Derek's First Sweater

It's not Everest, or a triathlon or anything....but it certainly was a lot of work, and a lot of fun! Can't wait to cozy up to a campfire in it....

Little Dog

A few months ago I sent a box full of stuffed animals and other crafts to Amy for her new book, Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People. This little dog was one of my favorites, and look! It's here on the preview cover for the book, which I just noticed is already available for pre-order on Amazon.

I'm not sure I can wait until November to see the whole thing!

Another Plaid Shirt

Got in a little more sewing practice today. Soon I will attempt a dress or shirt with buttons!

Homesteading Hootenanny!!!

Friends!

Join us at a super fun event happening this Thursday at Southern Exposure! It's a Homesteading Hootenanny put on by the fine folks from How-To Homestead and our pals at SoEx. In addition to all sorts of Homesteading activities (food, drink, films and such), there is going to be Square Dancing!! Not sure if you're aware of this, but it is physically impossible to not have fun square dancing. We know from personal experience.

Thursday, April 29, 2010
7 pm - Midnight

$10 / FREE for SoEx Members
Or FREE with homesteaded goods and items to share (including home brews, seeds, fermented vegetables, pies and more)

**ALSO** Another great reason to JOIN as a SoEx member!!

Hootenanny Schedule:
7:30: Screening
8:30: Tasting
9:00: Square Dance with Pearsons Pork Pies
11:00: Dancing with the Goat Family

From the website:

Join the How-to Homestead Crew, led by Melinda Stone, for a down-home hootenanny of movies, tastings, song, and dance! The evening includes free tastings of home-made beer, booze, fermented vegetables, and other homestead goodies; new homesteading movie shorts, some with live accompaniment by the How-to Homestead house band: the sk8 sisters; square dancing with Pearsons Pork Pies and the night concludes with free-form dancing with the Goat Family, a nuevo-traditional jug band on the old-timey exuberance and infectious tip.

What Lauren Made This Weekend

This shirt.

What Derek Made This Weekend...

Oars!! Thanks to the lovely Mariah and the fine folks down at the San Francisco Maritime National Park Association, Lauren and I are now the proud owners of 2 beautiful douglas fir ready-for-rowing oars. The icing on the cake was the leather straps we laced on to protect the wood in the oarlock. So pretty.

The class was amazing and fun and educational and I can't wait for more. If you're interested in taking a class down at the Historic Hyde Street Pier, get in touch with Mariah at mgardner(at)maritime.org.

Two of our favorite things...

A celebration of craftsmenship + CBS Sunday Morning.

Wunderkammer Crochet Workshop!!

This Saturday, March 6th, we are thrilled to welcome the amazingly talented Jessica Polka of Wunderkammer back to Shoppe! Jessica will be hosting a crochet workshop based on the delightful Seahorse Crochet Kit she created for us! If you already crochet, come on down and learn some new tricks while Jessica walks you through the pattern. If you've never picked up a hook in your life, now's your chance to learn from a very friendly, very patient pro. We'll have all the kits and supplies on hand, and there will be snacks!
WHAT: Crochet Workshop with Jessica Polka
WHEN: Saturday, March 6th, 2-5pm
WHERE: The Curiosity Shoppe (855 Valencia btwn. 19th & 20th Sts.)
COST: Workshop is free. Kits $20.

See you Saturday!

When it rains... we craft!

All this rain we've been having means lots of time indoors. And since I've been making a valiant effort NOT to spend every waking hour working on the shoppe or some other random work project, I've been doing lots and lots of crafting. First I made a new pillow for our sofa out of some gray wool I had. The scarf pillow we made over a year ago had started disintegrating (it was an old scarf!) so it needed to be replaced. We just finished a project for a friend's book that involves knot tying, so I was feeling inspired to stitch one in the center of the pillow.


I know I say this every year, but this year I'm determined to get better at sewing. I was working on some soft sculptures for another friend's book last week and I feel like it's a slow road but I am learning a lot... so first up are TIES. More wool from my fabric stash and lots of pattern altering to get it just skinny enough but not too skinny... and here we have the first of what will hopefully be a series of new ties for D.

Finally, I am trying to use up all my leftover yarn to make small little projects like hats and gloves. Here are 1 1/2 pairs of fingerless mittens (finished the last one yesterday) which are easy, fast, and are one size fits all, which I love. The pattern for the two-tone ones with the buttons can be found here.

And since the sun did make an appearance on Monday, we made sure to eat lunch outside on our favorite bench in Glen Canyon. In other crafting news, Derek only has one arm left to knit before he is done with his first sweater! At which point we will regale you with photographs and you will see that pretty much everything we've been making these days is grey and brown and woolly. Those are our winter colors, I suppose.

Classes On the Waterfront!

Our good pal Mariah, aka The Landlubber, is helping the San Francisco Maritime National Park Association put on some fantastically fun and exciting classes down on the Hyde Street Pier. Seeing as though we San Franciscans are practically surrounded by the stuff, it makes a heck of a lot of sense to get more acquainted with the beautiful bodies of water we're lucky enough to have right down the street. There are a bunch of maritime-related classes and activities to choose from, we're looking forward to Oar and Paddle Making in particular. Space is limited so register now!

