BazBiz/Maker Faire/Japantown Recap
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!
Oh boy…. Julie, your experience sounds so awesome. I love the idea of having such fantastic sites, shops and vendor fairs all in a close area. We would love to be in an area where we could see such awesomeness without having to jump on a plane! I’m so glad that you had a fun time and that your husband is so totally rad that he had fun too! YAY!
It was great to see you and your hub! You guys are the nicest…seriously. Like 100% sunshine.
I wish I could have hit Japantown…I’m dying to go!
Wow - it looks like you had a great time! That postcard booth is hilarious!
wow–that looks like the best show ever! so glad you had such an awesome time and thank you for posting all the pics so we East Coast girls can see a bit of what goes on! also–the shirt looks great! way to go! :)