I really really like the dollar store. This meshes well with my lowbrow tastes in cuisine and novels and Velveeta. You can buy so much awesome at the dollar store! You can even buy this:

Sometimes a cigar is not just a cigar.

Can you believe this?! I always thought The Dollar Tree was a family-friendly place, but now I’m not so sure. Can someone call The Eagle Forum ASAP? We need to picket. And then how about afterwards I take you back to my apartment for a drink, Big Boy.

The post Scandalous Find at The Dollar Store! appeared first on Happy Valley Crafters.

Exhibit A: The poster promoting an embroidery workshop run by our very own Cotton Floozy! Who is now officially an “artist.”

The awesome people of Craft Lake City, a cool summer festival in SLC where the Flooze shamelessly flashed her wares to people walking by her booth, identified her talents and made this happen.  About a thousand people showed up (okay, maybe more like 40) at The Garage on Beck bar just north of downtown Salt Lake to learn embroidery, drink beer and eat $1 tacos. It was awesome. I had no idea that bars that big existed in Utah!

I showed up late, as I do, to assist as part of Happy Valley Crafters. Can you believe that Floozy brazenly promised that we would be there without asking us first! I mean, of course we would go to support her and help out. But now we know that Floozy shoots first and asks questions later.

In this case, though, I’m glad she did. And who knows, maybe we’ll even see Craft Lake City expand their workshops and hold them down south in our neck of the woods. If not, well… we’re just going to have to do something about that ourselves.

Utah County represent. (Okay, how many of you actually understood that gangsta reference? Urban Dictionary, let me show you it.)

P.S. Special thanks to Dorothy for creating the cool Utah Craft Watch banner at the top of this post! We’ll use it for posts, like this one, that in-depth craft reporting along the Wasatch Front.

The post Cotton Floozy already famous, now officially an artist appeared first on Happy Valley Crafters.

Every year, many Mormons, post-Mormons, and Mormon-flavored people get together and talk about things — openly, intellectually, artistically. It is called the Sunstone Symposium. I took part in a Eve Ensler-inspired session titled ‘The Vagina Testimonies.’ Some talks were serious. Others, downright sad. Mine, of course, was funny and light and full of weird crafts. Here it is:

BERTHA GOES TO HEAVEN

THIS is Bertha.

Full name: Bertha Mason Rochester Brian. My uterus.

Bertha was born sometime in utero a few weeks after her conception. Once she was out into the real world, she grew up mostly ignored. When puberty hit she started spending more of her time hanging out with Stinky the Vagina, Pubella — Empress of the Map of Tasmania, and . . . Dolores.

Bertha looks nice in her blue bra and fig leaf merkin.

That was when Bertha first started showing signs of her impending madness. Bertha got her period.

Who doesn't love a menarche party?

Bertha didn’t mean to wreak havoc on me. She didn’t know what she was doing. The new monthly schedule of hormones and effluvia gave me bouts of depression and feelings of shame and confusion that bled into my nights.

I hallucinated. Saw things that weren’t there.

Disclaimer: this ghost in no way looks like a penis.

Translated them into a Mormon context and knew that they were demons and spirits, meant to tempt or comfort, damn or save.

Bertha mellowed out and normalized to a reasonable degree. She lived a rather dull life. Not much action. Occasionally, Dolores would buzz about the latest gossip about a boy, and then would fizzle out. Everything became numb and shut down in Bertha’s world. If it wasn’t for the occasional tingle from taking a bath, (Oh, Dolores!) I would have completely forgotten I even had a lower half.

And then, when I was still a virgin and a teenager, I got married.

And Bertha waited.

I gave birth to my son shortly thereafter.

Bertha did great. She held him and fed him and walled him from the threatening world. But something went wrong hours after the birth. Bertha went crazy.

Bertha started spasming with her powerful hormones. Sending waves of chemicals that crashed and destroyed. Bertha heard voices. She disassociated. She didn’t know who this small thing was, this baby, that she had expelled from her body. She felt trapped. Paranoid. Suicidal.