(That picture up there is from a LIFE magazine story about the Oakland Women's Rowing Club. You can see some more awesome images here.)

Making

We have been crafting up a storm around here, and I'm excited to share some of our recent projects with you! Unfortunately when our computer died in November we lost tons of photos of our apartment redo, (we've completed the living room and made some serious progress on the dining room) but I'm planning to reshoot some stuff this week. In the meantime here is my first pair of socks, made with "Mega Boots" wool that D gave me for Xmas.

Walnut Crafts

Last night at the market I couldn't resist picking up a bag of walnuts, and I had fun making crafts out of the shells while our soup was simmering on the stove. We've been so busy with work the past couple weeks that I haven't been making much, so it was nice to bust out the ol' hot glue gun and take a little crafting break. Instant gratification!

Stencil 101 Workshop this Thursday

Ed Roth knows a thing or two about decorating with stencils. His how-to books, Stencil 101 and the new Stencil 101 Décor, are favorites of ours at the shoppe, and not only include awesome project ideas and instructions, but tons of plastic stencils that are ready to use. And we're not talking grape leaves and teddy bears here- Ed's designs include muscle cars, birds, and houndstooth prints. Actual patterns that we'd be happy to decorate our walls and furniture with.

Lucky for us, he will be stopping by the shoppe this Thursday. December 10th, from 7-9 pm to host a Stencil 101 Holiday Card Making Workshop. It's free to the public- no reservation required. Just stop by after work for a glass of wine and a little craftin' with Ed. It's guaranteed to be a blast.

Craft-a-thon

Our friends Jen and Josh came over last Friday for Thanksgiving leftovers and an evening of crafting. Lucky for me, they left their felt beet and pie pins here, and I've enjoyed wearing them on my sweater the past couple days.

Scenes from the workshop

Thanks again to Kayte Terry for a great workshop last Saturday!
Make sure to check out her amazing book and craft kits, now available in the shoppe.

Appliqué Workshop with Kayte Terry tomorrow!

Please join us at the shoppe tomorrow for a super fun workshop with author and crafter extraordinaire Kayte Terry. She's got a great new book out called Appliqué Your Way and will be on hand signing books and demonstrating how to make an adorable felt ornaments. The event is free, and no reservation is necessary. Just come on by!

Appliqué Workshop with Kayte Terry
Saturday November 21st, 1-4pm
855 Valencia Street (between 19th & 20th)

Couch Saver

Over the years we have tried all kinds of tricks to try and get our kitties to stop scratching our furniture. For a short while we even laid aluminum foil over the back of the sofa when we weren’t home! (Someone told us that the sound would scare the cats when they jumped up onto the couch.) But they have always found ways to thwart our efforts, and therefore we have lived with shredded furniture for as long as I can remember. Store-bought scratching posts always cost way too much money and are usually pretty ugly, and who knows if your cats will even use them? They’re so picky and would always rather scratch up the furniture anyway. Softpaws worked for a little while, but were too high maintenance, and somehow Carter can still destroy fabric with them on!?

Now hopefully we have come to an agreement. We recently cleared out our closet (more on that later) and installed a little homemade scratching post on the inside wall which is basically a piece of masonite with rope wrapped around it that attaches to the wall with screws. Thankfully, they have been loooving it and seem to have forgotten about the sofa, at least for now....

Passport Event at the Shoppe this Saturday!

We are very excited to be one of the local merchants participating in the San Francisco Arts Commission's Passport 2009 event in the Mission this weekend. It's a great way to support the arts in San Francisco and the perfect opportunity to meet many of the most talented and exciting artists working in the Bay Area right now. There's tons of information below, but basically this is how it works: 12 awesome artists will be hanging out in 12 locations around the neighborhood this Saturday from noon to 4pm (artists and locations listed below). You purchase a special moleskine "passport" and are given a map indicating the various locations around the Mission. Then you tour around the neighborhood collecting the special stamps each artist has created for the event in your passport.

Passport 2009
Saturday, October 24, noon–4 p.m.
Passport 2009 home base: Mission Playground, Valencia between 19th & 20th (directly across the street from the Curiosity Shoppe).
Stamps located at various locations in the Mission District, San Francisco
Pick up a map, purchase a passport, or bring family and friends to relax on the lawn and enjoy a hot dog and soda. Nice.

Participating Artists: Libby Black, Michelle Blade, Lisa Congdon, Maria Forde, Colter Jacobsen, Veronice De Jesus, Sean McFarland, Barry McGee, Tucker Nichols, Maria Proges, Clare Rojas, Andrew Schoultz, Marci Washington

Participating Locations: Aquarius Records, Bombay Ice Cream Company, Paxton Gate, 826 Valencia, Mission Pie, Box Dog Bikes, Needles & Pens, Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, Casa Sanchez Restaurant, Dynamo Donuts & Coffee, Curiosity Shop, Schmidt’s. Click here for a map of the locations.

