booooooo….

Did my lil’ Halloween ghosties scare you?   They hope so,  trouble is they are just too cute to be terrifying……poor guys.  I made the ghosties for my batch of Octoberie goodies I’m working on in preparation for my fall show,  I still have a few more ideas I want to work on but I am starting to feel good about my quantities of  Autumnal offerings and I will of course add them to the shop today.

This past weekend we went to Chicago for the Renegade craft fair.  I was incredibly excited about this years show as one of the new vendors was someone who’s work I fell in love with about a year ago when  I purchased some of his comic books at Quimby’s (a fantastic comic book store in Chicago).  Anyway his name is Matthew Reidsma and he is awesome,  so of course within 5 seconds of finding his booth I had pretty much blown my Renegade shopping money,  but the original artwork I got is so super cool I’m sure I will be gushing about him for a long time to come.

Anyway here are my Renegade goodies. I bought some  beautiful hand painted roving from kitchen sink dyeworks and Hands and Notions.  And I’m thinking the colorways are perfect for my rotten eggs for Easter……..argh good grief can you believe it?  I’m thinking of spring 2010 and it’s not even through September 2009…….how mental is that?  Oh well i guess it’s good (and totally unlike me) to be prepared.

and falling, and falling, and falling………in fact I don’t think it ever stopped raining this past weekend in Chicago which of course made for a very wet Renegade Craft Fair.  Although it didn’t look like a bad time for everyone

He was loving the weather,   showing just how waterproof his new wellies truly were looked like a lot of fun.  Although it wasn’t so much for the vendors…..most of them appeared to give up footwear altogether (probably for the best)

But credit where credit is due I was so impressed with the resilience and friendliness of crafters even under horrible situations…….My favourite booth had to be the Etsy plush team booth

In the piccie is Christina from Dekvenga delights I have long admired her crotchet dolls on flikr, Susan of Susarto (I adore her business card…..she bills herself as a weirdo extraordinaire,  something I feel I can relate with her on) and lastly is Emma of uglyprettythings whose little Abraham I snatched up instantly as it was love at first sight…….although I happily could have stayed in their booth all day as I wanted to take all the critters home.

So here are my renegade purchase in all their glory

See what I mean about Abraham?   He is so cute,  I absolutely adore him to bits. I also got some brilliantly smelly soaps from Rinse…….mmmmm their booth smelled so yummy and I can’t wait to use their soap,  geeky ninja, magnet, pin and sticker from Shawnimals and a few completely cute magnets of cats on bike.  I of course hit up the etsy booth and got some stickers and pins……the hotdog  pin being my fave.  There was a ton of stuff I loved, but the weather being so godawful I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a huge deterrent from buying,  like a huge log pillow by Sally England Designs and the plush and wooden yoyos by suddenly it’s real and the paintings of Johanna Wright were wonderful……but the thought of schlepping them around in a torrential downpour just wasn’t  too appealing (hopefully other people thought differently for the vendors sake).  Still I’ve added a ton of etsy faves for holiday time and I’ve got a ton of insight into the not always brilliant side of outdoor craft shows.  Thanks to all the vendors for staying cheery and still making it a great time……..kudos to you all.