I miss you I love you and Yarn!

Quilting Boot Camp: Where we left off!

2012-01-27T18:41:00.002-05:00

Here's the final entry about Quilting Boot Camp that I did for the lillstreet textiles blog! What an awesome time we had!

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We had a great time in our Quilting Boot Camp, held the week between Christmas and New Years! Yes, our goals may have been lofty, but each of my students worked admirably and sped through their projects. Here's where we left off at the end of the week:

Karen finished her eclectic quilt top! Lots of colors and patterns!

She decided to do her basting and quilting at home but spent our final class practicing machine quilting and binding techniques on a pot-holder.

Christine after finishing her queen-size quilt top!

Basting can be a physically exhausting process. Bravo, Christine!

Sometimes you need a little help wielding the expanse of your quilt while you work with it under the machine (provided here by an extra rolling chair.)

IRONING, YOU GUYS. It's soooo important. Right, Jordana?

Basting! Huzzah!

I was soooo impressed with everyone's creativity and dedication throughout the week. Thanks, you guys! I can't wait to see pics of your finished quilts in their natural habitats!

Anyone else interested in learning how to quilt? I've got another First Time Quilting Class starting in three weeks! Sign up today!

Quilting Boot Camp: Days 2 & 3

2011-12-31T11:30:00.012-05:00

Although I had every intention of blogging our progress every day, boot camp took over our lives! The rest of the week flew by in a blur! I'm going to put it up in two batches, though, so as to not be overwhelming!!

Day Two: Creating the Nine-Patches

The disappearing nine patch pattern starts with, you guessed it, nine patches! We spent the better part of Tuesday sewing our preliminary blocks.

Day Three: Laying out the quilts

Once the nine-patches are finished, they are cut into quarters; these smaller squares become the building blocks for our finished quilts.

It seems like this part would go pretty quickly but, since you're going to be living with this quilt for the forseeable future, all of those little decisions about what color sits next to what takes on a much grander importance.

Each quilter in the class started to create sets of rules for their design; a kind of logic to guide the process depending on their colors and personal styles.

Eeeh! The quilts are coming together!! This is the stage at which I start getting really excited... :0)

Quilting Boot Camp: Day 1

2011-12-26T18:04:00.010-05:00

That's right: BOOT CAMP! Five days, three students: come with fabric, leave with a quilt. (Or that's the goal, anyway...) I thought about dressing in camo and combat boots today and wearing a whistle-- "that's a generous quarter inch, not a scant quarter inch: drop and give me 20!"-- but instead I decided to go with a playlist that was 3 hrs of Eye of the Tiger.

HA. Just kidding. I only made them listen to it once. (So far... bwahahaha.)

Day 1: Cutting the fabric

We are making a disappearing nine-patch pattern, for which we need a total of 108 8" squares.

Our three brave recruits... I mean students: Christine, Jordana and Karen.

Less chatting, more cutting! Drop and give me 20!
HA! Gotcha again, it's all cool. :0)

Christine's color palette is phenomenal! All Merimeko prints purchased at the Crate and Barrel outlet. JEALOUS. I can't wait to see how it turns out!

Tomorrow we'll start piecing the squares together!

What are other good montage songs I should download for my montage mix? We're gonna need all the 80's-stye adrenaline pumping we can get come basting day!

Happy Holidays from Lillstreet and other ways to shop!

2011-12-05T11:34:00.005-05:00

This past weekend we invited friends, co-workers, students and members of the Lillstreet community to join us for the second annual department Holiday Sale. Much fun was had by all!

We had ten vendors this year! Some of them were craft fair pros:

James and Jordana of Qualaar.

Heather Bella of Spills Her Coffee

And, for the first time, we invited students to apply as well. They did great!

Caryn

Amy

(More pictures from the event in my flickr!)

A few months ago I decided not to prioritize making crafts to sell. Instead, I was going to spend my precious little extra studio time to re-vamp my portfolio. Well.. then I had even less studio time than ever so I pretty much ended up doing neither. But the Lillstreet Holiday sale is one of my favorite events of the year! I definitely wasn't going to miss out.

Is it even possible to feel prepared for craft fairs?! If so, I definitely haven't figured out how. I pretty much had to build my whole collection from the ground up in the three weeks leading up to the event. (Y'know, since I had stopped making crafts.)

I even designed some new products!

I've got birch bolsters and birch/brown wood pin cushions! They're pretty adorbz, if I do say so myself.

All in all, I'd say my booth came together quite nicely.

I'm doing one more fair this season: this SATURDAY! If you're in the Chicago area, come by and check it out!

Happy holiday crafting, everyone! 'Tis the season to buy stuff made by your friends. :0)

Last Session's Sew Your Own Hoodie Class!

2011-11-30T09:39:00.001-05:00

The fall session's Sew Your Own Hoodie class was a complete success! Check out these amazing sweatshirts made by the students!

Christine's Cool Hood

Katie's Asymetric Zipper (still in progress!)

Erin's Pro-looking Sweatshirt: with Thumb-holes!

Aliza's Dual Colored Creation

Lara's sweatshirt will be the most complicated of all! I can't wait to see it when it's done!

For more photos from the hoodie class and other past Lillstreet classes, check out my Lillstreet Flickr folder!

xoxo-- Nora

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T23:18:00.009-04:00

Apparently, one year when I was pretty young I told my mother that Halloween was my "High Holy Day." I'm not even sure if I knew then what a high holy day was but celebrating it to the max has definitely resolved itself into a personal tradition. Now that I work in a costume shop, I knew that this year I had to pull out all the stops.

For the first time maybe ever I decided to go with something scary:

Remember this? It's a literal mash-up where author Seth Grahame- Smith inserts a spooky zombie tale right into the original text of Pride and Prejudice. HI-larious! Here's how my costume came together:

1.) Bought a pattern for a Regency period dress. Ripley helped.

2.) Made the dress.
3.) And then...... I pretty much destroyed it.

Before:
After:
I got to learn a little about distressing costumes during our recent production of Sweeney Todd: it's really fun! For Sweeney I got to get into the heads of the characters... think about how they lived and how their clothing would wear and show age. In this case, my "characters" only real motivation was "braaaaaaiiiiiins..." so I got to do whatever I wanted. (That's brown and red rit dye, lots of tearing, some sand paper and some brown acrylic paint.)

Then for the make up:

I know pretty much NOTHING about zombie make up so my friend, Maggie, agreed to help me out: she'd taken a stage make-up class in grad school and was excited to get out her kit again!

The key ingredients for awesome zombie make up? Liquid latex (for the peeling effect) and fake blood. This stuff was edible and tasted minty! Fortunately for anyone I hugged hello during the course of the evening, it also washed out with water.

All that was left was for me to find some brains... and maybe a wealthy husband.

(Check out the rest of my halloween photos at my flickr! And lots and lots of halloween photobooth photos, too!)

Theater Magic

2011-10-30T18:21:00.010-04:00

So I learned a little something about theater politics while working on The Sound of Music (our most recent production at Drury Lane.) Because the show was so huge, the costume shop rented a package of costumes: hypothetically, there should have been a couple of each costume for each of the principal characters so that we could fit the closest to our actors. Unfortunately, the package we rented was in a pretty horrible state of disrepair. In addition to the crappy previous stitching blunders, in turned out that we were short a couple of key items. Here was the issue: props are props even if they are fabric... even if it's fabric that has to match the costumes. Anyone seen The Sound of Music? Remember the curtain clothes? Of course you do. It's a story staple. BUT: curtains= props and curtain clothes= costumes. WOOPS. We ended up spending a LOT of time and money to buy the fabric and make the clothes ourselves. (Also? There is NO WAY Maria could have sewn those outfits overnight. SRSLY.)

There are a LOT of children in that family. Especially since they're double cast for our production. DIRNDLES, you guys. Weeep.

Also in that scene is a reference to fabric that is given to Maria for her to make her own dress. Guess what? The dress, we had. But the bolt of fabric? Not included in the package. Enter: Nora, textiles superhero.

RIGHT??! One of those things I'm kinda proud of. :0) Just a little bit of theater magic.

Sew Your Own Hoodie Class in Action!

2011-10-01T23:26:00.002-04:00

** Yeah... I spend most of my time at Lill St. Here's another blog entry for them!**

We're already a couple weeks into the fall semester and my Sew Your Own Hoodie class has dived headfirst into their projects! Here are some photos of the students making paper patterns from their favorite hooded sweatshirts! After the paper patterns are done, we'll use them to make design/size alterations so that each seamstresses hoodie will be a one of a kind masterpiece!

The Inaugural Run of Lill Street's New Bullet Steamer!

2011-09-21T10:58:00.002-04:00

*** Yet another blog entry done for the Lill Street Textile Blog! Yay Steamer!***

Just yesterday, the students in Screen Printing with Thickened Dye class got to be the first to witness our brand new Bullet steamer in action! Huzzah!

Printing with dye is a lot more tricksy than printing with ink; instead of sitting directly on top of your fabric, dye needs to be chemically bonded with the fibers. Dye powders are mixed with a thickening agent (sodium alginate) to make it print-able but, once the fabric is washed, the only thing remaining attached is the color. Your fabric ends up as soft as it was before you printed on it!

The shiny, new bullet steamer comes into play after you're done printing but before you wash your fabric. All of those chemicals that make up the sodium alginate tend to cause the colors to bleed when you submerge your fabric in water... but with the steamer, the chemicals are STEAMED out! Here's a little slideshow about how we did it in class:

In order to protect our images, we wrapped our fabric in newsprint.

The fabric is fully encased so that it doesn't end up touching other parts of fabric or the metal steamer insert!

Then we rolled the wrapped fabric around the insert so that the paper won't touch the inside of the steamer silo. (Water condenses inside the steamer- but if our fabric gets wet, the colors will bleed before the chemicals have a chance to evaporate!)

After 35 min in the steamer, we remove our fabric and machine wash it in cold water with some tide and a color-catcher. Throw it in the dryer and done!

We will be doing tests throughout the session to figure out the absolute best condition for the steamer to do it's job.

In order for students to be able to use/take advantage of the new steamer, you will have to take a dye printing class (check out the winter catalog, when it becomes available, for next sessions classes) or the upcoming Steamer Basics Workshop: Saturday, October 1st, 2-5pm. Hope to see you there!

--Nora

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http://fiberistanora.blogspot.com

Inspiration from Marimekko

2011-08-22T19:06:00.003-04:00

(Slideshow of Marimekko's Factory Process.)

The textile/design company Marimekko has been a source of beauty and vibrant color since the 1950's. Despite being located in chilly (and monochromatic) Finland, their inspirations evoke lush natural themes: florals, landscapes, and color palates that are more likely found in a summer garden than in snow.

(Slideshow of Iconic Marimekko Patterns.)

The company has had it's ups and downs over the years but, thanks to some keen business minds and a persisting partnership with Crate & Barrel, Marimekko is at it's height of success. Check out these two video peeks at their factory processes!

I totally want the job of throwing the ink into those giant printing machines! It's like screenprinting to the MAX! Let's print some yardage!

We may be at the height of summer now but I have a feeling that keeping Marimekko's joyful outlook on life will be especially handy come February in Chicago!

***(This post can also be read on lillstreettextiles.blogspot.com !)***

Tour of Chicago Silk Screen

2011-06-22T12:19:00.011-04:00

Yesterday, the employees of Chicago Silk Screen were nice enough to give some Lill St students a tour of their facilities. One of the oldest screen printing business in the city, Chicago Silk Screen is downright fascinating. Did you know that practically everything is silk screened? Plastic buckets, glass bottles, and a lot of those giant vinyl banners! And each of these objects requires it's own special screen.

Alan Shust, CSS production manager and our wonderful tour guide, took us through their process.

This is a room-sized camera englarger used to create the films needed to burn the screen. Before digital printing became popular, this is how all films were created. CSS has two of these devices which can make films 4' x 6' and larger!

Stretching a giant aluminum screen! That little device is a "tense-ometer" so that they know that the screen is stretched properly.

The team at CSS coats their screens a little differently than we do at Lill St: because they are preparing screens that will be used to make thousands and thousands of prints, the screens need extra emulsion. It was fun to talk shop with the pros! Here, Fransisco is coating screens used to print styrofoam coffee cups!

The screens are then burns on this beautiful Vacuum UV light table! (Swoooon...)

And rinsed in the washout station (we should BE so lucky!)

CSS also has a department that takes the used mesh out of old screens restretches them.

Stretching wood screen must be SOO much easier with that pneumatic staple gun!

The basement... where silk screens go to be reborn!

All in all the tour was FASCINATING. Thanks so much for the employees of Chicago Silk Screen for being so hospitable and thanks again to Alan Shust for being such a fantastic tour guide! If you have any printing needs, we highly recommend these guys! (Check out more photos from the tour at my flickr!)

Printing Wallpaper with Jennifer Angus

2011-06-18T18:49:00.005-04:00

In just under a month I will be headed to Maine to take another class at Haystack Mountain School of Craft! This is the second class I have been lucky enough to take at Haystack; the first was a totally amazing knitting class with Janet Morten. Haystack is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen- practically hanging off Maine's coast, the weathered wooden classrooms and dormitories create an artistic haven that fosters community, creativity and inventiveness. I am SOOOO excited to be going back! The class I will be taking this summer is a Screen Printed Wallpaper class taught by artist Jennifer Angus.

Screen printing wallpaper is an idea that I have toyed around with for a number of years. Note: I said an idea. Although I've wanted to try it for a while, I've never managed to make it happen. I feel like wallpaper and textiles are very much related to one another. Both are decorative emblems of domesticity. Historically and contemporarily, wall paper and textiles have helped shape the individuals relationship to the home. I think that textiles and walls are both able to create a certain sense of coziness- you wrap or enclose yourself in them, you embellish them, you make them part of yourself.

It is these feelings of comfort that Jennifer Angus challenges.
"In her work, bugs are pinned directly to museum and gallery walls in patterns that reference both textiles and wallpapers. A common theme runs through this work: the interplay of the feelings of comfort experienced when viewing familiar patterns and the realization on closer inspection that the comforting familiar is actually made up of insects, something most people feel apprehension for. " (FiberArts Magazine)

Through her many installations, Angus explored themes ranging from the odd sensation of Victorian bug collecting, to colorful Kimono fabrics, to oriental carpets: all with the aim of creating conflict between beauty and uncomfort while also drawing the viewers attention to social and ecological truths.

Swooooon.

I have already started brainstorming what kinds of wallpaper I'd like to print while I'm in Maine. Have I already said I'm excited?? I AM SO EXCITED. (Click on the links for more information about Jennifer Angus!)

Happy Basting Day!

2011-06-01T09:06:00.002-04:00

Here's another blog post I did for lillstreettextiles.blogspot.com!

* * * * *

Last week was basting day in my Traditional American Block Quilting Class!

Because basting- the temporary stitches that hold together your quilt top, the batting and your backing fabric so you can quilt through all the layers- is one of the last steps, it is also one of the most exciting. Really, it's kind of like a holiday. It's the first time you get a real sense of what your quilt is going to look and feel like and you can see the warm, cozy light at the end of the tunnel.

Or, in this case, a warm and cozy potholder. (My demo sample.)

Everyone is working on separate project and they are all coming out lovely!

Jessica basting her sampler.

Tracy's making a set of potholders that look like a picnic! Doesn't that green cordouroy remind you of astroturf?

Making a cat bed. Best night sleep that cat'll ever have

Basting her sampler lap-quilt. Ooh pretty!

Check out more photos at my flickr! And be sure to stop by this weekend's festivities to see some more quilt blocks on display in the textiles department. I'm hoping to be able to teach this class again in the fall or winter- anyone interested?

Hope you see you there!

