When your calendar turned the page to July, I can guess that your first thought was not: Less than 6 months until Christmas! I'd better seriously starting planning and creating my holiday crafts! But it should have been. There are 24 weekends until Christmas.  That's 24 Saturdays and Sunday -when long periods of time can be devoted to creating holiday decorations and gifts.  How can you use that time efficiently?

Next weekend the US will be festooned in Red, White And Blue as the nation celebrates its birthday. Parades, picnics and parties are all occasions for showing off the best in new patriotic designs. Instead of heading to the stores and purchasing something appropriately constructed, isn't it nice that we crafters can walk into our workrooms -or corners- and make our own fine Patriotic Crafts. Dollar Store Crafts took inspiration from a Better Homes and Gardens idea to Craft Patriotic Placements.

BlogHer 09 is just over 5 weeks away which means I have to start considering what to take with me on the road.  Travel time is great for catching up on reading and podcasts, but it's also the very best time to work on simple portable projects.  What should I pack for 5 days in Chicago?  NOTE: My flights both ways have 2 - count them two!- changes of flights each direction.  Travel crafts have several unique requirements:

I've fallen for the fun this month, discovering and falling in love with fun projects and ideas showing up in the blogsphere. 

Another month, another step toward toward Stash Busting!

Recently, I was struck by a comment left on the blog of popular blogger, coach and author Pam Slim. The anonymous (of course) commenter chastised her for seeking sales and for there being less free content on her blog as she worked on promoting her newly launched book. Then I was blown away by Pam's fabulous response. Calm, neutral, factual, non-reactive, honest, compassionate and not defensive in the least.

RT @SisterDiane: Okay, here's the plan: Maker Faire becomes some kind of permanent geek village, and we all go live there together. You in?

Last week, I talked about the type of quilt shows available this year. A different type of show you also might wish to attend is one of the many craft shows. Where quilt and stitchery shows are primarily about displaying members work, craft shows are mainly about small crafty vendors plying their wares. ellebee {studio} calls the application process craft insanity:

With weather warming and the spring/summer seasons upon us, craft, sewing and quilt guilds around the world are putting the final touches on their local shows, or are breathing a sigh of relief as their show finishes up. Adding to the local appeal of these shows are regional and national shows presented every year. glowy quilt show Local shows:

Last Thursday Bravo premiered The Fashion Show, an obvious re-engineering of their popular Project Runway which they lost to LifeTime late last year. Standing in the place of Heidi Klum, Michael Kors and Nina Garcia, this show offers fashion designer Izaak Mizrahi and former Destiny's Child member Kelly Rowland and  senior VP or IMG Fashion Fern Mallis.  The retooling of the program created some interesting changes:

"There's nothing to do." "We're bored." "How many days until we go ...?" These -and similar complaints - are the true signs of summer. Children left to their resources can quickly run out of ways to amuse themselves. I'd be willing to bet that with schools closing because of the H1N1 influenza, some parents and caretakers are already hearing these refrains. With that in mind, I've searched out some simple to more complicated crafty tutorials to keep the whole family entered for an afternoon.

With the weather warming up and days getting longer, we can anticipate more occasions to take our crafting outside and create in the great outdoors. Casual evenings of drinks on a patio with a simple stitching project in our lap, picnics in the park. Then there are organized public crafting events that occur each year: STITCH N' PITCH