I’ll be live Tweeting (is that redundant?) from The Renegade Craft Fair at the California Market Center in Los Angeles this Sunday afternoon, July 12. Will be uploading pics as I navigate those crafty seas. I can’t wait! Follow my craftweeting on my Twitter feed HERE, or you can also click on the blue birdy box above.

The Renegade Craft Fair was featured on the “L.A. At Home blog” on The Los Angeles Times website today, HERE.

Below are ceramic dessert and woodland friends stash boxes by KG + AB, one of the many awesome artists who’ll have booths at the fair.

Photo credit: The Renegade Craft Fair

Have a great, curly weekend, all! Tweet, tweet!

It used to be you had to trek to some place like Seafood City on Vermont for fare like this. But I discovered longganisa, lumpia and (best of all) Magnolia ice cream in a nearby Albertson’s frozen-foods aisle. How very forward-thinking of my local grocer! Oh tocino, how I’ve missed you.

So much to blog about!

Crafty Bit #1: Handmade Nation Showing In LA, August 15-16

I already have my tix and hope to have my book signed by Faythe Levine. It’s going to be at the Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax, and I read that there’s going to be a mini craft fair during the August 15 showings. I’ve been waiting for this since last year! Check your local showings on the Handmade Nation blog, HERE. Get your LA showing tix HERE.

Crafty Bit #2: Renegade Craft Fair in Los Angeles This Weekend! (July 11-12)

We’ll be taking over the entire 13th floor penthouse of the Center, where gorgeous 360-degree views of downtown LA will provide the backdrop for our FREE urban art, craft and DIY extravaganza! We’re so excited, let’s say it one more time: FREE!

Over 200 artists are traveling from all over the country and abroad to participate and sell their handmade goods at Renegade Craft Fair – Los Angeles. From clothing and accessories, to stationary and concert posters, with everything from bath products and ceramics in between – there’s surely something for everyone!

I’m definitely going on one of those two days and am jumping-out-of-my-skin excited. If you’re in Los Angeles and would like to go, lots of info are on the Renegade Craft Fair blog HERE.

Crafty Bit #3: Shameless Self-Promotion

The awesome staff at The Urban Craft Center blogged about the coin-stack quilting class that I took there. Those are my fingers wrestling with the sewing machine, haha! There’s also a photo of me and the quilt I completed in that blog post that you’ll find HERE. I loved every minute during that class, and plan to blog about the experience soon. And big thank you’s all around to the awesome staff at UCC (and to Rhea for the photo above!). I can’t wait to go back for more classes.

Full crafty steam ahead!

Lovely finds from Bake It Pretty.

Dainty cupcake liners.

Some of them even have matching cake doilies!

Whimsical cupcake toppers. My grandma had those ballerina ones! And I don’t know why, but I’m totally crushing on those gnomes.

Yummy sprinkles and edible glitter. The blue and pink bits below are called “Cotton Candy Crunch Topping.” I think I’d eat those by the spoonful!

See all of this eye candy and more over at the Bake It Pretty website or through their Etsy shop HERE. They also have an awesome blog HERE. (I’m definitely getting those ballerinas!)

Have a sweet weekend, all!

Happy birthday, Mary Cassatt!

Mary Cassatt, Self-Portrait, 1878

American Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt was born on May 22, 1844, in Philadelphia. She lived in France for most of her life until her death in 1926, befriending notable artists like Manet and Degas. Maybe this is why I love her paintings so much—Degas is my one true painterly love, and they’re apparently painters of the same palette. (Or something like that!)

I love crafting depicted in art. Did you know Cassatt had quite a bit, especially of women and their needlework? I used to always imagine hanging one of these lovely prints in the craft room of my dreams.

Above: L: Young Girl In The Garden Sewing / R: Young Mother Sewing

Above: L: Mary Ellison Embroidering / R: Woman Sewing

Above: L: Lydia (the painter’s sister) Crocheting In The Garden At Marly / R: Lydia At A Tapestry Loom

Above: L: Augusta Sewing Before A Window / R: Francoise in Green, Sewing

The last one of the little girl in green is my favorite. Doesn’t she kind of look like she might be a girl with a curl?

So, they apparently sell frosting, icing and ganache in TUBS at Costco (a warehouse-type store in the US). They’re unrefrigerated, by the way. What sort of things are in it to keep it edible? This brings out the haughty baker in me! I’m sorry, but I will make my own frosting myself, thank you! Real sugar, real butter, real milk! Hmph!

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!

At the LACMA today to visit my friend Simeen, who’s manning the haft-sin table at the Norwuz (Persian New Year) celebration that takes place next weekend. The haft-sin is a traditional spread of symbolic items to commemorate the new year. Haft-sin means “The Seven S’” as all the items on the table start with the letter S.

Norwuz is also signifies the first day of Spring.

A curly Norwuz to you!

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?