Fabric Findings

Although I work primarily from recycled materials, I do sometimes like to pad out my pieced quilt tops with new fabric--it's especially useful when I'm working a quilt to a theme, such as Batman or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and I'm having trouble finding enough T-shirts to piece an entire top, but it's also valuable in expanding or highlighting a theme, for instance with the dinosaur T-shirt quilt that I'm making the girls, which will consist of large dinosaur T-shirt squares surrounded by frames made of a large variety of printed dinosaur fabric (I hope). To date, I buy fabric almost exclusively from the local Joann's store, but I've got several online fabric store crushes:


Bugfabric.com has the best thematic collections: dinosaurs is obviously my favorite (particularly this one--awesome!), but they also have space/monsters, and lots of penguins and monkeys and dolphins and robots all mixed into the other categories.


eQuilter.com's dinosaur selection is a little more cutesy, but they still have a good selection of "realistic"-looking prints. This one's pretty funky, and I like these big ones, but Willow would quibble that meat-eating and plant-eating dinosaurs never walked around that close together!


This Japanese dino print from one of my favorite etsy shops, sweetflavor, is my favorite of all, I think. The dinosaurs are iconic but also really kid-like.


I've been thinking I could make my Fatty Stegosauruses a little more high-end and pretty eco-friendly by upgrading the batting to something organic or greener. So far I like the idea of this fiberfill from Mountain Mist--it's made out of...corn?

Know more? Share!

Luna Arts Festival, a Summation

I've been non-vocal for an entire week because I've been working like a dog for the Luna Arts Festival, which was yesterday, and which was actually pretty awesome. I'm much more pleased with the display I worked out for the festival--it wasn't professional-looking by any means, but it did look much more put together and appealing. I need a better eye for details, now, and a more polished infrastructure, but I think the dinosaur theme was well-visualized, and the photographs went over especially well.

We just had the one table, which turned out to be only 6 feet long, not the promised 8 feet, so the sign the girls and I made didn't quite fit, and we made the sign a little big for a craft fair taking place along the narrowish hallways of a building, but it's legible, the colors are bright and appealing, and it's a good name, I think. I think a plain tablecloth would have been better, though--the one here is distracting--and it certainly should have reached to the floor in the front. The back of the display is also a little distracting, and if I'd had some clothespins I would have draped fabric over that railing behind the table. I like how the table is pretty uncluttered, however. The solution most crafters at the festival seemed to apply to the very small space was to completely cram their tables up with product--things stacked upon things, and not a bare space in sight. I'm not sure what other shoppers think about that tactic, but I find it really unappealing--it's hard to focus on one thing that I might be interested in, it's hard to find a price or even an identification of what I'm looking at, and it reminds me of a cheap, tacky fleamarket. I absolutely adore craft fairs as a rule, but when Matt sat at the table while I took the girls around, I really didn't see many tables that looked appetizing enough to stop and browse at, and it was pretty much just because of how they looked.

I'm very happy with my fatty stegasaurus display--the signs were a little unstable, but they're nice and clear and attractive, and the stegasauruses themselves had a nice display in that a good selection froliced on the table next to the sign, and the surplus peeped out from the basket behind the signs, and everybody was able to easily sort through them and had enough space to lay them out and really look through them. I sold all but two of these, and I'm thinking that I underpriced them. For the next craft fair, I'm debating $12-$15.

Matt and I worked really, really hard creating this display board from scratch, and although there are several improvements I want to make, I'm quite pleased with it. First of all, I'm going to paint the whole thing, maybe green, which I think will dramatically improve its appearance. I also think we'll build several sets of these, at least one of each of all pegboard or all quilt hangers, which will be nicer for big outdoor booths as I can hang my record bowls vertically and give people better access and immediate selection while using a lot less space, and the same for the quilts. The design is a big improvement, with the accordion style making the display much more stable--I used to make tabletop displays from foamboard for my necklaces, but they were so front-heavy that I had to tape them down to the table and to something really heavy that I had to bring and hide right behind them. The height of the signs is good, since they're big and legible, but their placement looks messy--I'm thinking some Velcro arrangment to hold them neat and stable. I'm also so short that I overestimate how tall everyone else is, and I hung all my pendants way too high. They didn't sell, and the few people who really browsed them had to crane their heads. The quilts also didn't sell, and really didn't get much more interest than the pendants, which I was surprised by since I thought they were cute and reasonably priced. Too quirky, maybe? I'm hoping these things will do better on etsy. Willow had an awesome time at the craft fair, too--here she's rocking her free lipstick sample from Mary Kay. She's wearing one of the Girls Love Dinosaurs pins we made; these sold really well, too. She was good advertising by playing with her dinosaur toys behind my table, and looking all cute and dinosaur-loving.

I'd bought real bags for putting purchases in, and stamped them with Pumpkinbear, but I could only get one person to take a bag. It was good, though, because several people came searching for me, apparently, after seeing someone else holding a fatty stegasaurus or rocking a button and asking directions to my booth. I also gave away every single one of my business cards, which was a big improvement since I usually forget to offer them.

