“The Secret Ingredient is Resentment”

Actually, it’s genius.

I can’t take credit for these remarkable images, but as they frown upon crafting at work, you will have to bear with me until I am able to post about an actual project.

I’m sure many of you out there are familiar with the genius of Anne Taintor. A Harvard grad with a degree in Visual and Environmental Studies, Taintor juxtaposes retro images from the 1950s with witticisms that are entirely her own.

Among my recent acquisitions in P-Town was a remarkable Taintor coffee mug which fully endorses those martini breakfasts. I also felt the need to gift a Taintor pin to my cohort here at Kraftworkin’. I’ll let you guess which one.

You can view/buy/worship Taintor’s goodies here. Her products include cards, notepads, pins, flasks, bags, books, aprons, and I do believe there’s currently a sale in progress.

Do take a look. There’s always time for the inappropriate.

Inking From His Invisible Mouth? Yes. Please.

While perusing all the squiddish-octopi items over at Etsy, I stumbled upon this amazing tshirt from the BoyGirlParty shop. The “olive inky octopus” shirts are $20 and I wish I could justify an expenditure of this kind, but alas, I will have to just sit and drool instead.

What’s more, BoyGirlParty has a whole host of equally delicious tees–like the yarn kitty (uber drools!), the acrorn squirrel, and the zebra keyboard. Yum.

With my lack of expendible on random tees fund, perchaps I should take up screenprinting. Oh no, I fear a new crafting addiction coming on…

Wide Scrap Yarn Meets Yummy Wool Silk Blend…

On a recent ferry trip to Provincetown for a day of beaching and carousing, I decided to cast-on a 4by2 ribbed scrap scarf while Miss Cutter was compartmentalizing and developing a chi to balance her sickness on the high seas.

Originally, I was just going to keep it one color, but found inspiration in several skeins of random pink and multi pink colored yarns laying about in my shelf and decided to knit it up scrap style. Extra thick–and eventually extra long–I’ve been looking for the perfect excuse to use my Moda Dea Silk n’ Wool Blend in Sangria. I’ve knitted up a chevron style scarf with this stuff before–it was gray and green apple and gifted to someone lest I’d post a picture–and it feels amazing and knits up beautifully.

I think it’s a great addition to the above scarf as the next scrap stage. What do you think?

Have a hankering to knit up one of your own? It’s easy. Gather up scrap yarns you’ve got laying about–I stuck to the same color theme, but you could use absolutely anything you fancy. I cast-on using size 8 needles, but there are absolutely no gauge requirements so pick your sticks depending on how skinny or wide you want it. Mine is a simple Knit 4 Purl 2 every even row, and a Purl 4, Knit 2 every odd.

Happy scrapping! I’ll post a final photo when I complete it. Can’t wait for chunky knitwear in fall.

My weakness always involves eyes…

For some reason, I’ve always loved crafting kitsch. It’s the one thing my crafting friends have come to rely on in me…

“Jenna, you can take care of the kitsch. Everything else will settle itself out.”

It’s so true. I have a weakness for all cute little items with eyes I knit up and declare “my babies”. The latest? The brilliant MochiMochiLand blog has all things ridiculously drool worthy to knit up–with eyes, to boot. I covet the patterns and have worked my way through most of their offerings.

It’s been rainy through and through in our parts, so the other night, as the rain battered the roof above, I feverishly knit up these adorable hearts with eyes. You can get the pattern for free here if you want, they take all of 10 mintes to make. Just a few bits of scrap yarn, a darning needle, and some fiber stuffing is all you need. While the pattern calls for embroidery eyes (which I did try on one of the hearts), I decided to add a bit of my favorite flair instead–with plastic teddy eyes you can buy up a handful of for a mere buck.

Because I was in bed and wanted instant gratification of sleeping amidst a whole handful of hearts, I didn’t felt them up like the pattern noted. They’re still adorable–but expect me to update you when I agitate that wool with tea kettle and soap and work these hearts a’feltin. Perhaps today…it is raining again.

To Read the MochiMochiLand blog, click this. To try some of the free patterns, check here. And to buy up the adorable pattern offerings like stackable cats and raincloud, go here.

Thank you MochiMochi, I bow to you.

When I am an old woman…

I will sit on my front porch and scare the neighborhood children.

‘tis I, Laura, the other half of the KraftworKin’ duo. Many thanks to my compatriot, Jenna R. Wolf for her introduction on this blog just a few short days ago. Perhaps later in the day, when my coffee quota has been consumed and knitting has been momentarily set aside, I will update the “about me” section with information that is, well, about me. Until then, I leave you to surmise.

Onward. I must, I feel, provide some explanation as to the photograph that precedes this post right here. Most knitters, crafters, and other textile aficionados understand the future risks their particular avocation holds. A future, perhaps, of cats, mismatched flannels, cooking, unkempt hair and the possibility of spending one’s declining years on one’s front porch with a shotgun.

As for myself, I say we must embrace such possibilities with the addition, perchaps, of a still of moonshine or beer brewing in the closet. For what crafting session is truly complete without libations? Cue the Foreigner tunes and the unsolicited drum solos.

As my cohort has already revealed, we plan to share our adventures in crafting, reading, cooking, and other such ladylike pursuits. Since crafting occupies the hands, as it were, we take the time, with our fellow enthusiasts, to discuss the state of the world, scientific advances, and the rising cost of yarn. You better get ready.

If this blog doesn’t set crafting on its ear, I don’t know what will.

Where’s the yarn balls, Miss?

Ere quite ago, two young ladies decided to take a trip on a sweet, old, ass…

“It seems as though it’s a calm day,” Miss Laura, daughter of Sir Kermit Cutter, noted. “But if we meet danger and are eaten by a wild boar, shark, or preying mantis, I have thy knife about a sheath affixed to my thigh. Like a garter…only dangerous.”

While the two moseyed along and met no wild boar, shark, or preying mantis that day–their ridiculous (insipid, vapid? perchance) imaginations led them to this here space, in which they would use Laura’s thigh knife as their first cutting instrument to a life of creating things, putting that aforementioned wild minding to good use.

A young girl is meant to master the arts of ladyhood–cooking, painting, letters, and needlework.

The only thing you won’t find here is singing. Oh wait, cue the pitchers of beer. There may be a bit of singing.

In all seriousness, this here blog is the newest endeavor for I, your humbly dedicated music blogger over at Pulp and Circumstance, Juiced., and most likely if you’ve already reached this space, you are a reader over there. So thank you muchly.

At Kraftworkin’ Everything Kitsch and the Kitchen Sink, me (that’s Jenna! to you) and my good friend Laura (a Smith graduate who enjoys uncommon arrangements, beef brisket, paper goods, and archiving stuff) will finally show off the work we create at weekly craft ups, where the two of us and various other crafting friends work on whatever projects we’ve got going on, and of course, blab about all the projects we have planned. We’ll share those ideas with you (the results, and maybe even some free patterns and how to’s)–and of course what comes of it; the chatter sometimes involves books, recipes, kitsch, clothes we scooped up on the cheap and other trinket trinket.

My brilliant artist sister, a one Miss Nicole C. Wolf, must get a serious thanks in this area. Not only did she draw and design our lovely banner above because she’s an artist and that means luck if you’re her sister, she also taught me how to cast on my first scarf and crochet up my first blanket. So thanks, sister Cha! You must check out her artwork at her website, it’s amazing.

So please, tell us what you think, try our recipes, beg us to make you something. We’re generous.