Vintage Craft Thrift Heaven

When I was planning one of my early trips to Portland a few years ago, I remember when Diane mentioned a place she'd like to take me. Her description of the store immediately caught my attention and got me giddy:

"It's a thrift craft supply store with lots of vintage goodies," she said.

"Well," I replied. " You just named three of my favorite things!"


The Knittn' Kitten did not disappoint. During my first visit, I scored oodles of vintage bias tape and ric rac. I brought home a vintage embroidered table cloth that I still use when I'm doing embroidery demos or special occasions. (I even found, but did not buy, an embroidered table cloth that was in progress ... complete with the hoop still attached!) And I discovered loads of vintage embroidery transfers, including one of my most treasured vintage embroidery transfers: the Girl Scout Sampler.


The Knittn' Kitten in Portland is completely unique. It's a thrift store of nothing but craft supplies, and most of it is vintage. It's a dream. The Kitten suffered a bit of a slow summer in this struggling economy, and several of Portland's crafty heavy hitters have come out in force to support The Knittn' Kitten and encourage others to do the same.

Lots of laughter and finds at The Kitten during the PDX Craftgasm weekend back in April! From L to R, Lee Meredith, Kim Werker and Theresa Sullivan. Photo from Diane.

Even though I'm in Texas, I can't express my love of The Knittn' Kitten enough. When I returned to The Kitten during the PDX Handmade nation weekend, I had a blissful visit. We arrived with a full entourage of folks, and the store was alive with laughter and gasps of "OHMYGOSHLOOKWHATIJUSTFOUND!"s. Everyone found some kind of treasure that day, and everyone had fun.

That's me and Betsy Greer browsing the amazing vintage craft books and magazines. Most of the pictures in this post are from the magazine I'm holding in this picture. Picture from Diane.

Most of the pictures in this post are from some of the things I brought home from my trip to The Kitten in April. You can see the things I discovered in my first trip to The Kitten back in my post from that trip.


One of the coolest things that the Portland craft community is doing is coming up with free patterns for projects that can be completed using things you can find at The Knittn' Kitten. Some of my best crafty Portland friends are sharing their ideas and projects. Here's the schedule of contributors so far:

September 22 – Heather Mann

September 29 – Teresa Sullivan

October 6 – Diane Gilleland

October 13 – Joey Groendes

October 20 – Christine Blystone

October 27 – Susan Beal

November 3 – Lee Meredith

November 10 – Bridget Benton

Be sure to check out the projects, and check out the Knittn' Kitten Flickr pool where people are posting pictures of things they've found at The Kitten or made with things they purchased at The Kitten.

If you live in Portland, or have friends who do, please pass this information on. If you don't live in Portland, drop The Knittn' Kitten gals a line to show your support. And if you have the opportunity to travel to Portland, be sure that The Knittn' Kitten is at the top of your list for places to visit. You won't be disappointed

Letterpress dream come true

I've just returned from an awesome weekend in Portland, Oregon where I attended the northwest premier of Handmade Nation and cavorted with some of the most awesome crafters for three days. It was heaven. I'll have a full report on the Craftgasm (as it was called) weekend, but for now I have to share one of the most special things that happened while I was in Portland.

On Saturday, my friend, Sarah, took me up to the Pacific Northwest College of Art where she's taking a continuing education class on letterpress. You see, I've had an obsession with letterpress for almost 20 years, yet I've never been able to actually get my hands on type and a press to try it myself. Sarah was kind enough to take me up to the print studio and I was able to watch her work on her awesome project, and then got to create my own very first letterpress project.

Wowza. I have to say that digging through drawers of wood and lead type, going through ideas of what to print and managing the logistics of actually getting the typeset was .... amazing. It felt like something I've been meant to do my whole life. Not to sound to profound about it, but it was just an incredibly zen experience.

I have to give huge thanks to Sarah for helping me fulfill this big dream of mine. I can't wait to get my hands on more type and a press very.very.soon.

A few fun Flickr sets to browse

I'm still recovering from Maker Faire. This morning, I literally fell asleep in my chair while I was writing. Once I got my post ready, I scurried upstairs and took a long nap. (my body says 'thanks!')