--Nora

My Life in Teal

2011-04-29T19:51:00.004-04:00

The great thing about being able to propose classes to teach is that then I get to make the things I want! Which is how I got to teach my Sew Your Own Hooded Sweatshirt class at Lill St in the fall! Everyone made amazing sweatshirts! And I got to make...

My ideal sweatshirt.

Like ever.

In the world.

That's right. I printed gold woodgrain onto teal sweatshirt fleece.

The sweatshirt has a cowled neck, front pockets, brown ribbing and... wait for it...

Gold woodgrain buttons! Swoooon!

I'm thinking of selling custom sized versions of these on my etsy. What do you think? Click on any of the photos to see the rest of the pics over at my flickr!

If you're interested in learning how to print and sew garments (or bags or hilarious objects) come on over and take my print & sew class this summer at Lill St! It's gonna be a blast!

Sewing Classes at Lill St Arts Center

2011-04-28T01:14:00.001-04:00

Here's a blog entry I just threw together for the Lill St Textile's blog! So much good information over there...

* * * * *

Hi everyone! Nora here...

Just finished another round of my First Time Sewing class this past week: my Tuesday night class had a blast putting together our tote bags and eating tequila-flavored chocolates...

Lindsey wearing her completed apron.

The class with their finished products!

Don't you want a great tote-bag/ apron set? Come and take a first time sewing class with me!

Meanwhile, on Saturdays my Garment Construction class is working steadily on their projects:

Emily tracing her paper pattern shapes onto the fabric for her dress.

So pleasing!

(Check out some more studio photos at my flickr stream.)

There are new classes starting next week- I'd love to meet lots of new people and see tons of familiar faces in my upcoming classes! Hope to see you there!

Priestly Robes in the Church of Prince

2011-04-08T10:30:00.016-04:00

First there was the Clanket.... and then there was...

The Prancet

That's right, friends... a PRINCE THEMED SLANKET. Made to order for my good friend, Lisa Giokas!

NRR: So Lisa, I take it you are something of a Prince Fan. When did you first know you were going to fall in love? For example, what was your first album?

LG: Let's see- well the first Prince song I really remember is "1999". I loved it instantly and at the time (1983), 1999 seemed way far off in the future. Soon after I got hooked on "Little Red Corvette". The first Prince album I bought with my own money was of course "Purple Rain" and yes it was vinyl!

NRR: Prince has had some pretty spectacular fashion moments over the course of his career; what do you think was his high-point? His low point?

LG: I think we all know about the famous ass-less yellow pants he wore- I think it was to the MTV awards? Definitely a low point. I've never really liked his hair long and straight either. I think it looks much better short. The past few years he's been wearing some amazing custom made suits. And we can't forget the killer shoes he wears!! I read once that Prince has all of his shoes custom made for him by a cobbler in Spain. I don't know if that's true or not but it certainly sounds fancy :D No matter what Prince is wearing, he looks pretty damn good for a man about to turn 53.

NRR: What made you first interested in having a Prancet?

LG: I saw the awesome "Clanket" you made for your roommate Lucy and thought it looked so cozy and fun. My mind just started brainstorming and I came up with the Prancet idea. Having seen your work before, I knew you'd do a great job at constructing this very special garment. I think it's pretty cool that Prince has created a symbol that is instantly recognizable as his. It's like his own personal hieroglyph. I still think you should make a reversible black/white swan blanket which would of course be called The Swanket!

NRR: You've just gotten all your Prancet desires fulfilled; what are you gonna do next?

LG: That's a good question. I have some sewing projects of my own that I'd like to start working on (a long neglected counted cross stitch project, a jumper and a gift for a friend). Then I'll be doing a little traveling this spring and summer (NYC and Oregon for a friend's
wedding).

My closing thoughts on Prince- if you ever get a chance to see him play live- do it. I promise you won't regret it. He is truly one of the most talented musicians living today. He's always on those lists of most underrated guitarists. Check out his solo on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".

Thanks again Nora for collaborating on this project! It was a blast.

A hearty thanks and your welcome to you, too, Lisa! I love working on crazy awesome projects like these- especially for friends! I hope you get many cozy winters' use out of your Prancet!

Many more photos over at my Flickr stream; go check them out!

My parting thoughts on Prince? I think this video of Prince on The Muppet Show pretty much sums it up. There's something all too fitting about seeing him with muppets after spending so much time with polarfleece that was that shade of purple...

The Summer of Seamripper

2011-04-04T11:43:00.004-04:00

The sounds of a sewing studio are part of what makes me feel at home while I'm working. The roar of the machine, the zip of a zipper... snaps, tears, slices... le sigh. Home! So, what if those sounds were recorded and combined with music? That is the question being asked by my good friends, "Rose and Jade" of Viv Pickle Custom Handbags!

Project Seamripper
Seamripper is a project designed by two seamstresses to celebrate the cacophony of the sewing studio. We've spent enough time in the studio to be considered masters of our skill, but just how much control do we have over the aural experience?
We will use unconventional instruments generally used for sewing to create experimental music. We've been calling our sound "industrial" or "stitchcore", but we're just as concerned with the process as the resulting music. Many of the individual sounds are percussive, like the click of pins on a magnet want or the swish of a pair of shears. We'll fill in the melody with our voices, and with tongue-in-cheek lyrics of the trade. Our vision is to create a roughly polished album- made with great skill, and with stitches showing.

These ladies are amazing artists and I can personally assure you that anything they work on will be beautifully crafted with humor and an aesthetic that will make you buckle at the knees. Check out their kickstarter and consider supporting this awesome project! They also have a blog, which I hear will have give-aways... swooon!

Let the Summer of Seamripper commence!

Knit with Color at Lill St!

2011-03-15T08:16:00.001-04:00

Be not afraid! Come take my knitting with color class! You need only have a basic understanding of how to knit but the skills we'll cover in this 5 week class will open up a world of possibilities: you'll be able to tackle more complicated knitting patterns and be able to start designing your own.

Knitting with color can be as simple as adding stripes,

As traditional as a fair isle sweater,

Or as creative as drawing.

(My own Sirius Black scarf knit in alpaca.)

(Part of my knit postcard series- now on view in the Lill St. Textiles department- read more about the project here!)

Our class projects will cover all three of those options with a series of small projects. We'll also learn about what materials are best for color work and how to treat/wash your pieces once their completed. Slideshows of inspirational images, both traditional and conceptual, will be given as well.

It's gonna be a blast! Hope to see you all there!

Knit With Color: Text, Image and Structure (5 Weeks)

Level: MultiLevel (Beginner to Advanced)

Price: LAC Members $160.00 / Non-Members $165.00

Class Description

Have you ever wanted to knit colorful compositions or wonder how on earth they knit those beautiful fair-isle sweaters? Knitting with color is easier than you think! Investigate intarsia and fair-isle colorwork while learning to plan designs for independent projects. Some yarn provided; students are asked to bring knitting needles and a sense of adventure. First Time Knitting or knowledge of the knit stictch recommended.

Tweets From My Letterpress: Ongoing!

2011-02-19T14:40:00.008-05:00

My "Tweets from my letterpress" project is still going strong! But as I am the type of artist that spends a majority of her studio time researching and planning, the finished product is a ways off. (I might be asking for some tweet submissions in the near future, so keep your eye out!) In the meantime, I've been putzing around the studio; playing around and practicing some of the techniques I'll be using on my final project.

Setting Metal type:
I've often joked about how bad-ass a Seamstress Street Gang would be. You know- like in Anchorman? When all the news teams meet in the alley and brawl? C'mon! What's more threatening than seamrippers and burning steam irons! Anyway, I find this concept hilarious and after much consideration I've decided my street name would be Feed Dawg. Anyone else want to join my gang? What would your street names be? (This piece dedicated to my Pickle Crew Ladies!) I love the color-play in this print: I started with an uber-feminine baby pink and then splattered some violent red in there. HA! Am I the only one who finds this so damn funny? (Probably. Oh well! Hahahaha...)

Photo-polymer Plates:

Making a polymer plate is, in a lot of ways, similar to burning a photo-emulsion silk screen. You use a transparent negative to block all the areas of the plate you would like to wash away. Then you expose the plate to intense light, and soak and scrub all the unwanted emulsion away. You're left with a raised, reversed image that you can put on a press and print with.

The backs of the plates are metal so we use blocks of wood with a magnetic top to lock the plate into the print.

Swoon!

I liked the Burrow shade of orange but it was a little light so I had a chance to play around with color-mixing on the plate. Yay!More coming soon!

Tweets From My Letterpress

2011-01-20T12:32:00.008-05:00

I've been working at Lill St Arts Center for a few months now but up until recently I have been pretty much exclusive to the Textiles Department. So exclusive, it turns out, that I didn't even know there was an ENTIRE letterpress studio NEXT DOOR to the fibers print room. (Like, actually next door. As in, we share a wall. With a door in it. Can we say, fibers blinders?) And since I had some stored up monitor credits from the fall, I decided to take a 10 wk Intro To Letterpress class taught by my friend Heather Bella.

You guys. Letterpress is so. much. fun. And not only because I feel like one of the Newsies every time I use it. (But mostly that.) Last night was the first night we got a chance to set our own type and print it. Our assignment had been to choose a word- or a few words- that would be a pretty simple to put together with the studios hodge-podge collection of wooden type. (They have both wooden and metal type but the metal type tends to be really small- not a good first project.) Of course, STILL being a Cancer on the Gemini cusp (gonna over think it now and double think it later) being asked to choose a SINGLE word sent me into language-hysterics all week. How can you choose just one? Every word I spoke took on such importance: do I choose a word related to my work? Or something funny and flippant? I still had no definite plan when I got to class and ended up definitely pulling one of those "everybody else order first and by the time the waitress gets to me I'll choose something random and that'll be what I really want" things. Kind of a Freudian way of choosing, perhaps...

After you (finally) make a plan, you get to go through the drawers of variably mixed wooden type fonts and pull your letters out. Then they get placed on a press and locked in using a combination of wood and metal pieces: the big ones are called "furniture" and the super-thin ones are "slugs." (Ooooh vocab. Swoon!) It's important to lock your type snugly in all four directions so that your letters don't move around when you pull the press over them.

It's not as easy as it looks- let me tell you. It's like putting a puzzle together with kids blocks- remember those? The wooden ones that have the letters on them so you can learn the alphabet? But you do get to tighten everything up using a metal key/tensioner device called a "quoin" which is possibly the best scrabble word EVER.

OMG Pleasing to look upon!

Then the set type gets inked:

And printed!

I even got a little adventurous with my use of ink: trying that snazzy pink-fade-to-blue! Very daring. Here's how the final print came out:

The words I chose have a lot of different meanings and I found that, even though I had been thinking of them as two separate projects that would later get cut apart, I liked them as a set even better. I especially liked the idea of #hysteria for a few reasons: Of course, by "hysteria" I'm not talking about throwing your panties at the cast of Buffy The Vampire Slayer's Once More With Feeling's in a fit of enthusiastic pique. I'm talking about the debilitating pms that used to get women sent to mental facilities and has since been disproven despite my personal belief that I actually do, on occasion, suffer from it. It sort of represents a completely out of control emotional state. Which is funny to think about in the context of a twitter hashtag.

Also funny? A letterpressed twitter hashtag. Way to juxtapose the extremely slow and outdated media with a lightning fast live-time social media! Which has spawned what I think might be the theme I choose to stick with for my class: "Tweets From My Letterpress."

Stay tuned!

Upcoming Class: Sew Your Own Hooded Sweatshirt!

2011-01-18T16:57:00.002-05:00

Check out this blog entry I did for the Lill St Textiles department blog! This class is going to be awesome...

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Hi, Lill St Textiles Buddies! It's cold, wet and blustery out there today; and all I want to do is curl up in a cozy sweatshirt and drink tea. And guess what? In just a few weeks I'll be teaching a class all about sewing hooded sweatshirts! It's going to be a super awesome class that covers some basic patterning/construction techniques while also allowing you to get creative with design and structure. Here are a range of design ideas to get your brain working...

Super simple hoods with marsupial pockets! No need to get crazy if you're feeling intimidated by the sewing: a hand-made hoodie is creative enough!
(Also- can we talk about those awesome pants for a second?!)

Check out that neck variation! It looks pretty comfy...

Applique, lapels, and cowls: oh my!
(Joodito Designs.)

OMG Buttons!

(Little House Clothing on Etsy!)

And even though we won't be doing any screen-printing in the class, my nerdy self couldn't let THIS discovery go without sharing it with you all. Clever, clever!

You can still register for this class over at the Lill St website or by calling the front desk at (773)769-4226. Hope to see you all in class!

-Nora Renick Rinehart

www.fiberistanora.com
www.fiberistanora.etsy.com
http://fiberistanora.blogspot.com
http://theburrowstudio.blogspot.com

A New Year, A New...

2011-01-17T14:53:00.007-05:00

Happy New Years, fibers friends!

I know I haven't been so up-to date about posting here lately- what with the Burrow Blog's regularity and my Lill St. duties. But that doesn't mean I haven't been making and thinking and pondering on my own. For those of you out there who are listening... I'm going to try to post more. A new year, a new commitment!

But before I share some of the stuff I've been making for myself around the studio, I'd like to highlight some art that's been up in my apartment(s) for the past few years. Recently, I've come to the realization that, in addition to being lovely images that bring beauty to my life, these three tarot cards by Corina Dross have become something of a daily meditation.

Protection From Heartbreak

Goodness knows the last few months haven't been my greatest where the heart is concerned. And despite my preternaturally mushy disposition, I now find myself identifying as a Nervous Romantic in stead of a Hopeless one. Or maybe... a Skittish Romantic. The Protection From Heartbreak card is a reminder to heal and to be open to new possibilities.

Protection From Those Who Love You

Some times it's the people that love you most are the ones who are able to hurt you the most- whether they mean to or not. I think it's something about making yourself vulnerable to the ones you're closest to. Instead of allowing myself to create barriers between myself and the people I love, I use this card to remind myself to be flexible and forgiving. And also to maintain kindness on the flip side of that: to remain mindful of my own ability to wound.

Protection From the Abyss

I would by lying if I didn't say that being unemployed hasn't been extremely hard on my self-confidence. I never thought of myself as the kind of person who identified themselves so heavily with their occupation. But that was until I had to consider the possibility of getting a job that had *shudder* nothing to do with textiles. (And as it turns out, not having any skills that aren't textiles related has prohibited me from getting any other jobs...) I make stuff, I make jokes, I make fun, I make myself happy, I make food, I make plants grow... but somehow I can't make enough money. And it hurts. I think it would be seductively easy to slip into the abyss of depression. This card reminds me to keep hoping.

Mantra, mantra, mantra. But somehow it helps.

Corina, a resident of West Philly, has been been working on creating a whole deck of tarot cards and although I would love to have the entire collection, some how I never saw my way to getting a hold on them. But these three images seemed to choose me. Maybe it's fate? Or maybe I'm just cheezy and sentimental. Either way, I have have become a daily part of my life and for that I am grateful.

Easy Messenger Bag Class at Lill St.

2010-12-27T13:30:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone! Nora here; hoping you all had a lovely and relaxing holiday weekend!

Last week marked the end of my first Easy Messenger Bag class, with great success! Even though the class was only three weeks long, the students made some beautiful bags:

Mitzi opted for an upholstery weight flap with a satin exterior and matching fabric handle.

Inside, she has a large pocket on the front and a smaller pocket on the bag. So handy!

Jill got creative with her exterior pockets: each one sized for specific objects and closed with velcro. Her bag is made of corduroy and cotton with a web strap. Beautiful and functional!

