Lee Does Stuff

Some last minute Portland craftyness…

I’ve been so caught up in ebook-making world for the last week+ that I haven’t been keeping up with anything else, like Portland news stuff! A couple things real quick now, for any Portlanders reading this late Friday night or Saturday morning/early afternoon.

100th Monkey Studio is having a swap!! Tomorrow (or today, Saturday) 11am-4pm. Art+craft materials, bring what you don’t want anymore, take home a big bag of new stuff to replace the old, yeah! These photos are from their first swap that I went to, 2 years ago – it was fabulous!!

And, I’m so sorry I haven’t been keeping up with the free Knittn’ Kitten projects – you can still get Teresa‘s beaded hairpin project sheet tomorrow (Sat), and there may be some left next week… (the Kitten is closed on Sun/Mon)

And then next week at the Kitten is Diane‘s project, so I’m sure that will be superawesome, like everything she does!!

Thank you all for the great Game Knitting response!! I’m so excited to have heard from some of you who already started playing – can’t wait to see projects start popping up on ravelry!

I’m having an issue with either wordpress or yahoo mail, which I didn’t even realize had been going on for a week or so and I just noticed last night – I haven’t been getting comments emailed to me like they usually are. Which means I won’t be replying to comments via email until I get it figured out. So, just know that I really appreciate every comment I get, they always make me happy to read, and if I get any questions and still haven’t sorted out the email problem, I’ll just answer in the comments, so then everyone can read the answer… ok that’s all for now.

My first ebook! Game Knitting!

Ohmygosh, it’s done, it’s really done! I thought this day would never come! This ebook concept has been brewing in my head, in some form or another, since early 2007, no kidding! For quite some time it was just going to be a blog post, then I had plans to make a free pdf, but then the more I worked on it and developed it further, it made sense to turn it into a whole book! An ebook that started out (in outline form) being about 13 pages, then grew into about 30 pages, then eventually ended up totaling 65 pages! Whoa baby!

So that’s it – Game Knitting! The book includes enough patterns to make over 150 different designs – but the whole point is that you can make up your own patterns and ideas, take it into other items, and your design options truly become infinite! You could even use the concept with other crafts beyond knitting – crochet, embroidery, cross stitch, weaving?

So ok, what’s game knitting? What am I even talking about? It’s the concept that was used to knit all those teaser hats I’ve been sneaking into blog posts since the beginning of the year. You have to buy the ebook to get all the specifics, but the basic concept is free to all!* From the intro page:

If you love both knitting and playing games, maybe you’ve wished you could somehow do both at the same time. Sure, you can knit a few rows while waiting for a Scrabble player to figure out their move, but it’s a bit trickier to work your needles and hold a hand of cards simultaneously. Well now here’s a way you can not just play and knit, but turn your knitting itself into the game! And create a truly one-of-a-kind knit object in the process, defined by the randomness of its design.

Game knitting, as it was invented and played to make the items you see here, is based around TV shows, which means if you don’t consider yourself a game lover, but you do have a weakness for television, you too will love game knitting! However, if you want to, some creative thinking can surely move the game away from the screen (and the book includes many ideas).

Game knitting is a concept as opposed to a pattern, which means it can be used to make anything you can knit, as long as it’s a simple enough shape. The book features mostly hats, but there are also examples of scarves, mitts, headbands, and cuffs; knit whatever you love most, as it works out best to game knit an object you are familiar with knitting in the first place. As you can knit any shape, you can also game knit with any yarn/needles/gauge. You could even take it further and use the concept in non-knitting projects!

This information is also on the Game Knitting page of my website, along with little thumbnail previews of every single page, to try to create the illusion of flipping through the book! You can enlarge the first few pages (including the table of contents) and get a sense of how the book looks overall.

The ebook is designed for optimal computer screen viewing (large, spaced out font for easy reading) and the pages you may want to print out have smaller pictures, which you can print in grayscale to save on ink. The pages you wouldn’t have any reason to print are full of lots of large color photos. Thanks so much to Diane, for both the help in learning Pages to build it, and for the ebook inspiration!