She had become The Hysterical Woman.

She became Mrs. Rochester, jailed in her cell of insanity, wanting to burn the world down.

Bertha did not self-immolate.

She took pills instead, that made her feel normal and took her night terrors away.

Bertha handled herself through two more pregnancies. Birthed two more beautiful children into the world. She could be managed with medication and therapy, for great periods of time, but occasionally her darker side got out, regardless of the remedies used to soothe her. Bertha took a toll on my libido. When you’re bedridden with pain and bleeding three weeks out of the four, not a lot of action happens. Poor Stinky and Dolores. Poor, poor me.

It’s not easy to euthanize someone you love. But Bertha’s condition monopolized all of my time.

And I wanted my life back.

Almost a year ago from today, July of 2011, I had a hysterectomy. I never saw Bertha as she truly was. Raw from my stomach. While I was under anesthesia, they put Bertha in a bag and delivered her to the hospital incinerator. Bertha finally got the immolation she always wanted. I never got her ashes.

Sometimes I wonder if Bertha moved on without me. If she is playing a harp in heaven with her fallopian tubes, skipping through vagisil-scented clouds, waiting for our reunion. Will she be celestialized without me? My wickedness parting us forever? I have no answers about the hereafter. And it saddens me that I don’t even have an urn of her ashes to place on my mantle.

I forgive you for the madness you caused, Bertha. I hope you went to heaven.

[Floozy’s plush uterus is from I Heart Guts. No, this isn’t a sponsored post. But maybe it will help Floozy pitch her line of Crochet Fashion for Uteri.  -DameToadstool, Ed.]

The post My tale from The Vagina Testimonies at Sunstone Symposium: Bertha Goes to Heaven appeared first on Happy Valley Crafters.

Welp. I made an awkward silence on the blog. A really long awkward silence. But, it’s too late to apologize! So let’s move on with things.

[Disclaimer: I can’t get any more of my images to upload, so maybe those will come later.]

SO EXCITED

As you can see, I got the The Book of Jer3miah DVD! Yay! And it has deleted scenes! Yay! However, unless they are an easter egg (boo) or otherwise hidden (boo), there’s a bunch of web content that is NOT on the DVD (BOOOO). Like the character vlogs and the Davenport interview. I can’t even find those anymore on the site, but they are still on Vimeo as per the link above (I, of course, highly recommend Simon’s channel). More frustrating though, is that I keep finding more content! See, I didn’t really do the extra stuff when the series came out, so now it’s like I’m catching up. I have to chase everything down 3 years later. I hate chasing things down. Despite my love for this series, I hate trans-media experiences because I want everything to be all together so I don’t have to work to get the whole story.

Which brings me to my point: I still REALLY want to make a supercut. Cutting it into one big film, adding the deleted scenes and the vlogs, cutting out the episode breaks. It would be just for my personal viewing pleasure. Not like I’d be selling it or even giving it away. (so, technically not piracy, right? I did buy the DVD.)  I’m pretty sure I’m going to do that.

More film: I finally got to work a day on WWJD. The first day I was supposed to work, they ended the shoot early, before I got there. Then they canceled a bunch of shoots and otherwise didn’t contact me, and finally, last Saturday, I got to help out with the second-to-last filming day. The last is this Saturday and hopefully I’ll be helping then too. It’s sort of awesome, because, yay! Filmmaking! But sort of depressing because, Why don’t I get to do this all the time? Well. I least I get to do it at all, rare though it may be.

So, I am weaving a thing. This is probably not the smallest thing I’ve ever woven, but it’s definitely the smallest per amount of cards used. 16 cards on this. Here I’m using 100% silk and 100% merino in cobweb weight.

And I’m working on a couple of hoods, that I’ve let sit around for a week or so because I got annoyed that the pattern ended up smaller than I wanted. One is mostly sewn, the other is just cut out. And I have to redraft the pattern. Annoying.

