miss koco and the iladelph: February 2009

Friday, February 27, 2009

proud to be...

I loved the beaches in Thailand where I let the sun kiss my skin. I took a long long long train ride from Beijing to St. Petersburg and played in Mongolia. I found Japan to be one of the most delicious places on earth. However, dulce de leche ice cream is best in Argentina. Most of my dreams take place on Buck's Rock Road in New Milford, CT. NYC was my first true love. But... Philly, is where I'm from.

No matter how far I go, I always end up coming back, at least to visit. There is a wonderful community of creative people that keeps me here these days. The designers and artists around me keep me grounded and sane, inspired and excited to create new things. Through March 2nd, in honor of PA Pride, Handmade in PA organized a collection of sales and specials in HiP members' etsy shops.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Mew Gallery Annual Pay-the-Rent Event

If you didn't already know, I love Mew. They do so much to continue to help create community among local artists. They host fantastic events, they are open to having meetings for local collectives of artists and designers, they carry the work of people who live in the area, they make cool stuff... they're awesome! Mew has become like a second home to me. I love hanging out there. I donated the Benjamin Bangle for the fundraiser. I know it's a school night, but I hope lots of people come to support them, come to dance with me, and come to buy me lots of drinks.

All proceeds go toward keeping this place open and running. Please, help support local arts and join us for the fun!!

March 3, 2009 from 6 to 10 pm
at the South Philly Tap Room
1509 Mifflin Street, Philadelphia

Beer specials, silent auction, raffle, djs, dancing, and general merriment.

$5 suggested donation

Win fabulous stuff (photography, paintings, prints, jewelry, clothing, zines, candles, ceramics, and sooooo much more!!!) from participating artists:

Alina tees & zines, Anna Burke photography, Beck’s Buttons jewelry, Bell Buoy Press, Boto Designs, Faceplant Wasted, Flying Fox, Gray Nation, Isaac Bushkin, J.L. Schnabel, Jessica Liddel, Joy Stember, KnitKnit, Lana Heckendorn, Lauren Lopez, Leslie Albend, Megan Dorien, Mike Geno, Miss Koco, Nicole Rae Styer, Rebelle Couture, Sarah Myers, Shannon McLaughlin, Sideways E, Tiny Airplanes, Tranquility jewelry, Un De Six clothing, WabiSabi, Warren Veith, and COUNTING!!!

seriously. so much good stuff.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

the benjamin bangle

A curious case of a button stash gone wild.

The buttons were sewn to a felted merino band (still using pieces of that shrunken sweater!). Many of these buttons were sent to me from chickitout as a PIF (pay it forward). I will be donating this piece to Mew Gallery for their upcoming annual fundraiser at the South Philly Tap Room on March 3rd from 6 to 10pm. There will be beer specials, DJs, dancing (there should always be dancing), a silent auction and a raffle on art and merchandise from local artists and designers. $5 suggested door donation.

Friday, February 20, 2009

knithacker

I'm obsessed with flickr groups lately. I came across a group called knithacker that is dedicated to knitting projects that are a bit whacked out, have a certain flare, or are a combination of a couple of patterns combined together to make, as they said, "something gloriously unique and knitty-licious."

They also have a website--and they picked one of my projects from the photo pool that they featured. How fab! This knithack was part of my project Pieces of Koco. I wonder where it is now and how it's doing.

in the news

Channel 6 aired the story today to promote the craft swap tomorrow at Mew with the Sewing Collective. They presented it as a way to save money whereas the focus in the interviews was on community and creativity.

It's always strange to watch yourself. I was there, next to Amber, of PheaJean, for a few seconds giving my "I'm soooo interested" look. Hilarious. You can check out the video here.

I have to put together a bag of things to take to the swap that I can part with. This may end up being a difficult task. My yarn stash is out of control, so I'll probably bring some of that in hopes of trading it for some red buttons or cool fabric.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

links to love

In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell talked about mavens, people with some kind of specialized knowledge. For all things funny, interesting, and important in the world I rely heavily on two sources: my friend Luimbe and the almighty ITP Alumni listserv. Luimbe is a maven when it comes to the most delicious ridiculousness from the internet.

Luimbe has a unique ability--a super human magnetism that sucks things in from all corners of the internet. He scans content at lightning speeds, tossing aside the best nonsense to serve up to people like myself in the form of links. Beautiful, hilarious, brilliant links. His links are so tasty that I feel it is time to dedicate occasional content on my own blog to the wonders I discover through him. I will call it ~~Luimbe's Gold~~ ~~Lui's Golden Ticket~~, uhhh... golden linkage? Luimbe's Links? Links Love Lui? LinkLuimbe? http://luimbelinks? Good Ish from the Big L... I'll have to think about that more. Just so you get an idea of what I'm talking about, here are some recent tidbits from my inbox:

Oh, and this is great: The Worst Album Covers Ever (.pdf)

I do love Luimbe's Links. They keep life interesting. More! More! More!

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Swap/destash

The Philadelphia Sewing Collective is holding a supply swap at Mew Gallery this Saturday. Channel 6 did a feature about the event and it will air on Friday around noon. This should be fun. Be sure to RSVP to give them a good idea of how many people will be there.

