Impress Me

Who hearts lettepress?  On Saturday my friend Suzanne and I took an introductory class at Studio on the Square with Mindy Belloff of Intima Press.

What is it about letterpress?  

One classmate said it was "delicious", another that in a world of flat screens and flat pages, it's nice to be able to feel something tactile and real.  

OK, that second person was me, but still...

in just a few hours Mindy taught us about the history of the art and the incredible amount of detail and attention involved in setting type.  

I always love seeing the tools behind the craftsmanship.

It was a little scary working the huge press, but Suzanne did a great job!  

We definitely want to go back to get more practice and learn more.

But we were very happy with our first efforts!

You can go to Mindy's blog to see how how she recreated the Declaration of Independence -- all set by hand!

Chillax...

We use this word at work and it always cracks me up and defuses whatever tensions are going on.  Do you need a weekend?  Do you want some time for quiet contemplation with Tobey above?  This week's Time Out New York encourages you to "Find your calm"...

and I'm so glad to see two of my favorite places in the city mentioned as solutions: Lion Brand Yarn and Make Workshop. 

I talk about Lion Brand A LOT and mentioned the sewing class I took at Make.  Both places have affordable classes in a supportive environment of creative people and I'm all for that.  My first post ever was about The Zen of Crafting. 

So, tonight I stayed in and knit a birthday gift for a party on Sunday, so no spoilers yet, just a few hints: pink, pearl, ribbon.  Even with a minor snag I kept it mellow cause don't you hate it when an evening of calm crafting goes awry and you start fretting instead of being lulled into a Zen moment? 

So, happy weekend!  What do you do to chillax?

Sew Inspired!

My stylish friend, She Crafty, surprised me the other day with this beautiful book: Seams to Me: 24 New Reasons to Love Sewing by Anna Maria Horner.  I had been telling her about the wonderful sewing machine I got for Christmas and how I need to learn how to use it.  So far I've successfully threaded it and now I have to get going!  Seams to Me has great, basic information, helpful to me as a beginner and I can't wait to pick out one of the projects and figure it all out.  The last time I touched a sewing machine was when I made an iPod case at Make Workshop in the Lower East Side where they have classes from knitting to soap making, embroidery to letterpress, and even shoe making! 

My boyfriend pointed out that so many crafty book titles are a play on words.  Also from my bookshelf are: In Stitches: More than 25 Simple and Stylish Sewing Projects by Amy Butler, Knitting Pretty by Kris Percival (my 1st knitting book from years ago; seems to be back at my place so no cover pic here, but I've made many projects from it) and Stitch 'N Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker by Debbie Stoller (taught me how to crochet the magic circle, very helpful!) 

So, I must face the sewing machine head on, and I'm so grateful to be armed with a new book.  Thanks, She Crafty!

Recent Resources

[From broadwaypaper.com]

This picture is from Broadway Paper, "the paper store with so much more," not in NYC, but in Wisconsin.  I found the site while doing some research on mini hat boxes today.  Looks like a fun store, wish I could visit, but until then I'll just have to check out their website some more, it's quite pretty.  I've also found a few other interesting shops recently:

I stumbled on Exotic Fragrances, Inc. all the way up on 104th Street when I didn't have an umbrella en route to The Museum of the City of New York.  I had been looking for fragrance oils to use in poured candles so I was shocked to find this shop with over 1,000 scents!  I chose Peppermint and Dewberry, so hopefully I'll buy the other materials to make these candles soon, maybe before winter is over.

I also just happened to walk by Beads of Paradise on 17th Street.  They have pieces from all over the world: South East Asia, India, Indonesia, China, the Middle East and Mexico and beads made of glass, metal, wood, shell, gold, silver and semi-precious stones.  They even have reasonably priced classes, might have to check those out sometime.

If I'm not working at events, my office closes at 6 p.m. each day.  I've wanted to go to New York Central Art Supply on 3rd Avenue, but it closes at 6:15!  So, it was cool when I got out early yesterday and could check it out.  This store has been in business since 1905 and I like that they had a vast selection of "serious" art supplies from paints to embossing and silk screening supplies, as well as "lighter" stuff like glitter and sculpey clay.  

And I also made it a little further south to Downtown Yarns and saw these cool yarn snowflakes in the window.