I'm really on a roll here.

My parents were here this weekend, and my dad and I decided to head over to Alembic for a fancy cocktail. One cocktail each turned into, well, more than one each, so we staggered home on the N. Despite my tipsiness, I spied this desk and asked my dad to help me haul it half a block and then up the stairs. My mom scolded us for carrying it upstairs in our drunken states.

Once I sobered up a bit, I realized what an amazing find this desk is. It's solid wood overlaid with teak veneer. The drawers have dovetail joints, the legs are solid and curved. Except for a few chips in the top veneer and a missing drawer pull, it's in really, really good condition.



The back of the desktop is gently curved. Oh, and this large, vintage California Pottery bowl is another street find. My good luck with the street finds is practically obscene.

I'd thought about taking the desk to Renegade as a display piece that I'd sell at the end of the show but I've decided to keep it for myself because, you know, I don't have enough furniture.

Awesome street find

Jake and I were out on our evening walk yesterday, and we came across this chair. I just had to pick it up. It needs some work, but it will look incredible once I've sanded and stained it, sewn new cushions, and replaced the missing support spring in the seat. Yes, it's a lot of work - but the chair was free. Besides, I'm unemployed. Theoretically, I have all kinds of free time on my hands.

Perhaps I'll even silkscreen some fabric for the seat.

Fabric foibles

(hmm... I need to clean my stove)

Almost everything that could have gone wrong at the studio this week did. I finally got around to printing tea towels. But who knew that towels were so large, or that they were so tedious to print? I won't bore you with the details. The towels are supposed to have a second color - and they may still get that color - but I was so frustrated by 8 pm last night that I quit before I had a tea towel-induced meltdown. The khaki linen-cotton fabric was printed on a lark and I like the way it turned out. I might make bags out of that fabric. But, oh, those tea towels...

One of the other artists asked me what was up with tea towels. When I said I didn't understand his question, he responded, "My wife is English. Her family is always giving us tea towels. I don't get why we need them." "Oh," I said. "Tea towels are all a part of modern, ironic domesticity." He was satisfied with that answer.

Personally, I'm tired of ironic domesticity today. I'm contemplating spending my morning drinking Bloody Marys and listening to my Patsy Cline Pandora station. "I Fall to Pieces" is playing right now. Indeed, Patsy.

Renegade Fair is coming!

I'll be participating in the Renegade Craft Fair, which is less than a month away. If you're in the Bay Area, stop by! I'll be just one among at least 75 artists selling at this show. More info about the show can be found here.

Now I just need to finish my tea towels. I'm busily inking those transparencies today but I don't think I'll make it to the studio tonight. I really must step away from the computer.

Conehead

Poor Mr. Poo. He was attacked by an off-leash dog yesterday and I took him to the vet because his eye looked a little injured. Now he has to wear the cone of shame for two days. The cone has turned him into an entirely new dog - he has no peripheral vision so he doesn't zigzag when he walks, and the cone gets in the way of his sniffing things so he doesn't pee on every tree we pass.

But I did put peanut butter on the inside of his cone, which has provided both of us with hours of entertainment.

How to: make a hand-stitched notebook

I've had a few people ask me how to make these little notebooks. Similar to the Moleskine mini-notebooks (which are sold in a pack of three for around $10), these hand-bound notebooks can be made using inexpensive card stock and plain old printer paper. Since I can't give individual lessons to everyone, here's a simple how-to.


Here's what you need to make a 20-page notebook:
-Card stock
-10 sheets of paper, cut to the same size as your card stock
-Linen binder's thread (if you're not ready to commit to buying new supplies your first time around, any thick thread will be fine)
-Binder's wax (optional for beginners, but invaluable if you plan to make more than one book)
-Strong needle
-Awl (if you don't have one, you can use a tack)
-Bone folder (if you don't have one, you can use a ruler)
-Binder clips
-Scissors
-Utility knife, box cutter, or x-acto knife


Step 1: Fold the card stock in half, then use your bone folder to make your crease nice and sharp.


Step 2: Unfold your card stock. Place it on top of your stack of paper.


Step 3: Clip the card stock and paper together. This will keep things from moving around when you start to sew. Let's call this stack the "book block."



Step 4: Starting from about 1/4" from the top edge of your book block, punch holes along the fold using your awl. The holes can be as close together or as far apart as you'd like. I spaced mine about 3/8" apart. Make sure that the holes go all the way through from the top of the card stock to the very bottom sheet of paper.