I am thinking about proposing an advanced messenger bag class. It would cover basic construction as well as zippers, zip pockets, more velcro, buckles and adjustable straps. Would you guys be interested in that? If you, let me know in the comments or give the Lill St Front Desk a call. Bags from that class might look a little something like this:

(You know you want to make one...)

In the meantime: don't forget to sign up for my Sew Your Own Hooded Sweatshirt class! We'll be learning how to design, pattern and sew your very own hoodie. 'Tis the season for warm layers! See you all there!

Sometimes When I'm Down...

2010-12-06T11:20:00.000-05:00

Sometimes life can get pretty rough. I've been a bit mopey lately what with the no job and the therefor having no money thing. But when I get down... there are a few things that I KNOW will make me feel better about the world. And one of them? Is wearing this sweater:

(Ripley also clearly loves this sweater!)

Other places to wear this sweater that make excellent disco sparkles?

The truck!
The studio!
In public!
The movies!

Oh, the list goes on and on.... Thanks, Salvation Army! And thanks to you, sparkly sweater of glory!

It Was Better On The Hellmouth

2010-11-11T10:43:00.011-05:00

We watch a lot of tv here in The Burrow and the fortuitous mash up of this past weeks tv lineup had some enlightening comparisons. So, if you'd allow a little ranting from this angry nerd I'd like to take a moment to juxtapose two of my favorite shows, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Glee, and how they dealt with similar issues across the span of 12 years. In fact- there was a single episode of each show that so strikingly mirrored the other that I was PHYSICALLY UNABLE to not rant. (The episodes in question are Buffy's 2nd season's Phases and Glee's 2nd season's Never Been Kissed. *** SPOILER ALERT FOR BOTH SHOWS!***)

I'm not an academic but I am a queer person who loves pop culture and has been wishing and hoping for a show that has as many gay themes as Glee has. I was ecstatic with Kurt's first season coming out episode- especially with the way they are writing his father. As the second season progresses, however, I seem to find myself getting angrier and angrier after each episode.

But somehow I never leave Buffy feeling the same sense of betrayal and disappointment. Let's take a look at the episodes in question and the themes they share.

1.) Closeted Gay Bullies

Both shows feature bullies who, it turns out, are only acting out aggressively to cover their own closeted homosexuality. Both bullies eventually get confronted and end up outing themselves in different ways. Let's take a look:

(Yup, folks, that's a Thumbs Up.)

(Rape Kisssss!!!!! Not Okay!!!!)

Buffy's bully pulls this 24hr 180. The next time we see him he's picking up a girl's dropped schoolbooks and thanking Xander for helping him come to terms with the truth. Ok, so Xander's homophobia is kind of an issue but over all the episode has a positive message. Glee's bully freaks the fuck out, violates poor Kurt and continues being a jerk. Awesome.

2.) Inappropriate Kissing and How to Handle It

Willow wants to kiss Oz- secretly to make Xander jealous- but when she comes on to Oz, he turns her down. Articulately. In Glee? Neither Kurt or coach Beist has been kissed by someone they like. When they confide in Blaine and Mr. Schu respectively, the characters get different responses.

(Willow's face reads: "Wow, I'm so impressed with your able to articulate your feelings."*)

(Kurt's face reads: "Damnit, Blaine, I don't want a sandwich, you jerk. I want you to kiss me already.")

(Mr. Schu's face reads: "I'm gonna have to kiss this woman in order to keep her from quitting and leaving me terribly guilt ridden.")

Oz tells Willow that he wants their first kiss to be perfect- and he says it in a way that diffuses the situation and makes her feel wanted. I think Glee's images speak for themselves.

(*Okay, technically this scene is from the episode "Innocence" but still.)

3.) The Fight for Feminine Identity/Strength

Each show also highlights a female character who's femininity/strength is questioned. Glee's butch football coach, Beist, is made into an anti-sex symbol while Buffy is confronted by an uber-masculine hunter who vocally doubts her ability to defeat a roaming werewolf. (Yeah, the shows are a little different- but the comparisons hold!)

(Buffy beats the hunter's evil shotgun. Superman style.)

(Beist get's a hug. All better!)

After safely capturing the werewolf and proving her abilities, Buffy even gets a chance to show off her strength. Beist gets her femininity (and her JOB) handed back to her by an uncomfortably awkward Mr. Schu and a handful of jacket-clad, pop singing and dancing highschool boys. Uuuuuugh.

In the midst of the "It Get's Better Movement" we are calling on pop culture to help us provide queer youth with alternative images of sexuality and to give them hope for the future. But tv is not getting better. From what we have seen here, it's getting worse. We are too rushed to acclaim anything gay on tv that we often miss what's really going on. Yes, we have more gay characters on television than were available in Buffy's hayday. We had Ellen, we had Will and Grace and yes, we have Kurt. BUT- We need to be having new conversations- not worse and less nuanced versions of the conversations we were having more than 10 years ago. Was the Hellmouth in 1999 really that much better than Ohio is in 2010? Ouch.

10 Things You Can't Sew Without!

2010-11-10T11:56:00.003-05:00

Hi Friends! Here's another blog post I did for the Lill St Textiles blog last week. Enjoy!

* * * * *

There are a few things that, obviously, you can't sew without: fabric, a sewing machine, thread... But there are a few other tools and tricks that make a home sewing studio oh so much more functional. Here are my top 10 (additional) things you can't sew without:

1. Scissors

I have three pairs of scissors: Fabric Scissors, Craft/Paper scissors and snips. It might seem excessive to have so many but... I promise you, they're each useful for different actions.

2. Rulers/ Measuring Tools

Measuring tape: good for measuring the body and fabric that is longer than a normal ruler. Great for measuring anything flexible! Tailors ruler: good to keep by your sewing machine to measure small things like seam allowance. Large clear plastic ruler: Awesome for measuring on a grid and marking with a straight edge.

3. Self Healing Mat/ Rotary Blade

If you're ever sewing anything with straight edges, it's worth investing in one of these! Protects your tables and helps measure your fabric!

4. Fabric Markers

Pencils, Tailors Chalk, Marks-B-Gone... anything that let's you mark up your project in a non-permanent way.

5. Iron/Water

You can't sew without an iron and you can't iron without water!! Irons make everything you're working on look more professional and behave better.

6. Pins/ Needles

Lots of pins. I prefer the "quilting pin" (long body with a yellow plastic top) because they are super long and easy to grip. But any sewing pins will do. I also highly suggest keeping some hand needles around for detail or basting emergencies.

7. Seam Ripper

ESSENTIAL! Being able to take out seams and sew them again takes a lot of the unnecessary stress out of sewing.

8. Sketchbook/ Drawing Tools

Taking notes, drawing plans, remembering ideas for future projects.... Having a sketchbook handy is always a good idea.

9. Q-Tips

Cleaning your machine on a regular basis will help keep it running smoothly. Q-tips are the perfect tool for getting into those dusty little spaces behind your bobbin case, etc.

10. Music!

Because having fun in the studio is the most important part!

* * * * *

Ok, so I wanted to keep the entry (fairly) short but the last two things I would suggest having in a studio are:

Extra Bobbins (keep them filled with standard colors for quick thread changes!)

Hand Sewing Needles (great for basting, finishing and tricky spots!)

Yay! Hope you all enjoyed my rambling... more housekeeping stuff on it's way, I promise!

(ps. also love how sometimes blogger only lets me type in italics. You really want me to mean this stuff, don't you, blogger? Grrrrrowl.)

Squiddy Squid vs. Sharky Shark

2010-10-22T13:18:00.003-04:00

(This is a repost of a blog entry I did for the Lill St Textiles blog! Which you should probably read because the faculty members there are all awesome! Anyway- enjoy!)

* * * * * *

Halloween is right around the corner and, it being the high holy days of our home studio (The Burrow), my roommate and I have been hard at work creating our costumes!

I decided to multi-task and also prep for my upcoming Hoodie Class (look for it in the Early Winter schedule- available soon!), so the costumes are based on a basic pattern for a hooded sweatshirt. Loosely based:

Lucy's going to be a squid!

(People seem to really like how it turned out. Check out the squid costume on the web! On BoingBoing, Super Punch, and Lucy's flickr stream.)

I am going to be a Hammerhead Shark! My costume is based on the same sweatshirt pattern: with a few alterations...

Fins!

Oh man- these costumes are so cozy to wear! They're basically a hybrid between comfy sweatshirts and giant stuffed animals!

Sewing is awesome. Are any of you working on stellar halloween costumes? Let's see 'em!

Reflectivity is Magic!

2010-10-02T23:39:00.008-04:00

New Products Up On My Etsy!

In what little time I've had in the studio I've been playing around with new designs and materials. Even though my sewing machine is less than stellar, having my own print table and the ability to burn screens at almost a moment's notice has changed the way I design bags. My newest material muse?

REFLECTIVE FABRIC!

Ohmygoodness it is so satisfying. Check out these new bag designs!

Bike Spoke Hip Zip

The hip zips are similar to my past hip zip designs but the front pocket is made of the reflective fabric... making the bag not only beautiful and functional but a safety device, too!

Fish Scale Hip Zip

The hang on your belt. They can be worn as a wristlet, they hold everything you need for a night on the town.

Lace Hip Zip

And, gosh-darnit, they just so pretty!

I even have a new shape: a cell phone case that hangs on your belt and is only big enough for your phone, id, credit card and a few bucks cash. Super streamline!

Bike Spoke Cell Phone Case

With my (unbelievably expensive) application to the Renegade Craft Fair officially filed, the next two months are going to be a balancing act between money making and crafting. (Not to mention trying to have a social life or making capital-A Art! And seriously?! When will I have time to finish Battlestar Gallactica?!) But I have to admit... I kind of love this kind of pressure.

Wish me luck! And buy my stuff so I can afford to make more of it!

First Time Sewing at Lill St Art Center

2010-09-16T11:28:00.002-04:00

This week I taught my first class at Lill St Art Center here in Chicago! Aptly enough, the class I'm starting with is first time sewing. The class went GREAT! I have amazing and dedicated students and I can't wait to see what they make throughout the five weeks of our class. No pictures yet, but for now:

(Thanks to Johanna for the image! When are we getting t-shirts?)

Renegade Season in Chicago

2010-09-13T13:15:00.007-04:00

This past weekend was Chicago's Summer Renegade Craft Fair! As opposed to the winter fair, at which Lucy and I shared a booth, the summer fair is out-doors. And even though the weather here has been beyond gorgeous and fall like all week, Sunday was determined to be the hottest day known to humans. Despite being sweaty messes, we had a blast- and dropped a fair chunk of change. Seriously, though? Between the heat and the hordes of beer drinking customers, Lucy and I didn't really envy the merchants.

I only walked away with one purchase, but I WANTED to walk away with a lot more! Here are some highlights from from the veritable stack of business cards that came home in my pocket:

1. Handbag with amazing front pockets! By Cut Out And Collect

That's right: those front pockets are like skirt pockets- fully lined, baby!

2. Adorable Charm Necklaces by Michelle Hartney.

3. Skull Dip Bowl by No Tengo Miedo Clay.

(For the Murder Credenza, clearly.)

4. Embroidered Cards by Despina Papadeas.

(An excellent sentiment.)

5. Stitched leather wallets by Robbie Moto.

A friend once told me that she would never vote for a political candidate who hadn't personally shaken her hand. At the time, the notion seemed a little impractical. But it stuck with me and I slowly started thinking that way about things other than politics. There is a lot of stuff in the world and we, as consumers, are so often disconnected from the makers and the designers and, really, any part of the process. Being able to meet and talk to so many prolific artists/designers/craftspeople at an event like the Renegade Craft Fair allowed me to feel connected what I was buying. And I like that.

In a lot of ways I am extremely intimidated by the Indie-craft movement and it would have been very possible to be completely knocked-out by Renegade: there is JUST SO MUCH STUFF. (Not to mention that a lot of it looks really similar...) As a craftsperson trying to make it out there in the carnivorous world, how am I supposed to carve out a place for myself? Should I make objects that are just like everyone else's because the imagery will be automatically popular? Or should I gamble on going in a different direction? Finding a balance between the two has been an elusive task over the past few years.

But instead of coming home, drinking straight from the bottle of Kraken and despair... this year I decided to be energized by the crazy hoards and the boatloads of owls and squids and pennant flags. So, in the words of Voldemort from the Harry Potter Musical,

"Look out world, I'm gonna getcha."

Right after I take a 4 day nap.

The Burrow Studio Blog!

2010-09-09T23:45:00.004-04:00

That's right, friends... The Burrow Studio- my home sweet home and studio sweet studio- officially has it's own blog. Which will, undoubtedly, be equally if not more awesome than this here blog because it combines the incredible artistic powers of one comic genius Lucy Knisely and my humble self. And guess what! We're gonna update it every sunday! Which is only a couple days away! You should probably go there right now and catch up what you've already missed. (Be sure to click on the links... the photos and comics are SO worth it.)

Sudio Blog!

Go now and be amazed!

Queer Etsy Street Team!

2010-09-04T11:57:00.004-04:00

So, apparently the etsy community is a complicated and uber-supportive network. Who knew? Not me! But now that I have nigh-on infinite time to peruse the interweb, I'm discovering all sorts of helpful sites.

Like the Queer Etsy Street Team!

"We are a mutually supportive community inclusive of all Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersexed and Questioning etsy sellers. We're a global team and plan in future, as we grow, to organize regional and national events focused on queer art, crafts and entrepreneurship. We currently operate a team store funded by member donations. 100% of proceeds from our shop (less etsy and Paypal fees) are donated to various charities. If you're queer, here, and etsian, we want to meet you!"

How cool, right? I had to join.

The group has a group store (linked above), a yahoo group with almost constant chatter, and a great blog! This summer they have been doing a series of color themed challenges which focus a rainbow selection of products made by members. The most recent was the Green Challenge... so I contributed my Green Plaid Hip Zip!

(Hot model!)

You can buy any of the Green Challenge products at the Etsy Treasury here!

Very cool, internet... very cool.

Erstwhile Inspiration: from Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen

2010-09-02T11:14:00.010-04:00

I've been thinking a lot about Claes Oldenburg this summer so I was delighted to find book of his sketches on Lucy's shelf. (One of the greatest thing about living with another artist is that I get to look through all of her awesome books!) The collection, put together in collaboration with his wife, Coosje Van Bruggen, is entirely sketches of food.

Banana Split, New York, 1987

And they're amazing! I guess it's unsurprising that he was so focused on food: so many of his sculptures ended up being edible objects. But what I loved about this book was that it not only gave me such clear insight into the sculptors' process but also into how he and Coosje sourced their inspiration.

Apple Core, New York, 1988

Apple Core, (1990) at the Israel Museum of Art, Jerusalem.

At the end of the book there's this very sweet bit of writing by Claes: "Coosje and I have spent thirty years hardly ever apart, operating together as one imagination on whatever comes into view." He goes on to reveal that the reason they started sketching food was that Coosje developed food allergies: "What had been a pleasurable activity became a dangerous one." Unable or unwilling to give up the joys of food, however, Coosje suggested a "displacement of the senses- that which could not be eaten could be consumed by the eyes."

I, too, have been battling with my relationship to food. After years of constant stomach aches, my doctor suggested I stop eating gluten. I wept for the loss of bagels in my life... but I did it (mostly). A year and a half later, I returned to the doctor only to be told that- partially because I had stopped eating wheat- I had developed extreme iron-deficient anemia. So now my food choices are this crazy balancing act: how much gluten have I had today? Am I gonna feel like crap? Was it worth it? Will refusing to eat the bread/pasta/beer at this potluck make me feel too awkward and needy? What happens over time when you have to weigh every eating decision- run it through a rubric of qualifiers- is that eating stops being fun. It takes on this monumentality that is, ironically, all consuming.

