July, 2008

I have two exciting classes coming up at Crafty Planet. On September 6 and 13 from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. is perennial favorite Needle Felted Critters, where I'll demontstrate how to turn raw roving into a cute little critter, like these birds:

This will be my fourth time teaching this super fun class, and each time I am blown away by the talent and imagination of all my students.

The second class is Sew Your Own Stuffie, held October 18 and 25 from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. In this class, I'll demonstrate how to sew your very own Crabtree Studio alpaca or horse. This is the first-ever offering of this class, and I am very excited about this new opportunity.

Don't miss out on all the fun—contact Crafty Planet to sign up for one or both of these classes today!

The Toy Society is a wonderful new project that spreads plush love through the streets of Australian cities through random toy drops. A toy is bagged and tagged and left in a public space for discovery. The person who finds the toy is instructed to take it home and let the Toy Society know where the toy ended up.

An international drop is in the works; until then, we've decided to get involved by sending these two cuties off to Australia:

We can't wait to find out who adopts them!

Sarah of Small Fox! Congratulations Sarah—a small herd of alpaca are headed your way. Your name was picked randomly from all the wonderful people who commented.

Thank you to everyone who visited—we really appreciate all your kind words, thoughts, and constructive feedback. We have a lot of exciting things planned for Crabtree Studio, so we hope you'll continue to visit.

Also, we've added lots of new items to the shop today—mostly bags, but a few plushies as well. Please check them out!

This week, Kim of True Up challenged her readers to blog about their favorite contemporary fabric. It was really hard to choose just one, but at this particular moment in time, my favorite fabric is Lecien's Forest Wonderland from the My Folklore line:

This fabric combines several of my favorite fabric themes—trees, mushrooms, birds, and squirrels—with a fairy tale sensibility and retro feel, without looking dated or overly kitschy.

I always covet Lecien's designs, which are very hard to come by in Minneapolis, so I was overjoyed to find this gem at Crafty Planet. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with it—it's almost too pretty to cut into!

This cute chihuahua is my latest canine creation. A petite little gal, she stands about 7 inches tall (9 inches at the very tip of her tail) and is about 8 inches long snout to tail. She's made of 100 percent wool with faux microsuede ear interiors and feet, and acrylic safety eyes and nose. Her white patches were needle felted on by hand.

Making this gal was especially fun because the request was so open-ended. So far, all of the custom dogs I've made have been plush versions of someone's pet. But not this one; the request was just "make me a chihuahua. Any color, any size."

My next canine custom is a whippet, so stay tuned!

To celebrate the grand reopening of our Web site and Web store, we're hosting a giveaway of this adorable alpaca family! Just leave a comment anywhere on our blog by July 20 to be entered in the drawing. The winner will be chosen at random and announced on July 21.