How To Make Stuff - Ten Layer Jello from Rarebit Productions on Vimeo.

Is it just me, or does the 4th of July make you think of Jello molds? Well, every occasion makes me think of Jello molds, so perhaps it is just me.

But nonetheless, the upcoming holiday weekend is a great excuse to get jiggly - so if you want to get your Jello on, check out this video I made with my friends at Rarebit Productions for a how-to in mold magic.



For a different style of mold, and a complete recipe, along with a story about how much everyone will love you if you make them Jello, check out this post.

Happy 4th!

xoxo
Brett

This week my bud Drew Emborsky (aka The Crochet Dude) hosted an event at Etsy where he was teaching folks to crochet with strips of fabric using the Simplicity Rotary Cutting Machine. (It's a machine that cuts perfect strips of fabric to any width, and also embosses. Very cool.) I got to jump in and do a little impromptu webcast with Drew, live from Etsy headquarters. It was fun!

Click the above video to watch the demo. My favorite part is Drew's story about how his whole family pitched in to crochet giant rugs when he was a kid. How cute is that??

Today I'm welcoming Vickie Howell and her new yarn, Sheep(ish) to Manhattan Craft Room for a stop on their blog tour!

I first met Vickie a million years ago, back in 2005, when I was a guest on Knitty Gritty. Where, apparently, we took the opportunity to immerse ourselves in piles and piles of metallic gold eyelash yarn. What was going on there? I have no idea. I'm just glad it's not 2005 anymore.


Because there are much better things happening in 2011, like Sheep(ish), Vickie's brand new yarn! Which is decidedly not metallic eyelash yarn (thank goodness).

This yummy, yummy acrylic/wool blend has just hit stores and is available now at Caron and at JoAnn stores nationwide. (Vickie even has a find-a-store app on her website, to aid you in finding the nearest Sheep(ish)-selling store!

Don't you just love the colors?! I'd like to get my hands on one skein of each and make a technicolor crocheted chevron afghan - how great would that be?

In addition to afghans, Sheep(ish) is amazing for everything from garments to accessories and more. There's a great batch of free patterns over on the Caron website, so hop over there to check out the goods and get your Sheep(ish) on! And while you're at it, swing by Vickie's blog for lots more inspiration.

PS: And if you want to check out some other great crafty blogs, visit some of the other stops on Vickie's tour:

May 25th: BlogHer.com (Kathy Cano-Murillo)

So, when I was making my embroidered eggs, I did a lot of research to try to figure out how it was done. There wasn't much out there to work with -- only a few mentions of egg embroidery online -- but I did come across some hints that others made theirs by cutting a hole in the back of the egg, which allowed you to work the stitches on the front of the egg. I tried a bunch of different methods and finally concluded that the only way it was physically possible to embroider on an egg was with the hole-in-the-back method. So that's what I did.

Well. The other day I came across this video which blew that out of the water. It turns out you don't have to cut a hole in the back of the egg -- at least not if you're a mad embroidery genius with, like, magical fingers.

Annie Garcin, the woman featured in this video, uses a method that has nothing to do with my hole-in-the-back method. Like me, she does use a Dremel tool to pre-drill tiny holes in the egg shell for the actual embroidery. But rather than cut an opening in the egg, she drills her design on both sides of the egg, and works the needle in and out through the tiny holes. (Watch the video to see this in action.)

For the record, I did try this method, and it was head-explodingly difficult. It's so hard to blindly poke around inside the egg and find the correct hole you need on the other side. Not to mention, I still don't know how you'd knot the thread. (Unless she's making attractive knots that show on the outside of the egg.)

Either way, Annie Garcin is an embroidery master. I tip my hat to you, fair lady! Or should I say, my chapeau.

PS: The video above is in French. I could understand some parts of it -- here are the details I got: Annie Garcin is an embroidery artist who lives in Corbeil, France. She studied embroidery in school, then went to work for an embroiderer in the sixties who worked for les grandes maisons. (Meaning, she worked for someone who worked for the big fashion houses embroidering couture clothes. How fabulous is that.) She uses silk thread for her embroidery. I think she said she invented this crazy egg embroidery idea herself. And at the end I think she says we need to make sure these ancient crafts aren't forgotten. (I'll second that.)

I don't actually have a garden, but this week for my Sewing 101 column at Design Sponge I whipped up a little something for those of you who do: a gardening apron!

It won't exactly keep you dirt-free, but it'll keep all your tools and seeds at your fingertips, and that's a good thing too.


Pop on over to Design Sponge to check out the full how-to, including lots of step-by-step photos.

If you're a beginning sewer, this is a good one for you. It's SUPER easy, and it's made by sewing straight lines only! Imagine that!

Maybe I'll wear mine when I plant terrariums, and I'll just pretend that I'm working in my fantasy garden in my fantasy brownstone house.

Thank you all for your nice comments on my last post. It was fun to learn that some of you have similar leaving-Manhattan stories!