So while I can't write much right now, I do have two fun Flickr sets for you to browse.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

First up is my Flickr set from Maker Faire. I haven't been able to go through and add titles/descriptions yet, but they are at least all together and uploaded! I think some of my favorites are the ones of my son's face while he was watching the giant ping-pong-flinging robot. It was hilarious. I'll be posting highlights all week over at Craftzine, so be sure to check those out.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Next up is a slide show from my good pals, Sarah and Josh, of Sewer-Sewist and The Obama Craft Project. They were so inspired by the Obama Screen Party that the Studio 1408 gals threw last month, that they replicated the event up in dearl ole Portland. Sarah just sent a link to the pictures, and it makes me miss Portland and my Portland friends even more. Sigh! Enjoy, and I'll be back tomorrow with some book reviews and giveaways so stay tuned!

Japanese Craft Books a.k.a. dreamy, yummy good stuff

A few more goodies from Portland. These came from Uwajimaya - a ginormous Asian supermarket chain in the Pacific Northwest. They actually came from the Japanese book store *inside* Uwajimaya, but I can't think of the name - and really, that's not important. Once you are faced with mass quantities of Japanese cuteness, all brain function seizes up and suddenly you realize your life wasn't complete until you found that perfectly scaled, tiny plate of squid and tofu eraser...


Or not.

But that's about how it was for me. The supermarket was actually a lot of fun to wander through and actually made me want to cook. (what!? Me!? Craziness.) Diane, Lee and I slowly made our way back to the bookstore and started flipping through the books they had out on their "July Japanese Craft Book Fair" table. They were fun, and it was nice, but .... I couldn't find any embroidery books. That's kinda what I was banking on. I played like I wasn't totally devastated, and decided to check out the kids' section to see what other cool stuff I could find for my kids, and then turned down the aisle of ... the.most.fabulous.selection.of.Japanese.Craft.Books.Ever.


I think Diane heard me kind of squeal or something, because she came spinning around the corner, and joined me in that deer-in-headlights-overwhelmed-with-greatness look. Lee was next and we all looked at each other and then dived in to our respective crafts of choice. (which I have to say was nice shopping with folks who were looking for things different than I was. We didn't have to get all on top of each other or fight over books ...)

I scored three books. There were dozens more I coveted, but I just didn't have the budget. As it was, I went a little over board.

Here they are - enjoy!

An Ondori book - ISBN: 978-4-277-31164-9
The typical, stinkin' adorable tiny Japanese embroidery motifs.


How amazing is that mane?



Next up, more of a plushie book, but with embroidery: Felt Mascot - ISBN: 978-4-277-56312-3
You might need to sit down, 'cause there's some faint-inducing cuteness coming up.


I thought this little finger puppet with a gun was hilarious.

Check out this amazing food! Good grief! It's so awesome, I have to include a close-up picture. The raspberry makes me swoon!


Finally, one of my all-time favorite, most inspirational embroidery books. It was a big splurge. Sketching Embroidery of Kazue Sakurai. ISBN: 978-4-277-31163-2
It's beyond gorgeous, and I can't wait to implement some of the stuff I see in this book.

I can't wait to get back to Portland for more Japanese craft book adventures, but until then, I think I'll be able to keep pretty busy with these little gems.

Crafty finds from Portland: Stop 1 - Knitten Kitten

It may have been more than two weeks ago, but I promise, the report on my crafty day with Diane is worth the wait. If you are going to do a crafty day in Portland, you want to do it with Diane. And if you aren't lucky enough to score her as your guide, don't fret. Just pick up a copy of the current issue of Craft magazine, and you can see her report on the crafty highlights of PDX. You can even get a peek at how she put together a comprehensive crafty Google map of Portland. She knows her stuff, and I couldn't have asked for a better, or more fun, tour guide.


We started out with bagels and tea near the Central Library. We chatted non-stop (actually, we did that all day!) and were smiley to the point of being annoying. We also exchanged some crafty gifts.

Here's an awesome bag Diane made for me. It's a partial picture, because - honestly - it's wrinkled from overuse on my part. See that flower fabric there? That's Diane's own design. Yep! I got some of her Spoonflower stash! I was so excited to see it in person, and recognized it instantly. So special. I was blown away by her tiny stitches that secured some adorable ric rac on the outside of the bag, and one of my favorite details of the piece is that she actually added ric rac to the edge of the pocket inside. It's little details like that that make me happy as all get out.

The pin cushion is one of her fantastic steel wool/needle sharpening creations. I can't wait to use it.

Next, we headed off to the Knitten Kitten. I've had Knitten Kitten on my radar since last year's visit to Portland. I tried to go there, and it was closed. I was so disappointed, and knew that if I didn't do anything else on my crafty tour of Portland, I *had* to hit the Knitten Kitten.

