Whaddaya Mean It's December???

I can't believe that the first day of December is tomorrow! That is insane. It snuck up on me so hardcore that I totally forgot to list the first December auction this morning. Oops. The other three are up now, starting tomorrow at 10am and ending Monday at 10pm.

I am *thisclose* to finishing my last November custom and hope to have it in the mail tomorrow morning. I have been awash in a sea of bags this past week. With the new site up and running I am faced with customers who actually expect things to be made already. I am going to have to reword the library bag listing to allow for 2 weeks or so for me to get a batch together and ship them out. It is depressing to felt one little bag so I made a small batch and then every time I'd get ready to felt them another order would come in and I'd have to make one more before felting. All in all I ended up with 9 bags this past week. Five of them are already spoken for. I think the others might make their way onto the Etsy shop.

Pari and Robin's library bags:


A custom knit kit bag:


A sweet little toadstool bag that doesn't have a home yet:



And once more with feeling for the newbies who might not know the custom process yet:

I open for custom orders via email (info[at]crankypantshome[dot]com) on the first of each month. All you have to do is email me on the first between 10am and 12 noon letting me know that you would like to place a custom order. I take as many orders as I can for the month (using a random number generator). It starts all over again each month. I know it is crazy, but it is the only way that works for the time being. Crankypants longies run from $72-90 and shorties from $50-65 depending on measurements and design. I do my very best to complete all custom orders the month the order is taken so, depending where you fall on the list, turnaround time is anywhere between 1-5 weeks. I do ship anywhere in the world for an additional charge depending on destination. I do not currently and do not plan to sell the Crankypants pattern. It is all in my little head and to translate it from Amyspeak into language that is actually understandable would be a chore I am not up to tackling. If you have any other questions please feel free to email.

PLEASE NOTE: I am making no promises to anyone that their December Crankypants will arrive in time for the holidays so please do not count on it. I am sure some of them will get there in time but I don't want to make promises I can't keep. I will also only be taking 4 custom orders this month (in addition to the 3 auctions), as I will be traveling to CT and will be spending some quality time with my family. Good luck and I'll see you in the morning!

Cookie What Now?

In a moment of joy after making my first successful batch of chocolate crinkles the other day I signed up for my playgroup's annual cookie exchange. I don't get to see these mamas very much anymore since Henry is in school full time now, so equal parts wanting to be included and eagerness to display my new learned cookie prowess seems to have gotten me in over my head. On Sunday afternoon henry and I are going to set about the task of making 13 dozen chocolate crinkles. Yikes! This means that I will be emerging from the cookie exchange with 13 dozen of other mamas' cookies. What in the holy hell am I going to do with 13 dozen cookies? Anyone up for a cookie give away?

Last night I was bitten by the crazy CrankyMoose bug and stayed up to the wee hours of the morning finishing Cathy's CrankyMoose longies. Cathy's wee lad has a moose toy that he is particularly fond of and so she thought a pair of Crankys to match would be just the ticket. I must admit that I was ever so slightly intimidated by her request, since she sent me pictures of the toy and a mock up of the longies and seemed very sure of how she wanted them done. A mama who knows what she wants is always welcome at Crankypants World Headquarters, but I am always a tad nervous that I am not going to live up to the picture in their head. We shall see.

In an unfortunate turn of events, after going to bed at roughly 1:30 this morning, I was awoken by the dulcet sounds of my little darling waking up for the day. At 4:45 AM. He was adamant that it was time for him to get up and "watch a little show". After about 20 minutes of arguing I just climbed into his bed and played dead which bought me another hour or so of dozing in and out punctuated every 10 minutes or so by blows and kicks of a tossing and turning 4 year old beastie. Needless to say I did not leap from the bed when it was time to pack the tiny man away to school and go deal with getting my window fixed. But it is done! I have a passenger side window! No more breezes blowing though my car! No more being humiliated when I forget that I have no window and sing too loud in the car only to find that my neighbor in traffic is laughing and pointing at me! WooHoo!

I spent the rest of the morning working on a big ole batch of bags. Most of them are already spoken for, but look for one or two at the Festivus Miracle Stocking over at Venus Vanguard next Thursday, which I am going to be out of town for. This is the second stocking in a row that took place when I was out of town. If they weren't already scheduled long before I joined up I think I could get some sort of complex about the whole thing.

Grrrrrrrr...