I have no way of knowing if Coosje had a similar feelings about her diet... but the knowledge of our shared experiences helps me to see these sculptures in a new way. The scale of the object becomes a metaphor for it's relationship to the human body- a relationship that is especially poignant when you consider that the human body is supposed to consume the food object.

Cake Slice with Cherries, Minneapolis, 1988

The sketches, as well as the sculptures, are without a doubt humorous and comical... but they are also a somewhat threatening: who exactly is in charge here? Is food's proper place in the world to be subjected by the human body? Or is the human body dependent upon food? The food becomes so large that it ends up taking on aspects of architecture.

Chateau Marmont as Caviar/Avocado Mousse, Los Angeles, 1991

From those sketches to the famous installations like this one:

Spoonbridge and Cherry, 1988
Stainless steel and aluminum painted with polyurethane enamel
29 ft. 6 in. x 51 ft. 6 in. x 13 ft. 6 in. (9 x 15.7 x 4.1 m)
Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota

As I am spending increasing amounts of time in my studio it becomes more and more important for me to gain insight into the inspirational processes of artists I like. Without the structure of academic education, it's becoming harder for me to find my path... to know what to make next and why. I find that my brain is swirling with ideas but none of them seem important enough to be worth following through on. I think it's good for me to see how other aspects of my life- like my relationship to food- are viable sources of artistic inspiration. Thanks, Claes and Coosje!

But most importantly- where's the giant sculpture of this guy??

Langoustine, Paris, 1990

Bibliography:

Images a la Carte, by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen. Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, 2004.

http://oldenburgvanbruggen.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claes_Oldenburg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coosje_van_bruggen

Happy Print Table Day!

2010-08-17T12:38:00.000-04:00

Check one more thing off my list of things I'd have in my dream studio: Last week, Elisabeth helped my build my very own print table! So much yay!! Pray tell, how did we accomplish such a feat? Well I'll tell you.

Lucy and I had already prepared a table-like structure using a plank of wood measuring 2' x 5' and the build-them-yourself saw horses. A proper print table is slightly higher than a normal desk or eating table so that you don't have to ruin your back bending over while you print. Ours is about 36" high. Because the legs of the sawhorse are at a completely indeterminate angle (shhh) there was some complicated/fuzzy math that happened in Home Depot that completely baffled both ourselves and every single employee we tried to ask for help. (Why is it that everyone who works there seems to be dumb as posts? Maybe it's having to sell posts.) But we succeeded in the long run and scampered home with our wood.

I ordered enough carpet felt to cover the wood table top twice and when it finally arrived in the mail... we got to work!

Step one: trim corners of felt and stretch it around the wood. Secure with staple gun.

The lovely, talented and tireless Ms. Elisabeth Roskos!

Step two: repeat with second layer of felt!

An actual conversation I had with the woman who sold me the felt:
me: "do you know if the felt is made entirely of wool?"
her: "well... it's felt."
me: "right, but I was wondering what the felt was made of."
her: "felt. It's made of felt. Reconstituted, factory leftover felt."
me: "riiiight. Nevermind.

Step Three: Repeat with canvas! In this process, I learned a few things about canvas. Those canvas drop cloths they sell at Home Depot? NOT 100% canvas. We were about to start stretching it onto the table when I noticed a tag that read "warning: FLAMMABLE. Keep away from heat." And I was like hm... on of my favorite things to do on a print table is iron... which seems a bit dangerous if the table is covered in 43% polyester and coated in a flammable coating. Blast! Thank goodness I'd already ordered a bunch of natural 100% canvas for bags! On with the stretching!

Wonky corners. Don't worry, you can't really see them.

Then we placed the newly padded top onto the sawhorse legs! I am now the official owner of a fully functional print table!

That looks a little like an imperial walker.

Right?!

These cocktails were called "the bee's knees!" They tasted just like summer. It was uncanny.

Out for a quick celebratory dinner at Lula... and then back to the studio, batman! We have printing to do!

I love pinning...

The first print:

Ok, so clearly I get a little nervous and carried away there what with the million passes... but yay! Happy First Print in the Burrow! Huzzah!

Now back to business...

Some seriously Nora-style printing. At least one of those Elisabeth took off her body to print.

The Burrow Studio Productions

2010-08-14T11:20:00.014-04:00

Before I start this announcement-filled entry, I just want to take a moment to celebrate the fact that this is my 100th entry! Yay! Happy Birthday, blog! And it only took me 2+ years. Ok, onto the news.

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I never thought I would be the kind of person who moves around a lot, but I can't seem to help it. Last week I listed my 10th address on Netflix. It's a little unsettling (unsettled? Pun intended) to repack the same boxes every June and spend the summer months traveling only to find myself homeless every August.

This summer, the only difference was one of scale: instead of moving across town, I moved half-way across the country. And now I'm a resident of Chicago, IL. So why did I move away from all my lovely friends in Philadelphia? Love, Life, Friends and Itchy Feet. And while it was sad to leave Philly and scary to land in Chicago I keep having to remind myself that every move I've ever made has been worth it. Change can be terrifying but with it comes new possibilities. And I want to be the kind of person who gambles big.

So at the end of my summer frivolities I loaded my truck and headed west!

Yeah, I packed it pretty tight.

A very angry Ripley was my road-buddy!

I share my new apartment with Lucy Knisely, the brilliant comic artist and author of the graphic novel French Milk (and other autobiographic comic collections!) It's a beautiful and sunny space on the third floor. We have windows that look out in all 4 directions and because we live on a tree lined steet it's a little like living in a tree-house. One of it's other perks is the ample studio space! (Swooon!)

One of the scariest things about moving to a new city is the prospect of finding a job. Although a few of the teaching jobs I had hoped for look like they will pull through, after a TON of deep contemplation I've made the decision to try to eke out a living by my craft. Eeeeeeeeek! Right? I mean, really scary: there's NO guarantee of income and the studio start-up costs alone are pretty unthinkable! But that's the plan: I'm going to produce a new line of products and sell them via Etsy and local craft stores.

I announced this terrifying prospect to my new studio-mate and, somewhat to my surprise, she immediate exclaimed: "That's great! Let's start a home studio!"

And so, I'm proud to introduce the new collaborative home studio of
Nora Renick Rinehart and Lucy Knisely:

THE BURROW!

The Mascot: Ripley and Linney locked in an eternal tussle.

Like I said: the space is amazing! I've never had so much space to organize my studio supplies (that wasn't also my bedroom. Actually, with a studio space for most of my stuff my bedroom is pretty sparse.)

Lucy working in her studio nook.

The room is built with two sizable nooks, each with windows and lights, with enough floor space for a work table and a large closet for supply storage.

Thread! Beautiful beautiful thread...

Swoooon.... I had a blast organizing all of my supplies!

Unpacking all my familiar desk stuff...

...decorating the studio with Lucy...

I'm a little addicted to collecting paint samples. I may have spread the addiction to Lucy.

...and integrating our two felines into the space!

This photo is IN NO WAY indicative of how they get along: there's usually quite a bit more hissing involved.

They certainly do look good in the space, though!

I'd call it more of a brownish gold.

And to top off all of this wonderfulness? The west-facing window by my desk has an amazing view of the sunset. So much swoon!

This week has been a lot of unpacking, cleaning and getting organized; but there's no time to dawdle! If I'm gonna make a living at this, I've gotta get to making stuff. The first wave of supplies is ordered so next week: print tables, prototypes and photography. Stick around!

Snow Farm 2010!

2010-07-25T22:49:00.036-04:00

This summer marked my fourth year teaching at Snow Farm Summer Art Program for high-schoolers! And it was awesome as per usual!

(This is a stuffed dino-dude I made for a staff collaboration that was never completed. Which was fine by me because this guy got to hang out in my studio all session!)

My studio assistant of years past was unable to return to camp due to getting a job running costumes on the set of Conan the Barbarian in Bulgaria (seriously). So I called in my good friend Liz to fill the position:

(Shown here holding her "worlds best liz" trophy made by artist Heather Beck.)

Liz is a spectacular fibers artist and textile designer as well as being an absolutely splendid person to teach with! We started the session with dyeing and shibori:

(MX Chemical dyes and Indigo! Check out those sweet Arashi style, Indigo dyed t-shirts there on the end!)

I've taught this class four times now but this summer really made it clear that I have to think of a new assignment for the dyeing/shibori. I've been having students make samples, which is something I love to do, but they seem to have a hard time connecting the tiny pieces of brightly colored cloth with the rest of their projects: they're just not that excited about them. I'm always left with a ton of abandoned samples at the end of the session. I've been working on some ideas for how to make the first few days of dyeing fun. Part of me wants to have them do a whole new assignment that would tie into the screen printing... or maybe just having them jump in and start by dyeing a t-shirt... I'll keep brainstorming for next summer.

After the dyeing we moved onto screen printing!

(Miriam helping Lauren print her print exchange image: lace!)

When I was in college I always wanted to participate in the print making department's print exchanges but they seemed skeptical because I was printing fabric instead of paper. But print exchanges are awesome! So I have my students participate in our own exchange.

(Caleb and Simon printing Caleb's Dali image.)

The assignment is to design an image to fit inside an 8" x 8" space and to print a set of those images onto dyed fabric squares measuring 10" x 10". I try to get the students to think about color, contrast, use of space, images/symbolism, text and directionality. The hope is that making a set will be enough practice with printing and registering that they will be able to print however much they'd like to for their final project.

(Caleb, Lucie and Joni exchanging prints.)

We had a pretty good critique about the images in both my morning and afternoon class. The students, although a bit hesitant at first to talk about eachother's work, had some pretty insightful comments. Critique is something I struggle with at Snow Farm: there is so much work to do and not a lot of time for discussion. As my syllabus evolves it is another thing I'm going to designate time for.

(Many of the prints as they were hung in the end-of-session gallery.)

The third and final project of the session is the flat-patterning and sewing of a three dimensional object or garment. Early in the first week of class we take a field trip to the local (HUGE) Salvation Army so that each student can start thinking about their final project. Then, they learn how to take their garment/object apart, lay it flat to create a pattern and then recreate the garment/object out of their own dyed and printed fabric. In the process, they also learn how to operate a sewing machine and sew a variety of seams and hems.

(Liz with her deconstructed garment.)

This summer we had a couple of dresses, a few skirts, a painterly corset, a pair of dapper vests and an extremely awesome handbag! I'd like to see more students choose to make objects instead of garments but whatareyagonnado.

(Joni was clever enough to pick a simple garment. Which meant that she, unlike some of the rest of us, had ample time to complete her project. Nice work, Joni!)

This is definitely the most challenging project of the session and it's a project that I think needs to either be altered a little or made the main focus of the class. I like doing the print exchange a lot but I realized this year that as that assignment has come into it's own more, the garment construction has lost a little bit of time. Which ends up meaning that many students don't have enough time to finish their projects.... which is a bummer. Next summer I hope to have a set of assignments that fit better into the two week period.

(World's Best Liz demonstrating the Map Project.)

I love fiber art for a lot of reasons but one of the biggest is that it inherently carries with it history, culture and the weight of global economies. For that reason, I try to infuse my classes with discussions about textile history as well as the ramifications of a fashion-based culture that treats cloth as something that comes from H&M and can be disposed of as soon as the season changes. Which is false! Cloth goes through so many process to get from the plant or animal to the clothes we buy for super cheap and there are hundreds of individuals and environmentally detrimental steps in between!

Last year I started a project to initiate conversation along these lines: I bought a huge world map and, at the beginning of class, had each student place a pin into the country that produced the garments they were wearing.

(The morning class "mapping their clothes:" Ronni, Sarah, Rachael, Miriam, Lauren.)

The project helps to remind us that the things we take for granted come from somewhere real. It also acts as a great geography review: I have to admit that even I had to google a couple of the countries/regions that produced our clothes! But seriously... highschoolers should know where Nicaragua is. (They do now: lots of pins in Central America.)

(Not so many pins in the US.. but thanks to American Apparel we got a bunch sticking out of LA.)

I love teaching... but I also really love the all-camp field trip! This summer we went to local glass artist Josh Simpson's studio:

... and then we went to MassMOCA which is one of my favorite art museums ever!

From the Material World: Sculpture to Environment exhibit:

Tobias Putrih, Re-projection: Hoosac, 2010.

Orly Genger, Bog Boss, 2009-2010

Michael Beutler, Lightning Generation, 2010
(Actually... a detail shot of the piece next to the window. I really liked how the textures of the sculpture and the space related to one another.)

Alyson Shotz, The Geometry of Light, 2010

MassMOCA is semi-permanent home to the largest collection of Sol Lewitt wall drawings in the world! They installed it last year in it's own wing of the spacious museum:

It's pretty amazing. If you get a chance: go!

Back at camp... Snow Farm theme nights are some of the best. This year? Pirates!

(Arrrrrgh, mateys!)

(So goooooood.)

(The piratey staff of first session, 2010.)

(Arrrrrrt camp? Pirate camp!)

And as always, the end of the session brought on a flurry of last minute staff screen printing! It's secretly my favorite part of the session: staff members bring clothes to print on and we have a farmhouse printing party all night long! I think we counted around 40 printed garments in one night this year!

(Me, Rumi and an armload of t-shirts.)

I am so lucky to have found such an amazing place to return to every summer and reconnect with smart, funny, supportive artists. I have a lot of friends in my life in the city(ies) but for some reason spending two weeks in the woods with the Snow Farm staff recharges my battery: I leave feeling motivated and excited and capable. Which is sooo important to me seeing as, for some reason, I also always seem to leave Snow Farm in some state of homelessness. This year, having just moved to Chicago and feeling a little nervous about it, Snow Farm was especially reassuring. It felt like home. :0)

Thanks, Snow Farm, for another amazing summer!

Employed! A 24 Hr Project

2010-06-20T09:05:00.001-04:00

One week after moving to Chicago, I managed to land myself an art show! Thanks to my cousin's amazing girlfriend, and my new friend, Tory, I was invited to participate in a 24 hr project with opening to follow. Each participating artist was to bring all materials necessary to make work to a warehouse space near Chinatown and all work created during the night would be hung in the Nichole Villeneuve Gallery.

What I managed to miss by not reading the fine print of the waiver was that the artists were also responsible for providing tables and chairs. Oops.. good thing I found that chair lying around or it would have been a really long night. You know.. even longer than it was already.

The space was huge and beautiful. Apparently, this particular warehouse used to be owned by Al Capone. It was handily located right on the river... good for dumping bodies? Rumor has it that the basement and freight elevators are haunted! But we saw no evidence of it during our night there.

There were all sorts of artists: painters, sculptors, installation artists, and me: fibers

One of my goals for moving to Chicago was to get back into the studio in a really serious, conceptual way. For the past few years I feel like I've really only been touching upon projects- starting things without finishing them... not really taking the time to think things/concepts all the way through. I haven't, however, lost my crazy thirst for historical details: my most recent research topic has been FDR, the New Deal and the Great Depression. In keeping with that theme, here was the proposal I submitted to the curators of this show:

FDR’s New Deal programs and the American experiences during the Great Depression seem to me to be particularly enlightening in the context of the contemporary “Great Recession” and the global financial crisis. During the 24hr project, “Employed,” I plan on exploring the relationships between the Great Depression and the Great Recession through fibers techniques such as scrap quilting and embroidery: both techniques popularized by the necessary frugality of the hard times of the 1930’s. By utilizing text and images I hope to create a series of compositions that can act individually or as a series.

My research included everything from listening to FDR's fireside chats from the 1930's to reading Paul Krugman articles comparing the economics of the two time periods. But what I found most compelling were the hundreds of posters designed and printed by the Works Progress Administration between 1932 and 1943.

