Hello Mr. Munny

Say hello to my first Munny. Munny is a DIY vinyl toy from Kidrobot where you design your own. I crocheted around his features which makes his head and arms movable but also removable in the traditional Munny sense.


This little guy's name is Chester.




You can check out what others do with their Munnys here and here.

Go Ask Alice

If you are in Santa Barbara, CA, you should head on over to the Paul Cumes Art Gallery to check out the Go Ask Alice show.


I sent along one piece, though I was hoping to do more. I have a ginormous Jabberwocky in progress and I'll share him when I am done.

Bear Giveaway from Raggy Rat

Thought I'd give a little shout out for my friend Cat who is having a bear giveaway over on her blog.
She's super talented with thread and needle so while you are over entering the giveaway please take a peek at all her other wonderful plush!

Plush Team Holiday Sales

Other Plush Team members are doing the snazzy Etsy Holiday Sale, too!

Felicia of Fluffy Flowers is having a HUGE blowout with a BOGO event including all items in her shop!
I'll post other fun sales as I hear about them. I expect more to announce them for Friday. I am excited to see what kinds of Plush goodies I can't live without!

Holiday Sale on Etsy

Hey all! Etsy is having an official Holiday Sale this weekend going from Black Friday to Cyber Monday. I decided that I would offer the savings for the whole week!

Everything has free shipping. Squids, Octorings, and Cherry Key Chains are all Buy One Get One Half Off. Patterns are all only $2. Everything else is $2-5 off the original price. I'll even offer free shipping for all custom orders placed by Monday, November 30.


To find more things in this sale on Etsy check for free shipping and holiday sales!

The Letter U, Rocks and Class

Yup. It's been a while since I last blogged. I haven't been creating as much as I'd like in the realm of crochet and sewing, but here's what I have done in that area.

I made a gigantic U shaped monster for the Plush You show at Blue Bottle Gallery in Seattle. He's 25 inches high and I used extra thick yarn. He's super huggable!

I got another order for 9 more custom rocks in costumes and here they are: a cat, an octopus, a butterfly, 2 Perquacky cubes, a pom pom, a cowboys helmet, and a couple. They all presented a fair set of challenges and it was really fun to come up with solutions as to how they would work with the rock.





In other news, I am teaching a crochet class in Saint Paul, MN with Harding Community Education. It's a two week class, this week and next. We're making fingerless glovelets, the ones that are a pattern in my Etsy shop for only $2!

Spiderwick is over!!

Yup. That's the word from the back of the last book in the Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles, the Wyrm King, the front of the Wild Rumpus and straight from the authors' mouths. I made my way over to the Wild Rumpus to share in the festivities.

If you ever get a chance to check out the Wild Rumpus in Minneapolis take it. If you live in the area and have never been, you should go. It's an amazing bookstore decorated with imagination and home to an interesting cross section of domesticated animals. Here the cats have decided to take over the front window. You can see an ear over the right shoulder of the orange one and then there is a gray one immediately to the right of the view.

Here's Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi. They met while she was writing an article for a gamer magazine and he was working for Dungeons and Dragons.


The new book was inspired by the mythical rat king, which is where rat tails get entwined by "stuff" and there is a mass of rats living in that interconnected state. The Wyrm King is a dragon version of this. Pretty neat, huh?

Tony draws throughout book tours. Maybe it keeps his skills sharp. He often draws when he signs, too.


Tony drew a river troll upon request and then they had a trivia question to see who one the drawing. He did the same thing with the following goblin.

Then Tony began to make fun of Holly's cats, Mr. Fizzy and Lily. Mr. Fizzy is supposedly an angry puffy gray thing while Lily is a hairless cat who Tony says looks like a lost sock.

Tony had to draw a little something for the Wild Rumpus and he drew up the signature Thimbletack Brownie/Boggart.

In addition to an all around fun evening, the Wild Rumpus celebrated its 17th birthday. They brought out the sign from their first birthday for the occasion and had a cake to boot!


In other fun news, I am having a pattern sale in my shop! All patterns including the set are only $2!

Have a great day!

A Bear and a Skunk and Some Weird Cat Anticts

Here are some custom rocks in costume. A bear and a skunk this time.



And then our cats don't really like the ongoing construction of our living room. We've at least got the two new windows in, but now no drywall over the insulation.

Here's Jasper being determined to get behind the drywall.


And here's kitty licking condensation off the front window. He can be so strange some times.

I can't wait to put my living room back together. It's been in boxes for two months now waiting for the project to be done. Maybe next week?

My guitar

My guitar is finished! I sewed up a fleece guitar and then embellished it wish free form crochet. Here ya go. Kitty is so helpful!


Check out the other Plushiness over at the Plush Team blog for Plushstock 2009!

i am a geek

So, many of you may not realize this, but I am a geek. I think I was a geek before I met my husband, but I have to say that my geekiness really blossomed after I met him. I mean this in a really good way. He is the reason I write, read and watch nerdy things. He makes me very happy.

I am writing a book that I am not really ready to talk much about but it's young adult fiction and I am almost ready to let other people read it. It's kind of scary and thrilling all at the same time to have people read your writing.

I picked up an advanced copy of NERDS by Michael Buckley the other day and it looks good so far. It comes out this September.

We've been watching Felicia Day's The Guild. Since she was in Dr. Horrible her career has taken off and she's gotten some face time in Dollhouse.

I am almost done with the plush guitar for Plushstock 2009 for the Plush Team's July/August challenge. I pretty much just have to string it and it's good to go.

me and my machine

My machine is a simple one. I actually got it over a year ago and used it once to make a monster bag. Now that I have started sewing dolls it is getting some more use.