And more about the concept… from page 4 of the book:

The easiest way I’ve found to describe how game knitting works is this:
You make a list of reoccurring things that happen in a TV show, as if you are going to play a drinking game to the show (drink each time something on the list happens), and you want it to be a crazy night! Which means, if you really were to turn your list into a drinking game, you’d either want to take very small sips of light beer, or you’d be too drunk to play after a couple of episodes. So, once you have this game list, you design a knitting pattern around doing/changing something in your work every time something on the list happens. This may be as simple as switching from knit to purl stitches, or making an eyelet hole, or something a bit more complex, like cabling or turning your work for a short row. Just don’t try actually playing a drinking game as you game knit!

Once you get the concept, you can see that it could be used in forms other than playing to TV. Make a list of things that your favorite podcaster is always saying, or things that keep happening in the audio book you’re listening to, or things that happen every day on your train commute; anything that you know will happen at some random interval, and you can watch out for while you knit. Now that you know what game knitting is…

Why game knit?

1. It’s fun! Especially if you’re playing with others (they don’t necessarily have to be knitting), so you can all shout out when something on the list happens. Your finished knit item will carry with it the memories of the game playing!

2. Randomness is cool looking! It’s hard to make a pattern look random on purpose; game knitting it a way to create a look of chaos (in a good way!) because your pattern really is random.

3. Inspiration! If you are a designer, or want to try knit designing, seeing the way a certain game pattern works up can be great inspiration for new design concepts! It can also be a fun cure for creative block.

Pete and I have a way fun time watching silly TV shows while I’m game knitting, calling out whenever a list item happens on screen. (It’s super similar to Bad Movie Bingo!) And I lovelovelove the random (as Pete calls them, chaos) patterns that result!!

Besides about 11 base patterns (hats, headbands, mitts, etc) and 18 different game patterns, with tons of variations and notes for how to design your own, the ebook also includes:

Game lists for 11 TV shows
A list of game list ideas beyond television
How-tos for 3 types of cabling, 2 with no cable needle
Instructions for adding ear flaps to any hat
Blocking tips
Links to other technique tutorials

Want to hear how the concept first came into my head? It was way way back when I worked my day job in a photo lab/camera shop in Orange County… I had a supercool boss who let me knit behind the counter when there were no customers (which was pretty often during most times of the year), so I was always picking up my knitting for a short while, putting it down to help someone, and picking it back up, all throughout the day. So one day I brainstormed the idea of changing my knitting pattern every time I put it down and picked it back up – and I tried it, and it resulted in this hat!

So, it worked, just not spectacularly. Not many changes makes it look more like stockinette/reverse stockinette “ribbing” instead of a random pattern. But I loved the idea, and wanted to take it somewhere. I don’t remember how exactly it evolved into the TV show system, but I’m guessing it involved a conversation with Pete, and he definitely had a big part in developing the idea, and in making the game lists. The next try was this hat, played to My So-Called Life:

Those were back in 2007, then in early ’08 I picked up the concept again, knitting a couple more bulky hats to try out some new ideas:

But I got distracted and didn’t get back into it till early this year, when I started making hat after hat, and then some non-hats – my example item number has now reached 19! (20 actually, but I count my cuff pair as 1 item because I meant for them to be a set.) See them all in the Game Knitting flickr set!

So that’s that, game knitting’s path from bored at work to ebook! Because of the way you play (when we thought of the TV idea) the working title when Pete and I talked about it was always “drinking game knitting”, hah! To some perfectionist knitters, the chaos patterns might look like you knit them while drunk! I love the randomness though, I hope you do too!

Wow, so much info, here’s all you really need to know: The 65 page ebook (16.9MB) is $9. Click here to directly purchase it; click here to go to the ravelry page (and get it there); click here to go to its webpage where you can check out all my other patterns too.

Your purchase of the ebook means you’ll get any future updated versions if there are ever changes or additions. There’s even a chance I might add more patterns in the future, if I figure out any more that look great, so you’ll automatically get the updates emailed to you.

*I’ve chosen to give away the basic Game Knitting concept to everyone, and of course you are free to play even if you don’t purchase the ebook, but I do ask for one thing in exchange – if you knit something using this concept, and post it on ravelry, flickr, your blog, etc, please link to my game knitting page (or this blog post) so that your followers/friends learn about it! Thanks!!

Also, the game knitting term and the content in this blog post and on the webpage are protected under Creative Commons. Feel free to post any of my images if you want to talk about it on your blog, etc, as long as you credit and link to me, thanks! (And a quick note: the book has taken me an insane number of hours to make, and there is tons of specific info about everything game knitting related, so if you’re playing with the concept without the book and having a hard time, I would guess that the book will answer any questions you might have and make it all much easier for you!)

