Hi everyone,

Our first event in coordination with FestEvents went great last Saturday–they publicized it well and plenty of people showed up to needle-felt and paint flowerpots. Kristen R. and I ran the workshop.

We have two other events coming up, a Trunk Show on 8/15 and the Craft Supply Swap on 8/29, and I need people to volunteer to help run both of them. They are both great opportunities for us as a group and as individuals. How often do you get to sell your handmade items on a Saturday afternoon in the brand-new, beautiful Town Point Park with NO BOOTH FEE whatsoever, and the tables, chairs, and tent are provided? Totally free for us! How awesome is that?

And the Craft Supply Swap will be short, as simple as we can make it, and incredibly fun. We’ll meet (and recruit) other Hampton Roads crafters, get rid of supplies that are junking up our craft rooms, and get new supplies for FREE while we’re at it! And both events would be perfect for promoting Handmade Parade–to draw both applications and attendees.

These are amazing opportunities for us and I cannot run them all by myself. I will be there both days to help, but I really need some people to step up and coordinate these with me. I promise you it’ll be fun (and profitable) and the small amount of work involved will totally pay off.

If you can help, please comment and/or shoot me an email at kristin@craftandsewstudio.com.

Thanks in advance for your help! I think it’ll be great if we can get out there and do something more than just meeting up once a month to craft (as fun as that is :)).

-Kristin

Hello! It’s Cassie. Last weekend, I hosted a surgery bear-making party for the 7 Cities Crafters.

My infant son recently underwent surgery at CHKD and while we were in the waiting room, a nerve-racking experience to say the least, a volunteer approached us with a basket of wonky-but-charming handmade bears. She encouraged us to take one for our son, who at 3 months wouldn’t appreciate the gesture, but the generosity touched us – that people are compassionate enough to craft something for a child they’ll never meet.

Volunteers make the teddy bears for the children undergoing surgery at CHKD. Each child (or parent) is allowed to choose his/her own bear and for children who undergo multiple surgeries, it’s a souvenir they can look forward to collecting. It’s like getting to choose a plastic ring after a dentist visit.

So on that rainy Saturday night, we brought some leftover fabric to the table and started crafting.

Kristen and Agnes did most of the sewing, while others cut and stuffed.

For safety reasons, the faces must be drawn on with fabric marker. The later it got, the more creative the bear faces became. Each bear is one-of-a-kind with different fabric combinations and facial features/expressions.

Thanks to everyone who came! Enough was made to brighten the hospital experience for 20 children.

Last night a bunch of us braved the awful weather and headed out to the 7 Cities Crafters knitting workshop.

There were plenty of laughs, some crafting and some dessert. Sounds like a perfect rainy night to me!

Thanks so much to Kristin, Liz and Truly for helping out. I think our beginners got a really great start on things!

Look at Kathleen flying on those DPNs! She learned knitting on DPNs, how to do cables and how to knit continental. Girl is a machine!

Sloane’s socks are growing and growing! She’s doing these two at a time on a long circular needle using a technique called magic loop.

Yummy yarn. Speaking of yarn, don’t miss the Yarn Stash Swap this Saturday at Craft & Sew Studio! Details are on the events page.

Had tons of fun at the 7 Cities Crafters holiday party on Sunday night! Check out this adorable pincushion that was one of the many awesome gifts in our white elephant gift swap.

We had a huge group there! At least 25 people came.

Presents ready for swappage.

Mary W. led several of us in some embroidery…

…while the rest of us worked on needle felting led by Kristin!

Great results, guys! We had some delicious food, got to hang out and had a terrific holiday & craft-inspired time. Can’t wait to see what 2009 brings for our group!

We had a great workshop at the ODU ceramics studio last night thanks to Ashley of Pic n Paint!

She showed us how to manipulate the clay, taught us some terminology and got our brains going with some ideas of how to embellish our tiles, make pinch pots and use underglaze creatively!

Lots of great stuff was made, and it was awesome to see new faces!

Stay tuned for more workshops coming up soon!