alt: part #1

Okay, so it’s been 2 months since ALT and everyone has forgotten about it by now. Still, I wanted to show you what I made for it, mostly because it was ridiculous. Thursday night at the conference, Cricut hosted a big party and everyone was instructed to wear green. This involved waaaay more shopping than I am comfortable with and lots of unnecessary clothes stress. I never did find a green dress, but I did find a nice black one at the thrift store and an amazing beaded belt at Anthropologie.

At Alt you want to stand out, be seen, be the most creative of the creatives. After many not so good ideas, I settled on a faux fur cape. Of course I waited until it was too late to order the perfectly colored green faux fur online. I was left with whatever my local fabric shop had, which turned out to be Kermit colored fur. I could have gone the muppet route, but decided to dye the fur myself instead. Turns out you can’t really dye synthetic fur. I ended up with this very faint misty mint color after a long stint in a very concentrated dye bath.

I used this quite fabulous vintage pattern to make the fur bolero. And even though the pattern is just a series of measurement (and one size) it worked out pretty well. I had to make the shoulder dart bigger (or do you say wider, more dart-y?) and the lining was slippy as hell, but for one night it worked out mighty fine.

What’s a hand dyed, faux fur, mint bolero without a clutch to match? I sewed up this envelope clutch with scraps from the bolero. It filled up quickly with the awesome business cards Alt is renown for.

These are just a few of my favorites. The painting of the comma up there is my favorite, favorite. Annie Blake painted an unbelievable amount of commas on little canvases that are the exact size of an instagram. They are lovely, and tiny, and poignant, and gold leafed!  Annie managed to win Alt with her amazing handmade hat:

She also designed Meg Conley‘s cards (sheesh, Annie, way to make the rest of us look bad) which are pictured up there too. Each one had a quote from Meg’s writings. I got the best one: ” You are not porcelain. You are steel and armor and diamonds that cut.”

I even got to meet Meg. She was awesome, as to be expected with a name like Meg. The other business card that blew me away was the folded note ala jr. high by Marigold Haske. It was perfect: i’s dotted with hearts, lots of OMG!!, and of course a check box at the end, “Do you like my blog? Check yes or no!”

There were so many amazing women I met at Alt and so much creative energy. I wish I could bottle it up for rainy days like this. A faux fur clutch stuffed with fantastic business cards will have to do.

1. oleander + palm 2. a golden afternoon 3. meg in progress 4. annie blake 5. willow day 6. poppy haus 7. twig creative 8. and we play 9. stylo (it’s a thematrope!)10.sewing rabbit 11.I just liked how our KCW business cards turned out 12. see kate sew 13. hideous! dreadful! stinky! (Marigold Haske) 14. being spiffy