And I’m loom-knitting another sock.

And I’m crocheting a rug. I used a skirt I hated to make the fabric yarn. It has a lot of seams in it, which is making the rug all lumpy. Well, see how much I care. I’m going to use up a blue sheet (a Batman sheet, actually) to add on to the rug, which will hopefully make it big enough.

And I am planting the garden today!

I feel sad that it’s been over a year since I worked on that comic that I mentioned in my first WAID post. I still think about it all the time. I’m just stuck on this dumb page where I have to draw so many characters in a group. I’m just not that good at drawing.

I also think about my script all the time, but I just… haven’t looked at it. For a long time. Not sure how long, but too long. Long ago, like 4 years ago, I was reading it at a writing group and my friend who later directed a film that I cut for him, told me to let him know when I finished it. Well sorry, JDM, but that just hasn’t happened. But now I have a tiny hope that maybe there’s a possibility that it could, God willing, actually get produced. That’s good incentive to finishing a script, eh? You know, since I do sort of know people who are producing independent films. A thought that is both exhilarating and frightening.

Alright, let’s be honest. When people I know are making films and I’m not, a huge sword of jealousy stabs my heart and my soul cries out, “Why hast thou forsaken me!” which, interpreted, means “Why the fuck are you not asking me to help?”

Okay, enormous blog post finally over. Do tell me what’s going on with you.

The post What Am I DOING? No Apologies. appeared first on Happy Valley Crafters.

I know it seems odd, but I actually don’t care much for ancient Rome, even though my ‘nym is associated with it. Rome has a lot of awesome things about it, but in the end it’s too political for me. I just want to ride on my horse, spearing people in battle, not bother with elections and social status signifiers. But I certainly do have an interest in the garb of almost all historical eras.

Zappy, as we will call my young friend, furnished me with the interesting information that the proper size of a toga (which is, of course, constructed of a flat rectangle with curved corners, or sometimes diagonally-cut corners) is twice the height of the wearer by three times the height of the wearer. The true formula is more complicated than that, but I didn’t want to think that hard about it.

This seemed exceptionally huge to me–for a 6-foot man, the toga would be a rectangle 12 by 18 feet. I did the math and found that the smallest yardage you could use of 60″ wide fabric is 16 yards. Sixteen effing yards. This number startled me so that I doubted my ability to mentally do math (especially under the conditions of making garlic bread at work), so I went home and drew it out on a graph paper. It is, indeed, 16 yards of fabric. This is twice the size of a commercial cloak pattern and three times the size of one of my patterns. I cringe when I draft something that uses more than 4 yards of fabric. The size of this toga is comparable to the size of my tent canvas, which I sewed from 15 yards of 60″ wide fabric.

Here's my tent canvas spread out on my parent's driveway. Obviously not the same shape as a toga, but I think you get the point.

But to be realistic, one must consider that linen and wool, the proper historical fabric choices for a toga, both shrink quite a bit when washed. I’ve found, when pre-shrinking fabric, that it generally goes down to 50 inches. So I did more math and found that 18 yards of 50″ wide fabric would be needed to make a toga for a 6-foot man.

Let’s say I make it out of linen, which is far cheaper than wool, though wool is considered by Nova Roma the sole accurate fabric for a toga (I have issues with this which I discuss later). I can get linen for about $7/yard, which is on the cheaper end of the linen spectrum. For 18 yards, that’s $126. It would possibly take me 2 hours to cut the fabric and sew it all by machine (simple seams, but a huge hem).

Using my formula for determining the finished cost of my items, this toga would cost the customer $279. That’s a frickin lot of money for a fancy historical piece of fabric. And that’s on the cheap end. What if I used wool? What if I had hand-finished the seams and hem? What if it were a toga praetexta and I had to edge the whole thing with wide bias tape which I’d have to make from scratch as well? It would cost so much, that my mind boggles. I don’t want to think too hard about it, for fear of hurting myself.