One more quick note – if you get the book and notice any typos, confusingly worded sentences, or anything confusing or weird in general, please let me know! This is the biggest project I’ve ever done, and I fear I may have missed mistakes in my proofing, but the great thing about ravelry is once it’s up for sale, I can always update the pdf any time I make any changes, and updated versions will go out to anyone who already bought it. So yeah, don’t hesitate to let me know about anything that might possibly need changing, thanks!

And I’ll leave you with my original cover image, which I actually like a lot better than the real cover, but I thought the (badly Photoshopped) remote addition was important since TV watching is such a major part of game knitting play, and my favorite of the blooper shots:

September leethal quick knits club!

Ok most September club members should have their packages by now, so it’s time to share the contents with everyone! I’ll copy bits from the note that was sent along with the kits…

This month I went for a back to school theme, thinking about classic school aesthetics when dyeing, recycling, and designing. When I started brainstorming about colors, I thought of primaries, bright and bold. The bulky wool yarn, recycled from a sweater, is dyed in random order stripes of yellow, green, and blue, with a little purple, separated by shorter stripes of red. It’s kind of a lower elementary school theme, colors I imagine being in a first grade classroom; I named it Picture Book.

The spun yarn is made from a cotton scarf I came across, knit in stripes of red, blue, green, and a yellowish off-white – more of a collegiate version of the school theme colors. I spun the cotton threads, keeping the color changes as they were knit, then I navajo plied (chain plied) it with a variegated rainbowy thread, wrapping extra around the color changes, like granny stacks in handspun yarn. This one is called Wrapped Up in Books.

Because of the way both these yarns were made, with random order striping, every mini-skein is unique, so each member’s knits will be one-of-a-kind! Each wool mini-skein was wrapped in a piece of ribbon or rick rack (which all came from Knittn’ Kitten, so they are secondhand or vintage) for the pattern…

So the patterns are of course back to school themed as well, but they are useful for home, office, whatever. The 4-page pattern sheet includes the Laced-Up Pencil Case and Stiffened Chevron Bookmark designs, plus a bonus pen cover. (ravelry links)

The pencil case can hold around 5-6 pens/pencils, or crochet hooks, or double pointed needles, etc, and is a perfect compact size for keeping in your go-everywhere bag. Here’s my case shown with rick rack and ribbon, for different looks:

The bookmarks can be made as long as you want, so if you stop before the mini-skein runs out, the leftover yarn can be made into a pen/pencil cover (or multiples) – the pictured bookmark/cover sets each came from a single 10 yarn mini-skein:

Also, if you’re not into the bookmark, the piece can be turned into a cuff instead! If any twitter followers were wondering about my weird right-slanting decrease inquiries a couple weeks ago, that decrease is used in this bookmark design. (Note: as always with my club patterns, these patterns as exclusive to September members for at least 3 months, after which they’ll be sold in some form at some point in time.)

Then each package got a notebook to go with the little school set, with a recycled beer case cardboard cover. I like the colors, imagery, and variation that comes from the beer cases, and I stuck a couple of hand-carved stamps on the backs, to give the books a touch of knittyness.

I also stamped leethal on the inside cover of each, in orange of course! The basic blue notebooks came from Dollar Tree (I tried to find recycled notebooks somewhere, but couldn’t), and the stamps were all carved from a single eraser! (Oh yeah, if you’re into making notebooks, check out my most recent Threadbanger roundup!)

And each package was finished off with a leethal.net button, made with a recycled Willamette Week (Portland weekly magazine) image, for a little piece of Portland!

So each package’s contents looked something like this:

And here’s a behind-the-scenes glimpse of what my worktable looked like a week ago:

So that was September – I’m really excited about what’s coming in October! As I hinted at in the leethal ravelry group, October has a built in theme, and as you may know from this blog, I’ve always been a huge fan of Halloween creativity… That’s as far as my hinting goes; you can tell from September’s club that I’m into giving the kits themes, so there will continue to be some kind of theme in each month’s club.

If you want to know more about the club in general, details are on the quick knits club page, and you can sign up for Oct alone, or a 3 month subscription. Future club packages are always a mystery, which is part of the fun! But if you like what you see here from September, I’ll bet you’ll like what’s to come in future months!

