Kate O.!* Congrats, Kate, you are the lucky new owner of a 2010 Birds of the Berkshires Calendar!

I love Kate’s comment:

Love the Berkshires! And their birds are lovely!
My favorite way to ring in the New Year is with a cheap bottle of champagne and expensive ingredients for making a gourmet chocolate cake. With lots of sprinkles.
I also like to look back at my Pows (bad times/poor decisions) and my Wows (great times/successes).

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I think it’s a great suggestion to look back at the year and evaluate the good and the bad. I think that is a nice way to complete the year and allow yourself to move forward. I also love the champagne and chocolate cake! (and sprinkles!) If you haven’t seen it yet, there are instructions for a lovely completion ritual up on Andrea’s blog. It leads you through a nice process of looking back and forward in a productive way.

I loved reading all of your New Year rituals or non-rituals, it was such a pleasure to get a glimpse into your celebrations and your processes for moving forward into a new year. Thanks to all who entered!

It looks like I *might* have a few more calendars available for sale. Please contact me direclty if you are interested, as there are definitely not many left up for grabs out there in the world. As of last week there were a few left for sale at Emporium, which has just moved to its new location at 441 North Street in Pittsfield (just 2 doors north of where they were over the holidays). So you can definitely head there to grab one if I sell out!

*FYI, the winner was chosen by using this random number picker. Just in case you were wondering.

I’m really tired. And always hungry.

And my back has been acting up and making my life somewhat miserable and pathetic. Oh bother.

Don’t worry, I’ll be ok. I just had to whine a little bit.

Please come visit me at Twist this Friday or Saturday? Yay!

Hopefully you’ve found your way here from LaurieCoyle.wordpress.com — thanks for making the move with me!

I hope you will update or subscribe in your feed reader (my favorite is GoogleReader).

I’m planning to add links to some of my favorite blogs in the next week or so — there are so many! Especially after meeting so many amazing artist at Squam and in those e-courses, and they all having amazing blogs! I am so grateful you have chosen to use some of your blog-reading time visiting me, and I hope to bring you lots of great crafty goodness in the days and years to come!

See you next week — with lots of photos and full report of the fun and creativity of Squam Art Workshops! Off to finish packing, then a 4 hour drive. Then the fun starts!

I’ll also be selling my crafty goodness at the Squam Art Fair on Saturday, 7:30-9pm, won’t you join us?

Spring cleaning (and the beginning of mud season, which totally negates any actual cleaning attempts) is happening around here. Last week we moved around the furniture in our living room and it feels so much better. We hadn’t ever really adjusted to the couch we’d gotten as a hand-me-down and now it is seeming to work much more cohesively. Things are also warming up and thawing out for our little farmhouse that has been seemingly encased in ice all winter — we even openened a few windows today, which is a big deal for this cold north side of the mountian (ok, it’s a hill, but we call ‘em mountains ’round these parts!).

I am hoping to have a go at my studio space this week, which is in desperate need of some sorting/cleaning and de-stashing. Anyone interested in a craft supply swap in the Berkshires in the next month or two? I’ve been contemplating something like this for a while, also maybe a clothing swap?

In other news, part of the reason I haven’t been blogging as much lately is Twitter. Follow me, lauriemaycoyle and find out what’s been going on and what I’m up to on a much more regular basis. And if you’re not on Twitter, well, join the 21st century, won’t you? (FYI, “Twitter is a free service that lets you keep in touch with people through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?”)

I just wanted to say hi, and tell you that I haven’t forgotten about you, dear readers. I have composed a handful of posts in the last few weeks that haven’t worked out because the images or videos I was trying to link or post haven’t materialized. I am beginning to think it isn’t operator error, but instead some bug with wordpress… I’m going to look into it and hopefully be back soon with lots of pretty things for you to look at. I miss you!

(re-blogged from The Poppytalk Handmade Artists Blog, here)I had the wonderful pleasure of attending the New York premiere of the new documentary film by Faythe Levine and Micaela O’Herlihy “Handmade Nation” last night at the Museum of Art and Design.

What a wonderful museum, and a fantastic film! I had been completely excited to watch this film in a room full of super talented artist and crafters, and the energy didn’t disappoint. Many of the artists featured in the film were in attendance, as well as other great makers that I spied in the audience from Etsy and blogland. The space was actually quite small, probably holding only 130 people in the sold-out crowd, so it had the feeling of an intimate event. We were all able to look around at the other makers, just as excited as we were to be there. It would have been so great if there were a little reception afterward, because I would have loved the chance to meet more of the talented makers in the room. I did manage to meet Kate Bingaman-Burt, the illustrator of the book Handmade Nation, which was very exciting for this illustration nerd and hand-lettered-type geek. She was giving out copies of her Obsessive Consumption zine, which we were lucky enough to snag. Thanks, Kate!