And it’s not like this was a fancy, rich man piece of garb. All male citizens of Rome wore a toga all the time. I don’t even know how you’d wash something so behemoth.

And here’s the thing about wool. It’s difficult to spin and weave as finely as you can do linen, so wool is always a heavier fabric than linen is. Carrying that much weight on your body? Especially in a Mediterranean climate? Not so great. Also, every time you wash it, unless you’re very, very careful, it will get thicker and smaller through the natural and almost unavoidable felting process. Thicker fabric is harder to fold. So if all togas were made of wool, they must have done something really magical to make these things work out for daily wear. And they had to be washed frequently because almost all togas were cream or white colored.

The other thing about wool: the candidate’s togas were supposed to be pure white (everyone else had natural, unbleached, undyed fabric).  Linen can be bleached very easily with period methods like washing hot with lye, and prolonged exposure to sunlight. I’m not convinced that wool can be made to a bright white color–white enough to be distinguished from cream at a distance–with period methods. If anyone knows how this can be done, I’d like to hear it. But I’m just not seeing the claim that all togas were made of wool to be practical.

If you don’t care so much about historical accuracy, the 108″ wide muslin and quilting cotton are a good choice. They are very lightweight and you’d only need 8 yards. They probably cost a lot less, too.

I was considering doing a line of Roman garb for my Etsy store, but after doing that math, I’m convinced that no one would actually buy one.

Here’s the moral of the story: In re-enacting, it always comes down to a choice between money and accuracy.

The post Historically Hers: The Toga appeared first on Happy Valley Crafters.

This is a skirt. I found it in my summer wardrobe, which I recently began delving into. I got it at the very end of last summer, so I don’t think I ever wore it before it got put away for the season. The thing is, it’s one of those tiered broomstick skirts, which I somehow keep ending up with even though they look terrible on me. So I decided to add a pseudo-bustle thing in the back, hoping that would make it look better. This photo shows how I’ve pleated it up, but I’ve decided to abandon this design in favor of something much easier.

I know, this is the greatest photo ever taken.

This is a Viking smock which is almost completed. I need to sew the sides, sew the sleeves on, and hem it. Unfortunately, I will be hemming it by hand, so that will take a million years, but it should be done by next week.

This looks familiar...

And this is the next loom sock. The thing about socks is, you have to make two of them.

The post What Am I DOING? Bustle, smock and sock. appeared first on Happy Valley Crafters.

HVDD getting ready for a home scrimmage - photo credit Ron Horton

Around this time last year two of my nieces (then 20 years old) informed me that they’d joined a local Roller Derby league.   I later found out that at the time the league was still in its infancy.  They were just starting out and it was pretty grass roots.  Somewhere along the way I heard they had dubbed themselves the Happy Valley Derby Darlins (HVDD)!  That name gets +10 Awesomeness in my book, for obvious reasons.  But hold onto your knee socks, girls, it gets better.

Yes, that's a skull encased in pink jello. Booyah!

Last Saturday I attended this season’s first real bout, the St. Patty’s Smack Down at UVU.  Since they were playing against another league they combined the best players from their two home teams (who normally play scrimmages against each other), to make the league’s competitive team, who call themselves…wait for it… the Molly Morbids!

My program from the St. Patty's bout

The St. Patty’s bout really sealed the deal for me in terms of Derby Love.  Never can I remember getting so caught up in the spirit of any sports event.  Ever.  Granted I care less than a little for most organized/team sports.  But roller derby is no “ordinary” team sport, my friends.   It’s beautiful, spontaneous chaos.  It’s raw and emotive.  It’s unpredictable.  It’s pure anarchy on wheels!

Sure there’s a list of rules as long as your Mormon ancestor’s undergarments.  Rules that require a certification process for referees and certainly prove difficult for my all-things-sports-inept mind to comprehend.  But let’s be honest, it’s a misfit sport at best; there ain’t no other that can touch it.   And for those a bit slow to catch on, I’m selling that as a good thing.  A healthy thing even, especially for our overly “organized” and (dare I say?) men dominated, sports saturated culture.  Not that there are no men derby leagues; how could they stay away?

