March, 2008

We are pleased to announce that Crabtree Studio has been selected as a vendor at Shepherd's Harvest Sheep & Wool Festival. The festival takes place every Mother's Day weekend at the Washington County fairgrounds in Lake Elmo, MN.

Amy and I have been attending the festival yearly to stock up on gorgeous handcrafted yarns and other fibers (and to ooh and aah over the lovely sheep, goats, and alpaca, of course!), and thought "why not join the fun and become vendors?" Some of our favorite patterns are fiber animals, and what better place to showcase these than at a fiber festival? As such, we will be concentrating our inventory on knitting bags, sheep, alpaca, camels, and rabbits. We hope you come out and see us there! In the meantime, here's a small sneak peak of what we plan to sell:

Crabtree Studio has recently joined the online plush collaborative at The Needle. We are very excited to be part of such a wonderful, talented group of plush designers and makers. Be sure to bookmark the page and check back often, as the community is very active and fantastic new creations are blogged about daily.

Some of you may have seen my two cute squirrels in the Playful Things exhibit at the Wausau Center for the Visual Arts. I started making squirrels when a coworker requested  an "evil Loring Park" squirrel. For those not in Minneapolis, Loring Park squirrels seem mangier and crazier than the citywide population as a whole. But I couldn't bring myself to make this guy mangy; he was just too cute.

This squirrel was a hit with my coworker, and he immediately requested an albino squirrel and a zombie squirrel. That was months ago—before Halloween, I'm afraid—but they're finally finished after a long hunt for zombie-colored fur and some tweaks to make the pattern more squirrelish:

(I apologize for the poorer quality of this one. Night time and white fur do not mix!)

Thank goodness the zombie squirrel has a taste for acorn brains only! This one was really fun to make. I was disappointed I couldn't find maribou in the right color for his tail, but I'm pleased with the outcome nonetheless. I had no qualms about making this guy mangy, but you should see the number cutting patches out of his fur did to my craft room floor! It was well worth it, though, as the recipient of both these pieces is ecstatic about them. I think he's already scheming on future crazy squirrel commissions and other zombie animals as well. In the meantime, I think I'll craft some regular old grey, red, and brown squirrels!