Wunderkammer Crochet Workshop!!

This Saturday, March 6th, we are thrilled to welcome the amazingly talented Jessica Polka of Wunderkammer back to Shoppe! Jessica will be hosting a crochet workshop based on the delightful Seahorse Crochet Kit she created for us! If you already crochet, come on down and learn some new tricks while Jessica walks you through the pattern. If you've never picked up a hook in your life, now's your chance to learn from a very friendly, very patient pro. We'll have all the kits and supplies on hand, and there will be snacks!
WHAT: Crochet Workshop with Jessica Polka
WHEN: Saturday, March 6th, 2-5pm
WHERE: The Curiosity Shoppe (855 Valencia btwn. 19th & 20th Sts.)
COST: Workshop is free. Kits $20.

See you Saturday!

When it rains... we craft!

All this rain we've been having means lots of time indoors. And since I've been making a valiant effort NOT to spend every waking hour working on the shoppe or some other random work project, I've been doing lots and lots of crafting. First I made a new pillow for our sofa out of some gray wool I had. The scarf pillow we made over a year ago had started disintegrating (it was an old scarf!) so it needed to be replaced. We just finished a project for a friend's book that involves knot tying, so I was feeling inspired to stitch one in the center of the pillow.

I know I say this every year, but this year I'm determined to get better at sewing. I was working on some soft sculptures for another friend's book last week and I feel like it's a slow road but I am learning a lot... so first up are TIES. More wool from my fabric stash and lots of pattern altering to get it just skinny enough but not too skinny... and here we have the first of what will hopefully be a series of new ties for D.

Finally, I am trying to use up all my leftover yarn to make small little projects like hats and gloves. Here are 1 1/2 pairs of fingerless mittens (finished the last one yesterday) which are easy, fast, and are one size fits all, which I love. The pattern for the two-tone ones with the buttons can be found here.

And since the sun did make an appearance on Monday, we made sure to eat lunch outside on our favorite bench in Glen Canyon. In other crafting news, Derek only has one arm left to knit before he is done with his first sweater! At which point we will regale you with photographs and you will see that pretty much everything we've been making these days is grey and brown and woolly. Those are our winter colors, I suppose.

Classes On the Waterfront!

Our good pal Mariah, aka The Landlubber, is helping the San Francisco Maritime National Park Association put on some fantastically fun and exciting classes down on the Hyde Street Pier. Seeing as though we San Franciscans are practically surrounded by the stuff, it makes a heck of a lot of sense to get more acquainted with the beautiful bodies of water we're lucky enough to have right down the street. There are a bunch of maritime-related classes and activities to choose from, we're looking forward to Oar and Paddle Making in particular. Space is limited so register now!

(That picture up there is from a LIFE magazine story about the Oakland Women's Rowing Club. You can see some more awesome images here.)

Making

We have been crafting up a storm around here, and I'm excited to share some of our recent projects with you! Unfortunately when our computer died in November we lost tons of photos of our apartment redo, (we've completed the living room and made some serious progress on the dining room) but I'm planning to reshoot some stuff this week. In the meantime here is my first pair of socks, made with "Mega Boots" wool that D gave me for Xmas.

Walnut Crafts

Last night at the market I couldn't resist picking up a bag of walnuts, and I had fun making crafts out of the shells while our soup was simmering on the stove. We've been so busy with work the past couple weeks that I haven't been making much, so it was nice to bust out the ol' hot glue gun and take a little crafting break. Instant gratification!