I'll be putting the rest of my dino stuff up on my etsy shop this coming week--come and buy it all from me, because you love dinosaurs, too.

Girls Love Dinosaurs

As a sort of last-minute idea, I've decided to sell at a local craft fair on March 29. It's supposed to be a showcase of female artists and businesswomen, and my booth rental fee benefits, in part, a local support system serving women and children who are the victims of violence.

I'd almost decided against selling at local, smaller markets, partly because I think my work is pretty weird and not to the general taste, partly based on a very silly couple of tiny craft fairs I did around Christmastime, including one for Girls Inc. at which it turned out I was the only vendor (I still pulled a profit, but being the only vendor...just embarrassing), and partly based on this book I've been reading, Crafts and Craft Shows: How to Make Money, by Philip Kadubec. 

Kadubec isn't really my scene, since he describes his work as "country traditional," highlights booths that look like little general stores or post picket fences at their entrances, and might possibly think that the Internet is a fad, but he was a very successful crafter before retirement and is very insightful about the business of crafts. He prefers larger shows that are precisely targeted toward your particular craft, even though they have scary-large booth rental fees, over teeny-tiny little local fairs that are really cheap to enter. Teeny-tiny little local fairs, he argues, can also be pretty ticky-tacky, don't necessarily attract anyone who wants or can buy your stuff, and waste time better spent more professionally marketing your business or even just making stuff.

I think Kadubec is right on track with this, based on my small experience, and he's voiced the reasoning that will allow me to no longer waste my time at, say, the Christmas craft fair at Matt's office. I think this Luna Arts Festival is going to be awesome, though. From what I gather, it's an established fair with a history, which is a pro for selling at it. It's a craft fair/expo with nothing else distracting, like a chili cook-off or auction or something, tacked on, but with local musicians playing and drawing in their fan bases. It's woman-centered, which I'm always on board with, and I can use it as a dry-run for building a booth that actually looks really professional, before jumping into applying to any big shows.

That being said, I'm still not going to show my regular Pumpkin+Bear stuff. Kadubec also speaks about the possibility of saturating your local market, especially if you don't sell stuff you can use up, like soap, but stuff that sits around and stays stuff for the rest of your life, like record bowls and T-shirt quilts. So I think it is important that if I sell a lot locally, I do provide some significant variety in my work. And therefore, I've decided that for this fair, Pumpkin+Bear will be selling under the alias Girls Love Dinosaurs.

My concept is stuff, primarily recycled but not necessarily, that is thematically centered on dinosaurs--primarily for kids but not necessarily. I worked hard the whole weekend, took the kid out for a photo shoot this morning before it started snowing (something else Kadubec suggests--awesome photos of your stuff or your creation process displayed in your booth or in an album in your booth. It humanizes your creation and highlights its uniqueness and the handicraft aspect), and here's what I've got so far (I can't fix the dismal winter lighting on any of the photos, because my 8-year-old bootleg copy of Photoshop 6.0 finally crapped out on me, and my legitimate purchase of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is currently still winging its way to my door):

These are the Fatty Stegasauruses, made from recycled wool sweaters and polyester batting (I like the fact that I can upgrade the stuffing to make them really eco-friendly, and they're a possibility for selling in a local store or two here). If I have time to make another batch before the fair, I might make a different size or type...say, apatasaurus?

These are the dinosaur-themed "summer quilts," meaning they don't have any batting, per se, just either a fleece back and binding or a fleece middle and a flannel back and binding. I still machine-quilted them, though, which is awesome fun. I'm thinking three sizes--a "play" size, for doll blankets or what-have you, a "baby," size, which is a crib quilt, and a "kid" size, which is a twin.

And these are my soldered glass pendants, made from dinosaur stamps that I bought from Western Mountain Stamp and Coin, which sells packages of stamps sorted by theme--I also have the cats-themed one and the space-themed one, and I really want the maps one and the elephants one, too, only I'm already swimming in stamps. I'm particularly pleased with my soldering work since I bought grozing pliers that permit me to smash the little uneven bits off the edges of the glass that I can hardly ever cut evenly, and the joy of this has given me good-enough glass-cutting karma to actual make some pretty accurate cuts now, as well.

So I'm thinking this might be a sweet product line, because people tend to like dinosaurs. My kids are obsessed with them, as are a lot of kids, and they're also quirky enough to perhaps draw in the quirky crowd. If they're the next stuffed chicken or not, I don't know.

Little Art

My little girls have always been artists:

Goodwill

The Goodwill 50%-off storewide sale is awesome. I look forward to it with such joy in my heart. I mark it on my calendar and gaze at it happily whenever I happen by. I memorize the date, so that I can say things like, "No, we can't go to Indy next Saturday. That's the Goodwill 50%-off storewide sale." I plan the night before so as to get to Goodwill as soon as it opens at 9 am on the day of the sale (this Saturday, we were 9 minutes late. As Matt dropped me off on his way to the hardware store with the girls, he said, "Nine minutes late? Oh, please." And yet? I had to wait by the cash registers for a cart, and then follow the person with the cart out to her car, and then help her load into her car the 5,000 deoderants she had bought---which weren't even 50% off, because they were NEW!). I follow a strict hierarchy of departments to visit, based on what I want most, how crowded an aisle is, and if my arm is tired from pushing through overcrowded T-shirt racks.

