Craft Resurgence Crest: Say it Ain't So

Personally we LIKE football glowing the background while we craft, but when the boys aren't looking, we switch to the DIY network.

Rumors are swirling around the blogs that the DIY Network may be canceling some of the programs we all love though. Average Jane Craft has drawn up a letter and encourages readers to write to the network and express their concerns. Go for it if you like, however upon a little further digging, we discovered that the network is not canceling the programs, just reshuffling their schedule to accommodate their core audience's tastes. Which of course makes sense for a business that survives on advertising revenues.

The one thing that we found has actually been canceled is Vicki Howell's Knitty Gritty marathon on Super Bowl Sunday. Last year this time, we didn't have cable, so watching was out of the question. But this year we won't have the chance. Here's the scoop from Vicki's blog:

Oh, before I forget, I just got word that DIY nixed the Knitty Gritty marathon (aka the Knit In), 2008 in favor of a bathroom renovation they're calling, the Toilet Bowl. Soooo, I know I told a lot of people that the KG special would air on Superbowl Sunday but that's apparently no longer the case. I'll keep you posted on any new developments but in the meantime, if you're looking for more Knitty Gritty love and want to tell the network(s) about it, here's where you can send your comments:
DIY Network Viewer Comments
HGTV Viewer Comments

Toilet Bowl?

Canceling a program sucks. There's no way around it. But, moving the crafty programming to 2 in the morning works great for us night owls. Sure, it doesn't do much to introduce crafting to people who might not otherwise give it a try, but that's our job. Make a point to take your knitting (or whatever) with you somewhere. Bar, Superbowl party, whatever; people are curious and it will keep your hands out of the cheese dip.

And if you're looking for something charitable to do with your Super Bowl sit fest, consider checking out other charities to which you could be donating, and do something for them. Knit a hat. Knit an afghan square. Check out the Witch Fire Project, hint hint. Let the football lull you, crack a beer, and get to it.

Old Mother Leary Left the Lantern in the Shed

And when the cow kicked it over, Marimello shrieked and said, GOOD GOD it's a hot time in the old town tonight.

OK not to pound it into your heads crafty friends, but it is still crazy here and it is a wonder that the poor little elves can type as you dear editatrix dictates. Their poor little eyes are swollen so, but you know we can't be bothered with typing ourselves with this washcloth over our eyes.

Speaking of washcloths! The Witch Fire shop is open for business and the donations are rolling in. Obviously it's time to put the red eyed elves to work photographing this luxurious stuff. So if you haven't already, roll on over to the shop on Etsy. And keep rolling back for more new stuff. The word has gone out to the fashionista friends of Marimello and we expect great things to be coming our way!

Check out the shop on the right over there and see what's happening. If you want to donate and get some FREE PRESS, head on over to the blog or give us an e-jingle.

Inferno in SoCal

Hey Crafties,
Wracking you brain for ways to help out the parched/burnt communities in Southern California? Know some one who's been evacuated. The Marimello clan alone has about 15 members evacuated from 7 homes. It's enough to make our heads spin.

And spin they did, until we settled on this idea for a charity raffle/donation site. We thought we would set up a collective to raise money for charities in SoCal. Through this new blog, Marimello is looking for donations of items that are less than $5-$10 (your cost), anything bigger will be put into a raffle. The drawing for these items will work thusly: names will come from a pool of anyone who donates, buys, or just sends in a good contribution story will be entered.
Email or leave comments if you can help!

Check it out here: witch-fire.blogspot.com

I Heart Rummage: Rocktober Extravaganza

Our friends over at I Heart Indie are having a swell event on October 7 (that's Sunday) at the Crocodile Cafe in Seattle. Boy do we wish we were in Seattle soaking up the fall, but it's still 80 degrees outside here. Some of you maybe are jealous of that, but we here at Marimello are freaking sick of our anemic end of summer/fall season...sigh.

Anyway here's the dirt from Cassandra:

It's Rocktober!

Halloween is a favorite in the IHR peeps' household! We love all the spookylicious goodies you find at this time of year. This month at IHR we have a few very cool and spookylicious artists for you to check out for your Halloween goodies!

