Quick update on the ongoing delight that has been this summer's indigo vat. I fully intended to play with this once and be done with it, but instead I have found myself keeping it going for several weeks and just sort of idly playing with dipping (and redipping and reredipping) things whenever I feel like finding an excuse to be outside for a little while. Does this mean I have a lifetime supply of pretty blue napkins? I mean no, because I'm going to inflict them on unsuspecting friends and family come holiday time. And it also means I'm going [...]

I handed goodie bags over to the postman this morning, and they should start hitting mailboxes later this week! In theory, you should get emails with tracking numbers once the packages are scanned, in practice my experience has been that they often aaaactually go out a day or two after that, but never fear, the post office has them in hand! Side note, I swear, half this business runs on laundry baskets...they're the best way to move stuff around as I put together packages and then to get the packages off to the post office. I've got a dozen of [...]

There miiiiiiiight be a super secret thing happening, in very small numbers, tomorrow over on Patreon. The details of which might just happen to all be right over here. You know, just in case you missed out on either the phenomenally cool zip up pouches or the unspeakably awesome mail club goodies from earlier this year and want to fix that! I suspect folks over there are going to snap these all up in the first 24 hours (I only have a handful to go around). So if you want to hear when they go live tomorrow, make sure you [...]

I may (and I emphasize may) have found the solution to slippery slippers! Or if not the solution then perhaps at least a solution (most real world problems having more than one solution if you sit with them long enough). If you're just joining us, the slippery slipper saga has several previous parts (here, here, here, and here in recent months). When last we left it, we'd tried both Sock Stop (quite grippy!) and Plasti Dip (less grippy, but this is for sure an off label usage, so it seems unfair to complain).* And both lent a person extra traction...but both were also [...]

Unsolicited advice is received as criticism.  I read that a couple of years ago and it changed the way I behave and clarified why posting things like this bench on the internet is so hard. Because every time I do (ig posts over here and here), I get comments saying 'use a different dye' or 'wear gloves' or 'tape off the wood' or 'do it a different way.' And that's absolutely exhausting. Each and every one of those comments is basically saying 'I, a person who has watched a very brief video wherein you share a tiny bit of what [...]

So I had people over, we put things in buckets, they came out blue, and a good time was had by all. But then, then a few days later as I was dragging the conglomeration of seating options I'd hauled out for the festivities back to their usual locations, I had an idea. I had an idea bout this sweet little bench. Now you probably do not realize it, but if you've been here for a while, you've seen glimpses of this bench before. For years it sat in my office, holding up the giant rocks I used to take [...]

Help me decide! Should we do a regular mail club shipment next week, or a double mail club shipment next month? These started out with the organza laces (shout out to the eight year old ballerina still dwelling deep in my heart), and the original plan had been to send everyone a little handful of those. I dutifully got those all set and ready to go out next week. But theeeeeen I realized a person could put aglets on icord and make their very own knitted shoelaces, and I suddenly became obsessed with the idea of adding that option to [...]

So yeah, sitting in the sunshine, doing a little project, and laughing with people who are every bit as horrified by everything that is happening as I am was  exactly what I needed. It doesn't make anything better, precisely. But it reminds me of why we rail so hard against all the horrible things. And that reminder is restorative in a way that sitting alone, on your couch, with posture that would shame a shrimp, doom scrolling on your phone for the third straight hour, simply isn't. If there's a way for you to do some version of being in [...]