My friend and I submitted our books to ‘500 Books’. They do books about everything – 500 baskets, 500 figures in clay, etc… It would be so fun to get into a book! 

Monday night I invited some girlfriends over to knit, eat, drink wine – chat! It was a lovely night. The Boy made the most amazing food. For starters we had sweet potato empanadas, wild salmon cakes and roasted edamame. For dinner he made fresh roasted acorn squash soup and handmade green chile tortilla soup (with roasted chiles from the farmer’s market!). The food was fabulous! I know we all ate too much. I made pear tarts too and almost everyone had dessert. There was a little knitting, some yarn winding and a lot of talking and drinking. After cooking for hours The Boy even took care of the girls so the mom’s could knit for a little bit. The whole night was really special. It was great to get back into knitting with fall just outside. I think we’ll do it again in November before the holiday rush.

As a side note – I’ve been crafting a little less – so I can devote more time to learning html and web design. The Boy gets some call for it in his business and I’ve really been enjoying helping with the design work. One of the biggest choices each time is picking colors – which I love! The ReadyMade blog linked to Eric Meyer’s blog today and a tool he created called the Color Blender. Plug in two colors (hex or rgb) and it shows you a spectrum in between – easy and fun!

It doesn’t rain here that much – except this weekend. It rained most of the weekend and Baby Girl and The Boy both had colds.

The scrub oaks on the hillside opposite our house have almost all turned – yellows, ochres, burnt orange – it’s really beautiful, but I don’t want fall to move to fast.

We spent a lot of time inside making up games, etc… Standard for winter, but tough on the imagination after having such an easy summer of always playing outside. We wrapped the table so we could all paint and draw. The Boy and I ended doing all the drawing while Baby GIrl walked away to play games. It’s funny how often we find ourselves playing alone while she’s moved on to other things.

I made a Fluffy Apple Pancake from one of the Moosewood cookbooks late one morning (11-ish).
It was really easy and delish! A great fall breakfast. (I was a little sad… when I took it out of the oven it was all puffy and beautiful. When I came back a few minutes later it had collapsed. It still tasted good, but it would be nice to keep it all puffy and lovely.)

With all of us around the house all weekend I was able to start knitting again too! Baby Girl has wanted a pair of socks to match mine ever since I made them last March. So the truth is that we spent most of the weekend trying the sock on. Every couple rows she would ask to put the sock on. She had great fun!

She even asked me to show her how to knit. She’s just 3, but I know some kids learn at 4 and 5 years old. We tried, but honestly – neither of us had the patience.

I love fall!

 
I am so excited to have a swift and winder. It just arrived today and I waited for Baby Girl to go to bed to use it. I love it!!!

***There were no directions with the swift and I thought I must be missing something because I thought it was a fuss…and then I realized I was beyond goofy…the second ball was much faster to wind then the first… 

I mentioned previously that I made some new gocco cards for a fundraiser for Baby Girl’s school. She attends the Little Red Schoolhouse 3 days a week.

It’s an actual 100 year old schoolhouse about a block from where I work. The arts center I work at sits on a 100 year old sheep ranch and the wife of the rancher was the teacher at the little red. We live in a small town with a lot of history.

I turned this picture into two screens for my gocco printer. I love making gocco cards – the simple clean lines and bold fields of color really appeal to my aesthetic. I also really like when the screens are a little mis-aligned.

Today on 43 folders (a site I love to pretend is helping me be better at work) Merlin linked to this way cool Official Seal Generator. I had so much fun coming up with a button for my site!

I so enjoyed participating in back-tack iii that I was sad to see the list in the end of those who didn’t receive anything. When they asked for angels to come in and make something for those that got left I was happy to do so. Nicole and Alison gave me Ampersand Duck as my angel partner. They also told me that I didn’t have to follow the rules. I hadn’t made anything yet from Hillary’s Put-Together book yet so I made the bunny. I’m really happy with how she turned out (and Ducky wrote a lovely post when she received my box all the way in Australia)!

I made the bunny all in orange wool felt and then gave her a green dress to tie on. The dress is a green flannel lined with red wool felt to match the shoes. I altered Hillary’s heart shoes to have flowers to match the ribbon on her dress. There are some detail shots over at flickr.