Portland news, hair makeover, and stuff…

I’m hard at work on this ebook (another little peek for you above, mmmmm cables!), hoping to be able to release it this week! So I just want to take a quick break to show+tell you some stuff…

I’ll start out with a couple of Portland things – first, tomorrow (Sunday) is the Craft Writers Talking event at the Hollywood library! We have a fantastic library system in this town, and they are bringing us yet another awesome free event, which should be a very useful talk to those of us who are interested in making craft books! The talk is with Portland craft writers/bloggers/crafty superstars Susan Beal, Diane Gilleland, and Alicia Paulson (books pictured above), and they’ll be talking about “books, blogs, craftiness and everything in between” (according to Susan). Yet another event that makes me feel incredibly lucky to be living here in PDX!

And then also in Portland news, I’m so excited to be participating in a project to help support Knittn’ Kitten (which I recently wrote about)! A bunch of us Portland crafters will be designing projects which use materials found at the Kitten, and giving them out for free at the shop, with a new project being released each week. Here’s the list of participants (so far):

September 22 – Heather Mann (of Croq, Dollar Store Crafts, Craft Fail)
September 29 – Teresa Sullivan
October 6 – Diane Gilleland
October 13 – Joey Groendes
October 20 – Christine Blystone
October 27 – Susan Beal
November 3 – Me!
November 10 – Bridget Benton

You can pick up the project sheets each week at the shop (ask for the pattern at the register), grab the materials you need while you’re there, and each of us will post about the project of the week on our blogs (and/or twitter, etc). And there’s a flickr group! Not just for these projects, but for anything Kitten-related, so post your rad vintage finds and projects! You can see a peek of the project Susan’s planning on her blog, and I’ve seen a couple of glimpses at other planned projects – I think it’s so cool that every project will use different techniques (like sewing, beading, knitting, crochet, embroidery, etc) since the Kitten has some of everything!

As for some personal updating… Pete’s studio is up and running! The site isn’t done yet, and his space isn’t finished, but he worked on his first job a few days ago and it went well!! As for my new expanded studio space, tons of work to do and no free time to do it, so I’ve been fitting in little spurts of work here and there, slowly getting things in order. Can’t wait till it’s done and I can show you a tour!

And lastly, check it out, I DIYed a haircut for the first time ever! I don’t have a before picture, but you can sort of see in some of those hat pictures from a little while ago – my bangs had been at that super annoying length where they’re in my face all the time, but not quite long enough to tuck behind my ears, so I would always wear a clip or a headband. I had plans to cut off all my hair again, but kept putting it off for various reasons, until I decided I wanted to try bangs with longer hair, at least just to see if I like it, then chop it all off soon if I want to. So I tried doing it myself! Figured, I’ve got nothing to loose; if I screw it up, I’ll just go have it fixed, chop it all off like I planned to anyway. I think I did ok! Especially for a first time…

So then I finished my hair makeover with some dye yesterday, which did not turn out how I’d meant, but eh, it’s different (for me), which is cool. I picked a color called burgundy, which was the color I wanted, imagining it to look something like this (more reddish, like a dark purpley shade of red) on my hair. And this is what I got (black in the shade, super dark purple in the light):

If/when I get sick of it, maybe I’ll go pink again! For now, I think I’m happy with the look!

The Photojojo Book!

What’s that?

Oh, it’s Photojojo! the book! Which is released today! And why was it open to that particular page?

Hey look! That’s my name! My name, written inside a Kate Bingaman-Burt drawing, on a page of a freaking amazingly awesome diy photography book!!

And that’s a digital pinhole photo of me with the book, which is what I contributed! Based on the tutorial I did here on do stuff! a couple years ago, when they contacted me about contributing the how-to for the book I was crazy excited because photojojo has been one of my favorite blogs for quite some time!

As you can see, I had some camera-remote-fun today showing off the book, hah! But hey, dudes, enough about my contribution excitement – if I had no personal part in this book, I would still be way superduper excited about it! It’s so my dream photography book!

Filling its 192 pages are all different kinds of projects for using photos you’ve taken, ways to have fun with photography, and ways to hack your camera! I want to do pretty much every single project, seriously! Here are images of some of my favorites, for your viewing pleasure……

Some major craftiness going on in those pages! So if you don’t think of yourself as a photographer, that doesn’t mean this book isn’t for you – this is a fantastically rad book for any creative person with a digital camera!!