The WPA was the primary institution responsible for getting people back to work during the great depression. They did so by initiating thousands of community improvement projects across the US. Many of these were infostructure building: road construction, bridge construction, etc. But many of them were cultural. The WPA organized and provided funding for murals, musical concert, theater... anything you can think of. And their posters advertised them.

I especially loved the WPA posters that focused on the idea of the importance of work, itself.

I mean... first of all, way to glorify the working class. It just doesn't happen that often. But also, it's so true that being unemployed in a country that idolizes productivity is the difinitive road to depression. No wonder the Great Depression was so totally soul crushing, right?

Uhm, amazing poster much? Totes.

This next one was my favorite. It seemed to bring together all of my research with my personal situation of being an unemployed and unconfident artist with the title of the show, "Employed," with my research of both the past and the present.

What these posters really drove home to me was that the WPA wasn't only battling an economic depression... it was trying to assuage an emotional depression that was affecting the entire American population. Spirits had been hit so hard that fixing one was impossible without fixing the other. This was one of the main differences between the Great Depression and the Great Recession that I chose to focus my work on: it seems like now, although times are tough, the American population has kept from sliding headfirst into an emotional pit. Consumerism (apparently the best way to guage people's spirits) is still fairly up. Apple is still releasing ridiculously priced sci-fi products and people are racing to get their hands on them. NPR is still featuring stories of individuals who, after being unceremoniously fired from their boring office jobs, took the "opportunity" to change careers- to become self employed or follow dreams they had never thought were possible.

See? Optimism! And Hence: a flourishing indy crafts movement. The contemporary independent crafts movement combines the comfort seeking nostalgia of handmade objects with the anti-establishment mentality of an unpopular war and the rampant excuse for capitalism that Americans feel is their constitutional right. (Okay, clearly my feelings about the crafts movement are many and varied. And I am admittedly a part of it... but for this project it serves as a complicated muse.)

For my work for the "Employed" show I decided to combine fabrics common to the indy craft movement with images and techniques from the Great Depression.

To me, the forthcoming pieces are a sort of hilarious paradox of domestic memorials (handmade objects that hang in the home) with the mass-produced popular fabric styles and the incongruous images from the WPA posters. Were these posters ever meant to hang in the home? Probably not. But now they can be remembered for the place they hold in America's heart. (I mean, everybody knows this history, right? Ha. Hence my point.)

I chose to leave the images empty for a few reasons: first, because I forgot how god-awful long it takes to embroider anything. I had planned to make maybe six of these compositions but I barely finished three. And second, because I really liked the visual competition of the fabric patterns and the images; like the past and the present were battling to be seen.

Ok, so it's clearly not a finished body of work. But I think there's potential here. I would love to continue the project and make a whole hell of a lot of these guys. I would LOVE any feedback that people have on these, too. Please? Criticism welcome? I need to get back into critique mode.. I've been a bit coddled lately. (Mostly by myself.) Bring it on.

So, a final word on the show experience:

Now, I've done 24 hr projects before... and not with the best success or enjoyment. But the difference between the show I did when I first moved to Philly and this one was that in this case we weren't trying to create collaborative work. When you're relying on other people- people you may not even know- to create a piece that will have your name on it... tensions tend to run very high in the middle of the night. Nichole's show allowed the artists to only feel responsible for their own work... which meant that the rest of the artists involved could be respite and community. I feel like I got to know a bunch of people in the area and see into their creative processes a little bit. It was really awesome.

I thinking Chicago's gonna work out, and I'm really excited to get involved with the art scene here. Too bad i'm leaving for a month in.. like 45 min. I guess I'll try to pick up with this project when I get back in July! In the meantime, stay tuned to the blog for Snow Farm 2010! A week with my amazing nephews! And trying to drive fast enough to escape my personal demons! (Wish me luck. Also safety.)

First Story: Paula Wilson at the Fabric Workshop and Museum

2010-06-07T01:00:00.000-04:00

It turns out I took a lot of photos during my 2+ month stint at the Fabric Workshop and Museum... but going through those photos now, almost a month after finishing the project, it's amazing to watch the transformations: basic, monotone, industrial felt was magically transformed into architecture... canvas and tempura paint became a cityscape. Here are (kind of a lot of) photos from the studio:

Industrial felt...

Jenna Eagan and I sewed this cornice the very first week we were here. It was only a taste of the giant-ass sewing to come.

Canvas and burlap.

We sent the drop to Paula in New Mexico so she could paint it. Here it is installed on an ingenious contraption made of plumbers pipe with snaps! SNAPS! On PIPES! These are the big leagues, my friends.

Sample #1, sample #2, photo, sketch...

Et Voila! Pretty grate...

Craft felt with a wire frame stuffed with polyfill and sewn on the industrial very carefully...

I like to think of this pillar as the Logan's Run Pillar... doesn't it just look like some overgrown stone garden? Somehow it's a vaguely sci-fi simulacra...

...love...

Fruit! We patterned a ton of fruit: pineapple, lemons, apples, grapes, pears, star-fruit...

Tiernan made these gorgeous braids for the cornices..

That's right: Butt cornices. (In process..)

Elisabeth is a Butt Cornice mastermind...

Fruity Butt Cornice? There was no end of the fun we had with this.

Installed by Elisabeth Roskos.

Pigeons!!
Monoprinted on silk, canvas and industrial felt.

(Attack of the giant pigeon!)

If you get a chance to go to the show (which clearly you should) see how many pigeons you can count throughout the gallery! So many pigeons...

Since light plays such a huge role in Paula's work another fantastic element to the FWM show was this sign- originally a real estate sign- collaged with scraps of silk organza. I love the relationship between the light coming in the real window and the light- also the shapes: the circle of the window and the circle of the moon. Even though I had never made this connection before, the architecture itself ends up being a reference to nature.

And when you turned around to view the other side of the sign, you make another visual connection between the moon in the sign and the sun-like circle in the stained-glass window. Beauty!

Each leaf and flower was made out of craft felt, industrial felt and stuffing...

and made into a decorative cornice- then combined with the stained glass window panels made of layers of silk organza.

Paula silk-screened her drawings onto lots of different shades of organza, then trimmed, layered and stitched together on a regular house-hold sewing machine.

The base is made out of quarter inch industrial felt and then painted gray to mimic cement or marble.

The windows were then sewn in by master seamtress and studio head Andrea Landau (assisted by myself and Jenna Eagan-shown here- and Tiernan- shown below.)

Serious seamstress street cred, man. For realz.

The window was then installed in the gallery on a plumbers pipe and connected to an amazingly beautiful hand sewn brick wall. I wish I had a close-up of the pipe tube which I engineered and constructed out of felt! It was kind of awesome.

Installed with another wall- monoprinted on canvas- with a black fabric grate. Wheat-pasted directly onto the wall is a collection of posters and drawings. The space itself was part of the inspiration that determined the work so I love how the posters connected the fabric walls we made in the studio and the brick wall of the gallery.

Mono and silk screened burlap curtains- painted and embellished- hung between collaged pillars. (Did you catch the hidden pigeons on the floor there? Yay!)

The show blends together installation and prints, tiny hand-stitched detail and overwhelming proportions. Paula Wilson's vision is an experience that deserves to be seen by everyone. Go See It! (It's up now and will be viewable at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philly until the fall.) And feel free to let me know what you think!

Paula Wilson

2010-06-01T10:25:00.001-04:00

My time at the fabric workshop was an amazing experience. Artist Paula Wilson was inspired, driven, trusting and supportive throughout the two month period! Before I put up the many MANY photos that I have from the studio, here are some images of the work she made prior to her collaboration with the Fabric Workshop. I loved seeing these pieces, some of which were even hung in the gallery at FWM: I think it's difficult for some artists to traverse a range of medias and to stretch into unfamiliar materials but Paula successfully translated her previous works into fabric.

For example, here's a drawing of a stained glass window:

Tomorrow's Tomorrow
50 x 50 inches, Oil, spray paint, collaged/inlayed paper including woodblock prints mounted on paper, 2008

You'll see in the Fabric Workshop installation how beautifully the idea of the stained glass window was transformed into an actual "stained glass" window. Beautiful! Other motifs include nature vs city, butts, vases and vessels, water, and self portraiture.

Narcissus
95 x 50 inches, Oil, spray paint, collaged/inlayed paper including woodblock prints on paper mounted, 2007

Sight Seeing
7 3/4 x 6 3/4 x 1 1/4 inches, Collaged oil on paper with mahogany wood support, 2008

Remodeled
19 1/2 x 25 3/4 inches, Relief woodcut, offset lithography and silkscreen with collaged elements and handcoloring, 2007

Last Summer Remixed
1 29.5 x 21.25 inches, Ink on etching, 2008

Last Summer
19 1/2 x 25 3/4 inches (image size), Etching, silkscreen and handcoloring, 2007

To see more images of Paula's work- and to read some of her writing/ some writing about her- here are some links!

http://oneartworld.com/artists/P/Paula+Wilson.html
http://www.bellwethergallery.com/artistsindex_01.cfm?fid=440&gal=1
http://www.bellwethergallery.com/images/artwork/ArtForumJan2009.jpg

Magic Ginny Weasley Socks

2010-05-17T07:52:00.008-04:00

(I started knitting these socks in, like, November. Bad, Nora, for not finishing them sooner.)

In the interest of transporting as few UFOs (unfinished objects) half way across the country, I manged to find the little bit of time over the weekend that I needed to finish my languishing Magic socks! Why are they magic, you ask? Well I'll tell you. They are magic for oh so many reasons.

Reason 1: Harry Potter Sock Yarn!

The company Opal, who's known for making brightly colored, self-striping sock yarns, put out a line of Harry Potter color ways a couple of years ago. They're kind of pricey ($18/ball!) so I had put off buying one for a long time. But in the end, let's be honest, I'm a sucker for anything knitting AND Harry Potter related. (The line is no longer being manufactured but you- and by you I mean I- might still be able to find some at local yarn stores.) I chose the colorway for Ron Weasley but I'm choosing to think of these socks as Ginny Weasley socks because, hey, she's way hotter than Ron.Reason 2: Self Striping Sock Yarn!

It was my first time knitting with self-striping yarn. The pre-measured and dyed colors allow the pattern to emerge with no effort by the knitter! (Don't think about it too hard- I just trust that the Opal company knows what they're doing. And they do.) Magic!

Reason 3: The Magic loop!
That's right: I knit these socks AT THE SAME TIME on ONE PAIR of circular needles. SOOO COOOL.

It's a little confusing at first, but once you get into the rhythm of it- and learn to mark which sock you started on originally so you're always knitting the same number of rows of each- it's pretty simple. It's great for people who have a tendency to knit one sock and somehow never get around to knitting the second. (Ooops.) Also, it's handy because you're not gotta accidentally use more than half of your yarn on the first sock, run out before finishing your second and not be able to find more. (Ooops, again...)
Reason 4: Toe Grafting!

Yeah, that sounds a little dirty, doesn't it? Anyway, grafting (also known as the Kirchner Stitch) is a method of casting of that creates a new line of knitting which is indistinguishable from the rest of the rows. Hence: magic!

So FINALLY- after months of these socks sitting around my house mocking me for not working on them.. they're done! And awesome! I can't wait to wear them around the house in my first cold cold Chicago winter.

Love the Fabric Workshop. Love it.

2010-04-30T22:26:00.001-04:00

Finally! Finally I've managed to land myself a job at the fabric workshop! I've been trying to get my foot into that door since graduating! And it's amaaaazing! I was brought in March to work as a seamstress on a two-month project with New Mexico artist, Paula Wilson.

(We took over an ENTIRE floor to work on this project with Paula.)

The absolute amazingness of the fabric workshop was immediate. I love working at Viv Pickle but there's something so rewarding about working in an environment that utilizes your creativity: on my first day in the studio I was asked my opinion on fabrics and colors, trusted to make intricate samples and integrated fully into the project.

(Me sewing a giant brick wall/curtain on as absolute BEAST of an industrial.)

It's been almost two months since I started working there two days a week. Now I'm there four days a week... even some late nights and weekends. The work is challenging (I've spent hours brainstorming archival engineering with a master printer and the project manager), physically exhausting (today I spent over an hour sewing an 11ft piece of felt into a decorative architectural cornice), and totally starstrucky! The fabric workshop and museum archives are FULL of yardage by artists like Felix Gonzalez Torres and boxes labeled Laurie Anderson. Not to mention I totally shook Nick Cave's hand two weeks ago. Ack! SERIOUSLY. The Fabric Workshop has worked with soooo many amazing and famous artists!

(Louise Bourgois! Swoooooon!)

The opening is RAPIDLY approaching (May 7th! One week!) and I only love working there more and more! I'll get some more photos of us working in the studio over the next week!

Be My Valentine, FiberArts Magazine!

2010-04-26T22:11:00.000-04:00

At the very last minute I sent off one of my knit postcards to the annual FiberArts Magazine fiber postcard valentine competition. It didn't win any prizes, but it did manage to make it into the April/May issue!

Ok, so every year you send a pre-addressed/stamped hand-made, fibers postcard to the Interweave studio and they mail it back to you via their local post office in Loveland, Colorado... which also means that this was the perfect opportunity for me to test the real world mail-ability of my postcards! (Note the just-in-case $1 stamp. Y'know.. just in case.) But it arrived at the Viv Pickle studio in fine condition! Yay!

Happy Universal Love Day to All! Check out my postcard in the spread:

OOoooooh... sooo exciting! I hope I didn't offend any of those fibers ladies with my roughly knitted language. :0)

You can see all of the entries from the magazine here at the FiberArts magazine website!

Stuff and Things

2010-04-25T22:24:00.002-04:00

Ack! Is it the end of April already? Wtf? Somehow I thought it was still February. Casa Renick Rinehart has been a bit above crazy lately. By which I mean: so much more than crazy that I have been running around all over the east coast and all over the country trying to make some pretty big decisions. For those of you paying attention to my neurosis, you're probably wondering if I'm going to grad school in the fall. Unfortunately, (or maybe not so unfortunate if you're my bank account) it turns out that I will not be going back to school... so, I've bought myself a pick up truck and I'm moving to Chicago instead! Aaand... I'm moving kinda' soon.

Like one month from today.

Aaaah! Soo much to do! What with the logistics and the packing and selling of most of my earthly belongings... (keep an eye out for the porch sale!)

But in the mean time I've been keeping the busiest ever! I've been doing some free-lance t-shirt printing, some last minute quilting, and- super exciting- I've started working a few days a week at the Fabric Workshop and Museum! (OOoooooooh... yessss. I've been trying to get in there for years!)

Anyway, keep an eye on the blog for lots of photos and stories from the past couple of months and current projects!

Fun-a-Day 2010! This Weekend!

2010-02-09T12:03:00.009-05:00

It's that time of year again!

And unlike last year... I actually finished my project AND got it turned in on time! Which, let me tell you, was no small feat. The drop off day was last Saturday and as those of you from the Philly area can attest... we had a bit of snow that day.

So I bundled up my knots and trudged them the three blocks to the drop off site. Snow up to my knees! It was beautiful!

And the project itself came out pretty well too:

Raph let me use her cursive typewriter to type the labels for all the knots (date, fig #, historical name.) And after only a few embarrassing incidents with a can of gold spray paint...

Come on out on Friday or Saturday to see all the amazing projects! There are always SOO many creative collections: the show is always worth coming to West Philly for.

*** in other news!! Because the snow blanketed the city last weekend, the opening event for the Text/Textile Show has been POSTPONED until this Sunday, Feb 14th! Be my Valentine and come see my work! 1-5 pm, 704 Catherine st at the DaVinci Art Alliance.

Text/Textile Show Opening This Weekend!

