Boo!

Fall is here and Halloween is around the corner- for us this means carving jack-o-lanterns, eating a ton of candy and putting out our ghost salt & pepper shakers by Marcel Dzama. Oh, and hanging fake spiderwebs in the windows. And cutting bat shapes out of paper to hang all around the house.

But let's talk about Marcel Dzama for a minute! A couple years ago his art was everywhere- on the cover of Beck's last album, in a children's book by They Might Be Giants, and on products for Cerealart (including our beloved salt and pepper shakers).

Spend some time at the Royal Art Lodge website to explore more of his drawings, and those by his talented friends (many of the drawings are collaborations, and those are amazing as well) and if you have a chance, peruse one of his books, which are goldmines filled with all kinds of examples of his classic yet somewhat twisted drawings and paintings.

I love my crafty friends!

I know the pictures speak for themselves, but can I please talk about our friend Ellen's 50 States quilt for a minute?!?!?!? She finished it this weekend and we are soooooo impressed! First, by the fact that she managed to piece together all the states so perfectly. (Can you imagine adding a seam allowance onto a piece of fabric shaped like California?) Second, by the beautiful muted color palette, and third, all the incredible hand quilting! It looks so amazing, and I can't wait for the accompanying Hawaii and Alaska pillows.

Seeing other peoples' handiwork is so inspiring- I have a stack of fabric that is just sitting there waiting to be turned into a quilt, and I finally feel ready to embark on that project. Thank you Ellen for the inspiration! And congratulations on your cozy new quilt!

PS- if you're feeling inspired, check out the quilt kits we've got for sale in the shoppe. (So glad we can finally share this stuff now- it's been hard not being able to mention it the past couple weeks as we've been working to get the store open!)

Hallelujah!

Painfully Cute!

It was my birthday not that long ago, and my lovely in-laws bought me the 2nd Volume of the Wholphin DVD series put out by the fantastic folks over at McSweeney's. It's full of great short films, animated pieces, and "instructional" videos. This one called "Sour Death Balls" by Jessica Yu, is a personal favorite. Enjoy, Suckas!

Today's inspiration brought to you by the letter Z

I pulled our Andrea Zittel book off the shelf the other day and have been feeling so inspired by it. Everything from the environments to the furniture to the uniforms she creates are so amazing. I love her aesthetic, which is so clean and industrial, but also handcrafted. I love that her art is both practical and beautiful at the same time. And I love that she lives and works in Joshua Tree, which is on my short list of places to visit. (Can't believe I've never been there!)

A short Google search later, I was on her website, (zittel.org) which is really worth checking out, and lo and behold, she has a new blog! So far the postings are about driving through the desert and creating art installations there. Such a romantic life! A list of upcoming shows is posted in the "now" section of the site, and I was happy to see that her "Critical Space" show is coming to LA in the Spring, since we missed seeing it in New York before we moved.

Anyone want to plan a road trip to LA and Joshua Tree with me next year?

Best Gift Ever

We were doing some research on how to make a hollow book the other day, and it reminded me of the amazing gift Derek gave me for Christmas last year. It's a "French New Wave" kit, complete with false eyelashes, Chanel makeup and Lucky Strike cigarettes. Accompanied by a book about François Truffaut and the "Band of Outsiders" DVD. How cute and crafty is that? And it's such a great gift idea! It seems like people are already thinking about the holidays, though they're over 2 months away. Time to start planning our holiday crafts, I guess! Maybe I can come up with a good theme for D and make one for him this year.

(Side note: I never expected that my husband would be the one to introduce me to a favorite new makeup product, but I am in love with and highly recommend the Chanel liquid eyeliner pen, the only item from the kit that I permitted myself to use. I wanted to keep it exactly how it was when I received it!)

Curiosity Guild Etching Workshop!

We had a ton of fun at yesterday's Curiosity Guild workshop "Itchin' To Get Etchin'". Thanks to all who participated! Everyone totally blew my socks off with their beautifully designed pieces, and I'm so glad noone took my advice to keep it simple! I wish we had more pictures to share, but as usual, we were too busy "ooh-ing" and "aah-ing" over everyone's crafty creations.
I would like to thank the anonymous vandal whose old tag on CG HQ inadvertently provided us with a very appropriate window treatment, as well as a good example of the many different uses of etching cream. Thanks Dude!

Grey Card Mysteries Revealed

We are in the throes of getting everything ready to launch our online store (which will hopefully be open any day now!) and we are learning sooooo much. It wouldn't be like us if we didn't try to do every last thing ourselves, so right now we are acting as webmasters, photographers, writers, designers- you name it!

While we were shooting our products, we had to experiment with lots of different lighting set ups and try to get our little point and shoot camera to do all kinds of crazy things that it didn't want to do. Enter the grey card, an 18% grey piece of tag board that is a handy tool for balancing colors. When I read this tutorial it finally started to make sense! I won't go into the details here, but if you're interested in product photography, you should definitely check out the link. It also explains how to use the levels feature in Photoshop, which helps a ton with color correction. How could I have overlooked this handy tool before? As I said before, there is something new to learn everyday!

This is the last of it, I swear!