Monday, February 16, 2009

repurposing

The upcycling of that one sweater continues. I'm having fun making outrageous fiber jewelry now.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

more from old jeans

I love the way fabric looks when it's rolled. I need to make more stuff out of these rolls. I started playing with rolled fabric last year around this time and made a trivet and some fiber wall pieces. Here's a new experiment with the rolled denim beads for thing-a-day:

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

things

I'm trying to focus on paper things this week, but I'm getting distracted--by my bed calling me to go to sleep, and buttons telling me to make things with them instead. I made a paper mobile out of circles I cut out of SEPTA schedules and the necklace is made from a kilt pin with buttons on it. I'm really into buttons right now. I don't know why; I've never been into buttons before.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

ridiculous holidays I need to celebrate

I've missed out on two holidays in 2009 due to late notification. This is unacceptable.
Today is Eat Ice Cream for Breakfast Day, but I had a bowl of wheatina. I totally would have eaten a huge bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream if I had only known just a few hours earlier about this. Doesn't everyone know that YOU MUST TELL MISS KOCO about these things?!

Nobody has kept precise track but through word of mouth ICFBD has been celebrated in many homes, states and countries all over the world. Some people give parties with musical instruments, others simply celebrate with family members. There is no right or wrong so long as you follow the 3 plus 1 simple Ice Cream for Breakfast Day Rules

(1) Eat ice cream
(2) for breakfast
(3) on the first Saturday in February

(4) spread the word

The rest is up to you!

I also missed out on Intergalactic Tutu Day! I can't tell you how much I would have loved to celebrate ITD 2009 this year. It's possibly unhealthy how much I want to wear a tutu right now.

On Earth, Intergalactic Tutu Day is celebrated on February 2nd of each solar year. While the observation of Intergalactic Tutu Day varies greatly from civilization to civilization, the most common practice is for beings to simply wear tutus! You do have a tutu, don't you?

Please notify me of any fun upcoming holidays I must celebrate. Here are a few I'm considering to add to my calendar:
Blame Someone Else Day -- Feb. 13th
Pi Day -- March 14th
Take Your Pants for a Walk Day--July 27

I will not be participating in:
International Sword Swallowers Day -- Feb. 28th
Pig Day --March 1st
National Sea Monkey Day -- May 16th

Thursday, February 5, 2009

working magic

My lovely tinyredhead made a mistake and put her chocolate split collar turtleneck sweater in the wash. It shrunk. I took it and performed some magic on it. I transformed the sad sweater into a fierce neck warmer, cozy leg warmers, and a pair of mittens to keep tinyredhead appendages from freezing off.

The legwarmers used to be sleeves, the mittens I cut from the body, and the neck warmer is from the collar. After all that there isn't much left of the sweater, but I might be able to squeeze another project out of it. The great thing about felted material is that you don't have to worry about it fraying, so this opens up a lot of possibilities. All made in under an hour; I'm really getting into my thing-a-day projects.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

red orange fire pop

Thing #4: Trying to keep warm, moving into hot colors. A lonesome clip-on earring serves as a closure.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

another earthy wrap

This week I've been making things with yarn for my thing-a-day project. Next week I'll take on fabric or paper. For the third I'll do whichever option I didn't choose for the second... and I don't know what I'll do that last week, maybe instructions.

Here's what I came up with for day 3. Thought I'd have some fun with photobooth...

Project America's Next Top Drag Queen

I'm so into Rupaul's Drag Race, the new reality show where drag queens compete to win some money, a cover for Paper magazine, and the title of the next drag queen superstar. Rupaul is Tim Gunn in one scene and Tyra in the next. Santino, from Project Runway, is one of the judges. I'm so happy I get to see him again.

In the first episode there were handfuls of lovely little gems like, "I think you might need to take a pregnancy test," or "In a moment I will ask one of you to shante, which means you can stay, and ask one of you to sashay--away." Ridiculous. This is like the most intense reality competition show ever--not only do these guys have to create theatrical and realistic versions of femininity, but they also have to sew outfits, do runway, do photo shoots, do their own makeup, and lip sync, with a whole bunch of bitches.

I love this. It's my favorite day.

My only questions are: Why didn't someone think of this before? And why isn't this show on Bravo???

HiP!

I made it onto the Handmade in PA site for their 6 more weeks of winter shopping guide. I love that site! Check it out and see the details for a discount from my shop.

Monday, February 2, 2009

thing2

I made my friend Tone a wrap in earthy tones with a mix of a bunch of different yarns. It ended up being a blend of merino, silk, cashmere, microfiber, and mohair. With a couple of wooden buttons, this turned out to be my absolute favorite wrap yet.

I was pretty thrilled with the colors and decided to make something else with greens and golds. I ran through my stash and pulled out all the earthy odd and ends that worked well together. I'm evoking spring, hoping that I won't have a reason to make these pretty soon. I came up with a two tone merino wrap for day 2 of my thing-a-day project. I picked up the silver hook closure in Thailand. Love it.

25 things... YUCK!

I can't stand that people keep tagging me in this 25 things thing that is going around facespace like a sneaky STD. Didn't we learn, like in grade school, how irritating chain letters and things like this are?

Sunday, February 1, 2009

multi-grain cheerios

The first thing I made for thing-a-day is a crocheted neck wrap. It reminds me of multi-grain cheerios. Delicious. I crocheted it up quickly. It's just a big circle that you fold and pin with a big kilt pin.