Despite my lack of posts of late, I have been working on a variety of projects. I am continuing my alien bear project and now that the aliens are mostly put together I am crocheting unitards for them that will go under their bear costumes. The bear costumes will be of a brown fleece with a little more texture than their bodies.

I also have a show in November that I am creating a couple of pieces for. It is the Go Ask Alice show at the Art Santa Barbara gallery. I have decided so far to crochet the Jabberwocky. We'll see what else I decide to do. If you have any ideas or input, I'd love it!

The Plush Team challenge for July and August is Plushstock in honor of the 40th anniversary of Woodstock this year. I am making a guitar that has been sewn and has crochet embellishments. Pictures will come soon.

I am reading Candy Shop War by Brandon Mull. One cannot go wrong when mixing magic with candy, can they? Brandon also has the Fablehaven series. So far I have read the first two, but now there are four, so I have some catching up to do. I also recently started the Sisters Grimm Fairytale Detectives series by Michael Buckley.

Alright, I am off to put up a post on the Plush Team blog about dreaming plush and then I shall get back to sewing my guitar.

What bears?

Poor little girl lost part of her arm during an alien bear fight. Too bad I don't have the alien bears done yet. Here's them in progress. At some point they'll look like bears.


Jasper is a silly cat. He likes to paw at the food bin to say it's time to be fed. Funny thing is that he already has food in his bowl. I think he likes get some extra attention by being annoying. Good thing he's cute.

Sewn Heart Gremlin and Some Cherries

Yay! I've wanted to do this for a while. I kept thinking that the heart gremlin would translate well to fabric and here's how it came out. His name is Rynar and he's going to be hanging around my Etsy shop if you find you need to give him a new home. He's really kind of a big guy measuring in at over a foot in height and width.

And yes, his heart is removable.

I've also got a cherry key chain for ya. There will be a couple of these over in my Etsy shop too.

I guess I haven't talked about reading much. Let's see I just finished Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I hope to jump into Catching Fire, book two shortly. You will find that it's not out yet for the rest of you, but that's one of the perks of working in a bookstore. Anyway, Hunger Games is a wonderful young adult read. Imagine the United States sometime in the future where there is a capitol in the center of the land mass. There are twelve districts surrounding the Capitol. There were thirteen but that one was obliterated during the rebellion. Now the twelve districts must take part in a Reaping in which kids ages 12-18 are entered into a lottery. Two kids are selected from each district and are send to fight to the death in an arena.

I am finishing Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon so that I can jump right into his new one, Angel's Game. Shadow of the wind is a book book. By that I mean that it's a book about books or one book in particular. A boy named Daniel is searching for the reason a book by Julian Carax is being destroyed. Daniel has safely tucked away the book in the cemetary for books in Barcelona. As he uncovers the past of Carax a gothic story of lies and would be loves is laid bare.

$5 Mini Plush Monday

Five Dollar Mini Plush Monday is a cool new thing we're doing in the land of international plush makers aka the Plush Team. I've got five little rocks in costumes that need new homes and they are only $5 a piece! What a deal!

Head on over the Plush Team shop to see what other team members are offering at this amazingly low price.

Happy Plush Hunting!

Something New!

You might say it's about time that I started sewing again. Well I've got oodles of things planned and here is just the beginning. I've hand sewn a doll. I've come to call her Goldie as in Goldielocks. There will be bears, but probably not the types you are thinking of. I'll be working through a series of prototypes. Of course I'll be sharing them with you along the way.

So, let me know what you think. I am happy to get any feedback I can get. Thanks!

Turtle Soup!

My ingredient for the Iron Plush challenge was Mirrors. I used sequins as my mirror element on the turtle shells, the little ones and the big one.

I made this turtle soup according to Cajun tradition in that it is quite a bit like a tomato bisque and topped with a slice of lemon. The turtles are swimming on top of the tomato soup of the tomato mixture on this case and can be taken out and moved around if you wish.

It's soup you can hug!

To see other entries in the Plush Team Iron Plush challenge go check out the blog. There were a bunch of us that signed up for this challenge. There were 5 groups each with one specific ingredient that had to be used and about 5 people were in each group. The 5 ingredients were, foam, pom poms, mirrors, velcro and faux fur. The contest will be judged soon by our panel of celebrity judges.

Yart Sale!

Yup. It's a sale! You can go to Etsy and search for Yart to see the tons of shops that are having a Yart Sale at this time.

The word Yart comes from this simple math Yard+Art= Yart.

Etsy also has an interesting article on the history of the Yart sale that you can read.

I am offering $5 off selected items in my shop. So you should totally go check it out!

Cats and a Rat

Meet our new kitties. First up is Kitty . He's chatty, cuddly, he's missing a piece of his left ear and he loves to play with yarn.
Then we have Jasper. He's sweet, charming, calm and smarter than Kitty, but we try not to point that out.

I also made a rat. His name is Barret and he's chocolatey brown and cute.

I Like You

If and when you are in the Twin Cities you must check out I Like You! It's a great shop that celebrates local and handmade items. The ladies who run this shop, Angela and Sarah, are amazing.

I'll give you a mini tour of the shop. Here is the cork wall that you must check out for lovely prints and things.

There is no better way to showcase greeting cards than a card catalog!

Neato display with belt buckles and things.

Look at the plush and magnets and frames and necklaces and things. Oh and check it! The carpet is actually turf! And though I didn't get a picture of it there is a swing in the front window.

And there's miss Sarah behind some great pottery and felt flowers.

And there is a wonderful selection of handmade soaps and bath products.

So, I love this place and you should check it out and let me know what you think, too!