My tutorial, by the way, happens to be the very last one… Pete says that’s a good thing because the first and last are most memorable… I say, shrug, it’s my first book contribution ever, and I still can’t believe that I’m actually in such an insanely great book!!

And lastly, just for fun, since the pinhole photos in the book were taken by Amit+Kelly, here are some of my digital pinhole shots:

Just keeping you updated…

Well well well things are a little bit nutso in leethal world right now, so I thought it would be a good idea for me to let you all know what’s up, and what you have to look forward to in the near future, because I might not be around for a week or so… Things are exciting, but oh so hectic!

First, a quick update about my club! 2 things are new with October memberships – first, 3 month subscriptions! I already told you how I changed it so the club will always include 2 patterns, for each of the 2 yarns – with this upgrade, I raised the price (starting with October) to $16/month, but a 3-month subscription will knock it back down to $14! I’m really excited about the October club, by the way; while I’m currently dyeing and designing for September (which rocks!), I’m brainstorming Oct and can’t wait to get started on it!

And second, thanks to my most favorite local yarn shop, I’m now offering a local Portland pick up option! Portland members, pay no shipping, and pick up your club package at Twisted whenever is convenient for you! Of course, while you’re there, I highly encourage some browsing, shopping, tea drinking, and hanging out – this is the kind of wackiness that Twisted induces:

Moving on to some of that nutso-ness I was talking about… Pete and I were painting his new studio‘s floor till 2am last night, so that we’ll be able to start moving his stuff in tomorrow! I mentioned how I’ll be expanding my studio space a couple posts ago, but I just showed some photos of what my studio looked like when I first got it set up, almost 2 years ago. Nowadays, this is a view of my space, looking towards the window wall – pretty cluttered, but at least the desk has a little cleared space (not usually true)…

…but then when you turn the other way, this is what you see:

Holy crap, right?! It’s basically been a storage room for about a year and a half-ish, with too much stuff to organize properly. Yeah so I’m crazy super excited to get this reorganization project going! What does this all mean for you, dear readers? Fun stuff!

Once my studio is actually functional as a work space again, I plan to spend tons of time in there, crafting away! You can look forward to clothing recon tutorials, fun how-tos and project ideas, as well as more printed clothing in the shop, and whatever else the new space inspires me to do!! This is Pete’s side of the room which will soon be mine! All mine!!

So that’s what Pete and I have been working on together on his off-time. During our work hours, I have been hard at work on my upcoming ebook!! You don’t get much info just yet, but those hats up top are a sneaky peek. My original goal release date was this week, but then I decided I wanted to make a few extra things, so the last many days have been spent knitting like crazy and I’m really hoping for the release to happen next week (though, realistically, I’m thinking 2 weeks from today will be the day). No hints, but I’m really super duper ultra excited about this project!!

I’ll be having some other exciting news soon too! I want to tell you now, but I think I’m supposed to wait. I’ll give you a hint: it’s not knitting related, or even crafty really, but it’s definitely do stuff! related, and it’s awesome!

And then, after the ebook, I am planning several new patterns – some free, one for a kit, one crochet (!!), and then another ebook! Oh man, and it’s almost holiday craft show season already! Nutso, I say! So, you may not be hearing from me a whole lot, but I will be back with that announcement on the 15th!

Damn the Man! Save the Kitten!

Ok there’s no “man” involved here, just the recession, but a favorite shop in need of help makes me think of Empire Records…

If you live in Portland and are crafty, I’m sure you’ve at least heard of Knittn’ Kitten, and if you haven’t shopped at the craft thrift store, well get yourself over there! Now! Ok, if you’re busy now, I understand, but, tomorrow? The next day? Soon!

