Exciting news about DC's best indie craft event! This year there will be two Crafty Bastards shows! One in June and one in September. From the Washington CityPaper website:

The show will be held Saturday, June 28th at Pyramid Atlantic Arts Center on Georgia Ave. in Silver Spring, MD. Crafty Bastards Silver Spring will have a focus on learning, an emphasis on craft workshops, and highlight up-and-coming artists and those newer to the indie craft scene. There are 50 10ft.x10ft. booth spaces available. Applications will be accepted through April 16, 2008. The jury will review the entries and we will notify everyone of their status via email by April 22.

Awesome! Go here to apply.

You can also read my application tips on the Crafty Blog. If you have any questions about applying, leave them in the comments and I will answer them!

I'm a little behind on making new stuff for my etsy shop because I've been a little busy!
This is the 4th public art sculpture I've done. I did a panda for DC's Pandamania:

a turtle for University of Maryland's Fear the Turtle campaign, and most recently I participated in Crystal City's Crystal Flight project.
I have to hand it to Crystal City, they are really sticking their necks out to entice artists (and restaurants and shoppers) to cross the Potomac and have a poke around. In about 2 weeks, you'll see 50 planes (25 jet fighters and 25 vintage styled planes) "land" on various street corners.
You'll see this one at the corner of 20th and Bell. Across from the Marriott Hotel and a Metro entrance. If you take your picture with it, feel free to send it along to me! I got a kick out of seeing people with my panda and turtle!

so this year was going to be more relaxed! I was going to take it easy! Right....

I have the craft fair bug, I guess. There was a lack of crazy hectic crafting between January and April, so I had to do something about it! When chatting with some other local yarn dyers and spinners on ravelry, we came up with the brilliant idea to have a yarn party! to sell stuff! (totally not as stressful as a craft fair, right?)

Only, heh - wow. It kept me busy for an entire month. Getting someone to design postcards, distributing the cards, getting sponsorship from local yarn shops, getting paid by sponsors and vendors, getting someone to design a program. And wrangling vendors! I'm sure it's often the case, but there was some crazy last-minute switcheroos that were totally stressful. Oh, and the entire **not getting into the building until AFTER the party/fair was supposed to have started!!** was totally crazy! Not to mention that we had no idea if people would actually join us (and shop!)!

But once we let those first customers in, and the rest of line going out the door... wow! People were so excited and so happy for the craft fair to be happening! I've never seen so many thankful people glad for all the hard work that went into it! That feeling of happiness totally makes it worth it to take chances on craft fairs, to go the extra mile, to dream big! :) If you have rad products, organize a craft fair! Get it out there into the world!

(taken after the masses had died down and my table cleared out!)

The first thing you might notice is that it's not in a kitchen -- it's in my basement. Nor is in on 8th Street. My first batch of soap was made in my kitchen on 8th Street in Brooklyn, circa 2000, so at the time the name was accurate. I never seriously expected my soap to get into the hands of anyone but friends and family; at the time I wasn't exactly concerned about the longevity of the name. But the name stuck.

The biggest compliment I've ever gotten was from my friend's daughter, Clara. She lives across the alley from me, so she knows my house isn't on 8th Street here. I recently discovered that for the last 2 years she'd been operating on the assumption that every day morning when I left for work, I was going to some big soap factory on 8th Street (where I most likely employed scores of oompa-loompahs). She looked so disappointed when she saw the real "factory"! Still, I like it. Christmas lights make it cozy, and I can crank the tunes and make a mess whenever I want.

What does your workspace look like, my fellow Mutineers?