Three of my friends are getting married this year. I guess this means I have to watch out for a fourth wedding!

Could it be true? Has Archie finally decided to take the plunge and propose to one of comics’ favorite girls? It sure looks that way! Earlier this year readers got a chance to relive “Freshman Year” with the famous teens of Riverdale High. Now make way for this special story that takes a look at Archie and his friends after they graduate college! What careers will they seek? Will the friends stay in Riverdale or disperse? What would lead Archie to have marriage on his mind? And who would he choose Veronica or Betty? How will Betty react? How will Veronica react? Can Archie shake off his klutzy past and hold down a steady job… for more than a month? One thing is certain: this will be the biggest Archie Comics story ever! 

Who’s your pick? I’m going with Veronica, because everyone seems to like Betty more, and I like rooting for the underdog. Hehe.

More details here and here.

I expected this package to come later in the week, so when I got it yesterday I was beside myself. See, all these are free! Well, sort of. They were bought with a gift rewards certificate from Amazon, from points accrued over several cookbook etc. etc. purchases. So I kind of feel that they’re free, haha.

The loot:

Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay for this month’s book club

Lost In Austen, a TV series from the UK about a modern-day girl who’s transported right into the pages of Pride & Prejudice. Saw 20 minutes of it before sleeping last night and thoroughly enjoyed the costumes, sets and everything being spoken in that accent. (“Mistah Dahhhsee…”)

And best of all, Vickie Howell’s Pop Goes Crochet book!

I love this book, and not just because I’m a fan of Vickie. I like how it takes something as old-school as crochet and places it into the context of present-day craft/art influences. It has really fun crochet projects inspired by icons from popular culture, like this couture scarf channeling Heidi Klum (I know the model’s half-naked, but isn’t the scarf so pretty?)…

…a vintage-y purse that something Dita Von Teese might have in her closet….

…a Marc Jacobs-inspired meanswear jacket…

…and my favorite, a L.A.M.B.-inspired shrug ala Gwen Stefani.

Now don’t ask me when I’ll have the time to make all these. Between reading up on the Holocaust for book club, finding my way around the Bennett household through my new DVD, crafting for two creative swaps and cooking for friends, family and anybody in-between, who knows when I’ll have the time (or hands) to do any other projects! But all in all, it’s really quite ok. My curls and I love this crazy, creative whirl!

The L.A. Times/UCLA Festival of Books is almost here!

April 25 & 26, 2009

UCLA Campus

5 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024

I wait all year for the book fest, paying special attention to the kind of folks they’re going to have at the Culinary Stage.In ‘07, I got to meet Bon Appetit magazine’s Editor In Chief Barbara Fairchild and had her autograph this compendium. Needless to say, my curls and I were speechless when I shook her hand at the book signing.

This year, the Culinary Stage doesn’t seem to be jumping, but I’m still going. Especially on Sunday, when Barbara Fairchild will be interviewed onstage by Giada De Laurentiis. I have a book by Giada, and though my fascination for her has waned somewhat over the years, I think it would still be nice to have her sign it.

Other things I’m looking forward to:

Last year the Festival introduced “The Comix Strip,” a new section of the show dedicated to comics, graphic novel and manga publishers, authors and illustrators. The show proved to be an immediate and outstanding success for publishers such as Image Comics and Boom! Studios, with such industry luminaries as Jeph Loeb, Mike Mignola and Steve Niles making appearances. This year’s show is expected to draw from a broad spectrum of prominent speakers and panelists including Ray Bradbury, Clive Barker, Wil Wheaton, Michael J. Fox, David Baldacci, Kate DiCamillo and Christopher Plummer.

* Danica McKellar (Winnie Cooper to you Wonder Years fans) on the LA Times stage on Saturday at 12 noon discussing her book Kiss My Math: Showing Pre-Algebra Who’s Boss.

* A chance to see Ray Bradbury on stage again. I saw him in discussion with Ray Harryhausen once before and though he’s getting on in years, he’s still as inspiring and funny as ever.

* Authors like Eric Carle, Aimee Bender, the WriteGirl crew among many, many others! (I hear Brooke Shields is coming. Hee.)

If you’re in the LA area and you haven’t been to the book fest, my curls and I command you to go! There’s nothing like it.

All details on the festival on the official website HERE.

Yay for bookworms!

We could call it the One-Hour Blankie, but we don’t want people to think we’re not spending enough time over the new crafty gift for their precious bundle! This project is so quick and easy, it’s almost embarrassing. I made it for my friend Bona, who we threw that Baby Bump Surprise Party for. (Go HERE if you want to see the cute favors and cupcakes we made!)