Knitten Kitten combines all my favorite things: it's a vintage craft supply thrift store. Those are some of my favorite words. I know that trips to thrift stores of any kind can be hit or miss, so I tried not to get my hopes up. It didn't matter, though, because the Kitten delivered in a big way and exceeded all my expectations. Here's what I found:

Fabric - a lot of these are just scraps, but I don't care. They are scraps of happiness.




I also found a beautiful embroidered table cloth in the "vintage linens" room. I liked it because it uses black in the design, and with most floral embroidered table cloths I've seen, there isn't much black. I lucked out and found four matching napkins in the vintage hankie basket. Score!

The napkins and tablecloth have the sweetest little edging detail.


I also grabbed this hilarious book:

See that big blue one in back? He's actually hollow so you can set him on your bed and use him to hide your PJs. Awww yeah ....

The other big score at Knitten Kitten was vintage embroidery transfers. I'm going to put those up in a separate post - they deserve it. If you are heading to Portland, or are anywhere near Portland, be sure to stop by the Knitten Kitten. It's clean, well-organized and totally worth the trip. Thanks, Diane, for taking me there. :)

Next up: the Embroidery Finds (including one that had me jumping up and down), a Japanese Craft Book Utopia, and Twisted, a fantastic, cozy place that's way more than just a yarn store.

I'd also like to give a huge shout out to some awesome Austin crafters who sent along some of their goods as a special gift for Diane. Diane has already done a great post about her gift, so I'll direct you to her web site to see the beautiful things they sent along.

SuperFun Crafty Day in Portland

In just more than 10 hours, I'll be meeting Diane to start our crafty tour of Portland. It's a day that has been *months* in the making, so to say I'm excited is an understatement. I won't likely be able to fully blog tomorrow's trek through Portland's craft highlights until we get back to Texas, but you can bet I'll be tweeting tomorrow. You can follow along over on Twitter.

And really, what I'm looking forward to more than hitting crafty hot spots, is hanging out with some fabulous folks. I'll get to meet Susan and Lee, hang with Sarah & Josh, and of course - I'll be spending the whole darn day with Diane! Can't get better than that ... except to follow tomorrow up with a day at the Oregon Brewer's Festival.

Did I mention I love Portland?

'Cause I do.

Dreaming of Portland ....

Two weeks from today (yesterday, actually) my husband and I will be in Portland to celebrate our 9-year anniversary and enjoy the Oregon Brewer's Festival. I'll also be indulging in a gleeful day of crafty goodness with one of my crafty BFFs, Diane of CraftyPod.

You've heard me gush about her before, and I'm so excited to finally be able to see her again. We met last summer when my husband and I were in Portland for the first time (we fell so in love with the place, we've decided to go back every year until we can retire there). Diane let me tag along to one of her Church of Craft meetings, which was a total blast. We'd emailed a few times before that, and I'd been listening to her podcast for a while. Once we met in person we just completely clicked. I'm talking ... sometimes we feel like we share a brain, and it gets really creepy.

We've become fast friends via email this last year, and the idea of getting to hang with her for an entire day doing nothing but crafty stuff in Portland ... it has me all giddy like you wouldn't believe.

My husband and I have both had one heck of a summer, and every once in a while, we'll look across our laptop screens at each other and weakly whisper: "Poooorrrtttlllaaannddd" It's a big, juicy, crunchy carrot hanging out there for us, and we can't wait to chomp it.

If you read many blogs or craft publications, you know that Portland is a hub of crafty fabulousness, and home to some very talented crafty folks. Diane has put together a day of fun, exploring some of her favorite spots, and working in loads of time to just sit and talk and make stuff (which just sounds heavenly to me!). We're even going to get to hook up with Susan Beal (eeeks!) and Sarah & Josh (double eeeks!) I'm just beside myself. I can't stop thinking about it.

To help me make it through the next two weeks, I'm going to *try* to highlight some of the places we are planning to visit and some of the people we are planning to meet. I say *try* because I'm also trying to squeeze in an insane workload and actually prepare for the trip (and folks with kids and who are self-employed know that planning for the trip can be so much work you start to wonder why you are leaving!) I'll do my best.

If you've been to Portland, live in Portland, or just have a love affair with it like I do, leave a comment and let me know your favorite places to visit - craft-related or not. I'll also have several days with my husband to celebrate and have fun. Oh my gosh ... I'm getting giddy just writing this! So bring on restaurant recs, fun places to visit, possible day trips (we were thinking Cannon Beach?) and any other ideas. C'mon, Portland!!!!