I woke up this morning to find that someone smashed in my passenger side window in my car. They didn't take anything, they didn't even open the door after they broke the window (all the smashed glass is still hanging there). They just smashed the window. Like, for fun. Stealing stuff out of a car is mean, but at least there is a point! I think I am more irritated that they broke the window and didn't take anything. And there is broken glass everywhere. I am going to have to go to the car wash and use one of those super duper vacuum thingies. Our insurance doesn't cover it, so we also have a nice little unexpected expense right before the holidays. Pth.

I have 7 bajillion errands to run today, I have to pick up Henry and a friend from school in that car, and it is about 35 degrees out.

Gaaaaaaaaaah!

School's In!

I have loved spending time with my boys this holiday weekend, but I have to admit that I was happy to have my nice empty house to work in today.

We had a blast this weekend, though. We took advantage of a nice day and hiked out to Bent Creek and had a little hot chocolate picnic on Saturday, and yesterday Henry and I had a mama/Henry date and went to see Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. I loved it! It was kind of an emotional roller coaster for Henry, though. There were a couple of parts that really upset him. There is one part where a little sock monkey repeatedly tried to hug the arm of one of the characters, but the guy doesn't see him and walks away. The second time it happened Henry turned to me with the biggest, poutiest bottom lip I have ever seen and said "That little monkey wants a hug but there is no one there to hug him" before bursting into tears. Poor little guy. He watched the rest of the movie from my lap. It was interesting to see his developing sense of empathy and the fact that he "gets" certain concepts that would have gone over his head 6 months ago.

It is positively gross outside right now so it has been easy to just sit and work all day. I am almost back to where I wanted to be at this point in the month.

I finished Ms. Stephanie's CrazyLegs:


And right now I am about halfway down the first leg of Cathy's crazy moose longies. I have never done anything like them before so I am a little nervous. I am hoping to get to the actual moose part tomorrow so cross you fingers for me!

I also did something today that anyone who knows me might have trouble believing. I baked cookies. This might not seem like a big deal, but I usually stay away from the kitchen at any cost. My own darling child laughed hysterically when someone asked me a cooking question in his presence, declaring "You're silly, mommies don't cook!". I am thinking of doing my mama's group's annual cookie swap for the first time this year. I have a feeling that half the mamas doing it will make their husband's try my cookies first and then wait 24 hours to watch for any side effects before eating one themselves, but that's okay. Here is my "test batch" of chocolate crinkles:


I ate one with an afternoon cup of coffee a while ago and it was actually very tasty. Go me!

Saturday was a big day at Crankypants World Headquarters. This past week I held a charity event to benefit Miracle Diapers, a non-profit organization that provides cloth diapers and supplies to low income families. The event ended on Saturday evening and over the course of the week we raised a grand total of $4,250 for Miracle Diapers. That's a lot of diapers, folks.

Also on Saturday I received a first draft sample of a pair of Crankypants from a Fair Trade Federation certified knitting cooperative in Peru. They are beautiful and the workmanship is amazing. There are a few kinks to work out (for example, they are in baby alpaca and I need them in merino) so I'm not sure it is going to work out, but this is a wonderful first step.

Okay. The boys are about to return from their first day back at school and I have a huge stack of monster bags calling my name. I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!

Black Friday?

It looks like grey Friday here. The skies are overcast and gross. I finally coerced Kyle into taking Henry out for an adventure, but it would have been much better if we had a nice day to send them out into. I feel kind of bad kicking them out of the house into...that. But it is really hard to get anything done with the little man around and I am a busy little bee.

Justine's girly Monster Booty Longies are going into the mail this afternoon.


I also just listed a kid's knit kit on the Hyena Cart store. I think it came out pretty dern cute and I'll probably be making some more for various holiday stockings here and there.


I hope everyone had as fabulous a Thanksgiving as we did. We built a gingerbread house:


Henry overdosed on Wii:


and then we headed over to an amazing dinner with old and new friends. There were 4 kids under the age of 5 running around the house and we didn't have to break up one fight. Not even a tiff. The adults actually got to sit around and chat and the kids entertained each other. How often does that happen? It was wonderful.

Now off to figure out some present ideas for our early Christmas in CT. Two weeks! I'm in trouble...

Pretty!!!

