I’m very happy to announce that I am now the mother of a happy, healthy 7 week-old baby boy.
I am also very happy to announce that the shop is open again, just in time for the holiday rush. I am still adjusting to motherhood, but in the next few days I plan to list all of the products that I made and photographed while preparing for the arrival of the baby, which include many new holiday cards. I’ll be featuring the new items here as they go up, so stay tuned…
Koto will be closing temporarily while I go on maternity leave. Timing maternity leave when you own a business is a tricky thing, particularly a one-person business. My due date is set for Monday, September 16, and rather than worrying about someone putting in an order right as my water breaks, I’ve decided the best thing to do is close things up preemptively. The shop will be closed for around 2-3 months, though I’m hoping to get listings up and running again around Thanksgiving in time for the holiday season. Thank you for your support!
With all the work for the shop, I haven’t been knitting much recently. However with the baby on the way I felt that I wanted my guy to have a few handmade knits. And baby things knit up so quickly, it’s hardly a huge commitment. So for right now, the plan is a set of mittens, a few hats and a baby blanket.
I used this pattern for the mittens, from the Purl Bee. I just used leftover worsted weight Caron Simply Soft yarn that I had lying around. The project uses so little yarn it’s a great way to use up the ends of your stash.
The pattern is very simple –no thumbs to fuss with, which makes sense since it’s not like baby will have good enough muscle control to need the mobility. In fact my major motivator in making a set of mittens was to act as a protective barrier so baby doesn’t gouge himself in the face with his nails.
One drawback is that the way the pattern is originally written, it places the “jog” from knitting in the round smack in the middle of the mitten on one side. There are alternative directions for placing the “jog” on the side of the mitten in the comments near the bottom. I did this on my second mitten, and it looks so much nicer.
I also made two hats using this pattern in two different sizes, “newborn” and “6 months.” Again, I used Caron Simply Soft yarn that I had left over from other projects.
The pattern is very simple, so I added gradated stripes to the 6 month hat, which ties them in to the mittens.
So coming up this September (or so) I will be MIA for a bit, and the shop will be closed temporarily while I’m on maternity leave! In preparation for the baby I’ve been working on a few handmade items. I found this fantastic tutorial, complete with patterns, on how to make a felt hot air balloon mobile. I’m not much of a sewer, but since this didn’t require a machine I thought it would be worth a try.
The setting is not so great since it’s currently hanging in the living room where I assembled it, but it will be going into our bedroom and then the nursery as the baby grows.
I made a few changes from the original tutorial. First, instead of a large embroidery hoop. I created a frame using sticks of craft wood from Michael’s that I nailed and glued together, and then added screw eyes to suspend the balloons/clouds since I had them leftover from the craft show card display.
For the patterns on the balloons, I followed a couple of the ideas from the tutorial and tried a few of my own.
Another change I made was that instead of using cork for the balloon baskets, I made tiny little felt baskets and suspended them from the balloons with embroidery floss.
I’m happy with how it turned out, and hopefully the baby will enjoy it too.
The past couple of weeks have been insanely hot! The upside is that it makes it easy for me to justify staying indoors to work on getting new items up in the shop.
First up, new constellation cards! Most people don’t recognize the constellation of their zodiac sign, but Orion and the Big Dipper (Ursa Major) are two constellations that are among the easiest to identify. I had gotten a request at a market awhile back for Orion, so I thought I would add a couple more constellations to the constellation series of cards.
I’ve also expanded the selection of notebooks to include these sketchpads. Due to the popularity of the bike mini-notebooks, I added bike sketchbooks. There are also flower sketchbooks and other designs.
I’ve also listed the black and white notebooks that I premiered at the Handmade Cavalcade. These include the small and large versions of the notebooks inspired by the earth houses of Burkina Faso and modified chevron design.
I’ve shot pictures on several more items, and I’m working away on other projects with a big impending deadline, so hopefully I’ll back soon with updates on those!
I had made a card display for my last show that turned out pretty well, but for my spring show I wanted to try something different.
First and foremost, I wanted to create something with more capacity. As you can see in the above photo, the display can hold 15 cards maximum. Another problem was that the fold up stands and the dowels were too big to fit in the suitcase, and so they had to be carried by hand. The setup was a bit cumbersome as well. Finally, whenever someone purchased a card, it was really difficult for me to reach the middle cards.
The major benefits of this display were that I had a spot behind the curtain to hide my inventory sheet or to eat a quick lunch. I also felt that getting the cards up vertically really helped to draw people to the table.
With these lessons in mind, this is the result of my second try:
Basically I assembled two stretcher frames and then hinged them together. Using stretcher frames instead of picture frames is much cheaper and allows you to customize the size to exactly what you want. Since the wood is raw you could paint it to your shop colors (I liked the raw wood), and you get a nice vertical display for your merchandise.
The new display design resolved my major problems with the previous display. I can fit up to 24 cards on this display, up from 15 previously. It folds flat for easy transportation, so I can hang the frame over my shoulder and have my hands free for the suitcase. It’s super easy to set up, and the curtain is attached from the back so I can flip it up to easily grab items off the strings from behind.
Instructions on how I built the display after the jump:
Apologies for the long silence, following a long break after the holidays, I am gearing up for the next big project for the shop. I am very happy to announce that Koto will be showing at the next Handmade Cavalcade on May 4 at The Space in Williamsburg (503 N 3rd Street).
I’ve been designing, poking and sewing away trying to roll out a variety of new products for the show.
Since Mother’s Day is the following weekend I prepared several cards that would be appreciated by moms.
Above you’ll see a mother and baby owl card, a trio of flowers, and geometric MOM text cards.
I’ve also expanded on the super popular bike mini-notebooks and enlarged them into sketchbooks.
In addition to the bikes, you’ll find a variety of geometric patterns on sketchbooks.
These notebooks are inspired by the decorations on the earth houses in Tiébélé, Burkina Faso.
After the show I’ll be updating the Etsy shop with new listings for everything, but to get first shot at these products (and to avoid the wait of me making new inventory), come check out the Spring Handmade Cavalcade, this Saturday, May 4!
I’ve owned two Android phones and one iPhone, and my preference remains firmly with Android. One major drawback to Android (other than the app store, which is rapidly improving) is the lack of selection of phone cases. Since Android phones come in such a large variety of shapes and sizes, you usually only have a choice between black, white and some other basic colors. If you can find a clear case for your flat-backed smartphone, I’ve figured out a way you can customize your case a bit. Instructions after the jump. Continue reading
Two new items up in the shop! The first features a two-toned Moroccan design with an intricate interweaving of stars and geometric patterns.
The second features a looped petal star design, also Moroccan in origin. It’s available in solid yellow or two tone blue and green.
I picked planners that were blank monthly calendars so that procrastinators (like me) could start whenever it made sense. The other half of the notebook has blank pages with a dotted grid for notes.
Koto Embroidery 