Well, I'm here in Brooklyn, and all is well. My biggest fear was that life here would be less convenient, and that I'd have to schlep into the city every time I needed any little thing, like a zipper or a something special for a recipe.

Of course, that was silly, because Greenpoint has everything I need. There are tons of great food markets and bakeries (oh the bakeries) right down the street, and I've already found a gourmet kitchen shop and a well-stocked sewing notions/yarn shop within a short walk. So I now know that I can officially survive here. Groceries, baked goods, kitchen supplies, craft supplies -- what more does a girl need?

The most exciting thing is that I have a big, fresh canvas of an apartment to play with. I have 825 square feet all to myself -- which is small by many standards, but HUGE to me! I've never lived in this much space, ever, and I honestly don't even know what my decor style will look like when I have room to spread out and get creative. I'm super excited to see everything come together.

OK, want to take a look at the raw space?

Yeah, this is a lousy image of the floor plan - I know it's hard to see. But it gives you an idea of the layout. This apartment is a railroad, which means the rooms are all in a row, like a train. At the front (top of the floor plan) is a nice, sunny room with bay windows overlooking a park, and that will be my work studio. Yes!

Here's a view of the windows. The trees are now green and I can hear birds chirping. Which is quite a change from the chaotic sounds of Second Avenue.


One wall of this room is all closets, which will be home to my craft supplies.


The wall opposite the closets; this is where I'll put a long work table for sewing and other projects.

Fourth wall of this room; I'll put a counter-height work table here, which is where I'll cut fabric and do other standing-up tasks.

OK, note the glass blocks. The landlord installed these back in the 80s to allow light into the next room. It's a great feature light-wise, but the blocks definitely lend a certain flavor to the decor. They could be worse though; at least it's not an abstract, multi-colored mosaic backsplash!


This is the next room moving down the railroad. I'm using this room as my bedroom. It's small, but it's really cozy and I'm planning to do something very zen with the decor so that it will be simple and relaxing.

Opposite view of the bedroom. As I type, I'm having a closet built in the nook under those cabinets, so that the whole wall will be storage. I've also never had more than 36" inches of closet space, so I don't even know what I'm going to do with all this closet.


Moving along, the next room is the living room. More glass blocks on the left! This is a long, narrow room and it's a tiny bit tricky to figure out how best to plan a furniture layout, but there's definitely enough space to play with, so I'll make it work.


Other view of the living room. What do you know, more glass blocks! I kinda like the diamond shape; I'm sure I can make it into a fun focal point somehow.


This is the hallway just outside the living room, leading to the main entrance to the apartment. (There's also an entrance into the craft room, but I don't use that door.)


The next room is the dining room. YES -- the dining room. I can't believe I have a dining room. I have a dining roooooooooom! It's another long, skinny room, making it perfect for a long, narrow table, which I couldn't be more excited about. I can have, like, ten people over for dinner, and we can all sit at a table at the same time. This isn't just a material thing; I feel like it's going to really take my cooking to a new level once I have the chance to entertain more. I can't wait.

Yes, the dining room is a crazy mauve color. I'll be painting this room, probably white. I plan to do most of my photography in this room, so white will be best for that, and I'll add color with the curtains and accessories.


Other view of the dining room, leading into the kitchen and bath.


The bath. This apartment was last renovated circa 1989, and it shows. The fixtures are dated, but I've got some tricks up my sleeve to (hopefully) help bring things into the new millennium.


And, finally, the kitchen! It's very dated but it's got TONS of cabinet space, which is just insane. I've already put away all my stuff, and the cabinets aren't even full. Can you imagine? I can buy more stuff!


I'm thankful that the kitchen is basic black and white. You see so much bad tile and awful cabinets in rentals out there - even though this kitchen is old, it's basically a blank slate, so that's a really good thing. And I'll be doing some little updates to the cabinet hardware and whatnot, so I think that will help freshen things up.

So there it is! I still can't believe I have all this space. I keep walking through the rooms and having these moments of Wait, there's another room here?? And like, if my phone rings and it's on the other end of the apartment, I have to run to catch it in time. And I keep burning food because I walk out of the kitchen and forget about it -- I'm just not used to having other rooms to walk into. Ha!

Also, have I mentioned that I have NO furniture? Seriously, none, except for my vintage medical cabinet and my clear coffee table mentioned in the post below. Due to a couple moves in recent years, I ended up getting rid of all my furniture. While it's daunting to think about filling all this space, hello, it's also AMAZING that I get a total fresh start with a new place and no old decor baggage. It really is a unique opportunity and it will probably never happen again in my life. I'm excited to enjoy the process and whip this space into a crafty oasis!

Big changes have been in the works around here... Drum roll please: I moved! To Brooklyn!!!

After 13 years in Manhattan, this was a big, big deal for me. I was so resistant to leaving that tiny island, but at the same time I felt the call of something new -- so I finally took the leap across the river. So far I'm loving my new place, but before I start sharing all the goods on my new digs, I thought I'd dedicate one post to my last Manhattan home. I still feel so sentimental about Manhattan, and my last apartment really was an old-school New York gem from another era.