(If you don’t live in Portland or have pdx friends to pass the word on to, you’ll probably want to stop reading so you’re not too jealous of us being in near proximity to such a shop. If you’re already a Kitten shopper and know how rad it is, you can skip ahead to the bottom if you want…)

Seriously you guys, it’s a CRAFT THRIFT STORE! How freakin’ awesome is that concept?! Well, that’s how awesome the actual shop is! The above photo is what I took home with me when I stopped by last weekend. As you can see a glimpse of, the Kitten has a huge variety of all different kinds of craftyness, including tons of great fabric, vintage linens, lots of magazines and some books, tons of notions, beads, buttons, yarn, needles (including cheap bamboo straights, dpns, and circulars)…… You should check out Diane’s post to see photos taken inside the shop, on the weekend of Handmade Nation, which is when I bought all this:

If you can believe it, I hold back nowadays and only buy what I really see a specific use for (mostly) – back when we first moved here and I was more frivolous about building up my stash, this is what a trip to the Kitten gave me:

I try to avoid the magazines now, because if I flipped through them I would want to buy too many! I mean, dude, check out these photos!

And you can sometimes find great organizational pieces, like this drawer-filled box, perfect for little bits like snaps, buttons, pins/needles, paper clips, etc… It’s a semi-recent find, so I haven’t gotten it filled yet – it’s pretty deep, so it holds a ton of stuff!

And then there are hidden treasures like these amazing little cat beads – I got these awhile ago and have yet to turn them into a pair of earrings and a necklace, but that is definitely what their future holds!

I don’t buy much fabric (I have a huge stash which I rarely touch because I mostly sew with recycled clothing fabrics), but I usually can’t resist one or two pieces each time I’m at the Kitten. These below were both Kitten finds, and I will someday be turning that above stripey fabric into a skirt!!

So, ok, now that you are well aware of what the Kitten has to offer, what’s the problem? you might be asking… Well their foot traffic dropped like crazy during August, and if they have another month or two like that, they’re just not going to be able to keep the doors open, which would be a tragedy!

They don’t need us all to go empty our wallets, nothing close to that; they just need crafty folks to come through the door, look around, and pick out a few items. While I have proven over and over that it’s easy to walk in looking for one thing, and come out with a massive bag full of other fun stuff, it’s also easy to stick to a budget, since most of the Kitten’s single items are around a dollar or two!

To make it even easier, if you haven’t been, I’ll tell you where it is – Knittn’ Kitten is located at NE Glisan and 76th (on the block between 75th and 76th). Heading east, you’ll see their cute little sign sticking out on your right – it’s small, and not near any major landmark, but just remember Glisan+76th and it’s easy to find.

And if you’re a blogger, tweeter, facebooker, etc, spread the word and tell you crafty pdx friends to stop by! Damn the big-box nationwide craft store chains! Save the Kitten!!

thrifty finds: End Table!

Took a trip to the Goodwill Bins today and scored this awesome Mid-Century Modern style end table! It’s not high quality – faux bois laminate type surface, a bit wobbly – but it was $3!! Three dollars!!

Pretty beat up, but I’m hoping this will be my before post and in a few weeks I’ll be showing you after photos! Not quite sure what I’ll be doing to it yet, maybe spray painting it either orange or green… I’m not at all experienced with furniture recon projects, so I’d love any ideas or advice anyone might have!

The Stats

Where: The Bins
What: 50’s modern style end table
Total Damage: $3

Want to see some other furniture scores from the Bins since we’ve been living here? The best is my sewing table, for $10:

And both the shelving units on my desk are from there (probably around $3-5 each):

Our old loveseat was a Bins find for $15, and now lives at David‘s apt. I also got a drafting table top for $8; sadly, the great adjustable legs wouldn’t fit in my car and I had to leave them behind – I use the table top on a keyboard stand for craft shows. Yay the Bins!

On a side note, the reason I was looking at furniture today was that Pete will be moving most of his side of our shared studio to his new studio space next week, which will give me way more space!! This is super awesome because while my half-room was fine when we first moved in, I’ve accumulated sooo much more stuff since then (thanks to said Bins!) and it’s impossible to keep it organized! So I’m planning out some new shelving and drawers and I’m going to get it all super duper organized – I can’t wait!!

2 years in PDX, time to mix it up!

Last weekend we hit 2 years living in Portland (Portlandiversary, as Caitlin called it!) – and it’s been a fabulous 2 years! So I made a mix to celebrate!