Look for TC Leathercraft, new to the IHR scene! She has some of the most glorious handmade leather masks and accessories! You will swoon for these!

Our own Miss Oblivious of Payne Creations has promised some extra-out-of-the-ordinary dolls for us us to choose from for this ghoulish holiday season!

We are also lucky to have Carla Sonheim Creative back with us. Carla comes to us all the way from Colorado! She was hugely popular last year when she came to town, so any of you who have been longing to see her fabulous art again, don't miss your chance to see her!

Our special guest for October is everyone's favorite local boutique where you can find your favorite IHR artists during the rest of the month! Bouncing Wall! on Queen Anne! Owner Kim is creating a little artist of her own - due any time now! Congrats!

Our DJ for October will be DJs unka-neecie! 2 dj's, one idea... bring more to music

We still have issue #2 of the IHR Zine available! This issue showcases our wonderful toymakers!

There are just a few vintage IHR t-shirts left, and we have buttons and stickers so you can show off your good taste in shopping!

Remember to support your local Rollerderby Team, The Jet City Rollergirls!

And if you have a chance, send a donation to Ginger's Pet Rescue to help her keep on doing the amazing work she does.

So if you are LUCKY enough to be in Seattle this weekend, go check out IHR at the Crocodile and tell them Marimello sent you!

Speaking of Charity Crafting

You don't necessarily have to send out a million afghans to make a difference. As our friend Renee of Wolfie and the Sneak points out, "Living a passionate existence doesn't seem to coincide with a well-insured one." More often than not, there is a crafty individual in need of our help.
The Wyman benefit over at Wonderland Retreat will be wrapping up on September 15th and there are plenty of items left in the shop. So go on over to Etsy and take a peek.
Renee also alerted us to a couple of other benefits that are happening.
If you're a crafty sort, there's little doubt you've heard of mymy, an indie shopping dream.
perhaps you also keep up with Taryn's blog well enough to know her sister is in the hospital?
Jenifer, a single mother who works 2 jobs AND pitches in over at mymy.
Well, the ever-so-lovely Trisha combs has decided to step up and help out; she's looking for goodies to fill a basket for a raffle to benefit Jenifer's hospital bills.
Check out all the details here.

Save the World Sunday

The latest issue of Wired appeared in our mailbox recently. We do not remember subscribing, but being the voracious magazine readers we are, we did not complain.
We especially did not complain when we read Clive Thompson's article "Count on the Geeks to Rescue the Earth." It's online too so go check it out.
Thompson brought our attention to the interesting research Paul Slovic is doing on decision making. Slovic has discovered that people are more inclined to help a singular person in need over a group of people who share the same need. It's not that we are stingy, just that we're better at conceptualizing the plight of smaller groups and terrible when it comes to larger groups. Thompson's point is that this is why people like Bill Gates are good at tackling large scale third world diseases through philanthropy. Geeks are better wired to conceptualize big numbers. "We look at the huge numbers and go numb. Gates looks at them and runs the moral algorithm: Preventable death = bad; preventable death x 1 million people = 1 million times as bad."
Uh huh. Sounds simple enough. What does it have to do with crafting? Well we got to thinking about how in fiber arts particularly deal with large numbers. Cast on a sweater in the round lately? Calculate the number of threads needed for the warp and weft of your pattern? If we too conceptualize large numbers well, Slovic's research and Thompson's suggestion probably explains crafters' ability to launch large scale charity projects. It also suggests a root for the optimism with which these efforts are launched. 12 stitches = pattern; 12 stitches x 100,000 = afghan; afghan x 1 million = afghans for an entire country.
And if that's not inspiring food for a Sunday afternoon's though, well we don't know what.

