Ran away to Renegade

Wow, it's been a long time again, hasn't it? Well, it really is summer now, and I hope to be able to bring you more consistent, continuous, craft filled posts in the near future.

Any the way, this weekend was the Renegade Craft fair in Brooklyn, and it was absolutely spectacular! It my my first time attending the event and my mom accompanied me since Helen couldn't come with (her grandfather passed away, and on father's day- how awful!) :(

Despite the sad news, and once I overcame my shell shock, I had a truly terrific time! While I was still too shy to really say hi to some of my favorite bloggers/craft world idols (such as Heidi and Emily) I did partake in the buying of their wares, which are only that much more wonderful in person. If anyone saw me, I was the sheepish girl with big rectangular sunglasses and a brown t-shirt reading "Natch." (I made it for the occasion, but don't have photos as of yet because it's in the wash- boy it was hot yesterday!)

In the end, I did my best to control my spending (that was certainly a challenge) and came home with:

Two journals (I am so in love with everything this guy makes! These books are blank journals with some of the original pages interspersed and are quite possibly my new favorite thing!) from Jacob at ex libris anonymous. The tuba one is for me (of course) and the other (which also has the most charming illustrations inside) is for Helen. This guy will even make notebooks out of books you send him for only $9 a peach! How fantastic!
And, a beautiful print from Miss Emily at theblackapple which is already hanging on my wall (though still in it's plastic as I have no frame and it is certainly worth protecting)


A used tissue for Helen (I thought it was ironically appropriate... but also darling) from the wonderful Heidi over at mypapercrane. Though I'm wishing I bought something of hers for myself, I kept gazing wistfully back at those cute little milk cartons...
A wonderful monster from Mad Science, who is new to me, but I'm so glad I discovered.
and a cute little clutch from cotton cupcakes, which is the only purchase I'm regretting just a twinge, because I know if I tried really hard, I could have made it myself. (Though not with that lovely owlie fabric...)


I also picked up some fabric (and a free lolly) from the reprodepot booth


and won a raffle at the adorn and knit magazine booths! The bag was filled with yarn and other goodies, and the included crochet hook inspired me to give crocheting another try when I got home...

resulting in my first crochet FOs, three lovely little flowers:

I'm certain I didn't do it "correctly" but I think they came out alright. Now I want to make a cloche hat to put them on. (I tried on and fell in love with this hat at the fair... but $100-$140 for a hat, even as stunning as that, I just can't afford)

More craft and less shop soon. I have a few FOs to blog about. I know you don't believe me, but I swear!

Round and about

I haven't been accomplishing anything lately. Crafts, school work, it's all in senioritis mode. Admittedly it's kind of nice to just go to school and rehearsal and come home and read lots of inspiring craft blogs... but I need to make that inspiration go somewhere. At least I was inspired to do something when my beginning crochet kit came in the mail. It's not much, but check out my first swatch!

I decided mastering crochet chain, single crochet and slip stitch was enough for one weekend.

Today however, I finally picked up my dpns and the random, slightly ugly dk yarn I have a million balls of to start knitting my first socks.

It's not much, but I'm excited. I'm 'taking' Silver's Sock Class and so far so good- I've mastered casting onto and getting started on dpns (I only used dpns once before- for my no-ears kittyville hat, and that was started on circs. It gives me some mindless knitting (at least until I get to the heel) to do during rehearsal for a while... at least until I order the yarn for my first sweater (ambitious again, yes?)

Really I should be working on the crafty detective swap... or that branching out on which I stopped after (unlucky?) 13 pattern repeats and have yet to pick up again. I hope it will be done in time for mother's day... problem is, it just requires too much concentration, that I certainly don't have at the moment.

Well, I do have one thing that is a little more fun:

I sent this pouch (and stamp I used for it) to my partner in the DIY kit swap- along with a lot of other stamp making stuff of course. The pouch has a nice little brown lining from some small thrifted piece of material. It's my first, and so far only, use of that huge barrel of upholstery fabric, and though it's simple I'm really happy with it. It's going to take a lot more of these to use of all that fabric though! Haha, well one of these days I'll be back in full craft mode again, I know it.