craftiness

Smitten with the Knittn’ Kitten

| Betsy

When I was in Portland this spring, not only did I see some of my favorite crafty friends, but I also had the opportunity to visit a PDX crafty institution, The Knittn Kitten, an amazing vintage fabric and craft store! Not only are the supplies also, but so are the mother and daughter team that own it! If you have the chance to stop by, don’t forget to check out Rome’s awesome haberdashery skills displayed around the store.

Now some of those same people have gotten together in support of the Kittn’ and created a free e-book of patterns based on items bought in the store! Wanna check it out? Click on the photo above and then click “download” on the top right of the page! Easy as pie.

Inside are projects from Heather Mann, Lee Meredith, Teresa Sullivan, Diane Gilleland, Joey Groendes, Christine Blystone, Bridget Benton and Susan Beal!

The cover photo was taken by the always talented Lee Meredith.

And yes, this is where Kim and I first donned our “Smocks of Creativity!”

teatime wisdom and bringing in the holidays.

| Betsy

As I was winding down from the day, I went to make a cup of bedtime tea. It’s starting to get really cold at night here in North Carolina, which means that nighttime tea is practically mandatory before going to sleep. Tonight’s tea was extra wonderful as considering what I wrote about yesterday, I found its accompanying wisdom pretty much perfect. Maybe it should become mandatory for all tea to be attached to little labels of awesomeness?

Even though I try to not start celebrating the December holidays until the tail end of November, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to go eat homemade butterscotch cookies while watching Julian Koster sing carols the other night at a friend’s house. Julian is currently on a caroling tour of the United States, and if you’re lucky, he might just play at a town near you. For more details, see here.

I highly recommend starting the winter holidays with an in-house caroling session by a traveling musician, musical saw optional. Even though he arrived in a 4-door sedan instead of some sort of fairytale holiday sleigh, Julian was as magical as ever. I’m already wondering my Sufjan Stevens Christmas albums are.

Lately:
*Cloth and Culture Now
*Design Altruism Project
*Dreaming of running around St Kilda
*Trellick skirt kit from Clothkits (via Needled)
*Whose Craft Is It, Anyway? by Diane Gilleland and Rachel Hobson (via Murketing)
*Claire Joyce’s new website…finally her glitter paintings up close! (via Extreme Craft)
*Amazingly brave article about my friend’s little sister, Olympic swimmer Margaret Hoelzer’s childhood sexual abuse and how she plans to devote her life to helping abused children