Have you been reading Heart Handmade, the blog dedicated to all things DIY? Yes, there are a million handmade blogs right now but this one really rises above all the bloggy noise. It’s quickly becoming one of my favorite reads.
I love their fresh approach and creative tips for shop owners, crafters, buyers and everyone in between. Often, non-crafters don’t have a real understanding of the time and work that goes into making things so I  am a huge fan of their behind-the-scenes reports.

1379 crafty people have signed the Handmade Pledge so far. You should be next!

Eight major players in the independent craft and design community, including Etsy, Craft Magazine and Burdastyle recently joined together to form the Handmade Consortium to encourage people to buy handmade this holiday season. Over the next few weeks, the website will be updated with tips for holiday shopping and documenting pledges personal accounts of how they buy handmade and stay away from the chains.

By signing the handmade pledge, you solemnly swear to “buy handmade this holiday season and request that others do the same for me”.

Handmade gifts are filled with the kind of love, heart and soul that mass produced junk can’t even dream of. What’s more, you’re supporting a local artist or designer come a little bit closer to fulfilling her dream of supporting herself by making things. It’s really a win-win situation.

PS- If you want to get a little headstart, head on over to the Rwanda Knits auction on Ebay. Founded in 2003, the Rwanda Knits project provides hand-operated, American-made knitting machines plus technical and business training to low income women in Rwanda to enable them to earn a living through knitting. A needlefelted scarf I made for Adorn is up for auction here!

The fruits of a recent Ebay fabric splurge are pouring in. I got these gorgeous vintage cotton fabrics in the mail this afternoon. They arrived heavy and shining with starch so I threw them in my new Wonderwash. Now they are soft and whisper thin and blowing in the breeze on the line.
By the way, the Wonderwash is a small handcrank washing machine that uses 90% less water and detergent than traditional washing machines and it is amazing! Normally when I get new fabric I wait to wash it until I go to the laundromat but now it can get laundered right away and I can throw in a few tee shirts and some socks too!

On Saturay, I had a chance to see the Design for the Other 90% show at the Cooper-Hewitt Musuem, a really cool exhibit of designs that have been created to improve the lives of people throughout the world. Of the world’s total population of 6.5 billion, 5.8 billion or 90% have little or no access to products and design that most of us take for granted. Design for the Other 90% is an exhibit of thirty projects reflecting a growing movement to address the needs of these people.
From the show catalogue:
“Ninety-five percent of the world’s designers focus all of their efforts on developping products and services exclusively for the richest ten percent of the world’s customers. Nothing less than a revolution in design is needed to reach the other ninety percent.”

The Big Boda Load-Carrying Bicycle is able to carry hundreds of pounds of cargo or two additional passengers (if you take all the crates off!) at a much lower cost than other forms of human-powered utility vehicles.

The Q Drum, an ingenious design for carrying large amounts of water from a water source back to a town or village. The donut shape, with a rope in the center, makes it very easy for even a child to pull large amounts of potable water long distances.

A church pew from the Katrina Furniture Project, an organization that trains displaced Gulf Coast workrs to build furniture, much of which is used to replace church furniture destroyed in Hurricane Katrina. In addition, a lot of the wood used in the furniture making process is recycled from houses and other buildings that were destroyed.

I think that the future of design depends upon more designers addressing the needs of the world’s population, (and I’m not talking about designers creating cheap lines for Target and Wal-mart). A lot of the designs came from a simple solution to help a very complicated problem. Obviously, design alone is not going to change the world but it is a very big start.

I am so excited to announce the launch of Patty Sechi’s (aka mom) graphic design and consulting business.

With over twenty years of design under her belt and a fantastically cool aesthetic (don’t you love that goose?) Patty is a great choice for any design needs.
Give her a call, won’t you?

It’s no secret that I adore patterns (sometimes I like nothing better than to stare lovingly at my fabric collection) so you can imagine how excited I was to score these vintage feedsack fabrics on Ebay.

I started buying feedsack fabrics a few years ago because I love the texture of the cotton and the crisp, clean and colorful patterns but I had no idea what the term actually meant. It turns out cotton feedsacks of flour, sugar and animal feed were recycled by generations of ingenious women who transformed mundane consumer packaging into clothing, quilts, curtains and more.
Between 1840 and 1890, cotton feedsacks started to replace barrels as packaging for farm and food packaging. Initially these feedsacks were plain cotton except for the stamp of the logo of the company and women had to soak the fabric in lye or bleach to get rid of the labels.
By the 1920s, manufacturers realized that women were re-using the fabrics for their sewing projects and started printing patterns on the fabric, even pasted paper labels to thee for easier removal. Women continued to make things out of feedsack fabrics into the 50’s, which explains the range of patterns of feedsack fabrics you can find today, from romantic florals, to deco geometrics to atomic 1950’s patterns.
Women have been making beautiful things out of trash for generations so let’s take a cue from them: this is your grandma’s craft and we should celebrate that!
Oh, and times have changed guys so you get sewing too.

To find out more about feedsack fabrics, you can check out these resources:
All about Feedsacks
Feed Sack Quilt History: Feedsacks, Frugal and Fun
Feedbags: From Rags to Riches

You can usually find scraps of feedsack fabrics on ebay and at thrift stores and flea markets. Just don’t try to outbid me!

I am going to follow in the footsteps of Grace and take a night off from blogging in honor and memory of James Kim. Instead of sitting in front of the computer, we can all take this time to hug our family and friends and tell them how much we love them.

If you are interested in sending a donation or even a kind word or two to the family, you can go here.