What you’ll need, as seen above:
-    Cute fleece material
-    Satin quilt binding in complimentary color

Curly Notes:
•    The binding goes around the blanket, so make sure that your fleece is cut to size so that all the sides, when added, equal to about 8-10 inches less than your binding is long. (You’ll have to account for a bit of extra material as you round the corners.)
•    I used Wright’s Satin Blanket Binding. I found this at a local Jo-Ann, and it comes in many colors…

…and many types. The craft possibilities are endless!

What to do:
I didn’t quite have the time to document my own process, but it looked very much like this tutorial on the Wrights website. It was my guide as I made the blankie. If you click on the image below, it will bring you right to the tutorial as well.

I’m sure more experienced sewers can make this in under an hour, but I often get obsessed with mitering the corners perfectly, so that bogs me down. Oy.

Here’s how my blankie turned out!

I gave it to Bona before she went on her maternity leave. I  forgot all about it, until last Tuesday when we paid her and baby Joshua a visit. I spied this at a quiet corner in her house, and it gave me warm fuzzies. The new parents are actually using my gift!

Sometimes people say handmade gifts are too much trouble, too much of an investment of time and effort. This one took only an hour, and the returns (warm fuzzies, happy smiles) are priceless.

Here’s to crafty gifts and I hope you get the chance to make one (or two) soon!

I sort of had this good day with my craft corner—I had gotten all the stuff on it just SO which, really, is a rare occurrence for a crafter. It’s usually controlled chaos, with pieces of fabric in unidentifiable piles, balls of yarn afoot rolling this way and that and spools of thread threatening mutiny. So on that one day when I had time to tidy up and finally set up a corkboard as I’d been planning for months, I had to step back to admire my handiwork and take some snapshots.

I wish I had this massive corkboard for ideas and inspiration, one that would read like a story (or several novellas!) of all the crafty things that I knock around in my head. It would have souvenirs and sketches, swatches and samples, artwork and fashion torn out of magazines. But looking at my humble little corkboard now, I think I rather love it, just the way it is.

You’ll spy my Star Wars Convention pass (if you snicker, I swear I’ll use the Force to smite you!), artwork from the awesome Daniel Lim (who makes those ethereal Fawn Fruits illustrations), a logo from a fashion project, a recent sketch of a wool felt purse with silhouette cutouts and leather handles that I’m dreaming to make and Gillian Murphy of ABT in all her balletic grace. There are also hangtags from my favorite purses (George Gina & Lucy / Hayden-Harnett), a cheery new dress design from Marni, Keira Knightley in green plaid, and a pretend-shaman drawing for protection against things that go bump in the night from my brother. (I’m a total coward and get spooked by the littlest things, so he drew me a sort of anting-anting that’s supposed to guard me from ghosts and ghouls. And because I’m gullible, I believe him and have kept the thing for ages. Haha!) There are other bits and bobs, too: a princess place card, a Chinese ox carving for good luck from my friend Jen, my Instructables.com sticker for winning with the Vampie, an Etsy button, lovely notes and a dragonfly pushpin here and there.

My odd one-eyed pal to the right of the corkboard was designed by Creature Cobbler E. I hope to turn One-Eye into a felt monster someday. I’ll post pics as soon as I make it/him.

And to the right of my trusty Singer are some of my favorite craft mags: back issues of the now out-of-print Blueprint magazines, some Japanese ones called Cotton & Paint that I scored on eBay, an edition of Vogue Japan, FRUITS, Craft, a Martha Stewart, a Donna Hay and a dog-eared, particularly inspiring issue of US Vogue.

What’s YOUR crafty corner like, and what stories does your corkboard tell?

(AFP/File/Torsten Blackwood)

And I mean gargantuan!

This is a 2.1-meter (almost seven feet) tall Barbie Chocolate Mud Cake. It was fashioned by French pastry chef Jean-Michel Raynaud to celebrate the famous doll’s 50th birthday last March 9, 2009. It was displayed on the First Fleet Steps at the Botanic Gardens in Sydney, Australia. Stories on Yahoo and Telegraph HERE and HERE. (WHAT is her hair made of?!?)

AFP

Can you imagine how many hours this Amazonian feat took? The pounds of sugar, the bags of flour? And I imagine that, unless you’re Hannibal Lecter, the eating of the whole thing would be quite disturbing!

This piece of somewhat odd culinary news reminds me of a cake I’ve always wanted to make—a Barbie cake, but on a smaller scale—like this:

I love how borderline kitchsy it is! There’s a ready-made mold for the skirt part that resembles a bowl, like the ones HERE. You bake batter in it, invert it and stick the Barbie on top before decorating. I’ve also seen versions were several graduating layers of cake are filled with frosting and stacked, then shaped like a dome to take the shape of Barbie’s poofy skirt. I want to make one with fondant!

HERE are some helpful links on how to make your own Barbie cake:

Frugal Upstate

Pure Enjoyment

About.com

The last one has this hilarious warning: Do NOT bake the cake with the Barbie in it! (Seriously?!?)