I just remembered that part two of the fund raiser being held by wonderfully talented Joyce from Elliebelly to benefit heifer.org goes live today. She has some brand spankin' new yarn up for both raffle and auction that is definitely worth a peek. You can get a gift for the special knitter in your life while supporting an awesome cause. Click that Elliebelly link up there to check it out.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone is looking forward to a wonderful and relaxing day with their families today. We are...okay, okay, Kyle is cooking the turkey and taters and we are packing them up to bring them over to our friends Melissa and Fletcher's house for dinner. We are trying to figure out how the heck to transport a 14lb. turkey in one of those little aluminum cooking pan thingies that those of us who only cook one turkey a year and therefor have no real roasting pan use. I feel a little bad about using disposable cookware, but not as bad as I would if I had to figure out where to store a huge roasting pan in my postage stamp sized kitchen. I am pushing to carve the turkey here and just bring the pieces (that sounds so gross) over, but I think that would detract from the "ta da" factor.

This is the part where I am supposed to say what I'm thankful for. Henry and Kyle, of course, who I won't talk about much for fear of getting all teary. I'm thankful for my amazing family, who I actually miss at the holidays instead of dreading going to see them. They are all together right now and I can almost see them in my head, laughing and bickering and drinking coffee-hi guys! I miss you! Give baby Sam a smooch for me! I am thankful for the vast mothering community which has given me so many friends and supported me not only when I wanted to throw Henry out the window, but when I wanted to start a business so I could stay home with him. And then there are the little things... my favorite pen that was a freebie when I ordered from Monkey Sudz (now Naturally Luxe), fresh mozzerella and tomato salad, getting to sleep in until 8:30 this morning, TiVoed episodes of Handy Manny in a pinch, hand dyed BFL yarn from Natural Home Presents (wow, I just went to find a link for that and there is a ton of gorgeous yarn just sitting there!), oh, and coffee. Coffee, how I love thee. And I'm thankful for my local roaster who knows just what I want when I walk in the door (one pound mocha java blend, one pound organic fair trade Ethiopian Yurgacheffe, please). I'm thankful for the burgeoning indie design scene that I kind of get to be a part of right now. There are so many amazing ideas whizzing about all over the place! It is inspiring and humbling and wonderful and amazing.

Happy turkey (or Tofurkey) eating!

'amember Me?

It's been a while, no? I wanted to leave the Life and Style article up for a while because it directed people here instead of to the site, so I wanted them in the loop a little bit. If you are here because of the Life and Style article thingie, there is a link to the actual store over there on the left.

Things have been fairly crazed around here with the holidays looming and whatnot. I went to the store today and saw the unmistakable Girl Scout display that screamed "Thin Mint Therapy"! My mouth started watering and I elbowed several old ladies out of the way to get to the table only to discover that it was a table full of Girl Scouts selling...nuts? NUTS? I mean, come on, people! They couldn't possibly think that anyone could prefer nuts to a nice Samoa or Tagalong. They were there simply to toy with my emotions. No fair.

I took the Hand Made Pledge, promising to ask for and give hand made products this holiday season whenever possible and that is proving quite a task. I have yet to find a quilted Wii cozy for Kyle and/or my dad. I am discovering that the men in my life aren't quite as into the craftiness as I am. I think I can score some cool hand made stuff for all of my female family members, but good man gear is rare and expensive. If I had a big ole cash wad to blow I would head on over to Working Class Hero and buy them all amazing tech accessories. I have had my eye on one of their super swank tech cases for a while now and when I finally went to email the link to my mama today it had sold out. Wah! It was so pretty, too. To help those of us who want to support indie designers out this time of year, Threadless is having a major tee sale right now with most things $10. When your alarm goes off Friday morning and you think about whether or not you reeeaaaaaally need to hit that 4am box store super sale, remember that you have the alternative of staying in bed for another 3 hours (more if you don't have kids) and knocking out your gift list in one fell swoop in your jammies while supporting some pretty dern cool artists to boot.

I do have a pair of Crankys finished and ready to ship on Friday but I didn't manage to snap a picture of them yet. Stay tuned...

Amy's Flamingo Pink Monster Booty Longies

Marie's Snowflake Longies

I hope you like them mama. I saw a few flakes yesterday while I was working on them...

The Fight! The Anger! The Crankypants!

I am super psyched to have finally gotten my hot little hands on an issue of the new Life and Style Weekly Magazine!


See the little square in the bottom right hand corner with the print talking about "Chunky Knits"? Samantha over at Life and Style (who rocks my socks) thought that Crankypants would be a good addition to that spread so she popped a pair of Monster Booty Longies right in there on page 52 next to Angelina and Maddox Jolie!

