A busy weekend . . .

It's hard to believe that it's been almost a week since I posted! A lot has happened in that time . . . Mr. Mojo and I went down to CubeSpace on Saturday for the Stuffed Misfit Stitchathon and Suzi Mayer's cool hat class.

Here's Mr. Mojo hanging out with Eva, one of the founders of CubeSpace.

There were lots of shrunken sweaters and cool fibers . . .

And people cutting up socks . . .

And people making wonderfully crazy hats!

Here's Suzi and her hubby, George, modeling some of their creations! Suzi doesn't have a website, but I'll be sure to let you know when she runs this class again . . .


And here's Mr. Mojo . . . flirting with a lovely sock and glove creature birthed at the event! Looks like one of the participants crafted Mr. Mojo a soulmate . . . after all, she's got rainbow eyes and ribbon wings . . . . what's not to love?

Stay Tuned: The winner of the 100th Post Flag Giveaway was randomly selected this weekend . . . madness is sure to ensue.

Birds, Shopping, Hats, Bridges and Other Wonderful Things

I love birds. I love shopping. And, I love hats.

It is no surprise, then, that I was inspired and delighted by this picture of Gretchin in her chicken hat from Liv and Lotus.

I saw the hen hats, the tea cozies and the Lumpies at the Trillium Artisans sale . . . and somehow I managed to resist buying one of each. Perhaps it has something to do with the big box of felted recycled sweaters in my sewing room . . . or the fact that I made a tea cozy a few years ago . . . or the recycled sweater hats I bought from Sweaterheads last year when I made the Sweetie wander at Saturday Market with me in the freezing cold! Those are all really good excuses, but really, can a girl have too many things made by local craftistas out of recycled sweaters? Of course not! Perhaps I do need a Lumpie . . .

What I did buy at the Trillium Artisans Sale was a Johnny Pillow from crazycoconut. It has a lovely silkscreened picture of the local St. Johns bridge on it - and really, besides a hat that looks like a chicken, what could be better than a beautiful bridge that you can hug?!



And I've tried taking pictures of the St. Johns bridge, and they just didn't do it justice . . . somehow crazycoconut managed to capture its cathedral-like elegance and its total approachability . . . . on a pillow.

Wow.
I have loved bridges for as long as I can remember . . . I loved the idea of crossing over, of being suspended . . . of seeing the water rushing below. And if it was a suspension bridge or a covered bridge, even better - you were contained, but still totally out in the open . . . that was the best. No wonder I moved to a city divided by a river . . . a city with so many bridges.

But now I have to go put on a bumblebee costume and attend the grand re-opening of diy lounge at collage.

"My God, how I love Hats."

"People make clothes, and sometimes clothes can make people, and sometimes people re-make themselves to suit the clothes and the life they long for. Fashion is masking and social standing and personal fable and art and craft and industry and avocation and technology and instinct. And millinery? A stretch of the human imagination toward the divine laughter of angels… okay, I just love hats. My God, how I love hats."

Euphrosyne said this on her blog the other day, and I found myself stirred. Slightly dumbfounded. Delighted.

And totally embarrassed that this woman ever saw me wearing those jeans with the lace-up rollerskate on the butt. Ok, it was the early 80's, and I was barely out of elementary school, and I really did love those jeans. Enough to wear them twice a week. Which in the early 80's at a firmly middle-class suburban Texas middle school was enough to earn me fashion pariah status. Now, I can look back and say that perhaps that was where my interest in interactive, experimental "outsider" textile arts began . . .

Which brings me back to the hats. I made this hat from a lampshade. I spray painted it, I glued things to it (including a fake bird, fake fruit, and old paintbrushes), and yes, I wore it. For one glorious Solstice Party evening in the late 90's. It was heavy and it made my head hurt, and I felt AMAZING. The photo (touched up with acrylics to bring out the profile of the hat and neutralize the background) doesn't do it justice.


My God, how I love Hats. And you can see more of them here.