Dream Glow Barbie was my favorite growing up, with Magic Moves Barbie as a close second. Dream Glow had this poofy pink gossamer dress that had glow-in-the-dark stars, and a pink parasol that did the same.

Unfortunately, my Dream Glow met her untimely end by being mangled into an unidentifiable rubbery mess in our German Shepherd’s mouth. I found her with her head chewed off and one of her feet hanging off the rest of her body under my parents’ dresser. I bawled for days! I want to try and hunt one down on eBay.  In the meantime, I hunted down this TV commercial from the ’80s of my favorite Barbie and found that I can still sing along to it!

And by the way, Barbie’s 50 years old. That officially makes her a cougar. Haha! 

Now to find a little girl who wouldn’t mind an experimental Barbie cake for her birthday!

Just in case you needed  a spot of woolly randomness in your day, have you heard of yarnbombing?

Here, from a Telegraph story on the web, is a description of this utterly hilarious crafty phenomenon.

Hundreds of knitters around the world have begun wrapping their huge woolly creations around public property like trees, street signs and lampposts.

They then take photos of their colourful “art” and post them on internet sites for fellow knitters to view and comment on.

One of the most ambitious pieces of work saw a woman spend an entire week covering a disused single decker bus in colourful swatches.

The phenomenon, called Yarnbombing, is thought to have originated in the US but knitters are now beginning to cover British streets in woollen ‘tags’.

Quite often dozens of balls of coloured wool are used to make huge sleeves or cosies which are then stitched onto a fixed object, sometimes done under the cover of darkness.

I just about died laughing when I read about this. I especially like the “under the cover of darkness” part. I have an image of these covert knitting operations in cities across the world. The weapons of choice? Yarn and knitting needles!

Yarnbombing is apparently a thriving art uprising all over the world. They range from the simple…

…to the accessorized…

…to the whimsical…

…and the very random. (These, for instance, are called “guerilla pompoms!”)

All these images, by the way, are courtesy of the awesomely cool Yarnbombing blog, HERE.

I was thinking about doing this in Los Angeles, but it has to be a landmark for it to be truly funny. I thought about the “Hollywood” sign, but that would make my fingers bleed in agony. Maybe, someday, in the thick dark molasses of night, I’ll spirit away with my needles clutched to my chest and my yarn flapping in the wind and dress up a random city post or two.

Happy weekend, all. More posts to come!

Thanks, E, for this knitty tip!

Well, actually, thank you to my friend Allen for being a great Secret Santa. Can’t wait to read it!

Flying during these trips is a perfect way to catch up on all my magazine reading. There’s nothing like reading about how to prep a mouthwatering Thanksgiving dinner to take your mind off turbulence.

I’m jumping out of my skin and my curls are frizzing out! I have three great stories to share.

SPOONFLOWER NOW OPEN TO ALL

Spoonflower is a genius project: a website that allows you to upload fabric designs and have them printed for you. The site was beta-testing in May 2008, and would only print fabric by invitation. I signed up, wishing, hoping I’d get an invite. I thought it was too good to be true! I finally got an email that made me squeal, because it said this:

We are writing to thank you for signing up for the beta version of our site, but more importantly to thank you for your support and help as we have tried to turn a fabulous idea — affordable, on-demand fabric — into a real, functioning company. It’s not that we don’t still have a lot to learn (note that the site still says beta), but once you have over 10,000 people signed up as testers you may as well open it up to everyone.

My mind’s spinning. The possibilities! Girl With A Curl dishtowels, anyone?

JAY MCCARROLL DESIGNS FABRIC FOR FREESPIRIT

Project Runway Season One winner Jay McCarroll has cobbled two fabric collections together for FreeSpirit Fabric Designs. I’ve been kind of stalking Jay online because he was my favorite contestant from that season of the show, and partly because he and I share the same name! (I’m silly like that.) His two lines (Woodland Wonderland and Garden Friends) are whimsical and remind me of printed Japanese fabric.

Jay says:

My mother had a delicious hall closet stocked with remnants of fabrics and tins of buttons and bags of yarn. This was my favorite place in the house.

It would be mine, too!

SATC- IT AIN’T OVER

And to put the FAB in these Fabricated News tidbits, did you hear about the definite sequel to the Sex And The City movie? I admit that, even as a fan of the show, I have my doubts. Don’t get me wrong, I think I’d enjoy all the new fashion that’s bound to be in the movie but, story-wise, what more can they possibly write/tell? Maybe, then, I should just prepare (but not expect) to be pleasantly surprised?

And since I have quotes for the two previous stories, I’ll end this with of my favorite ones from Carrie Bradshaw (a curly girl herself!) :

Maybe the best any of us can do is not quit, play the hand we’ve been given, and accessorize the outfit we’ve got.

You have a fab day, folks.