hey!

I have been  gearing up for our Yummy Goods Open House on Friday--- making sure I have cookies being made by friends, straightening up the shop and studio, that kind of thing. To invite my regular customers, I even sent out my first newsletter last night! It was fun to create. If you want to sign up for it, look over there in the sidebar. Just know that it is specifically shop related, ok?

The open house is also the conclusion and celebration of our Handmade for the Holidays drive! I suppose I ought to seam together the cowls I knitted for it:

Ooh, look at that. Ice cream colors! Doesn't it look like one of those containers that have strawberry, vanilla and chocolate inside?

I am not all that knitty. I only just learned how to purl! And I hate following directions of any kind. Or counting. So I'm sticking with scarves and that's it, yo.

But I have fallen head over heels for crochet. Thanksgiving night I taught myself how to make granny squares and I am now addicted. I want to have the Crochet Superpower. I want to be *amazing* at crochet. It seems more forgiving than knitting and more conducive to freestyling. I'll take some pics this week and show you what I've been working on.

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 It's been a whole year now since  my studio was photographed for the Cloth Paper Scissors STUDIOS magazine cover.

How about a peek inside to see what it looks like these days? I totally didn't plan on doing a 'year later' post, so these pics are not comprehensive at all--- the main workspace isn't really shown!

But maybe you'll want to have a look anyways.

The fabric shelves are pretty much the same. Added the YGCO next to it for fun. It stands for Yummy Goods Corporate Office, which is what my girlfriends and I call the studio. We're a little bit silly.

Oh, who's that?

That card is the letter U from Chronicle Books' awesome Webster's Wall Cards. (Yes, I have some in the shop!)

The color shelves are pretty much the same, only fuller!

But I will admit, there are not always as neat as they are in this picture. If that can be considered neat, that is.

My dad stopped into the shop last week and when he saw that Seeing Stars book on the blue shelf, he asked me if I remembered a similar book around the house when I was little. He said he still has it he would bring it in for me to see... one of us kids had written STARS SUCK on the title page!

Bwah haa aah ha! Stars SUCK! That just cracks me up. We were big defilers of books, we were.

Also, you may recognize a certain ceramic unicorn from a couple of posts ago. He is now wearing a unicorn hat (complete with horn  cozy) that Beth made several weeks before I bought him!

Speaking of Beth-knitting, DANG! That girl has made me some amazing stuff lately. I am wearing two items right now. I need to photograph them for you, you will not even believe the perfection. Knitted things are the texture of love.

Oh, sorry. We were in the studio.

Did you notice the giant tub of Atomic Fireballs?

One of the yellow shelves. Yes, there are now two, but I think I only took a picture of one:

A little bit of the orange shelf, I love those chinese lanterns:

And my awesome bead/jewelry supply cabinet, which I am dying to dig into to make some ridiculous necklaces:

I'll have to take more shots so you can see the main work area.

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Did I tell you that I finished the last of 24 patterns for the book the other day? Yay! Now to finish the photography and do Author Review (AR). That's when a project has been through a bunch of  different editors (development, tech, copy) and now it comes back to me  to approve changes, answer queries, etc.

Author Review. AUTHOR! Tee hee!

One thing I have learned since I started writing the book: I will never tire of saying 'my editor.' It is just plain fun to say.

(((since i started this post last week, i have finished photographing 4 more projects, and taken a bite out of AR!)))

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The Giveaway:

I have randomly selected (ok, it was random.org who selected ) the winner of last post's giveaway---

Commenter #46 : Erin, who said "Yes please. LOVE these fabrics. And love your blog design too by the way. "

Thanks, and congrats! Email me your  mailing address, ok?

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Huh, look at that. My next post is #350.

Back soon.

xo,

melissa