One of my favorite blogs is written by Lena Corwin. She makes patterns and prints and has a new book _Printing_by_Hand_.

Her blog is loaded with prints, vintage fabrics, simple pictures and special finds from New York City. These prints have been an inspiration to me, and I have started taking some of my own pictures to inspire my craft.

I won the $50 second place prize on Saturday. Last year first was $50, so I was a little shocked. This hat is a combination of the hat from last year, and multiple knitted and felted flowers from our wedding. We have about 20 left. I had mounted them all on floral wire with floral tape, and the openwork on the crochet hat made it easy to interlace the two.

Overall, it was an awesome day. Tyrone and I went to Peru for Jari’s graduation, where we met up with my parents and other family (HI AMY!). On the way down and the way back, I read off all 20 entries to the Kentucky Derby for Tyrone. Hard Spun had been standing out for me with those blinking lights of intuition. Besides, this is supposedly a craft/fiber arts blog, and Hard Spun was the most knitter-friendly name in the pack. I wrote down 2 other horses before we went in, and tried not to look at the sheet again.

The State Fair Park Clubhouse was packed, as usual for Derby Day. We met up with friends, talked, and people watched (best part). I ended up doing an across the board bet on Hard Spun, and an Exacta with Hard Spun, Scat Daddy, and Street Sense. On the final leg of the race, Tyrone and I thought the #1 horse was the one pulling away, but no, it was Street Sense, making my Exacta complete!

Got Cinquo de Mayo margaritas for everyone in our group afterwards with my winnings, and then we all went to Ruth’s graduation party. Her fiance Dan had made some mean brisket.

To commemorate such a wonderful Saturday, here is a gratuitous picture of my favorite industrial carpeting, ever. From the clubhouse:

Spent today writing one pattern, re-writing another.  I didn’t get any of the pictures taken.  Looks like Tyrone is going to  help me tomorrow.

I’m looking for places  to send these patterns off too.  The knitty.com deadline is March 15, and so is magknits.com.  I don’t know if my patterns are appropriate for either.

Tomorrow, I think I’m going to write something up for readymade.com, and another thing for instructables.com.

I’m also attracted to supernaturale.com.  They have a really cool article on crafting your wedding.  I think I have a bunch to add to to it, and maybe even some fun failures.  I tried to make a 1930s deco bias-cut gown, but apparently in the 1930s,  I have a size 6 chest and size 14 hips.  The dress was also backless, so there was no way to structurally engineer a way to rectify the dress.  It was a good learning process.

There is another project I’m working on where embroidery doesn’t quite cut it, so I have a nice little experiment with crewling coming up next week.  Here is a bit of embroidery I did with a kit my friend Sarah gave me:  

It is from Sublime Stitching.  Click on the picture to enlarge it!

Ty and I took a walk around Holmes Lake today.  It is so nice and warm.  I want to start cutting back grasses with the hedge trimmer already, but it is too wet.

It’s out!  The new Prairie Schooner shirt!  They’re grey/light blue print or brown with a sort of neon blue print.  This is the first thing I had a hand in that massive amounts of people will wear.  Excitement, indeed!

I’m not sure where they’re on sale, but I know you can subscribe to the Prairie Schooner.

In the interest of full disclosure, my husband is  a Senior Fiction Reader, and my cousin Erin Flanagan is the ex-Managing Editor/now-Senior Reader.