Twinkie Chan’s Crocheted Doughnut Rattle

I had so much fun stitching up Twinkie Chan’s Crocheted Doughnut Rattle I just had to tell you all about it. The backstory is that one of the girl’s teachers is pregnant, and they were doing a baby shower for her. I thought I had some baby items in reserve and that I could just […]

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What’s Happening: Naked Stairs!

upstairs gate

I love that part at the beginning of the Pioneer Woman’s show where she says “here’s what’s happening.” It makes it all the more personal, and because I live in Arkansas and she lives in Oklahoma, we’re practically neighbors, so I can imagine she’s come over for a chat. And maybe to make me mashed […]

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Work Expands

For some reason I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Parkinson’s Law, which says that work expands to fill the time you have for it. I think we can all relate to that. Though my work tends to expand to the point of overflow, my ideas expand well beyond my ability to capture them and […]

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Simple Shaker

I’ve long wanted to do a website or write a column for a publication that’s all about 30 minute crafts: things you can do when you have almost no time, like I have right now. It occurs to me that that’s a fine addition to this site, so here is the first installment in the […]

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Starting and Finishing

Back when I said that this month was going to be about finishing, I intended to actually finish a few projects before I started anything new. But then I found a coupld oe super quick and easy projects that I just couldn’t resist. First there was Zodiac, a pattern from Knitty back in 2007 for […]

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At Least I’m Not the Only One

I was really excited to read an article in the New York Times this morning about parents in this new economy scaling back purchases for their babies, buying things secondhand or getting them for free when in the past they might have bought the top-of-the-line new products for each child. Unfortunately it was an article […]

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Creating as a Family Affair

My baby, of course, is far from having enough dexterity to wield a crayon let alone create anything that might be considered crafty, but that doesn’t mean I’m not already reading up on the subject. I’d love nothing more than to have a wildly creative little girl who wants to make her own clothes and […]

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