Did you know the fantastic Folk Art Museum here in NYC hosts crafting nights on Thursdays? I mean, what’s better than being in a space filled with rooms of inspiring handcrafted art, while doing some handcrafting of your own??

I was so honored to be invited to lead an upcoming Make It Thursday at the Folk Art Museum–so if you’re in the area, please join me this coming Thursday for some museum crafting! I’ll be teaching hand embroidery, everything you need to know from how to transfer a design to fabric, to the basic stitches used to make your design come to life. Also, very important, I’m told there will be wine!

When: Thursday, April 5, 6-7:30pm

Where: The American Folk Art Museum, 2 Lincoln Square, New York, NY

Cost is $10 to register (free for museum members). Click here to sign up.

Hope to see you there!

It’s spring, so that can only mean one thing: time to embroider eggs! This is a very special batch of stitchy eggs, because they were hatched especially for a blog post over at the Martha Stewart blog The Crafts Department. (!)

I was so honored when the fine crafty folks from Martha Stewart contacted me recently. They noticed the embroidered eggs I made last year for my Sewing 101 column at Design Sponge, and asked me to create an embroidered-egg tutorial for a post in their egg decorating series this week. Naturally, I was thrilled to egg-cept the invitation!

So I performed my springtime ritual of sorting through all the eggs at the supermarket, opening all the cartons and picking out the smoothest, roundest eggs in the store. Then I fired up my Dremel…

…grabbed some suuuuper pretty floss (this is from the Anna Maria Horner collection from Anchor)…

…and started stitching away!

For this batch of embroidered eggs I played around with big, long stitches in sunbursty shapes.

With a few cross stitches thrown in, because who can resist.

(Psst: don’t tell anyone, but this is the secret to how it’s done.)

Head on over to the Martha Stewart blog The Crafts Department for the full how-to of this project and all the dirty little secrets you need to know to embroider your own eggs.

Great big thanks to the lovely folks at Martha Stewart for inviting me to make some eggs for their blog! Martha’s staff’s egg decorating projects have been such an inspiration to me over the years, and it is truly an honor to be asked to contribute my eggs to their blog.

I’m so pleased today to share this food feature I worked on with the amazing home goods store West Elm. Recently they asked me to develop a dozen deviled egg recipes for their spring catalog & blog, and being the egg fiend that I am, I was thrilled to egg-cept the challenge!

This was such a fun project. I came up with a basic deviled egg recipe plus twelve flavor variations that can be added to the base. All kinds of cool flavors like bloody mary deviled eggs, kim chi deviled eggs, beet & bleu cheese, bacon, asparagus, sriracha, and more!

West Elm photographed the eggs on their amazing serving pieces. Not only do they have some adorable spring-themed dishes, but they’ve got lots of egg-serving vessels as well. (I’m such a sucker for a good egg cup.)

And then, they put the whole package together on their web site with some really charming animation! So when you click through to view the feature, you’ll see eggs dancing around, ingredients marching on the tabletop, and bunnies and frogs hopping about. I’ve never seen deviled eggs look so cute!

Bonus points for some yarn making it into one shot!

The feature is also mentioned in the new West Elm catalog (the one with the Moroccan cover).

There’s me and my eggs, on page 42-43!

So click here to visit the West Elm site to view the cute animated feature and download my deviled egg recipes. I hope you’ll give some of them a try (especially if you find yourself with lots of hard-boiled eggs at Easter time)! I have to say, when I was creating these recipes I served a bunch of them at a party I hosted and they were a huge hit–they were literally the first thing at the party to go.

If you want to try several of the flavors, here’s a tip: mix up one batch of the basic deviled egg recipe, and divide the filling into four batches. Then pick four flavors you want to try and add 1/4 of the amount of the flavoring ingredients called for. It’s super easy to mix up mini-batches this way… so try a deviled egg tasting bar at your next party. It’s a real crowd pleaser!

Thanks again to West Elm for featuring my recipes! xoxo

Fun news! I’ll be on the Martha Stewart show this week!

Yesterday I visited the Martha studios to tape a segment demonstrating how to sew the One-Hour Skirt from my book, Sewing in a Straight Line. The thing about this skirt (like all the clothing in my book) is that you make it to fit your own body measurements, so it can be made for a person of any size, from baby to adult. Martha recently had her first grandchild (a baby girl), so the producers wanted to show how to make the skirt for a baby or child.

So, Martha and I got down to business and sewed up two tiny baby skirts. It was great–we laughed, we cried, we sewed, we made French seams. The episode will air tomorrow, Friday December 16, at 10am on the Hallmark Channel. So tune in then to see how our skirts turned out!

Here is where I would love to show you a zillion amazing behind-the-scenes shots, but tragically I barely took any pictures–there was just too much going on. But my mom (who came with me for the taping, hooray!) did get a few…

The producers, crew and I prepping for my segment. We sewed on these amazing vintage-reproduction Singer machines which aren’t even available to the public yet.

two little four-year-old girls modeling my skirts

The set was a winter wonderland!

Martha answering audience questions after the taping. Fun fact: she wore yoga pants with her sweater and heels, since her legs aren’t visible during the show (and I assume the heels for height/posture). Another fun fact, she was spotted in her office/dressing room doing yoga before our taping.