2010-02-03T20:34:00.009-05:00

Come and see my art in a local textile show! Here's all the information for the opening:

"This exhibit at Da Vinci Art Alliance aims to complement various citywide exhibits happening in conjunction with Philagrafika 2010, a multi-sited international festival of contemporary art (www. Philagrafika.org). Participating artists for "TEXT/TEXTILE" were encouraged to think text, grid, language, words, script, graphics; and think texture, technique, tradition, innovation!!!

As curator, I want to represent what is happening in Philadelphia's own studios w/in the context of this specific challenge: text/textile. Studio artists, teaching artists, student artists, professional artisans, and exquisite crafters... all inclined to find & create a link with the concept/context of text/textile were invited to submit work, from which I chose select pieces, for this salon-style exhibition."

I decided to submit my knit postcards to the Text/Textile show:

And although presentation/installation is, ahem, NOT my strong point... I am lucky enough to be surrounded by other, talented artists to help me out. (Even at the last minute... thank goodness for overnight shipping.)

Eileen made me crazy amazing little individual shelves for the cards! They're made of masonite cut by the magical laser machine at SAIC.

(They smelled of wood fires and looked like mission-style furniture!) They were PERFECT and I can't wait to see how the cards look hung in the gallery. Thanks, Eileen!

The show looks super interesting: I can't wait to see all the art installed. Also, Philagraphika looks amazing!! If you're in the Philly area, or planning on visiting any time in the next THREE MONTHS you should check out some of the million and a half events going on around the city! Overwhelming calendar of awesome events! There's even an exhibition by one of my absolute favorite artists, Lisa Anne Auerbach!! Although I've been inspired by her knit pieces for years, the piece she has set up here is print-based. Oooooh, I can't wait to check it out!

Soo... yeah! if you're in Philly on Sunday, and the snow doesn't bury you in too deeply, come and see me at the opening! (Opening is from 1-5pm, I'll probably be there between 2 and 4pm.)

The Pie Diaries: Month 5

2010-01-31T16:26:00.000-05:00

January: Time Travel Pie

(aka Creme de Menthe Pie)

In honor of the beginning of the last season of LOST, I present pie from a bygone era. Creme de Menthe makes me think of 1950's holiday cocktail parties and a time when it was totally acceptable to make an entire desert out of other, pre-packaged desserts. The alcohol content, albeit more symbolic than anything else, evokes a bit of a desperate housewife image. Also, it's green. YES! And although the time tumbling cast of LOST only spent a hot second in the 50's... hell, why not! (Thanks to Brece for the recipe!)

16-18 chocolate oreo cookies, (my aunt used 24 for a 10" pie plate)

1/3 c. melted oleo

26 large marshmallows

1/2 c. milk

1/4 c. green creme de menthe

1 c. whipping cream, whipped and unsweetened (believe me you do not need any more sugar!)

2 squares chocolate

Crush cookies to fine crumbs (blender). add melted oleo and mix well. shape into pie pan and chill. mix marshmallows and milk in top of double boiler. stir over low heat until marshmallows have melted. cool to room temperature. add creme de menthe. fold into whipped heavy cream. spoon into pie shell and chill. garnish with grated chocolate and remaining additional heavy cream and/or fresh mint leaves.

(*Oleo?? Clearly I didn't use Oleo. I used Earth Balance. Which is like Oleo but fully endorsed by the Whole Foods Generation. Seemed to work just fine as a replacement.)

Apparently Lee owns a blender! (Which would have come in really handy that time I tried to make a ginger-snap crust a few months ago and ended up making the most pathetic mortar and pestle out of a titanium thermos and a metal bowl. Not even kidding. It wasn't pretty. Or quiet.) The blender crushed those oreos with ease, though, so the crust was completed without insult or injury.

Who doesn't love a good double boiler? It took a while to heat up (mostly because the only other pot i own is a huge soup pot...) but the marshmallows melted quickly and evenly once the water was finally boiling.

Oh man... adding the Creme de Menthe was like adding alcoholic food coloring! I have no idea what kind of drinks you'd make with Creme de Menthe... but that stuff is STRONG! (The color, that is, not the alcohol...) I imagine you have to mix it with a bunch of stuff to dilute it enough to be safe for drinking.

I topped the pie, fittingly enough, with shavings from an individually pre-packaged, mini hershey's chocolate bar after letting the pie chill for several hours in the fridge. And, when served, it was delicious. No seriously. DELICIOUS! I mean, how could it NOT be when it's main ingredients are Oreos, marshmallows, alcohol and sugar?? But, astoundingly, the pie was even better than the sum of the delicious delicious parts. LOST club gave it a unanimous A+ rating, with some members risking missing important scenes to serve themselves seconds! I HIGHLY recommend this recipe to anyone who enjoys the mint/chocolate combination and wooing their friends.

Success!

Thoughts On Knots

2010-01-26T19:08:00.000-05:00

"Down through the ages the tying of knots and the making of rope have played highly important roles in the life of Man. That there has always been a need for rope or cord of some kind can be readily appreciated. Since rope could have served but few useful purposes unless it could have been attached in some manner to the things it was desired to pull, life, or secure, Man, at the time of his first conception of the use of rope, must have conceived of some means of tying knots."

Thus begins the introduction of Raoul Graumont and John Hensel's Encyclopedia of Knots and Fancy Rope Work: Fourth Edition (1942). And although the history given in their brief preface is entirely dated, some interesting tidbits were intriguing enough to be worth repeating here.

The Making of Rope! (as of 1942, remember... Mostly, I just loved the old-school, industrial photos that the book posited as "how to make rope" as if it were the only way.)

Step one: Bales of fiber are put through a series of carding machines that transform the "hemp" into a consistency referred to as "silver.")

Step two: Through multiple cardings, the "silvers" are separated into smaller strands and those strands are spun into yarn.

Step three: Individual strands of yarn (of differing, specific guages) are plied together to make rope.

Step four: Multi-stranded ropes are again plied to create thicker, stronger, finished ropes.

Step Five: Uhm.. this diagram shows more plying? The photos aren't actually labeled all that clearly...

Step six: Finished ropes are wound onto spools to maintain their twist and tensions.

Knots: Symbolism and Superstition

I have found, through my informal investigations of history and myth, that objects with the most important functionalities are often associated with the most powerful symbolisms and superstitions: a correlation that is exemplified perfectly by the history of knots.

One example of this is the Early Egyptian, Greek and Roman practice of omitting knots in any of their artistic renderings. No knot was illustrated in their paintings, even where they very clearly should have been. Instead, rope was draped over the spot to indicate the existence of an absent knot. It's theorized that the reasoning behind this tradition was the supposed relationship of rendering to reality: were the knots to be permanently embodied in art the knot it represented in real life would thusly be permanently tied. Since knots were used as temporary holdings for farmers, sailors, etc. the inability to untie a knot would have disasterous consequences.

Similarly, among the Lapps, certain Germanic races, and the aboriginals of Borneo (as well as other ancient peoples) there was a strong superstition against pregnant women wearing knots or knotted garments. It was thought that the presence of a knot would cause complications during childbirth. In the more superstitious cases, even the husbands of pregnant women would abdicate the wearing of knots until the child was born. In some sections of Scandinavia even use of words related to knots were seen as having great power: parents with a large number of children would often name a son "Knute" or "Canute" (translations of "knot") in the hopes that the name would act as a form of birth control.

Among some European tribes, there was a belief that knots had the ability to either cause or cure illness. One such superstition was that a fever could be cured by tying knots in the bows of a willow tree: one knot for every day of fever. Then by the incantation of certain words the tree would acquire the fever and the patient would be cured.

Witches and Wizards were often considered to be able to control the magical powers of knots. Sailors would go to a witch or wizard to purchase "the wind tied up in knots," embodied by a piece of rope tied into three knots. In an emergency, these sailors were told that by untying the knots in sequence they could release the winds: first a strong wind, then a gale and finally a hurricane. (Apparently, there were risks that came along with the use of such powerful magic.)

Knots have also led to numerous common words and phrases, such as "cutting the Gordian Knot" (a bold and direct way of dealing with a complicated project), knots per hour (the method of measuring boat speed- actually derived from the use of knots) and the literary term "denoument" (a french translation of unknotting or unravelling that refers to the point in a plot where complicated things become clear).

Oh man.. I could go on and on. There are infinite applications for knots, cultural histories that range the globe and span history, even a whole branch of mathematics that deals with "knot theory." I had no idea that by committing to this project that I would be presented by such a wealth of metaphor... which just proves yet again why i love textile so much: The history of our culture, of humanity, is tied up by textiles. (Pun intended.)

**Sources consulted:

Encyclopedia of Knots and Fancy Rope Work: Fourth Edition (1942), by Raoul Graumont and John Hensel

Rigamaroles & Ragamuffins: Unpicking words we derive from textiles (2007), by Elinor Kapp

wikpedia entry for "knots"

Happy New Years and Merry Fun-A-Day 2010!

2010-01-19T20:51:00.006-05:00

I've been a little busy lately with grad applications (done! now onto the fafsa... grossss) and other crafty stuff but that doesn't mean I've forsaken Fun-A-Day! (<-- Check out some of the other awesome projects-in-progress at the ArtClash website!)

Fun-A-Day 2010: Knot-A-Day!

Over the summer I met a fantastic artist named Debra Folz who had a contagious infatuation with knots. She had brought a great knot dictionary with her to Haystack and we even used one of the knots on our group project. As the summer wound down a bunch of us decided we wanted to carry the project on into the fall... but... let's just say that none of our momentum stood up to the test of our real lives. Ooops! So when Fun-A-Day rolled around, what better than to pick up where we left off in August?

I actually had kind of a hard time finding a good knot dictionary. The Philadelphia Free Library had alarmingly few and none to my liking... and the internet had surprisingly few diagrams that weren't specifically for camping or fishing. So when I was in Providence last weekend I picked up Deb's dictionary- the same one we had perused so enthusiastically over the summer.

Look at the super cool diagrams!! You know how much I love diagrams... mmmm... Each knot has it's own name and the descriptions are pretty hilarious. Get this one:

"Fig. 60: The Two-Strained Wall or Japanese Granny is formed by walling the strands up through each others parts, as illustrated in PLATE 53, Fig. 2. This is the Japanese method of tying a Granny Knot."

Walling the strands up? What does that even mean?? Nuts. But so much fun!

I love the way the knots kind of look like dna couplets...

My plan is to mount and frame each knot so as to accumulate a collection of well labeled knots for the show in February. How nautical, no? Nineteen days down... I'll keep you updated...

The Pie Diaries: Month 4

2009-12-27T17:55:00.010-05:00

December: Cognac Cinnamon Blueberry Pie

As per the request of my family, December's pie continued the apparent tradition of alcoholic pies. (The choice was between the blueberry and a Creme De Menthe pie suggested by my friend Brece, which is sure to be January's pie!) The blueberries were hand picked and frozen by my mother and, working with what we had in the house, I decided to use Cointreau instead of proper cognac which I haven't drunk since having a particular experience one Tuesday evening in London. (Roskos, I'm looking at you. And I totally won that game of Rummy even though I think we lost most of the cards that night.)

(Twinkly liquor.)

As for this month's gluten-free pie crust solution, I used the often fabled, never before seen, store bought gluten free crust.

(Gasp! It's like catching a UNICORN!)

Here's the recipe:

1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust
5 cups blueberries, frozen or fresh
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
1-2 tbsp cognac (Cointreau is nice as well)

Preheat oven to 350*. In a roomy bowl, mix together the blueberries, sufar, flour, cannamon, salt and cognac. Stir until thoroughly combined. Pour in the pie crust, top with the ipper crust and bake at 350* for 45-60 minutes or until the crust is brown and the filling is bubbling over.

Note: Cool overnight for the best setting up, but this pie is juicy. Uding the tiny berries it might set up nicely; with the larger berries it stays pretty saucy, in which case, you might as well cut it after 2 hours when it is still a bit warm and enjoy the delicious juiciness with ice cream!

Prep. time: 40 min
Baking Time: 45-60 min

There was much skepticism in the making of this pie. Firstly, we all had our doubts as to whether or not all five cups of blueberries would even fit into the shell. Next, 1 1/2 cups of sugar seemed an awful lot. Since there was no indication that I should thaw the blueberries, I added the sugar (and the rest of the ingredients) directly into the frozen berries. Well, the sugar was very resistant to being mixed up evenly... I let the mixture sit on top of the heated oven, hoping the rising heat would help everything blend, but eventually I just gave it one last stir and dumped them into the pastry shell. Lo and behold! They all fit. A miracle! Less of a miracle was what happened when I tried to use a second gluten-free pastry shell as a top crust.

(Pie-tastrophy!)

The thing about gluten is that it actually functions like it sounds: as a glue... holding together flour and the other elements of pastries. Sooo... when you take the gluten out, even if you replace it with something similar, the resulting product tends to be a bit, uhm... crumbly? As demonstrated by the above photo. There was NO sculpting the ugly out of that pie. Every time I tried to reconfigure it, the crust simply broke off. I opted to stop trying and stuck it quickly in the oven as-was.

(Galaxy pie!)

It baked down to something at least a little bit prettier. (Thanks, mostly, to my mother's ingenious sprinkling of distracting cinnamon. Kudos, mom!) But, I have to admit that this pie did not live up to my expectations. The frozen crust wasn't all that tasty. As is common with gluten-free products that are primarily made with rice flour, the texture was kind of sandy... gritty, even. I wasn't sure whether it was the overwhelming texture of the crust or if the sugar never really had set in but the even the texture of the fruit filling was a little rough. Delicious, undeniably, but the texture was ultimately distracting. Also, you couldn't really taste the Cointreau at all. Bummer. Ahh well... not every pie can be a perfect success. Better luck next year!

**Anyone have any flavor suggestions, favorite recipes or events to which you would like to request the presence of a pie? Let me know! 2010 is gonna be the year of creative cooking. That... and, y'know, other stuff.

Reflections on Renegade '09

2009-12-17T00:04:00.017-05:00

A few weekends ago I was lucky enough to share a booth at the Renegade Craft Fair in Chicago! The weekend was stupendously cold and surprisingly full of motorcycles (not AT the fair... just between us and the fair...) but totally awesome!

(Us and other vendors setting up in just one of the rooms.)

We could tell almost at once that, for many of the vendors, this is was they did for a living. Their booths were beautifully cohesive- with background curtains and large logos. Our booth.. in contrast... looked more like all three of our studios all exploded enthusiasm:

(Too much stuff? Never!)

It was funny, actually, 'cause it ended up being kind of hard to see us sitting behind that mountain of brightly colored objects. So we had to position ourselves so that we could see customers and then JUMP OUT! at them and try to convince them to buy things.

(photo stolen from the Renegade Flkr of the event!)

(Sexy view from our table. Note the sun pouring in and BLINDING us.)

The fair was held at the Pulaski Field House... somewhere near Wicker Park. The space was great! There were five HUGE rooms, spread out over two floors, full of vendors. It was actually kind of overwhelming. So much of the stuff was really expensive (which didn't stop me from coming home with some choice purchases.) But it was really awesome to see so many people hand-making and selling their wares for the holidays... and even more awesome to see people shopping for them!

(The craft fair in full swing!)

We estimated that over a thousand people walked by our table! (Of that thousand.. somewhere around 200 picked up this one orange wallet I made without buying it. Lame! But hilarious.) Every room was packed! It was awesome.

And, of course, hanging out with friends made the weekend all the more better!

(The gluten-free cupcakes didn't hurt, either.)

As a first craft fair experience, I'm glad I got to participate in one as monumental, and as established, as Renegade. There has been a lot of conversation over the past few years about the nature of the so-called Handmade Nation and it's place in the DIY movement. One of the main goals of these movements is to connect individual artists to buyers while at the same time endowing everyone with the permission that is often deemed necessary for making. It is about the power of the individual and the momentum that is made possible through community. And I was really looking forward to experiencing some of that at Renegade. But I have to admit that I'm not sure I really did.