Step 5: Cut a piece of thread 2-1/2 times the length of the spine of your book. Run the thread through the wax - this will help your thread go through the paper more easily and will keep it from tangling or snagging. Knot one end of the thread to keep it from slipping through the hole.




Step 6: Now you're ready to sew the book block together! Push your needle through the first hole from the bottom sheet of the book block so that the knot will be on the inside of your finished book. Then, sew through the rest of the holes. You'll notice that there are gaps between your stitches. When you get to the bottom hole, sew back up to the top so that there are no gaps between your stitches. This will make your book's spine nice and strong.



Step 7: When you have continuous stitches, create a sturdy knot by looping the thread back onto itself. See photos above - it's easier to understand when you have a photo for reference.




Step 8: Fold your book block in half along the spine. Use your bone folder to make a sharp crease. If, after folding, some of the pages stick out from underneath the cover, trim them using an x-acto knife and a straight edge. You're done! If you want your book to lie extra-flat, place it under a heavy book overnight.

You can make many variations on this simple notebook. Use old gift wrap, cards or posters for the cover. Fill it with recycled paper, heavier paper (to make a sketchbook), or textured or colored paper - the possibilities are endless! You'll probably find yourself looking for excuses to make and give books.

Fishnets and shoes linen bags!

My linen bags turned out so well. I used a gray zipper, which contrasts nicely with the khaki of the linen and emphasizes the gray image outline. I did damage the red bag a little bit when I was turning it out, so I'll have to keep it for myself. Oh, darn.

While sewing my bags this afternoon, I realized that my projects of the last two weeks have combined so much of my crafting and artistic experience - silkscreened items featuring my illustrations, notebooks that use the bookbinding skills I'd so long neglected, bags that utilize my sewing abilities. It was all very unconscious on my part. The creative process has been so organic for me lately.

These bags are available here.

Rhubarb-strawberry preserves

This is how we eat jam at Jen and Jake central - with a spoon. Oh, and with leftover scones I just happened to have handy. But eating this batch of rhubarb-strawberry preserves with a spoon is almost required. This is the first time I've ever cooked rhubarb - and the first time I've ever eaten it! - so I just had to taste it without being distracted by a scone.

Delicious. The rhubarb adds a depth to the jam. With each spoonful, I taste something different.



I used a simple recipe from The Joy of Cooking. It's essentially this: mix a quart of chopped rhubarb with two quarts of sugar. Let the mixture sit overnight. Bring the mixture to a boil, add 2 quarts of hulled strawberries and boil for 15 minutes. Ladle into prepared canning jars, seal and do the final canning boiling step.

But make sure to save an unsealed bottle of preserves for immediate consumption. With a spoon.

Chilly summer light

San Francisco is in the grips of one of its chilly summers. Sweet peas remind me that it's it sunny and summery somewhere out there, even if my neighborhood is bathed in a gray light.



Jake isn't quite convinced that global warming is happening, but he's no scientist. Well, it's not what his degree is in, at least.

Linen!

After a year and a half of screenprinting on paper, I finally printed on fabric last night - and the results are so good! Printing on fabric is only slightly more laborious than printing on paper. The ink I'm using requires heat setting after it dries - which means I have to iron each piece for at least three minutes. My parents are coming up to help me package items for Renegade. I think I'll put my mom on ironing duty. She'll love ironing large tea towels. I'll just have to make sure she doesn't take off with half my stash.

I'm going to sew these into simple zippered bags and sell them at Renegade. If my mom could sew, I'd put her on seamstress duty, too.

A couple of the other artists who use the studio were freaking out over my notebooks. They've asked for bookbinding lessons, so I think I'll tote all my bookmaking supplies to the studio next week. There's really nothing to do while waiting for screens to dry, anyway - and I do love to teach crafts. In a past life, I was probably a preschool teacher.

Unfortunately, no sewing or drawing today. I must work on a job application. But it's for a fun job that I really want, so I'm not complaining.

Wild collards

My dad grew up in a poor, single-mother family in LA during the Fifties. Every Sunday, the family would walk to church, along roads that were bordered by empty lots (this is before LA became the overdeveloped city it is today) where collard greens often grew wild. My dad and his siblings would leave the house in their Sunday dresses and suits, carrying old pillowcases or flour sacks, and wearing their everyday shoes. Their good shoes - worn only on Sundays, and only during church services - were in their sacks.

When my grandmother spotted a collard plant, the kids would tramp through the lot, pick the leaves, and stuff them into their cases. They did this until their bags were full (or until they were late to church). When they got to the vestibule just inside the church, they'd change into their good shoes, placing their everyday shoes on top of their bags to mark their bags as their own. Many other families had the same idea, so the back of the church was lined with old pillowcases full of collard greens.