So tune in tomorrow, 10:00am on the Hallmark Channel, to watch me sew with Martha! Eeeep!

Thanks to Apartment Therapy for featuring my Design Sponge Sewing 101 Roller Blinds in their home sewing round-up! They’ve featured ten great free home sewing projects, so pop over there to read the piece and check them all out.

Hi all, I’m super excited to tell you about a new project – I’m happy to announce that this fall I will be the spokesperson for the Land’s End FeelGood campaign! Hooray!

It’s a really wonderful campaign where Land’s End will donate 5,000 pounds (yes, five! thousand! pounds!) of its FeelGood yarn to Warm Up America, a charity that provides hand knit and crochet items to those in need. Warm Up America will distribute the yarn to knitters and crocheters (like you), who will make simple 7″ x 9″ squares. The squares will then be sewn together into big,warm blankets and donated to those in need.

AND, we’ve got something really fun planned to kick off the campaign. On Wednesday, September 29, I’ll be appearing on the CBS Early Show to kick things off… and we’re inviting hundreds of knitters and crocheters to come along for the ride! We’re going to take over the Early Show plaza with our own knit-out, to show viewers just how HUGE knitting and crochet are.

So — please come and join the taping! The more the merrier, and we’d love to have you there. Here are the deets:

WHO: You and all your yarny friends. Bring knit/crochet groups, school groups, anyone at all – as long as they knit or crochet, or are willing to learn at the event.

WHAT: Land’s End FeelGood Kick-Off on the CBS Early Show!

WHERE: The CBS Early Show – the plaza of the General Motors Building at 59th Street and 5th Avenue in NYC

WHEN: Wednesday, September 29, 2010 from 7-9:00am

WHY: To show the Early Show viewers how awesome knitting and crochet are, and make lots of squares for Warm Up America

WHAT ELSE: Free yarn will be provided! After the taping, we’re all invited for a private tour of the Early Show studio, and then we’ll keep on stitching in the plaza to keep the fun going all day!

RSVP: I really hope to see you there! If you can come, please RSVP to knitwithbrett [at] g mail [dot] com so we know how many people to expect.

PS: More details about the FeelGood program, like how you can help and how you can get your hands on some of that free yarn, will be announced on the show on Sept 29, so be sure to tune in!

The latest issue of Crochet Today is hitting the streets! I think this is my favorite issue to date – I’m so psyched about our cover story, a collection of holiday decorations that are inspired by the kitschy christmas crochet of days gone by. We photographed the projects with a nod to Mad Men and mid-century fabulousness in general — it was a super fun shoot with our photographer Rose Callahan and I’m really happy with how everything turned out.

I’m absolutely over the moon about this awesome crochet gingerbread house! It was designed by the talented Carolyn Christmas of Gourmet Crochet. I love how it’s SO something that your grandmother would have had in her house, yet it’s still totally cute today. Classic!

How bout this sparkly snowflake afghan by Kim Kotary – and I really love this shot of our cute cover girl livin’ it up with her martini. You can’t tell in this pic, but Don and Betty Draper are just off camera, and everyone is having a grand old time at their holiday cocktail party!

And I’m totally in love with these stockings by Lauren Osborne. They’re so graphic and punchy, and I think they’d look just perfect in anyone’s mid-century-inspired home, right next to the Eames rocker and Frank Lloyd Wright-esque fireplace.

Finally, I’m completely smitten by this chevron tree skirt by the fantastically creative Regina Gonzalez of Monster Crochet. I shouldn’t admit this on the internet, but I’ve been using a depressing white sheet as a tree skirt for the past couple of years… and if this projects goes missing from our offices? Don’t look at me. I didn’t do it, honest!

Um, and if you come to my holiday party this year and I’m wearing a green striped dress and red stilettos, I don’t know where those came from either. Merry Christmas!

Is holiday gift anxiety starting to rear its ugly head?

Worry not, because awesome, affordable gifts abound on Etsy.com!

What’s more, tonight at 7pm eastern time, I’ll be live via the internet on Etsy.com’s Shop Live series to share my picks for best crocheted and knitted gifts on Etsy. (Plus, gifts crocheters and knitters would like to receive, so get ready to make your wish list!)

To watch the live webcast, visit this link tonight at 7pm

Thanks for checking it out, and remember: SUPPORT HANDMADE GIFTS THIS HOLIDAY SEASON!!

cheers!

If you’re looking for something yarny to listen to tonite, tune in to the Getting Loopy podcast, where Candi Jensen and I will be the guests! We’ll be joining hostess with the mostest Mary Beth Temple to chat about the TV show and all things crochet.

The cool thing about this podcast is that it’s broadcast live over the internet, and you can actually call in to ask questions on-air – just like a good old radio show (I love radio). So click here to tune in at 9:00pm eastern time, and give us a jingle!

If you miss the live broadcast, you can download the show and listen to it anytime!

Check out this ABC News article, where you’ll see the smiling mug of yours truly, talking about how popular crochet has become. This is actually an Associated Press article, so it’s popping up in other places too. A big thanks to writer Annemarie Timmins for interviewing me!