Lost Sock Memorial Day

My friend Linda writes on her blog that Friday, May 9th is Lost Sock Memorial Day, the day we remember all of those lost socks whose return we await year after year.http://spottedcowsoaps.blogspot.com/2008/05/blog-contest-for-lost-sock-memorial-day.html
Well, I immediately thought I'd better blog about it, as Friday May 9th is my daughter Becca's birthday and Becca has been, for about 15+ years now, the style maven of mismatched socks. I can't remember whether she got away with it in Catholic school, but by the time she entered high school she'd hit her stride and was forever wearing socks that didn't match. Any lost sock in the household immediately found a new mate of a different color in Becca's wardrobe. Soon she was the envy of her classmates.
Do you know there is a Vermont company that makes mismatched socks?
Last year I was actively thinking of making little laundry bags for holding mismatched socks...I wanted to print the French phrase for "mismatched socks" on them, but our Paris contact told us that there wasn't really an equivalent phrase, it would come to something like "sock which no longer has partner", not something in common usage. If any reader knows better, let me know!

Essex Spring Craft and Fine Art Show

My days are busy getting ready for the Essex Spring Fine Art and Craft Show, a juried show sponsored by Vermont Craft Workers, coming up Saturday, May 3rd and Sunday, May 4th. A local tradition, it is held at the Champlain Valley Exposition in Essex Junction, Vermont.

This is the largest show I've participated in, so I'm trying to judge how much inventory I'll need, and my scissors and sewing machine are buzzing...I've had new fabric coming in for the past few weeks, some favorites of my customers last year, and some irresistible new designs. One of my favorites in this version of Denyse Schmidt's "Flea Market Fancy", this in pinks and orange.

One Fabric, Two New Unmet Friends

I'm something of a francophile when searching out new fabrics, and last summer I picked up a small bit of fabric with French names of soaps and illustrations on it. I loved it, and it has brought me two new friends.

Carrie/Gigi is an artisan of soap and other delights from Maryland. We met through the community on Cottage Living. Carrie bought a pillow I'd made in this fabric, and, lucky me, I was the recipient of her swap package this spring in the Cottage Living community. Among the many great and useful gifts were a number of her products which she presents under the name of "Under the Willow Gifts". Her website is http://www.underthewillowgifts.com/, and you will want to check it out if you are jealous of my new crocheted face cloth, lavendar linen spray, chocolate lip balm, Maryland Crab Soap (I can't wait to try that!), and soap in Willow Spice. Carrie blogs at http://underthewillowgifts.blogspot.com/.

Sylvie is the moderator of the message board in our new Vermont Etsy Street Team. Sylvie creates natural skincare and body products and lives in a jewel of Vermont, the Lake Champlain Islands. I've been commissioned to make aprons for Sylvie and her husband Bob to wear at their local farmer's market, and as luck would have it, I was able to search out and find a few more yards of that French soap fabric. Ironically, it turns out Sylvie is from Montreal! Her original products are marketed at http://sylviel.etsy.com/.

Vermont Etsy Street Team

For lovers of all things Vermont and all things handmade, we now have a Made in Vermont Etsy Street Team, a group of Vermonters marketing their arts and crafts through etsy.com.

You can preview our new blog at http://vermontetsystreetteam.blogspot.com/, or look for us on etsy.com!

Spring Sale!

From now through midnight March 31st take 15% off of your order (does not apply to shipping). Shop, put items in your cart and before check out convo me and I'll adjust you invoice. You may take this additional reduction on items already on sale, too.

After a successful sale and the beginning of my craft show/market season you will begin to see new product lines...more children's items, aprons and clothing, new organic fabrics, and hopefully some new finds from vintage kimono and sari fabrics, french textiles...and new items. Also a more contemporary line!