Now if we can just get some Crankypants on little Shiloh...

In other awesome Crankypants news, the new site is UP!

I am so excited to be able to offer some goodies made with love by some of my favorite indie kid's designers including prints by John W. Golden, Nightmare Snatcher Journals by Spiderbite, super cute undies from Sonya over at Sublime Threads, all sorts of monster gear from Voz over at Fishcakes and hand screened tees from Harrilu Designs. I love every single thing on the site and that is a great feeling.





Check it out!

Gorgeous Yarn for a Good Cause

My friend Joyce from EllieBelly is starting a great charity event today at noon involving lots of amazing hand painted yarn. There are auction and raffle style items and all the money goes to heifer.org which lets everyday folks like us band together to purchase meat and milk producing animals for hungry people in developing countries. Not only is is a good cause...but that is some gorgeous yarn.

Go Check It Out!

Stuffs...

Ah, so much to blog about, so little time...

First of all, Life and Style. I got my wires crossed with the editor I was speaking to since we've been communicating via voice mail since I've been out of town. The issue of the magazine that the Monster Booty Longies are in is supposed to come out today, not Monday. Sorry to anyone who bought the previous issue looking for it. I looked for it when I was at Target this morning but the old issue was still out so I haven't actually seen it yet. If you want to check it out, I think that Brad Pitt is on the cover of the correct issue. Now if we can just get Shiloh in some Crankypants...

I haven't talked much about my trip because I've been scrambling to catch up since I got home. I had an amazing visit. My friend Paul picked me up at the airport and we went to pick up Bam at her fancypants new office on the UM campus. It was completely surreal being with Paul (who I haven't seen since before Henry was born) on campus without Henry. It kind of felt like some It's a Wonderful Life life without Henry experience. We did a lot of eating and seeing old friends and I took a grand total of 4 pictures the whole time I was there. I went to Tree City Diapers to see Molly's new digs. It is pretty amazing.


Meet Ms. Willow:

And Bam and Willow:

While I was there, Bam got a phone call from a friend letting her know that her book had been mentioned in the latest issue of Vibe magazine. A comedian suggested it as a gift for hard to shop for folks. She was also asked to write a piece on female comedians for Ms. Magazine while I was there. I think I might be good luck or something.

I was excited to see Henry and Kyle but it was really hard to leave all the kids up north. There are so many people up there that I unabashedly adore. I miss them already.

Enough rambling. I finished Sabra's Olive and Zelia's Black Monster Booty Longies:



ETA:

I just did the final update of the Miracle Diapers Charity Lottery over at HC. I am begging you to please not crash my PayPal and email accounts by rushing to nab all 500 donation slots at once. I will have a heart attack and spend the next week trying to sort it out instead of knitting. No fun. Please, please, please!

Home!

I just made a fresh pot of coffee and I am going to get started on the mounds of email and whatnot that has piled up in my absence so bear with me! I hope to be back on top of everything by the time Henry gets home from school...

Hello From the Great Northern Tundra

Damn, it's cold.


So far my trip has been wonderful. I am missing Henry like crazy, of course, but my friend has been distracting me with birthday parties, shopping trips and lots and lots of food that I can't get in Asheville. Yesterday I met my oldest friend Carrie's brand new little man Miles and we took a trip down to Tree City Diapers brick and mortar store, owned by one of my favorite mamas, Ms. Molly Ging. It si a great space and it was packed! She has all sorts of amazing natural parenting things in there and it took all my will power not to buy one of everything. Tonight I have the pleasure of meeting her and some other local mamas (my very first mom's group) for dinner and drinks. I am so looking forward to catching up with everyone.

Tomorrow is going to be an exciting day for a couple of reasons. Last night I got to spend some time with the members of my old band who are currently making another record without me. The main songwriter/male vocalist/guitarist Aaron, who I think might be one of the best singer/songwriters I know, is also working on a solo record and tomorrow I am going to go over to his studio and lay down some vocal tracks for it. I really miss making music with him, so I can't wait.

Late last week an editor from Life and Style Weekly magazine contacted me about sending in some photographs to be featured in an upcoming issue. Weeeeeell, the issue with the Monster Booty feature is hitting news stands tomorrow! Too bad the new site won't launch until the magazine has run for a full week...