In short, dear readers, I have been bitten by the Derby Bug.  Pricked by Derby Cupid, if you will.  And totally stoked to continue this love affair.

Black Eye Sky with teammates waiting to get their derby on.

My niece, Sky (known in the derby world as Black Eye Sky) who has since become captain of one of the leagues two home teams, Rollin’ Rebellion, was playing as a blocker Saturday with the Molly Morbids.

(Btw, the Morbids creamed their opponents, Nevada East Roller Girls, 183 to 87!)

I had a chance to talk with Black Eye Sky this past week (we’re close ;p) and ask her a few questions regarding Happy Valley Derby Darlins humble beginnings and how YOU can get yourself out to the derby.

LB: When and how did you first get into Roller Derby?

BES: Last January I was working at Joe’s Coffee Shop in Payson. Two of my coworkers invited me to a meeting held in a party room at Classic Skating in Orem. Their were like ten girls there. That was pretty much the beginning of our league. Of those first ten maybe half of us stuck around.

LB: How often do you practice and where?

BES: Three times a week at the old Food4Less building in Spanish Fork.  That’s also where our home scrimmages (domestic disputes) are held.

LB:  How often are said scrimmages?

BES:  We play two a month on Saturdays.  And we do “picnic scrimmages” for fun, which is basically getting together with other leagues during the off season (Sept-Feb) to keep in practice.

So there you have your basic info.  You can find out a bundle more and other derby details at HVDD’s website and their facebook.   Also, check out local derby photographer Ron Horton’s page for a plethora of great derby pics, including incredible action shots.

P.S. Sky and I chatted A LOT more the other day and I began to realize the Derby Hole is much deeper than I had initially imagined.  Which means, of course, that there will be more roller derby drivel to come.  Til then, peace & love (and Roller Derby)!

The post Local Counter Culture: Roller Derby in Happy Valley appeared first on Happy Valley Crafters.

I am making cheese for the premiere of The Hunger Games! Yes, true and verily fresh goat cheese wrapped in basil. Oh baby am I hardcore or what. I am so excited about making cheese!

I forgot to get the basil out for the photo.

I am also weaving some trim for my friend Derpenna. (Yeah, I just take my friends’ names and replace the first part with “Derp”.) The gold thread is so shiny, it was hard to photograph.

Tiny trim for a doll.

I’ve been attacking my home videos. It’s excruciating, everyone so desperate for attention, but I’m almost done with the first tape. It will be cut down to about 1 hour from 2 hours. I’ll try for 45 minutes. There is a lot of the camera staring at the baby for no reason. I don’t like babies, even though this one grew up to be my cool younger sister.

Adobe Premiere Pro: At least not as ghetto as iMovie or Windows Movie Maker.

Other film things: I have two on-call editing jobs, one with my cousin’s marketing company, Olive Tree, and one with the SPG (you don’t know what that is, and I don’t feel like telling you.) I’m working on some stuff right now for both of them. For Olive Tree I’ve been cutting an ad and tutorials for Bling Time. Pretty sure they’re local, because otherwise why would they go to my cousin’s company? I’m starting on the SPG project tomorrow, it will basically be a training video. (Any chance to edit, is a chance to edit.)

Another, much more exciting film thing: Local film WWJD is resuming production at the end of this month. I’ve never met the director, but I’ve seen him act in things (is that creepy?), including a film that I cut; and I know a bunch of people he knows, including several people working on this film. He asked on Facebook for production volunteers, and I, of course, applied. I see no reason why he wouldn’t accept me, except for my schedule. We’ll see. Actually, I have to admit that the thought of working on a set again kind of makes me nervous.

So, I think that’s it right now. What have you guys got going on?

The post What Am I DOING? Say Cheese! appeared first on Happy Valley Crafters.