I hadn’t made an official mix, complete with title and artwork, since my moving to Portland mix, so I was excited to put some effort into this one! It doesn’t tell a story like that one did; it’s just music I’ve gotten into since moving here. I always associate music with a place or a time in my life, and I have been pretty out of touch with new music since college, so most of the music I listen to these days was music I was into way back then. So most of my music makes me think of San Diego, my college radio DJing days, 2/3/4 shows a week days… There’s not a whole lot of stuff I’ve newly gotten into since living up here, so this mix is just that – bands/artists/songs I associate only with Portland!

i am grounded i am humbled i am one with everything

Come By Storm                                [Laura Gibson]
Bag of Hammers                                [Thao]
Raincoat Song                               [The Decemberists]
I Like Giants                                    [Kimya Dawson]
Between The Bars                                [Amelia]
I Thought I Saw Your Face Today                    [She & Him]
Falling Slowly                              [Glen Hansard & Markéta Irglová]
Fallen Snow                                   [Au Revoir Simone]
Heartbroken Forever                          [Tender Forever]
Hungry Liars (Featuring Justin Power)                   [Portland Cello Project]
Up North                                    [Alela Diane]
Skinny Love                                  [Bon Iver]
Heartbeats                                    [José González]
Journey Of The Featherless                        [Cloud Cult]
The Hazards of Love IV (The Drowned)                   [The Decemberists]
You’re The One For Me                           [Pete]

Want me to go into detail? Ok not tooo much detail, just a little…..

Laura Gibson is my most Portland-associated artist – she’s from here, I first heard her on the PDX Pop Now! mix I bought at Q is for Choir when we first moved here (the song on my mix), we saw her live at an awesome Portland venue (The Old Church) with our awesome Portland friends (Caitlin and Patrick), and the song is even rain-related!

I was aware of Kimya Dawson pre-Portland, but mostly only through the Moldy Peaches; didn’t get into her solo stuff till Portland. I saw her live here (with Tender Forever) at a super Portland-tastic show (at the Village Free School), and her song on the mix is where the title came from.

There are 2 songs by The Decemberists not because I love them that much, but because of how I got into them, or something… I didn’t like them much, but I tried, living here and having friends who were crazy about them, so I checked out a couple different albums, not caring much for any of them – except for the Raincoat Song, I loved that song! Plus, again, it’s rain-related, so yeah, it had to go on the mix. Anyway, that was pre-Hazards of Love. When that album came out I decided to give them another chance, and I ended up totally falling in love with it! So, to me, The Decemberists pre-Hazards is like a different band than Hazards of Love Decemberists, hence the song from Hazards and the Raincoat song both making the mix.

I didn’t really want the song from Once on there because it’s so overplayed, or at least it was for awhile back there, but it had to be because Once is one of the first movies we ever saw in Portland (at the Hollywood) and the soundtrack was one of the first CDs I bought in Portland (at Music Millennium) so it’s super Portlandy in my head. And I used to love it a bunch, before I got sick of it… but it’s still a nice song.

And then the rest are just assorted artists and bands I heard for the first time here and/or got really into up here, some being from Portland/Pacific Northwest… and then the last one is a song Pete made for me here in Portland, with lyrics about our lives together here. (examples: “We’ve got so much, it’s kind of rad, like a Banzo kitten, extra bad” and “We need one of our ideas to make it big and blow a mind or two, so we can sell out like Andrew Dickson and I can work from home just like you; and every day we’ll take a walk and work on songs and spin some yarn, and we’ll prove Notorious BIG wrong when they say more money means more darn, problems”)

Oh yeah, and the photo on the cover was taken around the end of the snowpocalypse last December through our front window. It doesn’t have any special meaning or relation to the songs, I just like how it looks, and it’s from our Portland home.

So, enough about that. The mix write-up is kind of instead of going through things that have happened in the last 2 years, because that would be way too much to go through. One exciting new thing, though – Pete’s mastering studio is just about up and running! The website is still pretty placeholder-y but the basic info is there (we’re still working on a real logo, and since the studio is still being remodeled, photos of the space don’t exist yet). So, I’m really excited that Pete is pursuing his dream career, since I’ve been pursuing mine for a couple years now! With some hard work and some luck, a few years from now we’ll both be doing only things we love!!

One last, unrelated thing: don’t forget that tomorrow (Tues) is the last day to sign up for the Sept quick knits club! There is one change since last month – you know how the extra versions of the pattern in the August club were a bonus, since there was only supposed to be one pattern? Yeah well, I decided to change that so that there will always be patterns for both yarns instead of just one! Yay!

how-to: Recycled Sweater Wool Jewelry!

do stuff! is in need of a new tutorial, don’t you think? It’s been awhile! This is a project I’ve been teaching at the Multnomah County Libraries all summer – my last class is coming up on Thursday and I think it’s about time I share it with the rest of you!