How to Buy a Passport
Passports are $25. Available NOW at locations including the SFAC Gallery, Electric Works Gallery, Silverman Gallery, Rare Device and at the Passport 2009 kick-off party or you can buy Passports online by clicking here or here! Passports may also be purchased the day of the event, at Passport 2009 home base, located at the Mission Playground, (enter on Valencia between 19th & 20th).

Passport 2009 is organized by the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery. Proceeds from the event go toward the SFAC Gallery’s Programming Fund, which supports artist honoraria and exhibition costs.

Making stuff at home that you can buy at the store

It's no secret that while we love living in the city, we have dreams of someday moving to the country and learning how to live off the land. In an ideal world, we'd figure out a way to enjoy country life without giving up our connection to the culture, art and community that we love so much about urban life, but for now the best we can do is embrace the city while learning as much as can about the art of making things at home. First step: cooking.

We are fortunate enough to live in a neighborhood that is chock-full of amenities, including some of the nicest restaurants in San Francisco. We live within walking-distance of some of our very favorite places to eat, which means we eat out... a lot. There is an appreciation for food in this town that we've never experienced anywhere else, and the opportunities to enjoy incredible produce and artisanal meats, dairy products and prepared foods are plenty. Of course once you have tasted the amazing flavor of $6 yogurt and $8 preserves, it's really difficult to go back to the bland, watery stuff that comes from the supermarket. And so we have started making stuff at home, which is not only educational, fun and rewarding, but even MORE delicious than the fancy stuff from the local market.

Aside from home-grown honey, which we have been enjoying for a year now, we roast coffee beans at home, make yogurt and granola weekly, and have recently been experimenting with bread, sauces and preserves. Since we don't have our own garden, we happily accept donations from the bounty of our families' gardens, which have provided us with pounds of apricots, apples, tomatoes and squash over the past year.

Making yogurt is ridiculously easy. We take a quart of milk, put it in a saucepan and heat it up to 180º. Then we let it cool down slowly to 110º, stir in a tablespoon or two of yogurt from a previous batch, and let it sit overnight, maintaining a temperature of 110º. Our stovetop has gas burners with pilot lights that are always on, so we just put the hot milk/yogurt mixture in a jar, and place it in a cast iron skillet on a burner. By the next morning, we have yogurt! You could also place your jar in the stove or in a cooler filled with warm water.

The super delicious and super simple granola recipe came from my Mom, and you can download it here.

Derek orders a few pounds of green beans from Sweet Maria's every couple months, and at around $6/pound for pretty much the best beans around (our current favorite is a Yirga Cheffe from Ethiopia), you can't go wrong. The roasting takes about 10-15 minutes per batch, and he roasts them in our "coffee" table in the living room every couple weeks.

My sister let us fill up a bag of tomatoes from her garden last weekend, which we turned into an amazing tomato sauce with the help of a KitchenAid strainer attachment that we borrowed from Leigh & Andrew. Derek cooked down the tomatoes, which we ran through the strainer and then thickened up with some onions and spices. Delicious!

Fall/Winter Wardrobe

This season I am challenging myself to make any and all new additions to my wardrobe, in an effort to learn better sewing techniques and save a little money. It's frustrating that buying yarn and fabric sometimes ends up costing more than purchasing new clothes, but I found that with some extra hunting, bargains can be found! Then there's the question of whether or not you'll be satisfied with the end result, whether or not it will fit, etc etc etc... but I've come to terms with the fact that this is a learning process, and if you accidentally sew the zipper to the bottom of the skirt (which I did) and it takes more time ripping it out than it did to sew it in, that's just part of the JOY of making things for yourself.

Owl Sweater

The pattern for this sweater was a free download from this website, and I found some natural wool at our local yarn store for real cheap. Only had to purchase two skeins, and I have a ton leftover. It was fairly easy to knit, and I learned how to make short rows in the process! As soon as I sewed the button eyes onto the owls, I really fell in love with it.

Denim Skirt w/ Pockets

The fabric for this skirt was leftover from our shower curtain project, and the design came from an old Butterick pattern of my Mom's from the '70s. In my opinion, all dresses and skirts should have pockets, so I was really excited when I came across this pattern in my stash. The best part about making this skirt was the $2 invisible zipper foot I bought that actually worked. My first invisible zipper! It's a miracle and I can't believe I never tried using one before.

Red Cape w/ Hood

I've been wanting a woolly red cape for a little while, and thought I'd finally be able to afford the 2.5 yards of fabric during the last day of our local fabric store's 40% off sale, but $25/yard was still too pricey, even with the discount. Fortunately though, I was able to find two identical scraps of red wool in the remnant stack for $8/yard. I took about 6" off the bottom and sewed button holes instead of attaching loops like the pattern suggested. Looks like I might end up being Little Red Riding Hood for Halloween this year...