I am in love with premium postcard. I first saw it written up on the Ready Made blog. I had to try it right away. I upload a couple of pictures and write any text I want. Then they print it onto a postcard and send it out for me to any address I want – for 84 cents! I think it’s genius! Whenever I feel like I need to send a little note to friends or family I can make a really cute card in a minute or two without leaving my desk – I love it! This is the proof of the card I just made…

somtimes i’m sure i’m not making anything…and then i’m suprised to find i did…

our preschool had an auction fundraiser last week and i printed gocco cards of the school and made a pillow. here’s a sneak peek of the card… (in my back tack angel box on its way to australia!)

I’ve noticed with August here that a lot of people are taking a blogging break. With the craziest time of the year at work I feel like a break, but I had to post two blogg-y goings on…
I’m excited to be an angel for back-tack iii to ampersand duck. it’s been so fun to read her blog (especially since I make books too), and I’m excited to send something off to Australia. Silly – but true. So I’ve started making her a creature from Hillary’s pattern book (completely ignoring the original back-tack rules since they said I could). I have a couple different softies going at once, so Baby Girl and I will decide in then end which one goes to Australia.

I’m also excited to be signed up for Yarn Aboard II for my knitterly side – Amanda has to be the nicest person I’ve never met!. I’m thinking socks this holiday season…

Baby Girl picked out this pony from the face painting lady the other day. I watched her paint. Baby Girl was so happy – she looked beautiful.

When I was little my Dad and Stepmom took me to a festival where I had a purple and white unicorn painted on my face. In my memory it was beautifully painted, took forever and probably cost a fortune.

It didn’t take this lady very long to paint Baby Girl’s pony the other night (and it was just a few dollars). I wonder what the unicorn on my face looked like really? Our childhood memories often seem so different when we get a chance to view them again as adults.

Gallery end wall, originally uploaded by cafe crafty.

We are preparing for our biggest fundraiser of the year at work – our annual auction. So I spent this week installing art into the main gallery. We don’t usually have so much big work, but when it comes to the auction preview we always have to overfill the walls – salon style. I really like it. It feels pretty good at the end of the week to have such an easy view of what I’ve accomplished.

Sunday at the Music Festival, originally uploaded by cafe crafty.

This past Sunday we went to the Aspen Music Festival 4pm concert. They open the baffles on the tent and everyone picnics on the lawn. We had a lovely time and wonderful food (thanks to The Boy!). The concert was just perfect – the lawn crowd was very quiet and the pieces were just right – you could hear everything. We had fresh made Peach Sorbet from Jeff’s stand – it was fabulous! Baby Girl did give me a look for harassing her with the camera (even though she’s in my chair).

I’m pleased to post my first pattern and show-off my new design.

I created a new banner for cafe crafty and a new color scheme. I don’t think I’m done playing with it yet (it’s pretty fun to do!). But I think it looks pretty cute now.

And – I’m posting a pattern for a little felted box. I started making them this winter to put gifts in. I didn’t see a pattern anywhere so I thought I would write it up. They’re really simple to make and there are million ways to decorate them. It’s a great way to show off cute buttons too when you only have a few (or even one).

Click here for a printable version of the pattern.

It didn’t rain for a month – so we didn’t have any fireworks for the 4th of July. (We had a lovely parade though!)

It has rained everyday since then and this morning was only 48 degrees at 9am. The mountains are beautiful covered in clouds (there’s usually a big mountain at the head of the valley that is completely covered right now).

The weather almost makes me want to knit. Baby Girl is asleep and the house is quiet so I picked up a tiny project I started forever ago. I’m even thinking that if I really wanted to knit presents for people this year (in December!) I could almost start to think about what those are now. I feel like a little old lady – but maybe I’m ok with that.

I just posted a few new sock bags over in my etsy store. I have some cute new summery fabrics!

Thank you all for your comments and ideas. A needle would help, or maybe a tougher machine…or better yet – a husband who spoils me! After my sad night and sad post The Boy surprised me today with a new bag from Oilily! Yea!