Perhaps it is the pervasive nature of professional branding (in the style of corporatization) or perhaps it is the competitive nature of sales events but I noticed that, especially on the first day, there seemed to be an unspoken agreement between the vendors to not interact. (Except for the six year old daughter of a vendor in our room who adopted us immediately. She sparkled, we sparkled... it seemed like a good match.) It really wasn't until a few hours before packing up our wares that we even started to interact with the vendors in our immediate vicinity. Ok ok, I guess I can't place all the blame for this separation outside myself; I had as much agency to strike up conversations with other artists as they did with me... but there was this sense that, as professionals, there was a strict customer/vendor relationship that was to be adhered to. And there was no getting around the intense sales mentality. I found myself slipping easily back into the sell-sell-sell mindset as I talked to customers, which is something I have intentionally abandoned since working retail. I very much prefer to use my making as a tool for building connections: sewing needed objects for friends and if possible, trading them for it instead of asking for money. Now, I know Mr. Obama would call me a "rabble rousing anti-capitalist" for such behavior... and most of my friends would point out that I actually love making money and selling stuff but... I don't know. It's just something I think about kind of a lot.

So... in conclusion... although I had a total blast at the craft fair, I don't think I'll be doing another one in the near future. (Unless Lucy and Nellie ask me to 'cause I just can't say no to those ladies.) Instead, I'd rather be part of the conversation: what is the role of the handmade object? What is the role of the hand-making? What does this say and how can we use this momentum to bring people together? Mmm... sounds like a good craft night convo to me.

*** Oh! And on a related note! I have a ton of leftover merch that will be for sale on my etsy after the holidays! I wanted to get them up there in time for Christmas but seeing as I leave for MA tomorrow that doesn't look too possible. But come January I promise riches of make-up bags, belt bags, wallets, and post-cards galore!

Renegade Craft Fair, Chicago: This Weekend!

2009-12-01T23:59:00.008-05:00

Hey there friends and family- It's that time of year again: the Walmart and Macy's have opened their doors to the thousands of screaming (do they scream?) Black Friday shoppers, "Cyber Monday" sales have been perused, and economists are already calculating the profits. But this holiday season, wouldn't you rather support individual artists by purchasing their handmade goods? Of course you would!! Which is why you should all take the time out of your busy weekends to come to the Renegade Craft Fair in Chicago! Now, I know that some of you will claim that you live "too far" to come all the way to Illinois to buy my pretty things... but that's no excuse. (Well, actually, it's a pretty fair excuse but I'm feeling unforgiving.) So, those of you who are able to make it will have to make up for all of you who can't by buying even more. :0)

"Over 150 of today’s finest indie-craft and contemporary design talents will be setting up shop at the Renegade Craft Fair Holiday Sale on December 5 + 6 from 11am – 7pm at the Pulaski Park Fieldhouse!

Those looking to shop handmade and support small business this holiday season will surely find something for everyone – from jewelry and clothing, to ceramics and stationary, with everything from bath products, housewares, posters, comics and plush objects in between – at this large-scale, free-to-attend art, craft and design extravaganza!!"

See? All of your shopping needs met in one location!

I will be bringing a bevy of beautiful bags in all shapes and sizes: grocery bags, make-up bags, pencil cases, fanny pack (yes, just one), mini zips, hip/belt bags, i-pod cases... you name it, i've sewn a bag you can put it into. And each one made out of super cute printed fabric and durable, hard-wearing cordura. (Or recycled canvas, in the case of the grocery bags.)

(belt bags with birdies, cute little french animals and robots!)

I'll also be selling pre-ribboned sets of my handkit postcards! (Spoiler: there are still a couple of sets up on Etsy in case some of you non-chicagoans want some...)

I'll be sharing a table with the totally amazing fiber artist extraordinaire, Nellie Kurz, and illustrius author and comic artist, Lucy Knisely! Rock stars! And, to top off all of that excitement, I'm happy to announce a collaboration between Lucy and myself: a series of limited edition bags made by your's truly out of printed fabric designed by Lucy!

(When our powers combine...)

So good, right? I bet you have something tiny that you're just dyin' to put into that baby bag...

So come on down to the Pulaski Park Fieldhouse and see us on Saturday or Sunday! Lucy will be doing little watercolor sketches and Nellie and I will do our best to be equally as entertaining, we promise!

The Pie Diaries: Month 3

2009-11-26T12:06:00.014-05:00

October: The Rinehart Family's World Famous Kahlua Pumpkin Pie

Counter-intuitive to the nature of Kahlua pumpkin pie, believe me when I tell you that the members of my family are not big drinkers. Which is why we were all the more confused when, one year, my mother expressed such delight at a Thanksgiving Kahlua recipe book that fell out of the Sunday paper. "Look!" she said, "Kahlua Glazed Turkey! Kahlua Glazed Winter Squash! We could have an entire Kahlua-themed Thanksgiving!" Crickets chirped. The family blinked at her in confusion. Although we managed to talk her down from converting the entire meal, we were adventurous enough to try the Kahlua Pumpkin Pie. (Probably because I was in high school and the allure of alcoholic beverages was still so tantalizing.) The pie a was complete success and has since been an integral part of our Thanksgiving holiday experience! Thus, it seemed an obvious choice for the third installment of The Pie Diaries.

Kahlua Pumpkin Pie

Makes 1 (9") pie
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 40 min

1 (9") pre-baked pie shell
1 cup undiluted evaporated milk
1/2 cup light brown sugar (packed, lump free)
1/4 cup Kahlua
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1-1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs, beaten
1-1/2 cups canned pumpkin
Kahlua cream topping (recipe follows)

Beat milk, sugar, Kahlua, corn syrup, spice and salt together until blended. Stir in eggs and pumpkin until mixture is smooth. Bake pastry shell in hot oven, 450*F, 7 or 8 min, until it begins to brown lightly. Stir filling. Pull the oven rack part way out and slowly pour pumpkin mixture into prepared pie shell. Reduce heat to 325*F, and continue baking until filling is barely set in center, about 40min. Cool pie on wire rack fro 20 min. Serve with kahlua cream topping.

Kahlua cream topping: Beat 1 cup whipping cream with 1 tablespoon each powdered sugar and Kahlua, just until stiff. Turn into serving bowl and drizzle. 1 table Kahlua on top.

Full disclosure: this pie is in no way vegan or gluten free. Had I a little more energy, I would go the extra mile and make a crust but, what with it being vacation and all... I let my mother buy a frozen crust. (*Gasp! I know, I know... but I'm tired!) I have, however, made it vegan in the past. There's a pretty easy evaporated milk conversion using powdered soy milk, and the egg-replacer works fine. The biggest loss when going vegan in the whipped topping- but if you spend the extra $$ to get soy wipped cream you can still drizzle the Kahlua over the top for much the same effect. Also, (*Gasp again!) I'm totally using canned pumpkin. (OH, the shame!!) Apparently my mother didn't bake enough pumpkin to last until Thanksgiving. But seriously! What is a good American Thanksgiving without store-bought crusts, pumpkin from a can and alcohol!? Sounds like a Patriotic Pie to me!

(Plaid on plaid apron experience... A must for the holidays.)

(Pie noir?)

The Kahlua taste in the pie is super super subtle- it's just a little extra sweet- so my favorite part is the whipped cream.... I mean, how can real whipped cream get even better?? By adding alcohol. Clearly.

(My mom and dad- in the foreground- with members of the Wick-Sailor Clan.)

My parents live in a co-housing community in Florence, Mass; right outside of Northhampton. Thanksgivings here can get huge; especially when all 33 families join together. (Sooo much foooood.) This year is a little quieter with only 2 families in attendance. The pie will be my contribution to the feast.

(Feast of pies! Pumpkin, pan-apple, and blueberry!)

Mmmmmm... soo worth all the gluteny goodness! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

My Deep and Undying Affection for Postcards...

2009-11-17T14:51:00.014-05:00

I. Love. Postcards.

I love them. I love sending them, I love receiving them... and there are many, many reasons for my deep affection.

I started sending postcards regularly the first winter I lived in Philadelphia. It started, jokingly, as a way to keep from sending drunk text messages. Instead of getting an incoherent text in the middle of the night, wouldn't a totally illegible postcard be better?! The diagrams alone made them worthwhile... Slowly, I established a pretty good group of postcard pen pals. My summer travels afford me the opportunity to grow those ranks and to start a solid collection of my own...

(One card away from 50! Thanks to everyone who sent me cards!)

So amazing! And all the while, being the good little artist that I am, I was thinking about why I was so enamored with postcards... what about them was so enchanting? I think there's something so... lovingly ambiguous about them. They exist in this hilarious space between public and private- written for one person but open to the world. (Especially postal workers. I keep meaning to ask a postal worker if they read people's postcards...) They are also sort of outdated. We live in a technological era; one of email and text messages and facebook comments.

I was at Haystack when I knit my first postcard. And then I became obsessed.

(Artist Statement:) "The era of love letters has passed. We used to deliberate over affectionate and expressive letters, page after page filled with handwritten expressions of our emotion. But the days of receiving an actual letter, carried to our homes in the hands of a local postal worker are almost completely gone. Today we send text messages- embarrassingly misspelled words in abbreviated sentences- and we think they can successfully communicate complicated emotions.

This series of hand-knit postcards explores the nostalgic nature of mail and the contradiction of the material object with the ambiguous texts they display. The phrases, although easily recognizable as something you might see on a postcard, indicate a slight longing or desperation in a writer who might be veiling their feelings through pithy rhetoric. In the same way that post cards and letters are something of the past, hand knit objects imply a similar sense of tactile nostalgia and emotional devotion. The fact that the post cards were each knit by hand, laboriously stitched to read these words, exposes the writer’s/knitter’s intensity all the while being contradicted by the brevity of the words and the truncated sentiments. "

The objects are hilariously fun.. but, although I haven't tested one out, I have my doubts that the USPS would deliver them... But to deny them the chance to be sent through the mail would be terrible, right? And so...

I had them made into paper postcards.

(oooh, sexy rounded corners!)

Sets of all 6 postcards will for sale at the rapidly upcoming Renegade Craft Show in Chicago! (And then on my etsy account.) Very Exciting.

I'm making more and more stuff for the fair everyday, so all of y'all who live in Chicago, you best be putting that date on your calendars so you can stop by and give me your moneys. I'll trade you amazing things like recycled canvas dropcloth grocery bags and other stuff! And I'm sharing a table with two astounding artists: Lucy Knisley and Nelly Kurz! Come by and say hi!

(I totally stole this AMAZING comic from Lucy's livejournal, so now you all have to go read her super awesome comics! Also, you have no idea how excited I was to be cartoon-ized!!)

The Pie Diaries: Month 2

2009-10-29T11:14:00.012-04:00

Community Apple!

(A Culinary Collaboration)

After eating all 12 of last month's Mini Peach Pies by myself I came to the conclusion that an entire months-worth of pie is simple too much to be eaten by one person. So this month, I decided to open the pie community!

The first stage of October's Apple Pie Experience was the procuring of the apples!

(Amy's nose, myself, Elliot, Dexter, Allison, Sarah.)

Every fall a bunch of my friends go apple and pumpkin picking! It's a great time... a chance to get out of the city and commune with nature. (Uhm.. a sort of super cultivated pseudo-nature, anyway.)

(Me: "how many of those small, screaming children do you think we'll have to beat up to get a seat on that hay-ride?" Dexter: "I dunno, but I bet we can take 'em.")

(Me: "What do you mean these pumpkins didn't actually grow here and that they were driven up and scattered in the pumpkin patch?!? Ali: "Who cares?! Pumpkins!")

So... in theory, apple trees are a great place to get apples. But unfortunately, due to an overly rainy fall, the annual trip embarked a little late in the season and all of the apple trees were completely bare! We spent a good 15-20 min wandering the orchard in hopes of stray, abandoned fruit, but to no avail. Fortunately, there was enough decent fruit on the ground (and at the farm stand) to guarantee pie.

I got a little carried away and ended up with quite the harvest. 1 Pumpkin for baking, 1 pumpkin to carve, an acorn squash, a mini pumpkin for decorative purposes, a butternut squash (yum), and assorted pie apples.

And on to pie! I used a basic filling recipe- 10 C. apples, cinnamon, nutmeg- and to soften the apples and get all the good stuff all mixed up, the recipe suggested heating the apple mixture in a pan until everything was almost mushy. It worked like a charm and made my house smell DELICIOUS. For this month's gluten-free crust experiment, I decided to use this recipe. (Thanks, Carrie Ann, for finally giving me some xantham gum!) It worked pretty well, except that the recipe didn't make quite enough crust to fill the pan AND cover the pie... but I made do ok.

(Yum... but I couldn't eat it quite yet...)

With so much conversation about pie going around since the inception of my year long pie-commitment, my friends Mary and Justin suggested we do a collaboration: I'll make pie and they'll use the ice-cream maker they got as a wedding present to make a complimenting ice cream. (A delicious, delicious collaboration... Anyone wanna get married? I'll do it just for the ice cream maker...) Since this month's pie is apple, they provided the most delicious vanilla-cinnamon ice cream and it was AMAZING.

The pie was pretty darn tasty, although I think if this I use this recipe again I'll add another small apple... more filling would have been nice. And the crust was pretty darn tasty, too! Nice and flaky.. not like the usual gluten-free cardboard consistancy. I do suggest, though, that if you're going to use this recipe add a dash of white sugar and salt for a little extra flavor. Mmmmm...

(Lisa, Mary, Justin, Pie, Ice cream. Mmmm, friendship rules.)

Yay! 2 Months down, 10 months to go.

Fall Projects and Announcements!

2009-10-25T21:15:00.013-04:00

So... in all that free time I've had lately- what with the full time job, a psuedo-social life, and working on my grad school applications- I've somehow also managed to keep up with my crafting! ("Somehow" meaning that this is how I've been procrastinating from doing all that other stuff.) Here's what I've recently finished working on:

Chunky Braided Scarf!

After the craziness that was the knitting at Haystack, I was sincerely looking forward to starting fall with an easy, fairly thoughtless knitting project. So, I grabbed the handspun I had bought at the Maryland Sheep and Wool fest and hit ravelry in search of a super-simple scarf pattern.

The yarn, made by Folktale Fibers in Maryland, was this great combination of cotton and soysilk in brilliant purples and muddy browns. I knew that I probably wouldn't have enough for the entire scarf but, deciding to maintain the integrity of the handspun, I opted to make it a half and half scarf. Also, because the fibers in the original yarn were vegan (not that I am, but, y'know) I decided to hold true to that while choosing my contrastisting finishing yarn. So, the light purple and brown that make up the second half of the scarf are both Blue Sky 100% cotton!

Although the pattern looks complicated to those who aren't used to knitting cables, knitting the scarf was really quite simple. On the first row of cables (3) the cable is knit in front of the work, causing the cables to pull in one direction. The next row (2 cables) is knit in back of the work, causing the cables to pull in the other direction. (Actually, each of the purple and brown stripes are one repeat of the pattern!) When repeated, and knit without a purl border, the work looks like a giant braid. Like challa bread! Remind me to knit up some challa some time.

All cozy and ready for fall! (Any day, now, fall... feel free to get cold any day.)

Spool Swap Quilt!

Since April, I have been participating in a quilt square swap at my local fabric store, Spool! Every month, members of the swap made and exchanged 12 9-blocks measuring 6". Seeing as I already have more than my body weight in tiny Viv Pickle scrap fabric, I decided that I wouldn't buy any new fabric for my squares! So, I only used recycled and salvaged materials. (It meant that some of my squares didn't even really match themselves, which I think made some of the more uptight quilters a little twitchy but, it was an important statement for me to feel like I was making.) We started with an inspiration fabric with the hopes of keeping the fabric selections at least a little cohesive but...

