carrie girl

gocco-ing machine

i went through eight bulbs last night making screens for my gocco.  i'm working on a few more brooches, some old designs and a couple new.  i wish that there were more options when it came to gocco cloth paints.  i tried jacquard gold paint for one part, and it was a total disaster. the paint was too thin, too messy,  and didn't show up dark enough on the linen.  maybe it was because i was using gold and not a primary color, but i think i'll skip wasting any more screens and stick with gocco paint--unless anyone has any suggestions for alternate inks...

love quail

since i'm going to attend quite a few weddings in the next few months i wanted to make a little card to include with the gifts. so this evening, instead of packing, i dusted off the old gocco and printed some love birds.  i'm pretty sure these little guys are quail--they started out as partridges, but the little thing-y at the top started looking a bit more quail-like, so i ran with that.
i leave tomorrow for new york on an american airlines flight.  i am pretty sure it is going to be canceled, so i'm not looking forward to any part of tomorrow...at all.  so wish me luck, and i'll be back on sunday (god willing.)

swap goodies!

i love getting mail, and participating in a swap is a sure-fire way to get the postman to deliver some goodies to your doorstep!  the love birds on the left are from natalie over at that girl, and the pine needles are from sarah of things are better with a parrott. both ladies are super talented and i'm loving these cards so much i'm not sure i can actually send them out.

now i have to get back to watching the primary returns...i'm so addicted.

a finished project...finally

i have another snow day today, but the district decided to call school off after i drove my 30 minute commute on the ice covered interstate to get to work.  i used the extra time to get some paperwork done at school, and then drove to my favorite thrift store which is always closed by the time i get off work, so i couldn't be too upset i had to get out of bed this morning.  i found quite a few vintage linens and the pair of wooden acorns over on my sidebar.  the linens are in the wash along with a few others from a thrifting trip i took earlier this week, so they need a fluff and fold before they'll be ready for pictures.  i also finished my contribution for the mid-winter gocco swap.

i'm not sure what oysters have to do with winter other than the fact that they taste good sitting on top of ice , and ice is currently covering the streets of iowa city. also, i miss the oyster and martini happy hours in new york.  these are just fun little stuffed oyster tchotchkes that i have been thinking about making for a while now.  what can you do with a little stuffed oyster tchotchke you ask? well...the question should be,  "what can you not do with a little stuffed oyster tchotchke?"

i've got mine on my bulletin board in my craft room and another sitting on a bookshelf in the living room.  they're not very functional, but some of my favorite things are just fun to look at and fun to make. now i just need to buy 12 envelopes, get them addressed, and out in the mail by tomorrow afternoon.  hopefully we won't see any more snow! 

oysters and gocco

here's my first try at the gocco fabric printing attachment.  i used my same oyster design from a tote bag i made this summer, but printed on linen--something i'm really growing to love using.  this is for the mid-winter gocco swap and i'm about halfway done with my project. 

i've never done the whole mass production thing, but with 12 people on my swap list it is pretty necessary.

on your left!

yesterday i received my first item from the mid-winter gocco swap--this lovely little notebook from elizabeth over at right out loud and blue valentine press. it is so sweet i almost don't want to write in it. 

she set the bar pretty high, so i've been racking my brain trying to figure out what i should make for the swap.  i've been itching to use my fabric printing attachment that ted got me for christmas, so maybe i'll make some sort of small fabric thingy.  as you can tell i haven't really given it much thought...maybe i'll use my new notebook to sketch up some ideas.

swap fever

on monday, while surfing through all the crafty blogs that i could on my lunch hour (or rather lunch 20 minutes) i stumbled upon swap bot.  i've never participated in a swap before, and always wanted to get in on the action but never really knew how. enter swap bot. i figure i'll start out easy because i've never done one before (and i couldn't get in on some of the really good ones because i don't have enough points...or something...i'm just going with it.) so i signed up for one called "surprise, surprise, surprise" that just basically says to send your partner anything--something you made, already had, bought etc.  pretty simple.

i couldn't just stop there, though.  i found a gocco swap  on another site, and signed up right away.  not only do i get to use my beloved gocco, but i get to put a neat little button on my sidebar that says i'm participating in something--very exciting. both swaps aren't due until february, so i'm confident in my ability to complete both in a timely fashion. i hope i didn't just jinx myself...

still practicing applying bias tape to curves...man, that is hard for me. if anyone has any tips, i'd love for you to make my life a little easier!

gocco and gold thread

so i bought my gocco back in july, but didn't get up the courage to actually try it until december.  i opened it up a couple times, looked at it, looked at the japaneses instructions, opened up the ink tubes, and then promptly put it back in the box and in it's place next to my shelf.  i honestly don't know why i had myself in a tizzy over it, but i sort of felt like if i didn't use it i didn't have to mess up.  well, i finally got over my fear of screwing it all up and dove in with the christmas cards this year, and now i can't get enough.

ted decided to write a christmas story this year to give to family and friends, and enlisted me and the gocco in the design of the cover and construction.  we were pretty successful with the christmas cards, so i was pretty confident going into the book cover.  i decided to get fancy and use two screens--in theory this was great, but when it came time to line up the second frame with the first during printing it got a little fuzzy. in the end, we decided that the not-so-matched-up frames added charm.

little did i know that the two screen fiasco would be the least of my worries...enter gold thread.  we thought that using gold thread to sew up the spine would be festive and a nice match to the gold on the ornament.  turns out it was a total nightmare--breaking in the middle of books and just driving me nuts.  halfway through we switched to red thread, which actually looked nicer.

gold thread of death

                                                                            

                 last attempt with the gold thread