I am hoping everyone is doing well while I am away and out of touch. I know there have been some purchases made since I've been up here and they will all ship first thing Tuesday morning. Pinky swaer.

Goin' on Vacation!

Tomorrow I am hopping on a plane for my first ever trip away from Henry. I'm scared! We talked about it a bit last night and he is pretty irritated that I would even consider doing such a thing. I am trying to get Kyle to schedule some fun stuff for the weekend while I'm gone to take the sting out. He doesn't have school on Monday, so Kyle will have him for three unscheduled days in a row. I have a feeling that the Wii is going to get quite a work out.

I am trying to get most of the Miracle Diapers Lottery stuff squared away before I go but people won't stop giving me stuff to throw into the pot so there might be some late additions next week after I get back. I am so excited about how this thing took off. Infact, I just added two more donations today: Katie and Nathan from Wood Wise Natural Toys is donating a custom wooden nae puzzle and a couple of wooden vehicles and Karen from Splash Coloria is donating a custom low water immersion dyed tee. The winner of this dern thing isn't even going to have to do any holiday shopping! It'd be a faux pas for me to enter, right? I kid, I kid. Although it is the only chance I'd get to knit for Henry (who won't wear anything I make anyway).

I guess I should start packing. I talked to my friend Bam last night and she said it is supposed to snow there today. What the hell am I doing going to MI in November??? I don't even own a winter coat anymore. Ah well...

Miracle Diapers Charity Lottery is UP!

WooHoo!

Lookit all that stuff!

Full Previews are UP!

Venus Vanguard is doing a Mythological theme for their November 9th stocking and I managed to squeek out a few things for it.



Check out the rest of the awesome stuff here. Mamas will be putting their full previews up throughout the day.

I also finished my first November custom, Melissa's Navy Monster Longies:


Last night I got to go out and meet some of my mama friends for our monthly mamas' night out. We went to a little tapas bar downtown and chatted, drank coffee, and made google eyes at the two brand spankin' new little babies who joined us. Jessie and I even sat at opposite ends of the table so we were forced to talk about things other than work. Fancy that. On the way home, the major road I take slowed to a stop and I found myself stuck about 50 feet away from a huuuuuuuuuuge fire. An Ashley's furniture store burned right down to the ground. All 3 lanes of traffic were closed and we all just sat and watched it burn for a while. Finally, we were corralled through a supermarket parking lot and out onto a side street. It was kind of surreal. I drove past the store today and it was literally just a shell. Crazy.

Henry was up and down all night with a bad cough that kept waking him up. I think I got about 3-4 good hours all told. Bleh. I decided to keep him home from school today, even though about 10 minutes after Kyle left he was begging me to go. Poor kid is bored out of his mind. I finally broke down and brought him to pick out a movie, which he is currently vegging out in front of. I hope he can manage to get some sleep tonight.

I'll be putting up the listing for the big Miracle Diapers charity auction either later today or tomorrow, so check back. I'll link to it when it goes up. You won't believe this thing. SO many mamas have come out of the woodwork to donate their awesome gear. The winner of this lottery is going to lose. it. No joke.

Back to the needles so I can squeeze as much work time out of this movie as humanly possible...

And Not a Moment Too Soon...

I just heard from my lawyer a few hours ago and am pleased as punch that I have copyrights to my Monster Booty, Crabby Booty and Sock Monkey designs. WooHoo! Look for little obnoxious (c) symbols all over the new site when it launches.

I finally got my first sneak peek up at Venus Vanguard for the November 9th stocking. Look for full previews up soon over there.

Night night kiddos!

Free! Free! Free!

I just put a totally free lottery up on my Hyena Cart for one of my felted monster bags.

Fun!

I hope one of you mamas who missed out on a custom today get it. A small consolation, I know, but free stuff is always fun.

November Customs List

Hooray for random.org!!! This month's list was so easy to make, I just punched in a couple of numbers and the computer picked the list for me. So if anyone is mad about not getting a slot...blame the mean ole machine.

Congrats to:

Sabra G.
Diane (and Grace) P.
Zelia
Marie L.
Justine (and Katelyn) H.

I'm sorry to those of you who didn't make the list this time around. You know how it goes: y'all are on the waiting list if I have extra time this month and you can email me if you want to be put on the master "classic" wait list. I'll have a couple of pairs of longies in stock at Venus Vanguard on the 9th and remember to look for the Crankypants/ Goodmama raffle for Miracle Diapers later this month.