Stitchify - Crafts and Fiber Arts Inspiration

Andy and I left Sacramento by 8:45a so we could shop before starting our shift at noon. At 10:30 we were just 1 mile from the venue, and we hit THE MOST shideous traffic. Once we finally parked we had to jet in and started our shift about 5 minutes late. Can you believe that!? An hour and a half to go one mile! We didn’t let it get us down though. Our volunteer coordinator assigned Andy and me to (wo/)man the Bazaar Bizarre information/freebies/raffle table. It was really fun. I got really into it and was chatting people up. Thankfully I knew bit about Bazaar Bizarre from attending in 2006 and from poking around on the website. (Did you notice my spiffy Stitchify shirt?)

Our table was right next to a girl inside of a fabric-sided “postcard machine”. If you stuck $2 in a slot in the booth she would spit out a postcard. She beeped and booped and talked like a computer. People LOVED it!

Postcard picture from Matt Cutts

There was also a guy close to us who was knitting and playing the drums with his needles all at the same time. Pretty badass.

We saw my friend Tamie there with a super cute set up for her amigurumi. She had a green cloth over the table like a little amigurumi field. =) There was so much wonderful handmade awesomeness there - if you possibly can do it, you should try to attend next year. I ended up buying a vintage flower loom from Cathy of California. I made a wool flower with it on Sunday night. I’m not sure if I did it the way I was supposed to, I was too sleepy to read the directions, but it came out cute.

I didn’t get much else. Just some nice hand cream and some fun silkscreen transfers. It was mega crowded. Lion Brand was there teaching people how to knit and crochet; there was another group doing needle felting; Hambly Screen Prints hosted a super cute DIY notepad class; we listened to a talk by Garth of Extreme Crafts; we saw a Diet Coke and Mentos show… Go to Youtube and search Maker Faire - there was SO much stuff going on all weekend.

Here’s a moving house that we saw. There was a whole bunch of Steampunk stuff going on.

So after we left Maker Faire/Bazaare Bizarre we headed to Japantown. Unlike Chinatown, Japantown is mostly indoors, like a series of malls with shops selling Japanese stationary, cookware, books, toys, clothing, food - you name it. It was super cool. I got some hilarious bonsai stationary and some cute little doohickeys to put in my Comment Contest packages. My favorite shop was Kinokuniya. Andy was very patient while I looked at hundreds of craft books. Seriously, there were hundreds and hundreds of books on plush, knitting, crocheting, quilting, embroidery, knot tying… And they were all shelved with only the spines (with Japanese writing) showing. So I had to take out each one to see what it was about. It wasn’t a chore though, it was awesome. I ended up getting this book on sashiko (click that link for a great tutorial). I am so pumped to try it out. It seems like the perfect thing to do while waiting at the transfer station.

Andy and I then ate a scrumptious dinner at one of the restaurants. We wanted to eat at a place that has a moat with little boats of sushi that float by, ready for you to pick whatever you want, but the wait was too long. We were hungry by then!

After dinner we headed to Super 7, a vinyl toy/tee shirt/art shop. We found some major shirts. Including this one that just makes me squeal for joy inside! Eeeeeep!

And that was our experience this weekend. I can’t wait until next year!

Congratulations to Heather aka Wendella who won the Monthly Comment Contest for April! Wahooo! A package of cute crafty goodness will soon be on its way to Heather as a thank you. Check out Heather’s awesome podcast by clicking the pic! Thank you to everyone who comments, they mean the world to me =).

We’re headed to San Mateo tomorrow for Bazaar Bizarre, which is held in conjunction with Maker Faire. And I’m super excited! Remember my post about the fabulous Jamie and her shop Mary Jane’s Attic? Well, it turned out that she is the organizer of the SFBazBiz and she asked me if I’d like to volunteer. Of course I said yes - how fun! Andy’s volunteering too. So we’re headed down tomorrow morning, and I’ll be wearing my newly minted Stitchify t-shirt (heheheh! I’m so excited about them too).

Check out the vendor list. I’m thinking that I better make sure to bring mucho dinero for all of the goodies that I won’t be able to leave without. We will be there first thing on the first day, so all of the best goodies will be available. I’m familiar with a few of the vendors… I owned a sweet pen shirt from Social Studies (until I got a big grease goober on it and was heartbroken), I own 2 headbands from Cookie and The Dude (and I was in a craft fair in SF with her, she instigated a trade with me, so flattering!), and Bug Under Glass was also in that show. My talented buddy Tamie aka Roxycraft will be there too! Fun!

I have grand plans for shopping at Baz Biz in the morning, working for 3 hours, then heading to the city for fabric shopping at Britex, to Japantown for sushi and Japanese craft book browsing at Kinokuniya, and then to 4th Street in Berkeley! We’ll see what we end up being able to fit in. I hope you have a lovely weekend!

I created a piece of crocheted art for a charity show that I’m going to be in next month. Proceeds are going to the Sacramento Food Bank, and for some reason unbeknownst to me, the theme is “Art Bra”. I quite often crochet things sans pattern, but this time I actually wrote it out. Because usually, there are two boobies, and I wanted them to match (which is unusual, but that’s another story). The impetus for making the pattern all snazzy and actually readable was my desire to share the pattern with the Project Pink Group on Ravelry. And now you get to use it too! I believe the pattern is being tested right now by my new Ravelry pal, Stephanie.

Anyway, click here to view the pattern. Here is what it will get you.

And here is my free standing bustier for which I worked out the pattern. Heheh. I’ll let you know about the next show (which is going to be MAJOR (2nd Saturday reception on 20th Street between I&J) when it gets closer.