I know, I know... enough with the posts about knitted and crocheted food! (and plants and animals!) But I can't stop noticing them and when I see something cute I just have to share it. Here are the knitted donuts in the window of Noe Knit that I mentioned earlier. Aren't they perfect?

Check It!

It's so nice to have a magazine so perfectly tailored to your particular interests and tastes, whatever those may be... We've found that in ReadyMade, our crafty friends across the bay. Check out this month's nifty issue for a fun and easy project by yours truly (pg. 34).

The Knitted Garden

Another example of knitting gone wild! (I love that my friends forward me stories about all things knitted and crocheted- thanks Matt!) A woman in England had the idea to create an entire knitted garden, so she and 300 contributors got to work creating all kinds of knitted garden sculptures, from a pond to a picnic to these cute little critters. I've done some crocheted sculptures, but nothing knitted yet- and this makes me want to give it a try! Our local yarn store has a great window display right now of knitted donuts and other sweets, complete with colored sprinkles done in beads. I'll try to snap a picture of it sometime in the next couple days.

Girard show coming to SF MOMA!

We are super excited about the Alexander Girard show that is coming to SF MOMA next month, called "Alexander Girard, Vibrant Modern". He's our favorite! (Thanks Mom for the tip!)

Aprons Galore

This is the perfect project for someone like me, who is (still!) learning to sew. Aprons can be as simple or as ornate as you want, and since they're small and basically one-size-fits-all, they're pretty hard to screw up.

Tie One On is a website/blog that is entirely dedicated to aprons. They come up with a monthly theme, and people make aprons and send in their pictures to be posted on a flickr gallery. Brilliant! I don't think I can motivate to make one before the October 1st deadline, (the theme is pinafores) but hopefully I'll be able to participate in the next one. Check out the pic- someone's submission from June's theme, which was "the musical". Can you guess which musical this one represents?

Red Sweaters Deployed!!!

Thanks so much to everyone who came out last Friday to the opening reception of The Red Sweaters Deployment Project! It was a fantastic evening full of great art, friends (old and new), and family (mostly old-HAHA!). We had a huge turnout and everyone seemed genuinely excited and moved by the installation. It was such a pleasure to put together, and we encourage everyone to come see it over and over and over (2400+ sweaters, and no 2 are alike). It will be up until October 28th, so please come visit. We also had a great bunch of knitters and crocheters who added around 10 new sweaters to the project. We're still a couple of hundred behind, so keep those sweaters coming! For updates on the project keep checking in with redsweaters.org, as well as the Hardware Store's website.

Crafty Cacti

Thanks to Lara for sending us these photos of amazing crocheted cacti! What will really sprain your brain about these forms is that they are actually visual representations of hyperbolic space. Huh? Read more at the Institute for Figuring website.

They also reminded me of this photo I saw on craftster awhile back- you know how much I love a handcrafted pincushion!

Foraging for Fruit

The jam making workshop left me wishing I had a garden or a fruit tree of my very own to harvest fruit from. Some friends of ours in Berkeley have noticed a couple fig trees in their neighborhood that are ripe for the picking, and we have been picking Strawberry Fruits off the trees in here in San Francisco ever since we found out that they are indeed safe to eat! Foraging for fruit in the city is an interesting concept, and of course there is a website (fallenfruit.org) dedicated to it, complete with a manifesto and a map of the public fruit trees in Los Angeles. They have even started concentrating their efforts on the creation of public parks that are filled with fruit trees. So great! I am now on the lookout for a Bay Area map- in the meantime, keep your eyes peeled and let me know if you find any public fruit trees in your neighborhood!

Check out The Purl Bee

Oh, to be able to work in a beautiful yarn store and be able to write about knitting and quilting, all day long! New York City's Purl is my all time favorite yarn store, and Purl Patchwork, its sister store for all things quilt related, is equally amazing!

Check out their cute blog for good project inspiration- Fall is around the corner and it's time to start working on some new craft projects!

Reason I Love Libraries No. 1875

I'm no Bob Villa, but I am the proud owner of a couple of screw drivers, wrenches, a drill and a hammer. And for the most part, that's just fine. But sometimes, as when I'm getting ready to install a show at the gallery, I need a little something more. And being a garage-less urban guy, I haven't the luxury of collecting tools, nor the pleasure of borrowing from a friendly neighbor's stash. Which brings us to The San Francisco Tool Lending Center. Any SF resident, 18 years or older can go borrow (for free!) any tool they'd like from the Center's extensive holdings. They also offer workshops on proper tool use, as well as a reference library with books, magazines, and videotapes on all sorts of DIY and home improvement projects. Our friend Kate took advantage of a similarly brilliant institution The Berkeley Tool Lending Library, and her weeds have never been so finely whacked!

Jammin'

Here are some pics from the Curiosity Guild jam making workshop on Sunday. Thanks to Carolina from cmbsweets for showing us how to make yummy jams and jellies!

Carolina explains Jam 101 to a group of Guild members, and a sampling of her lovely jams.

Guild members hulling many pounds of strawberries.

Strawberry & peach jams simmering on the stove, and grape jelly jars waiting to be sterilized.

The fruits of our labor!

Best Idea Ever?!

Came across this sweet gem of a spot whilst riding around town to promote the art show. Much, much, much more pleasant than this stinky place.