This is where I lived for the past couple of years; it was a studio in the East Village that I sublet from a friend. I was in the same one-block vicinity of the East Village for almost all of my 13 NYC years, except for a brief stint in the West Village. So, this spot was really my New York home. An imperfect home full of tourists, drunk NYU kids, passed-out bums on my stoop, major noise 24/7 and no space whatsoever -- but also where I knew the people who owned the best home-cooking Ukrainian diner, where I often bumped into someone I knew wherever I went, and where I could get anything, literally anything, within a five-minute walk.

This apartment was a studio, a large(ish) rectangular main room with a separate kitchen. The main room held my bed, living room area, work area, books and clothes. The total size was about 380 square feet. Since it was a sublet, it was a mash-up of furniture that was already in the space combined with my own stuff. Ready to take a peek?


My humble lil' kitchen -- more details and a before-and-after are at the end of this post.

Super cute exposed brick fireplace, with my great-grandmother's mirror.


The apartment had amazing bay windows with deep window seats and a great view. The light was stunning; no question, the windows were the best feature about this place.


This vintage medical cabinet is the only piece of furniture I've kept with me throughout all my NYC years. I really love it.


I modified Ikea Enje blinds for all the windows, removing the shade that came on the blinds and replacing it with fabric. I'll do a how-to post on that one of these days.


The windows looked out over the intersection of Second Avenue and 6th Street, with a view of the famous Block Drugs store. The apartment was just one flight up so you really got a birds-eye view of the street - I spent hours sitting in these windows people watching.


A couple of details. Some of my vintage knitting needles in a crystal vase, and a vintage paint-by-number horse.


A little dresser and book nook.

To organize my jewelry, I used these great display cases. They were perfect because I could stack them to save space, and the glass tops allowed me to shuffle them around and see what was inside without having to open the lids.


There was a CD rack already installed in the apartment, and I repurposed it for books, which made it look like one of those cool skinny bookcases.


Not sure why I didn't manage to clear the clutter is this shot - oops! Anyway, my "living room" was never quite complete but I always liked my clear coffee table and my cow rug. The coffee table (from CB2) was perfect for this area because it gave me a lot of surface space (since I tended to do a lot of work on the couch) without taking up visual space.


The pass-through from the main room to the kitchen with my hanging vintage lamp.


Another view of the pass-through.


Big-scale Blythe art I made to hang over the bed. Pillows were cast-off magazine props from my former office.


This corner was my teeny-tiny work space, crammed right in there behind the sofa and next to the bed. Glamorous, right? Part of me didn't want to share this photo because it's not very pretty, but I thought I'd go ahead and show what Manhattan living really is, honestly. Plus, when I think about it, I'm more than a little amazed (and kinda proud) that I made a lot of work in this little nook -- including designing, sewing and writing my sewing book. Just goes to show that we really can accomplish a lot with very little sometimes. (I'm going to try to remember that.)


Whenever I'd remove something from a these shelves, Kitty would squeeze herself into the empty spot. It was her favorite thing to do and it always surprised me and cracked me up to find her perched among my craft supplies, always when I least expected it.


One of the projects I undertook in this space was sewing a slip cover for the sofa. In New York there is a very special phenomenon known as My Couch Is Stuck In My Apartment. In this case, the friend who sublet me this apartment purchased this sofa a while back, only to find upon delivery that the sofa wouldn't fit through the apartment door. (This, sadly, happens a lot around these parts.) The solution is to call a couch doctor, who will rush to your building, cut your sofa into two pieces in the hallway while you hold back tears, move the pieces into the apartment, reassemble the sofa, and charge you a lot of money. (Crazy, right? That's how we do.) So, that happened to this couch, and consequently the couch was pretty much stuck inside the apartment. To freshen things up, I made a slip cover for it. I got the whole body done and then never finished the cushions. So for my last several months in the apartment, I had a white slip-covered sofa with green cushions. D'oh!

Also, check out the floor - it was this very vintage gray and white tile with pink insets. Old school!



And finally, a couple before-and-after shots of my little kitchen. As you can see, it had a very impactful tile mosaic back splash which I like to think was made by some interesting East Village artist back in the 80's. A cool piece of neighborhood history to be sure, but not exactly my style. (I'm convinced the same artist did the tile work in The Tile Bar around the block - if you're ever in the area, check it out.)

My solution was to hang a piece of peg board over the mosaic, concealing the crazy tile and giving me lots of space to hang my pots. I also had the old brown door replaced, which really refreshed the room, and hung wallpaper inside the glass cabinet doors to conceal clutter.


I think it was pretty cute in the end! And goodness I love that wallpaper (it's this one from Anthropologie). I still have a good bit of the roll left and hope to find a use for it in my new space.


And of course, no retrospective of this apartment would be complete without a few shots of this classy lady posed throughout the space.

This really is the end of an era, but change is good and I feel great about my move. I've been a busy little bee working on the new apartment and can't wait to start sharing photos very soon.

So long, old apartment, and so long, Manhattan! Thanks for the memories!