Minneapolis, ya'll! Part 2: Nimble Fingers

Minneapolis is my former home. It's dear to my heart and it took me far too long (nearly 8 years) to return after moving to North Carolina. I found the city as beautiful as ever with old lovely buildings, charming ancient industrial landscape, creative people doing interesting things...

It was so neat to be able to see the great new stuff happening.

Sew-and-Sew

My gal pal Stephanie and her partner in stitchy crime Leighann have started the Nimble Fingers Sewing School. Here they are meeting in the Mill District Arts Gallery:

This is how I spent my first night in Minneapolis, with this lovely girl gang from way back in the Oak Street Cinema days, talking stitches and working on Chris's embroidered heart project for his wedding present.

a crafty journey, Part 1: Bozeman, Montana

I've just returned from travels to these two most wonderful, completely distinct and uniquely beautiful places. Naturally I checked out all the artsy and crafty things I could, and wanted to share.

Bozeman, Montana : this is a sweet, quiet, and quaint little town surrounded by beautiful mountains and so close to Yellowstone National Park.

At the Coop, I admired a woman's hand-sewn cap and she referred me to the Emerson Cultural Center; an old school converted into gallery/studio/retail art and craft spaces. It has a small screening room and little cafe.

The hat is a creation of the talented Jennifer Hogin/Super Jenny Love, and is similar to this one: Eating a scrumptious caprese sandwich in the sweet herb garden of the Emerson Cultural Center before checking out the art

Junk altar art by JC


Tart is the shop of locally and regionally handmade art & crafts. It has a great variety, and also offers crafting classes; sewing, embroidery, beading, etc.

I fell in love with this ring, made by Sarah Ann of Fleshman Creek Designs

top two prints by Courtney Blazon, bottom four by Annie L. Bailey

Embroidered Art for your home!

New embroidery pieces are for sale! These pieces are currently showing in the Sew True exhibit at South Lamar & Ben White Starbucks in Austin. I'm working on stocking my etsy shop with new items and restocks to help with a whole bunch of medical expenses that have hit me all at once, for both myself and my kitty. The latest is a set of tests I have to undergo that will run $800, so I'm trying to save and get on the road to getting healthy again!

I will be listing these on Etsy this week. In the meantime, for my lovely blog readers, an offer of a slightly discounted price. The special discount will be available for the rest of the week (through Friday night).

>Details: If you are interested in purchasing any of these pieces, send me an e-mail and I will send you a paypal invoice. It will be first come, first serve and I'll need to verify that it hasn't been purchased through Etsy, etc. first. I will include shipping in the invoice amount. If you live in the area, I'd be more than happy to arrange for you to pick it up instead. As I've mentioned, these are part of an exhibit currently showing until the end of June. Unless you need your piece before then, it will be shipped at the beginning of July. If you do need it earlier, please just e-mail me and we'll work out a time that will work for you!


"Open Heart" It's a 9x10" image in a black wooden 14x18" frame.
$175 > $160 for blog readers.


Here's me & Misty, to give you an idea of the size of the piece and how it looks in the frame


"The Secret Language of Hands" > 5 1/ x 13" image in a black, wooden 10 x 21" frame. Hands telling stories and deepening of mysteries of the universe.
$125 > $110 for blog readers


"Snip Snip!" Scissor Series > Embroidery Scissors. 4x8" image in an ornate, vintage-style black wooden 12x14" frame.
$40 > $35 for blog readers


"Snip Snip!" Scissor Series > Vintage Craft. 6 1/2 x 7 1/2" image in an ornate, vintage-style black wooden 12x14" frame.
$40 > $35 for blog readers


"Snip Snip!" Scissor Series > Embroidery Scissors. Approximately 3 x 8" image in a wooden oval 5 x 9 1/2" embroidery hoop frame.
$35 > $30 for blog readers

"Snip Snip!" Scissor Series > Stitchy Scissors. Approximately 3 x 8" image in a 5 x 9 1/2" faux boix rubber embroidery hoop frame.
$35 > $30 for blog readers

Scissor Love

I've been working on embroidering even more scissors (hair stylist, more vintage embroidery, diagram, etc.) and have hung up two more in the show still up at Starbucks. I will post the newest additions soon.

In the meantime, two scissor-related crafts that tickled me pink today.

Lauren Levy's show currently at D. Berman Gallery here in Austin, wonderful use of buttons! I just found out about this today and since it ends in a couple days, plan to check it out tomorrow.


And I love this demo display Rachel / Average Jane Crafter made for her embroidery classes and demos she's doing at Maker Faire San Francisco this weekend:

sweet!

science & craft

from Milly and Tilly

Embroidered for a menstrual cup pouch (like The Keeper or Diva cup - I'm a huge fan! "The chemical structure of a heme group. Heme B is the oxygen binding molecule found in hemoglobin, a major component of blood."

crafty ephemera kits : in shop

Here's a really fun activity : going through all of your collections (some call them hoardes) and picking out items by color theme rather than type of supply. Also, when I found these adorable little lunch boxes, I knew I had to do something with them! (in etsy shop)

Urban Threads : when crafting is used for evil?

Various craft blogs and etsy among others have been posting the news about Urban Threads - a company who poses as an indie, crafty individual - ripping off designers and artists including Sublime Stitching. Feel Stitchy has a nice thorough piece with side by side comparisons that pretty much erase any doubt.

So I was especially disturbed when recently my embroidered embroidery scissor piece was favorited on flickr by Urban Threads. I'm sure they feel free to do whatever they want with any artwork that is out there but I did what I could think of which was to block UT on flickr.

It really makes me crazy and upset that this person/these people are out there continuing to do this crap, using the online communities we use for positive things like support of each other to troll for ideas. I'm not flattered, just disgusted.