I've always loved this story. My dad talks about fighting with his brother and sisters over who got to eat the pork in the can of pork and beans - they were that poor. But on Sunday nights, at least, there was always a little bit extra.

Nowadays, you can buy pre-washed and cut greens in neat bags at Trader Joe's. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this - I buy them all the time. But every time I go to the farmers market and see a big box of dusty collards, or every time I pass a collard plant in a rare empty lot in San Francisco, I remember my grandmother. I'm always thankful that hunger is so far from my own reality, but wonder if, through the packaging of the most elemental foods, we've lost a connection to a bit of our own history.

(And, yes, I took that photo San Francisco, in an empty lot in Bayview, across the street from a solar installtion event Brightline was sponsoring. I was so tempted to pick those greens!)

Fishnets and shoes notebooks

I am so happy with how these notebooks turned out that I'm going to print the same image on linen tonight. I'll sew zippered bags using the linen. Of course, I didn't make it to Peapod yesterday (I was too busy making mac n cheese and not-so-spicy hot wings) and the shop is closed today, so I have limited amounts of linen to print on.

Notebooks are available here.

Leftover s'mores

One must never let chocolate ganache go to waste, especially when it's been made with a huge bar of Scharffen Berger chocolate. Basak made me take a bag of extra macaron filling (yes, she practically forced it on poor, unsuspecting me). I'd thought about smearing it on bread, but that would have required making bread.

Last night, I found a box of graham crackers. The neighborhood organic market had put a few boxes of just-expired crackers on the sidewalk outside the store. Please, people - the cookies expired on May 31st, 2009. They're hardly rotting. In fact, they are crispy and delicious.

Add a bag of marshmallows that have been in the cupboard since my last roommate, Marcela, moved out five years ago. It's a shame to waste perfectly good marshmallows. And everyone knows that marshmallows never go bad because they're made out of spun plastic mixed with hooves and nails.





Burn the marshmallows on a stick over the gas burner on my oven, add them to crackers smeared with chocolate, and voila - a perfect, delicious, gooey treat.

Yes, I realize my photos may make the s'mores look unattractive. But s'mores aren't meant to look pretty. I mean, they're usually eaten by camp kids with dirty hands or unwashed adults who've spent the day hiking, drinking and standing downwind of a campfire.

Macarons and Mia

I spent yesterday morning with my friends Basak, Hillary, and Baby Mia baking macarons. Well, three-month-old Mia didn't bake, but she was our team mascot. Our very cute team mascot.

Now that I know how to bake macarons, I fear I will start making them all the time. You know, the same way I made homemade Oreos and bacon chocolate chip cookies and peanut butter sea salt cookies. And the same way I fear I shall be making jam and pickles in two weeks or so. Oh, and my mom has promised to give me her recipe for tomato candy. Yes, folks, such a thing exists and it is amazing. Expect me to eat that for three weeks straight.

Anyway, the recipe we used is here. I had to hand beat the egg whites because, unbelievably, neither Basak nor I had a working mixer (and one must never, ever beat eggs in a food processor). Hand beating was way easier than I remembered it being. My muscles must be getting strong from all the silkscreening. Or from all the baby holding.

Hump day

You would think that Humpday wouldn't matter to a person who doesn't have a "regular" job. But it does - at least to me. Thursday is my first studio day of the week, which means I spend Monday through Thursday afternoon ramping up. I'd been so full of inspiration the last couple of weeks but then hit a bump (some would say a hump) today. I'm just not feeling my latest layout. I'm really not. I've inked one color and am about to start the next and I just don't want to continue with it. I might just put it aside, which means I will have nothing to work on at the studio. Which means, well, I won't have anything tangible to show for this week.

Some weeks I just cruise along, taking for granted my incredible productivity. Other weeks, I'm so stuck that I ask myself what I think I'm doing with my life. This week is one of the latter.

But something good did happen today - I got a mention in Indie Fixx. The blogger writes, "Jen Hewett's work appeals to me for its whimsy and color. If you haven't discovered her work yet, you should really take a peek." And while that didn't unstick me, it has made me undoubt myself. At least for today.

There may even be another layout in me yet.

Dutch boy, Dutch girl

Nostalgic images of the Dutch must have been popular 50 or so years ago, because I've started noticing vintage items adorned with Dutch boys and girls - or with windmills - everywhere lately. I found this sweet little envelope-style cross-stitched bag recently and have just added it to my vintage etsy store.

