!

But this year, the weather is looking good. I think it will cooperate. So come on over on Saturday from 10a to 5p and have fun at this glorious event!

Women’s Art Festival poster

 

New quilt

I just finished this lovely quilt on Tuesday. I was an election judge for a special election. Read: very few voters, 14 hour day, lots of time to kill! Too bad I didn’t have another quilt to get started on!

This quilt will be FOR SALE tomorrow! I’ll be at the HandmadeMN Fall Market in uptown from 10a to 5p.

This is a pretty cool sale. For starters, various artists who are part of the HandmadeMN Etsy team (which puts on this show) have donated various things which you can WIN when you come to the market. The first 25 people in the morning (and there will be a line!) get grab bags with lots of donated goodies. Then, everyone who comes by during the day can enter to win one of two giveaway baskets. If you check out the blog (in the link above) you can see some of the things that have been donated.

And of course it’s great because all these artists are from Minnesota!

And I like the location – just a hop, skip, and a jump from my house!

So come on over and check out this cool market – and maybe buy a lovely quilt while you’re there. Oh! Look for me in the basement, er, lower level, of the building. Don’t let me spend my whole Saturday down there alone!!

Last Market & Fall Plans

I’m back! Okay, I was only gone for a week, and that was more than a week ago, but sometimes it takes awhile to recover from vacation. I had my sewing machine serviced and cleaned up while I was gone – it’s too bad the cleaning fairy didn’t go through my sewing room and clean that while I was gone! It is kind of a disaster. I’m too embarrassed to even show pictures.

I’ll have to deal with it though because I’m gearing up for a busy sewing season and I’m just not ready to clean up and put everything away when I’m in the middle of so many projects.

I seem to have opened a pandora’s box by starting to make toaster covers earlier this year. I’ve now got requests for all sorts of appliance covers in chickens, cows, pigs, ladybugs, and more! Pictures…eventually. I’ve come to realize that some animals/creatures translate to an appliance cover better than others!

Now, what you’ve all be waiting for! I WILL be at the Midtown Farmers Market this coming Saturday, October 1, from 8am to 1pm. It will be my LAST day at the Market for the year! So if you haven’t made it out there yet, let this be the Saturday!

If you do miss me, I will be in lots of other markets throughout the fall.

• Maple Grove Women of Today Craft Show, Maple Grove MN – October 8th, 9a – 4p
• HandmadeMN Market, Minneapolis – October 22, 10a – 5p
• Green Gifts Fair, Minneapolis – November 19, 10a – 5p
• Women’s Art Festival, Minneapolis – December 10, 10a – 5p

There will also be a house sale in December with music and food! More details on that when it’s planned. I’d better get busy sewing!

Last market for awhile & a hula hoop contest!

If you’ve been meaning to come check out my wares at the Market this summer, this weekend will be one of your last chances! I’ll be there this Saturday (8-1 as usual) and then I’m not scheduled to be back for a month!

I know the Fair is going on and there are more things on a stick than ever, and it’s the LoLA Art Crawl, and all sorts of things, but we have a hula hoop contest! I mean, you’re not going to find a hula hoop contest anywhere else this weekend are you? I didn’t think so.

What’s new from my humble booth? I’ve got several more fleece socks made up, in three different sizes. These went fast last week, so show up early if you want some. I’ll try to have many more made up for when I’m back at the market in late September. I’ve also got some more apple and carrot potholders and some more glasses cases. I’ve only got one sheep stuffed animal left – not sure if I’ll get another one done before tomorrow; but I do have several whales. They are all very cute!

I hope to see some of you tomorrow!

New quilts, another market, and plans

Oops, I guess I forgot to post here that I was going to be a the Powderhorn Art Fair! I did mention it a couple times, so I’m sure none of you were caught off guard. The fair was amazing: great weather, lots of people, great artists. It was really fun and I look forward to doing it again next year.

I took a little bit of a break after the Fair was over. I had been sewing like a maniac for weeks in advance and it sure felt nice to not sew for a couple days. But of course it didn’t take more than that for me to feel the call of the fabric. First I realized I needed to make more sheep cozies because they are flying like hotcakes! They sell almost as fast as I make them. I’ve got five made up right now, and they’ll be at the Farmers Market this weekend.
Second, I was thinking about our local coffee cafe and the art installations they always have on the walls. I’ve thought a few times about whether I could do something there, but they usually have photography or paintings or other paper-based art. A couple weeks ago a show went up of fabric art and it looks pretty good. I felt inspired! And I’ve got plenty of time to create things because they have a waiting list till 2013 for showing on the walls there! I’ve really enjoyed the two “stained glass” quilts I made last year so I decided to make a different one, all with bright batik fabrics. I really, really like the way it has turned out so far!