I don’t want to spoil the movie for you, because you’ll have to see it for yourself when it’s released near you; there’s a list of screening dates on their blog. There was a great panel discussion after the screening with Faythe, Kate, Mandy Greer and Callie Janoff, which was streamed live in the Etsy virtual labs. They shared some insight into their processes and thoughts about the film, as well as a short but interesting discussion about where the D.I.Y. movement is going. A few audience members voiced concern about the cost of crafting, and Mandy and Kate reminded us that we can all create with the objects often cast off by our modern culture, for instance by spinning thrift-store clothing into new, usable fiber. There was a huge exhibit in the museum entitled Second Lives, which really brought this point home; all of the beautiful work in this exhibit was comprised of ordinary and everyday manufactured articles, most originally made for another functional purpose. The questions regarding the fate of crafting and D.I.Y. (people are afraid it’s over or going bad places after being co-opted by mass marketers and retailers) was met with enthusiastic comments reminding us that humans have always and will always create, and the movement is really just gaining steam in the mainstream.

What do you think the fate of D.I.Y. and crafting might be? It’s hard for some people to imagine the future and not think we’ve come as far as we will, but I think there are infinite possibilities for expansion and evolution of the movement, of technology and for trends and techniques. I’d like to see everyone buying their holiday and birthday gifts from crafters in their hometowns, if not making them themselves.

First of all, I want to say a huge, heartfelt thank you to everyone who has sent me and my family kind words and loving thoughts regarding my grandfather’s passing. It is so heartwarming to know you are all out there sending your love.

I am a little sad to have not been able to be at the funeral in Arizona yesterday. I wish I could have been there with my other family members as they remember and celebrate his life. I am staying put, however, because I am much more useful staying here. I have been helping my dad with his business bookkeeping (he’s not so much into the computer thing) that my mom usually does, as well as taking care of their slobbery (but cute!) dog and going over to feed the cats and plants at their house. I’m also excited to be helping get things ready around here for my Gramma to move back to the area! As I said in the last post, she has been living in Arizona for the past decade-plus. So she will return to her hometown for the first time in just about 10 years with my mom and her sister next week. We are all taking quite a bit of comfort in the fact that she will be so close to all of us and so many lovely souls will be able to go out and visit her so much more often.

In other news, we’re hunkering down for another crazy winter storm here tonight. The last one was so beautiful, coating the trees and every surface imaginable, including Mickey’s nose. He is 100% snow dog. Can’t get enough of it. He just goes outside and lays right down in the fuffiness. Adorable.

…to take pictures of our booth all set up and fancy. Oh well, maybe next time. We both had our cameras out and everything. So here are some photos of us cleaning up and stowing away for the next crafty goodness sale:

Not very impressive, eh? I was selling alongside my Aunt, Theresa May-O’Brien, and my mom, Barb May, also showed some of her pottery, which included some fantastic leaf plates and ornaments that she made by pressing real leaves into the surface of the pottery to get the veining and shapes — so gorgeous! We all did pretty well considering it was a very small fair and attendance was low this year, as I’m sure it is everywhere for this kind of thing right now, people aren’t really spending or having any disposible income to spend. But thankfully some folks were excited to spend what they had on some of our crafty wares — including my needle-felted acorns and fabric peace crane ornaments, and Theresa’s beautiful felted scarves. We had fun hanging out together for the day and some good friends and family stopped by to cheer us on, which was great. I think this experince was great practice for me for my upcoming fairs in December, and for that I’m grateful. Thanks, Richmond School, you’re always there for me, and you are the best!

{sidenote: how embarassing is it to not be good at simple arithmatic like adding 5% tax while selling work in your very own elementary/middle school? Very. Very embarassing. Hah. I better bone up on the ol’ arithmatic before Design Hive. Or just remember to bring a calculator. }

I’m voting for Barack Obama. And I think you should, too. In case you were, you know, unsure (Did you see the Daily Show about undecided voters? priceless!)

Because I care about things like civil rights, women’s rights, the environment, stopping climate change, ending war, waging peace, and I am interested in having an intelligent, well-spoken leader at the helm of our country for once thankyouverymuch.

And because Tina Fey is my hero. I will have to consider joing a riot or fleeing the country if Sarah Palin becomes the first female VP — Even my Grandma wonders “what is the deal with that woman?” and says things like “She makes me embarassed to be an American.” And we just can’t have my Grandma feeling like that, can we?

:::stepping off soapbox:::

g’night.