Crafters in Wonderland: Renee Garner and Wonderland Retreat

Marimello sent out the word about Wonderland Retreat back in April and we're happy to report that Alison of Wonderland Q is doing well and the Etsy benefit was a huge success. Of course the sad news is that Alison isn't the only crafter in need, so recently Wonderland Retreat started helping out Elijah Wyman who needed a kidney transplant.
We recently caught up with Renee Garner of Wolfie and the Sneak and chatted her up about creating Wonderland Retreat, the altruism of crafters, and the scary leap from a steady 9-5 to full-time crafting. We also did a little shopping and picked up that cute bear on the left. (Get it? it's a kidney bear from Sappy Moose Tree)

M: How did you decide to start up Wonderland Retreat?

RG: I've always been a firm believer in the "it takes a village" philosophy, in a more general sense, not just with raising kids but in the sense of community spirit. We all have to give in the ways we can. When I heard about Alison Gordon, a fellow crafter and entrepreneur extraordinaire, having surgery without health insurance I felt like I needed to give, but I wanted to do it in a way that would have a greater impact than the little monetary help I could offer. The name came as a spinoff of Alison's great shop, WonderlandQ, and voila! Wonderland Retreat was born.
Setting up a shop seemed like the way to go, that way people that are less inclined to give a donation of money could buy an item, receive a great handmade product, and help out a great cause.
Etsy was a given, it's so easy to set everything up and get it going in relatively little time. It's an affordable option and offers less hassle and red tape than setting up a benefit through somewhere like eBay.

M: Who are the brains behind the op? Do you have help?

RG: What a tough question! The main team is Ileana of India Romeo, Marie, the Sampler's Queen Bee, Neesy Pea of Heyday Fashion, Tess of Made By Tess, and me. But we had about 300 crafters offer their wares as in-kind donations to the shop so the "profit" went (and now goes) to the crafter-in-need. Of course, then there was Etsy and all of the great bloggers out there who spread the word. Without going on too long like an Oscar recipient, all of these people helped out in a very essential way!

M: Is this your first time organizing a craft charity?

RG: This was the first time doing a craft charity of that magnitude. I'd never imagined how wildly popular the shop ended up being! Like I said before, I'm a big fan of contributing as much as possible towards community, so I usually try to do a little something when I hear of a need that hits close to home.

M: How has the customer response been?

RG: Originally the response was incredible, the first few days were a juggling act for all of us to get things listed and keep up with sales, despite the fact that as an organizational group (I'll brag a bit here) we were an all-star team. We've had over 200 sales in just a few months, people have really been so supportive!
Since then, things have slowed down drastically. Alison is much better now, so we've switched gears and all the sales benefit a different crafty fellow named Elijah, who underwent a kidney transplant (can you imagine?!?).

M: How did you choose Etsy as your shop window?

RG: Etsy is just so dang easy to set up, affordable and very visible. It was a natural choice. The funny thing is lot of people thought it was Etsy that set the shop up; I'm here to dispel the rumors! ha ha ha!

M: How do you pick your sponsees?

RG: The sponsees have both had problems that hit so close to home. I'm trying to transition out of the 9 to 5 world, and the biggest thing keeping me from doing that is health insurance. In the mean time I'm walking around like a zombie working 2 full time jobs (the 9 to 5er and my own creative business) looking for a safe solution. So obviously I can relate to issues surrounding being an artist/craftsperson, and, in the US in particular, health care costs are so exorbitant, not just procedures or doctor's visits, but the cost of medicine. So far both of the recipients have had surgery (=$$$$$$), subsequent treatments and follow up visits. You're talking a lot of money at that point, and, as I've said before, we all gotta pitch in and help out in what ever ways we can!

M: Obviously there are a lot of freelancers/crafters out there with out health insurance. There are also a lot of altruistic crafters running around out there. Where do you see this type of effort heading?

RG: That's such a foggy area, it's hard to envision. As the field of crafts gains respect as a viable career, I'd hope more insurance companies would realize the trend and offer suitable options for crafts people. Some do, and sometimes it depends on the state laws (again, here in the US). The Graphic Designer's Guild offers great insight into the laws and options available. So I guess part of the effort is to educate and share information about options so crafters aren't stuck neck-deep in debt when health care issues arise.
At the same time, I hope more non-profit groups rise up as a collective (even simply grassroots efforts like Wonderland Retreat) to help the crafting community out when one of "ours" is in need.