I guess it might not have been such a great choice to pick one of the Kaffe Fasset paperweight collection as inspiration! So many colors! Actually, I loved all the amazing colors and patterns that I was getting every month... and I had a blast laying them out in different arrangements; searching for the perfect chaotic composition. It had seemed obvious to me to put all the colored squares together, medallion style, and work with a border to make up the extra space, but I went through a period of quilt-anxiety after seeing Spools swap quilt. Instead of grey fabric, Laura chose a cream color and bordered each individual square by 2" on all sides. The forthcoming quilt is sooo different from mine! Much cleaner and more proper looking. But... once I was finished I got over my anxiety and really started to love it! (Hopefully we'll get a chance to see how some of the other swap-members decided to design their quilts.)

It's on my bed and Ripley loves sleeping on it as much as I love sleeping under it! Everyone should be so lucky as to have a hand made quilt on their bed. Love love love.

And, because Allison Smith's mom says that you should always sign your quilt somewhere, mine got a signature and date.

Renegade Craft Fair, Chicago 2009!

Ok, so this isn't as much a finished craft as it is a crafting announcement! It is now official: I will be sharing a table at this year's Renegade Craft Fair in Chicago with the illustriate comic artist Lucy Knisely and maker-of-beautiful things, Nellie Kurz! The fair will be held on December 5th and 6th, from 11am- 6pm, in Chicago's Pulaski Park Fieldhouse. I will be selling more of the usual: wallets, belt bags, ipod cases (with belt-loops!), computer cases, and small zippy bags out of a fantastic collection of fabrics. How fantastic, you ask? Well.. here's some of the coool stuff i've collected so far!

Yeah,that's right. That last photo included birds, mermaids, gears, robots, ray-guns AND concession stand snacks! You know you're going to want this year's stuff. Just saying.

I'll also be selling a hilariously ecclectic collection of shrinky-dink buttons and a top secret postcard collection soon to be released.... curious? Yeah, I know you are. I'll send out more information about the craft fair as it gets closer!

Amazing! and busy. Whew! Allright, now I gotta go get some more stuff done. Thanks for reading!

Haystack '09: Part 2

2009-10-04T10:58:00.025-04:00

Haystack has a way of collecting the most interesting teachers, working with the most challenging media. The classes never fail to push the boundaries of their own fields and, in the process, infinitely expand the minds of their students. This summer's 6th session Knitting class fit snugly into that tradition:

Knitting: Wool Equals Bronze/ Time Does Not Equal Money, with artist Janet Morton:

"This workshop will explore hand knitting as a valid and vital sculptural/installation medium and as an alternate means of measuring time. Through a series of slide talks, discussions, and exercises, participants will be encouraged to playfully and critically examine their relationships to the natural world, everyday objects, and equations that link time to “value”. Experimentation with materials, scale, technique, and ideas will be encouraged. Participants will develop personal projects, and will be invited to work collectively on an onsite project."

Members of the class, immediately bound by the desire to eschew the expectations that we would be producing socks and sweaters, dove into assignments that forever altered the way we approach about our craft.

First let me say that working with Janet Morton was an absolute DREAM. As an artist, Janet is incredibly prolific and intelligent... but on a more basic level, she is totally approachable, always ready with a story about "the last time she was in India..." or "that one time I was living in the Canadian Bush planting trees..." I had done a fair amount of research into her work before leaving for the class, but having her there, ready to answer questions and talk about her art/process was hugely enlightening. Each piece I had already fallen in love with ended up being even more epic and smart than I had imagined. And she was fun! Accompanied by her two rambunctious children and her outgoing and comical husband, the whole family brought a feeling of familial whimsy to the studio that was somehow perfectly fitting for a class that was challenging the traditionality that knitting implies.

We started the first day of class with a Never Before Played Surrealist Knitting Game! Here's how to play: The group starts with a large selection of yarns and needles and each participant gets a bag big enough to hide a small project. 1. Cast On! Any wool, any stitch, any number of stitches. After working for 30 min, place your project in the bag and put the bag into the center of the table. Swap bags! 2. Change at least one thing. color, wool, type of stitch, inc or dec, needle size, etc. After another 30 min, swap bags again! 3. Repeat step 2. 4. The fourth collaborator has a whole hour to complete the project and cast off from the needles.

This experiment was a great way to immediately establish that knitting does not always have to be functional, and that even abstracted, bizarre objects can carry as much meaning and importance as a traditional garment. (Maybe even more.) We also learned that knitting takes a long time and a half hour isn't long at all. It was great fun!

Assignment 1: Knit an Object- It's one thing to knit a 3d sock or sweater, but it's another thing entirely to knit... an object... an everyday item that never in the world of normal life be associated with knitting. Each student in the class chose an item to replicate with the option to change it's scale.

My own Sublime Stitching Scissors.

Patty Barnatt's Electrical Cord!

Jennie Caulfield's Tree Bark with Lichen. Amazing replica...

Valerie Shapiro's Nut and Bolt.

Leslie Sudock's Collapsible Cups

Everyone made amazing objects; they're not all here, but some others included wire cutters, a hairbrush, a metal hook with chain, and a couple beautiful seashells. We found that this was an opportunity to knit in a more painterly fashion: less planning, more reacting to color, shape, and size.

Assignment 2: Knit a Word- As an artist who deals a lot with text, I found this assignment especially exciting. So much meaning and association come with the choice of even a single word...

Mine are the giant "personally, " and the tiny "miss you (heart)" postcard at the bottom.

Jeanne Vaccaro's "Cruising Utopia". I believe the "utopia" is handspun.

Assignment 3: Knit a Circle out of Wire- This assignment provided one of the biggest technical challenges of the session. It turns out that knitting a circle is kind of hard. Tubes and hats, fine, but to start with only 3 stitches and then to figure out the right ratio of increases to make a flat plane is downright mathematical. Factor in the use of a totally non-plyable material like copper wire and it verges on downright impossible.

In fact... some people gave up on the flat plane entirely. But what a beautiful outcome!

Assignment 4: Knit a Plastic Enclosure for a Natural Object- Janet provided the class with recycled clear plastic milk bags. (Apparently, Canadians buy their milk in bags. Silly Canadians.) The idea for the assignment was to force the student to deal with the juxtaposition between the human made plastic and the natural world. I had hoped to be able to do a site-specific installation of a knit plastic camping tent for a baby spruce tree, but my TA duties kept me from having the time.

Assignment 5: Giant Knitting Needles

In order to create her giant-sized pieces, Janet has developed these equally giant-sized circular needles! We started with 3/4" wooden dowels and plumbers tube and a few hours of sawing and whittling later, we each had a set with which to work on... drumroll, please...

Assignment 6: Group Project! - We started with a few general ideas: we wanted to create an outdoor, architectural space and the theme of "home and away." Janet had ordered a ton of yarns in the palette of Haystack: natural tones of browns, greens, grays and blues. Trees, moss, clapboard cabins, the sky and the sea. Even without a concrete plan we knew that we were going to need a ton of yardage... so we knit away on our giant needles while we brainstormed.

Let it never be underestimated how difficult a group project can be. To be honest, I think it only gets harder the older we get. Everyone came to the table with different thoughts and worries... some conceptually based and some about logistics. It seemed like we were never going get things figured out: how on earth would we be able to build such a huge structure in just a week? What should it look like? Should there be text? So many things to worry about. But I think our biggest break came when Janet discovered the Deer Isle Dump.

(Brece, Mary Ellen and Janet. All wearing gloves.)

No, really. I said Dump. Janet realized that perhaps the easiest and most appropriate material for the base structure for our piece was Fisherman's Rope... and there was plenty of that to be found at the dump! Unfortunately, the dump smelled absolutely terrible... and so did our new rope collection!

We let the rain and summer sun do most of the cleaning for us. Which actually worked really well...
We took stock of what we had collected by measuring each piece of rope...

Tagging them... and then, because we were all the same kind of nerdy...

Organizing them by color! How very satisfying... With that done, we were ready to start on the architecture.

After getting permission from Haystack's director, Stu, we decided to utilize an unused hexagonal platform as our installation site. The platform had originally been intended as an ampitheater of sorts but, by the time we got there, it was mostly being used as a cell phone station. We thought this might be a better use of the space.

Deb, ultimate fan of knots, looked up the perfect sailors knot to use. It was like macrame-ing a giant lobster pot.

We made sure to keep an entrance (exit?) so that viewers could experience it from the inside as well as the outside. (Also so that we could escape.) And then it was time to combine the knotted structure with the knitted pieces.

(Janet working on attatching my giant-sized version of the Nelly Feather and Fan scarf! Cheers, Nell!)

Utilizing every piece of knitting and stitching them onto the structure with mossy yarn until...

We had created a fully interactive, fully enclosed space. Participants could walk all the way around the fuzzy structure or enter through the door. We all felt it was necessary for the piece to be open and interactive, so we placed a log-seat on the inside and provided giant knitting needles and yarn.

We decided to call the piece I Am From which was the title of a writing excercize we used during the brainstorm and design process. I Am From meant something different to everyone of us that worked on it, but it also represented teamwork. In the face of all the odds- differing opinions, technical logistics and the ever present battle against time- we managed to create something monumental. We surmounted all the obstacles that come with working in a group and created something that we could all revel in. It came from all places: home and away. It was lovely.

Haystack '09: Part 1

2009-10-01T19:00:00.021-04:00

(*Note: Ok, in the interest of keeping blog entries down to a reasonably digestible size, I've decided to cover Haystack in two entries; dedicating an entire entry to the class itself. So... consider this part 1!)

On top of all the other incredible experiences I got to have this summer, the season culminated with a session at Haystack Mountain School of Craft which was, as repetitive as it's starting to sound, totally amazing. Two more weeks of new friends, delicious food and astounding artwork. OH man... and the scenery!

(View from the dining hall.)

Haystack is located on the coast of Deer Isle, Maine; one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. Driving there was so crazy because I started on 95 and the roads just kept getting smaller and smaller. At one point on a two-lane highway some where in the middle of Maine I passed a nut store with a giant wooden squirrel outside it. (I'm not kidding- that thing had to be at least 15ft tall...)

Because the campus is actually on a island, you have to cross 2 causeways to get there: tiny roads with water on either side. Some days the water was right up next to the pavement and the next time you'd drive by it would be so far out that you couldn't even see it. Tides are awesome.

(So is fog!)

The campus itself is composed of absolutely stunning structures. The architect designed the buildings to have as little contact with the ground as possible, so as to allow as much natural wildife as would be found an undisturbed mountainside. Which translates to an interconnected collection of dorms and classrooms that feel like they are constantly floating just above solid ground: like a New England clapboard treehouse!

(View of the dining hall from the deck of the textiles studio.)

(There were more kinds of lichen than I had ever encountered in my life! They grew everywhere- even between the floor boards.)

(Crazy stairs! Turn around for a view of the ocean...)

(Just to the right of the peninsula and straight out to sea!)

(Especially magical at nighttime: the view from outside my dorm.)

The weather was stunning. 75*- 80* during the day- warm enough to demand a daily ocean swim- and mid 40*'s at night! Perfect sleeping weather! Swimming in the ocean was freezing... most days I had to convince myself to get all the way in. But I was determined! I think I only missed 2 or 3 days out of the entire session!

(Myself and Clair at the beach.)

I could go on forever... but I'll try not to. Suffice it to say: fricken' gorgeous. And full of amazing people! Haystack is signifigantly smaller than Penland so the dynamic is a little different. Whereas I made a couple of instantly close and lasting friends at Penland, I met a ton of different people a little bit less intensely well at Haystack. Which isn't to say that I didn't come away with some (hopefully) life-long penpals and art buddies... but I felt like I met MORE people at Haystack even though there were only half as many than Penland.

(Elizabeth, book arts/pin hole photography; Anna, enameling; Joanna, knitting; Sin Nae, enameling. Ice cream on a day trip to.. uhmm... Stonigton? Some tiny Maine sea town on Deer Isle.)

(Joanna again, Jeanne and Brece: all knitting.)

(Anna, myself and Colin, husband of Janet Morton and publically elected Mayor of Haystack. Yes, I am apparently singing into a beer. ps: thanks to whoever took this photo! It is awesome.)

Although I was scholarship student, as a TA, I was lucky enough to not have to work in the kitchen or do other work study jobs. Which meant that I got to spend a little bit more time with the members of my own class.

(The whole knitting class: this photo will make infinitely more sense once you see the artwork, I promise!)

Other fun stuff we did that wasn't class related:

Went to Nervous Nellie's Jams and Jellies: the totally bizarre (but tasty!) curio and jam shop down the road from campus.

(Sin Nae and Elizabeth.)
Lobster Picnic on the rocks by the ocean!

Hot Shop Dance Parties!

Totally undescribably amazing. But the art will knock you dead. So stay tuned!

The Pie Diaries: Month 1

2009-09-27T23:46:00.007-04:00

I have always considered September the month that actually marks the beginning of the new year. Having spent the majority of my Septembers starting a new year of school, I guess my tendency seems pretty natural. Since finishing school, I find September to be a loaded month, even without the beginning of classes to look forward to: it's the month that ushers in my favorite season (fall) and the month I find myself most susceptable to catching a case of Epic Ennui (what is my place in this life? Le sigh...) So it seems fitting that this September be the start of a new and ongoing project; one that, although serious to some, is intended to... shall we say... lighten the mood a bit. (The mood, perhaps, but not my weight.) Thus, I introduce to you:

The Pie Diaries.

The goals: 1. To make a new pie for every month of the year. 2. To collect a group of reliable, tasty recipes for at least 12 different types of pie. 3. To perfect the art of the gluten-free pie crust.

Yummm. Here we go!

September: Peach Mini Pies

I bought the fruit for my first pie at the Clark Park Farmer's Market: New Jersey Peaches; and I decided to use on online recipe (find it here!). Ok, so I know that using online recipes might be a bit lame but... I guess that's part of the project- to amass a collection of reliable recipes. So I wrote it down.

(Super Hot mixing bowl handmade by Adam Conway!)

Now, for me, the trickiest part of pie is the crust. I've been living gluten-free (ha! who am I kidding? Gluten-lite? Low-gluten? Little-to-no-commitment-ability-even-in-the-face-of-killer-stomach-aches?) for about a year now, so I've had a chance to try more than a few gluten-free pie crust recipes. The low-fat, no butter, rice and vegetable oil crust, albeit healthier than any crust has the right to be, is usually pretty good. But... the Fresh Grocer's on 40th didn't have rice flour so my only choice was to buy a Gluten Free Perfect Pie Crust Mix! (Just to check it out... y'know.) It called for 10tbsp of butter AND 10tbsp butter substitute... But man does it taste delicious.

(My kitchen is tiny! I rigged up this space-saving spice situation: 10 layers of magnetic latex primer, green paint to match the dishes and magnetic spice containers from the Container Store! It makes me happy.)

I had everything all mixed up and ready to go when I realized that, in the craziness that surrounds moving I had completely lost track of my pie pan. ??? There are still so many things I keep forgetting we don't have! At least now we have a decent spatula... trying to flip eggs with the Snowflake Shaped spatula was just a joke. Anyway, I had no choice but to make cup-cake sized pies.

Aren't they the cutest little things you ever did see? Amazing. And tasty! The size-to-crust ratio means that the mini pies are mostly crust but seriously, anything with that much butter pretty much has to be delicious.

I declare the first month of The Pie Diaries a success! A tasty, flakey, peachy success... Stay tuned for October... my guess? Kahlua Pumpkin Pie! (I'll make sure to buy a pie pan by then.)