Fabric Scraps..."Too Pretty to Waste"

I am a lover of all things fabric, and have been as long as I remember. I like seeking it out, purchasing it, laundering it (in Seventh Generation detergent), ironing it (well, as long as the piece isn't too many yards..), rolling it and adding it to my stash. I also love the little pieces left over when a project is completed, and save every bit of worthwhile size, finding them "too pretty to waste".

My daughter Becca, who makes brilliant hats and quilts (check out her barn swallow motif on http://flyinghen.blogspot.com/), recently asked me to bring her some scraps. "No problem," I thought, since I have so many. But then she asked specifically if I could spare a scrap of a green vine print designed by Densye Schmidt for Free Spirit's "Flea Market Fancy". I paused for a minute, remembered she is my daughter, after all, and agreed to share...Some fabrics, I think, are even more beautiful as little pieces than they are as yardage. This lovely print is, and Becca is also in love with it, and has even spotted it used in quilts in magazines. Another print which I treasure every little piece of is by Mary Engelbreit and has little girls reading books on it. One little fragment left over from making a child's apron showed a little girl reading Little House on the Prairie. Oh, how I loved that book! So I took this little piece and recovered one of my aging pincushions.

I keep adding items made from fabric scraps to my product line. I make note cards from fabric scraps, which I call my "Too Pretty to Waste" line. I started making headbands last summer, and those have been very popular. What fascinates people the most is my utilizing scraps to make yo-yo's. I'll blog more about yo-yo's another time, and include instructions, but for now let me say they are really magical...they bring back memories of grandmothers and great aunts, they gather up and change their design identity in the process, and seem to particularly fascinate babies, boys, and men! I have some small table covers in my etsy shop. I also make pins and ponytail holders from yo-yo's, and have made some toys for my grandsons, but haven't listed those yet.

Road Less Travelled and Little Shop of Horrors

The little, one lane private country road that we live off of ("within spittin' distance" was one of my midwestern father's favorite expressions) holds many charms...unfortunately, most of them are seasonal.

It has been a long, hard, snow-drenched winter this year in Vermont, and "cabin fever" is rampant. The only winter sport I have been able to "enjoy" is the one of watching our neighbors try to drive their cars up the hill ("will he make it? no, he won't!") and hoping they don't end up with one or two wheels in the drainage ditch.

The drainage ditch has a brief life as a stream in springtime, assisting the snowmelts past neighboring basements and down the hill. Later, and through summer and fall, it is inocuous and covered in vegetation. It is only in winter it emerges, in my mind at least, as the Little Shop of Horrors. It is hard to believe that so many cars, SUVs and trucks would accidentally slide from the road into the ditch...no, I suspect there is a fiend-plant force there at work, pulling vehicles in and keeping them bound.

A couple of weeks ago our car broke down in Burlington and needed to be left for repairs, so we took a cab home ($70.00 for a cab ride!). The driver, a personable older fellow, we gave specific instructions to do not try to back your cab down the road from here, or you will end up in the ditch. He did, and he did. I offered the driver what help I could, which is very limited. "Once you are in the ditch," I told him, "you can't be pushed out. You can call your dispatcher to send a wrecker, or you can stay right here...you are blocking the road with your taxi so eventually one neighbor or another is going to come by in their truck and have no choice but to pull you out so they can get by." He opted for the later, and was out in 15 minutes or so. Good choice, for our little road is not beloved of the AAA tow truck operators, some refusing to come at all, some finding themselves stuck in the process of helping others, or they work so long they forget and run out of gas.

They say spring always follows winter, but the ice storm of this weekend was particularly a bruiser, and I'm beginning to experience doubts this winter will end, at least not anytime soon. I don't trust the Little Shop of Horrors, so more often than not I've been leaving my car at the foot of the hill. It sits there now with the remainder of my grocery shopping from a couple of days ago still in it, plus the recycling bin. I'm thinking if I put the kitty litter, birdseed and other grocery items in the recycling bin, and take a long dog lead and wrap it around the bin, I can drag it up the icy hill as if it were a sled....