I had some pretty grand visions about what this site would be, so it’s frustrating for me to come out now and say that it wasn’t working the way I thought it would. There’s definitely some self-sabotage going on in the background, and I’ll take responsibility for that. My friends stepped up to support and contribute to Happy Valley Crafters at its inception, and have helped me keep it going, but ultimately I’m running the site and focusing its direction. So my sad little foray into self-sabotage affects them as well. When I let HVC fall out of focus, so do they. Blargh! I don’t like disappointing my friends.

So the question is: Am I giving up? My answer, in short: Absolutely not.

One interesting and unexpected thing that came out of the creation of this website involves a different path to creating and sustaining an local underground craft community: the Happy Valley Crafters Etsy Team. Even though I still haven’t officially opened my own Etsy store (time, I need more tiiiiiime!), the three other ladies most invested in Happy Valley Crafters all had stores when we started: Real Pretend Vintage, Faire Sisters, and The Cotton Floozy. Etsy teams are designed for communities to self-organize in a number of ways—and since we’re all in Utah County, it makes the most sense for our team to do things and help promote each other locally.

Without doing any advertising or sending out invitations, there are already 15 members on the Happy Valley Crafters Etsy team. Though there are at least three other teams for Utah Etsians, we are the only team of crafters specifically in Utah County. I’m interpreting that as an opportunity to build a local base of independent crafters who can get into all sorts of trouble together. What sort of trouble? Maybe monthly get-togethers, maybe promoting a team of stores rather than just individual stores, maybe even a row of booths at local fairs… and hopefully some down-and-dirty craftivism.

The trick is that not everyone on the Happy Valley Crafters Etsy Team is going to be of a similar alternative mindset. Rumor has it that there is a subset of somewhat conservative folks in this area. The HVC team is focused on networking and supporting fellow Etsy sellers in Utah County in an equal opportunity manner; it’s open to anyone who lives in Utah County, Utah, and has an active Etsy shop or is planning to open one in the near future.

I guess that means we’re all going to have to work together (which actually could be fun, since we already have something in common) or we’re going to mutually offend each other enough to break it all up rather quickly. Either way, adventure times!

Until that all comes together, my gal pals and I are working on fresh content for this here blog. There are two banners you haven’t even seen yet and I intend to put them to good use. I hope you’ll stay tuned and chime in with comments, because some of the most entertaining and illuminating HVC conversation so far has come from your comments. Thanks, and see you around soon!

The post What’s up in this hizzouse appeared first on Happy Valley Crafters.

Perhaps you’ve heard of the new Echo Theater? It’s located right in between those hipster-havens, Muse and Velour. It was a derelict space for, well I don’t know how long, until about a month ago some people were like, “Lets make this something awesome!” It’s a pretty cool story. In that month they got it all cleaned up and refurbished. It’s not posh, but it’s the type of small theater that I like. The stage is so uncomfortably close to the back row, you can see every bead of sweat on the actors’ brows. It’s so sincere, you know; you can tell it’s a bunch of people working together to do what they love for other people who love it.

Here’s the second part of the story! My friend at work, whom I may have mentioned before (shifty eyes), is directing and starring in the theater’s first production, The Woman in Black. The same ghost story as the movie, but quite a different type of production.

I went to the opening night last Thursday, and I LOVED it. It’s minimal theater–there’s no glamor or glitz for the production to hide behind, and no recourse to hide any amount of failure. It is the pure, rare power of good story and good acting. It is vivid and intense in its rawness. Three actors, foley, and a tiny set which slowly gets revealed throughout the play, strike a more ardent and sincere chord than all the fancy costumes, dance numbers, and fireworks you could care to see.

Clearly, I highly recommend this show. It has a few more days left: March 12, 15, 16, 17, and 19. If you have any love for theater or any love for horror, I beg of you, get thee to the theater. It is time and money well spent.

The post Awesomesauce: Echo Theater & The Woman in Black appeared first on Happy Valley Crafters.