The day before the Art Fair I finished this next quilt. I started this months ago with leftover bits from a similar quilt I made last year. I like the way this one turned out too.

Come find me at the Midtown Farmers Market this Saturday (August 20) and see what all I’ve got!

Market, take 2

Last week as I was trying to decide whether to do the market or not, I kept looking at the weather reports every few minutes, trying to find a site that gave hourly forecasts. Every site was different! No one could agree on whether it would be stormy or not or when it would or what it would bring. It seemed like we were most likely in for a little rain and some thunder and lightning, maybe even hail – but maybe not. (They forecast a storm for the prior week and nothing happened at all!)

With that in mind I sent an email to the Market manager to let her know I’d be there. I added that I didn’t know what the weather would do and maybe it would be a little crummy, but I’ve got to have at least one bad market day this season, right?

I am not usually in the habit of making prophetic statements, but this was truly an exception.

We were supposedly going to get rain and storms as early as Friday night and all night long. But nothing happened. Saturday, 6am, dawned bright and beautiful with not a cloud in the sky and even comfortably cool. We loaded everything up and headed off to the market to set up. I was all set up just after 8:00 and sat down to do a little finish-work on a few projects I’d brought along. A little breeze had picked up and about 8:30 clouds had started to roll in and there was a very large, dark, ominous bank of clouds in the west that sort of looked like it was heading our way.

Always a positive thinker, I kept saying, “no, it’s just a beautiful summer day, nothing is going to happen, there won’t be any rain,” etc. And there wasn’t any rain – but all of a sudden there was wind. Out of nowhere it got really windy. My tea cozies and other things blew down, and then blew off the tables. Other things started blowing around. The tents started lifting up and all the vendors ran to hold on to their tents. I was so grateful for my new weight bags that kept the tent mostly on the ground. Even so, I had to hang on to the tent with almost all my weight to make sure it didn’t fly away when really big gusts came up. I did see two tents sort of implode and get destroyed by the wind. In the midst of this there was a huge crash and sound of breaking and a collective groan went up through the vendors and people in the market: two full shelves of pottery had blown down and crashed to pieces in the wind.

The market manager ran through telling everyone to drop our tents. Customers helped hold tents, and in between gusts of wind we all picked up bits that had flown all over and lowered our tents. Luckily it had not rained a drop yet or we would have had an awful mess to deal with. Folks with smart phones were calling out that more waves of storm were approaching, and then the lightning started and none of us felt safe under our metal canopies! The entire arts/crafts section decided to pack it up and head for home!  I never took things down so fast: I just grabbed everything I could and crammed and stuffed it into my bins and got the lids on just as it was starting to sprinkle. We loaded everything back in the car and headed for home. Within an hour there was a massive downpour of rain. But I was safely inside spending hours cleaning and straightening and fixing everything up.

Amazingly, the storm passed and by 11 or 11:30 the sky was blue and clear and the weather was perfect. The vegetable vendors all stayed on at the market! Luckily for them, veges aren’t as susceptible to rain and wind as arts and crafts are.

So, that was truly the worst market I’ve ever had! I didn’t sell a thing and I was slightly terrified for awhile there that my tent was going to blow away as well as all my things! But I survived, and I’ll be back this Saturday! It promises to be an absolutely glorious day with no prediction of wind, rain, or thunder/lightning.

And I have a brand new tea cozy design to debut. It is very likely the cutest thing you will ever seen in your life. Come on down and meet the new cozy! Saturday, July 30, 8am – 1pm.

To Market! To Market!

It’s late notice, but I WILL be at the Midtown Farmers Market tomorrow, July 23. They had space to squeeze me in, so I’ll be heading over there bright and early – even though the forecast isn’t much different than last week! Hot and muggy and humid, with the pleasant addition of possible severe thunderstorms. Well: don’t you believe it! Positive thinking now!

Come on and join me at the market. I’ve got several new market bags: one chicken bag and a couple adorable dinosaur bags. I’ve also got several tie bags. It’s a shoulder bag made out of two men’s ties. That’s it. You have to see it to understand.

See you at the market!