I shipped out a few orders this morning. Because I only sell things I like, I have momentary pangs of regret every time I sell a vintage item. But then I recover and happily send the item off to its new owner. Out with the old, in with the new-ish. Or so they say.

Bag available here.

Midori green and brown notebooks

I printed my flowers and squigglies notebooks in a brown and green colorway. The green of these notebooks is so vibrant. The best way to describe the green is Midori. Mmm... a Midori sour.

I'm working on the tea towel layout. I may print on some plain canvas, too. Then I can sew aprons and tote bags and zippered clutches using the fabric. So fun.

Notebooks are available here.

Summer flowers and neighborhood markets

My neighborhood's new farmers market opened today. Who knew we needed a farmers market? But, oh, we definitely did. It was packed. Farmers were happy (though I fear we may soon run out of farmers to stock all these San Francisco farmers markets). I bought two bunches of sweet peas (for only $3/bunch).

I've lived in the Inner Sunset for 13 years now, but lately - thanks to a small band of active neighbors - the neighborhood has come to feel more and more like a village.

Doily obsession

Doilies have been appearing in my life like crazy these past few weeks. It all started with a few doily books, then a collection of vintage doilies purchased at a neighbor's yard sale. And now, I have three vintage plastic doilies made by Tupperware. I bought these for myself - they're the inspiration for a print I'll be applying to notebooks and tea towels.

Even more exciting than the doilies, though, was the gorgeous way they were packaged. Elise from birdnestsandpaper took so much care to wrap my little, inexpensive order. Now I'm a wee bit embarrassed about the shoddy way I've been packaging my orders. From this moment on, I shall package like a pro.

Doily notebooks and tea towels may make an appearance next week. Maybe.

New notebooks

Before I started silkscreening in earnest, visions of notebooks danced in my head. Many years ago, I made hand-bound books as a hobby but hand't bound a book for at least five years. And now here I am, screenprinting covers and hand-binding them with a bit of linen thread.

I'm really pleased with the results. I'll run these notebooks in another colorway (green and brown?) next. And because I really like these patterns, I think I'll finally print the tea towels I've been talking about forever. Oh, maybe I didn't tell you. Well, I've been talking about them to myself for at least a month now.

Books are available here.

On creativity...

Lego Jeep at the Maker Faire

I went to the Maker Faire this weekend and was dazzled by all the creativity. People - adults - had spent hours playing and creating, and had come up with amazing contraptions that they just needed to share with the world. I got to play all day; I felt like a child. I remarked to my dad later that most adults lose this sense of play. They deem creativity as something for artists, not for them.

But I believe that we're all inherently creative. The difference is that only a few people practice it. Creativity is a practice (much like meditation). You have to work at it. You have to play. You also have to accept that you're venturing into something unknown, and that you could fail, but you're willing to take that risk. Being creative is not easy at first, at least not for us adults.

Here's what it's like for me to be creative: I start working on something new. I'm unsure about where it's going. I allow myself not to know. But then, thoughts of every failure, or every misstep I've ever made in my life come flooding into my mind. I can't stop them. The more I think about stopping them, the faster they come. So, instead, I let them in. And then I let them go. They try to take hold but they can't; there's no place for them to land. The spongy, creative part of my brain is already humming with the vibrations that come from creating. All the gunk bounces off. And - sometimes in seconds, sometimes in days - I find myself miraculously thought-free, in the zone, one with my creative flow.

I suspect it's this way for most artists. We don't sit down at our computer or pick up our pencils and expect the first sentence we write or the first sketch we make to be brilliant. Rather, it's often the opposite. We hear voices - voices that tell us we're failures, then so kindly offer us proof of this. We struggle to get something, anything, down without proving the voices correct. Little by little, we become engrossed in our work. The voices are still there, but we're not listening. Then they're gone. When that happens - freedom. Wide, empty spaces for our brains to play appear. But we often don't notice the shift because we are so incredibly present.

I imagine that children don't think this way. I don't think that they even think. They just do. It's not so easy for us adults. We think we're not creative because our thoughts tell us we're not. But if we all pushed through and just did, regardless of what our thoughts told us, we'd be so free.

I once read that the most successful scientists are often the most creative. In allowing room for play and wonder, they make space for innovation. Imagine what the world would look like if we all allowed ourselves to be creative - not just crazy machines and robots and self-propelled Ferris wheels, but different ways of solving problems, of working and of living.

Oh, don't mind me.

I'm ready to go for a walk whenever you are. No rush, really. I'll just stand here staring at you until you're ready.