It’s a simple concept: cut a shape or two or more from a felted wool sweater, attach the pieces to jewelry parts – that’s it! Well, that’s not really it though, you can make it so much more!

A little background – the yellow hoops were the first thing I made with this idea; when I made my embellished cardigan, I had some yellow ovals left over from the pockets, and I thought, hmm, I could make those into something… I cut the centers out, stuck on some earring wires, and that was that! Rad! I played around with the idea a bit further then, making those blue teardrops below, adding some embroidery this time:

Well then I thought, this seems like such a perfect class project – not too many materials or tools needed, super simple concept, but with infinite creative possibility! I bet students could do all kinds of creative things with the concept, I thought… Well, hoo-boy was I right! Check it out, these are what four crafters did in my most recent class:

I hope they don’t mind me sharing their awesome creations. I didn’t take photos in any of the previous classes, which I now regret – every single class has had amazing pieces! Don’t you love that pendant on the bottom?! I do! It was made by the library helper at the Sellwood branch, who clearly has fabulous color sense and design talent!

I made these pieces as more class examples – a matching set of earrings, fastened together with jumprings, and a bracelet, the pieces stitched together with embroidery floss, to show different ways of joining parts.

So for this project, you’ll need:

Recycled wool sweater pieces, felted (great for using leftover scraps after making bigger projects from felted sweaters)
Scissors
Jewelry findings of your choice (depending on what kind of jewelry you’re making)
Jewelry pliers
Embroidery floss and/or thread (optional, depending on your design) and needle
Optional cheap felt and pins for using templates

And the “tutorial” from my class handout…

This project is very free form, not requiring a step-by-step how-to, but the basic steps are:

Cut shapes from felted wool.
Use felt shapes to make jewelry, by either
-stitching pieces together with thread/embroidery floss/yarn
-or joining pieces together with jump rings.
Attach clasps, earring wires, or other finishing parts.
Add embroidery decoration or other optional embellishments.

When stitching parts together, if you want the piece to be able to stretch, use zig zags or diagonal stitches.
Use jewelry pliers to work with jumprings, clasps, and other parts to close them tightly.
Cut any shapes you want, either freehand or using a template (paper or felt). If you want 2 identical parts, cut 1 first, then pin that one to the second piece to cut it the same.

Of course, I’m there for individual help in the classes, with using pliers, sewing, etc, so I’ve linked to a few how-to sites to help you along with any parts you’re not familiar with. You can also use my earring making tutorial on Craftstylish for help with jewelry-making steps. If you want a book to help, I definitely recommend Susan Beal’s Bead Simple – she’s the one who taught me how to make earrings!

These are craft felt templates I cut for students to use if they want. If you’re not sure what shape(s) you want, or you want multiple identical shapes, it’s a good idea to play around with some cheap craft felt before cutting into your sweater. You can try different shapes until you get it just right, then pin the shape onto your sweater and cut around it.

As for felting, this is also on my class handout (see Diane’s felting post on Craftstylish for my detail):

To make recycled wool felt at home, choose a sweater made of 100% wool, or with other animal fibers (like alpaca, angora, cashmere). Machine wash and dry the sweater on hot or warm settings; this will shrink and “full” the sweater, turning it into felt. If you want it thicker/denser, wash and dry it again to felt it more.

These are earrings I made during a couple of classes, and probably my favorite ones I’ve made. Still not nearly as creative or elaborate as some of the students’ creations, but I like the simplicity of them, since they’re pretty big and bright. (I tried to photograph myself wearing them straight on, so you could see both earrings in the same shot, and this is the best I could get, hah!)

And here are all of my earrings… Obviously, I like making earrings more than other kinds of jewelry, probably because I rarely wear jewelry besides earrings and cuffs. I had plans to embroider on those dark grey rings, but I think I’m going to leave them alone; again, I like the simplicity…

So, I hope this was enough of a how-to for you. Comment if you have questions and I can add more if I need to. Grab some felted wool, jewelry findings, and embroidery floss, and have fun with it! Take it even further by adding beads, buttons, sequins, or other bits of crafty fun! Yay!