I adore the storewide sale for numerous reasons: for one, I don't do a lot of shopping, so going on an actual shopping spree once in a while is fun. I also buy all our clothes, all our books and toys, and most of our household items used, so, for instance, Matt actually needed work pants, and Willow needed shorts for the summer. And I buy a lot of the materials I use in my handiwork used, so I'm always looking for wool sweaters to felt and T-shirts to quilt. Here's what I bought this Saturday:

• dinosaur matching game, because the girls love dinosaurs



• dinosaur pop-up book, same rationale



• wading pool that must be tested and may or may not be returned, based on how massive it is and whether or not I decide it's actually an extravagance



• 6 pairs of shorts for Willow for the summer, one of which is identical to a pair of Matt's cargo shorts--awesome. I need now to make her some ribbon belts to hold them up, since they're a little roomy.



• flowery dress for Willow, unnecessary but very pretty



• 2 pairs of work pants for Matt



• one pair of jeans for me, one pair of brown pants, and one pair of brown pinstripe trousers--awesome. Only the jeans need to be hemmed, even.



• Sewing for Dummies--awesome.



• 3 wool sweaters for felting into stuffed animals or quilt blocks for some crib quilts I'm thinking about making



• one stripey shirt, two peasant tops for me.

• two hoodies for me, both brown, yet both different
• two ringer tees, for me and Matt


• half-dozen or so tie-dyed T-shirts for a quilt I'm making for us, to match one I donated to Willow's Montessori for an auction and really liked



• three dinosaur T-shirts for a quilt I'm making for the girls



• one Superman T-shirt for Matt



• three Star Wars T-shirts for a quilt



• one Captain America T-shirt for a quilt



• four or five pillowcases for summer dresses for the girls, including a couple that match--awesome



• one burgandy fleece blanket for a quilt backing



• one Christmas-themed T-shirt for a quilt



• one World's Best Mom T-shirt for a quilt



• The Mouse and the Motorcycle, a chapter book to read to Willow at bedtime

Whew. And for way less than a hundred bucks.

Remaking Vintage Jewelry

I solder myself and the girls a lot of butch jewelry out of microscope glass and postage stamps, but I haven't yet gotten into beadwork. I read how-to books and arts and crafts books regardless of whether or not I practice that particular craft, however, and so I was pleasantly surprised to find, while reading by Lindsay Cain, a short how-to on remaking vintage jewelry. The most I've ever done with this was to replace a set of my Mama's handpainted yellow beads that Papa bought her in Italy during the war with fishing line instead of rotting thread, but the possibilities here seem pretty sweet. I've seen a lot of recycled jewelry on etsy, for instance, that uses other objects--pop tabs, dominoes, paperclips, keys, etc.--to make beautiful jewelry, but I think it's the same ethic as remaking clothing to take tacky jewelry and make it awesome.

Buzz Buzz Designs is one Web shop that does exactly this--the artist's work seems to be specifically informed by the recycling ethic, and utilizes vintage costume jewelry to make fine new things. I'm especially fond of this vintage Lucite sphere on a vintage aluminum chain.

I also like pequitobun's shop on etsy: this artist's stuff is partially vintage and can be pretty punk rock.

Femmegems itself also offers this really cool jewelry makeover service: you can ship your own vintage jewelry to them and they'll remake it for you into something awesome. Awesome.

Curtains to Tutu

Willow has started attending a dance class with the Windfall Dancers, a modern dance collective in our town. For her first class, she wore sweatpants and a comfy shirt, but all the other girls wore leotards and pink tutus and pink onesie-things. I was embarrased and told the instructor I didn't realize there was a dress code or I'd have dressed Willow appropriately (or rather, not have signed her up), but the instructor replied that there actually wasn't a dress code but that all the little girls (except for Willow) always seemed to just show up like that. Now, I've tried very hard all of Willow's life to avoid gendering her in a stereotypically feminine fashion, and I'm quite proud that she remains unconscious of things like princesses and tiaras and Barbie dolls, and there's no way in hell that I'm going to dress her like a pink ballerina for her creative movements for 3-5-year-olds dance class, but I also don't want her to feel deprived if she notices all the floaty little fairies in their frilly little tutus in her midst and wants a girly dance outfit herself. My solution? As follows:

Take the curtains that used to hang in the girls' room but do not anymore:

Add to them some hot pink and black tulle bought on sale at Joann's:

Visit this forum on Craftster for inspiration, spend some time with scissors on the rug with the girls, some more time tying knots in front of DVDs of season 7 of Little Tragedy on the Prairie Seasons 1 - 9 (9 Pack), and end up with...

...two awesomely happy little punk rock tutu girls.