Midtown Bazaar

I live in Midtown Sacramento which is an adorable tree lined neighborhood of charming old homes, local businesses and people who smile at you when you walk past them on the street. I love my neighborhood!

I just recently learned of a new shopping venue called Midtown Bazaar, that takes place every Saturday right here in Midtown! It is held inside a parking garage on I Street between 16th and 17th streets. I like that it is indoors because that means rain or shine, you don’t have to get drenched while you browse! (The garage doesn’t function as a garage on weekends.)

One of the things I would like to do with our shop is to sell at craft and art fairs so I wanted to take a day and scope out Midtown Bazaar and see if it would be a good place for us to sell. I headed over yesterday afternoon to take a look. On regular Saturdays the Bazaar is held from 10 AM to 2 PM, but on Second Saturdays when there is a big art walk/scene in Midtown it is open until 8 PM. Yesterday was a Second Saturday so I was able to laze around in the morning and didn’t head out until about 2:30 PM.

I walked the 12 blocks from my house and walked on in. I didn’t know it, but the Sac Etsy team had booked most of the stalls and had a raffle going on. You could go to the different Etsy vendors and get your form stamped then enter it for a chance to win a pretty awesome looking prize basket.

I was pretty impressed with the handmade art I saw there! The tables were all set up attractively and looked pretty appealing, I just wish I had more disposable income to spend! I did pick up a little Christmas gift bag for my parent’s slightly spoiled chihuahua from Nerdy-Dog. Mr. Peabody’s refined palate will, I’m sure appreciate the adorable ginger bread man dog cookies, especially since they came packaged in such a cute little Christmas themed bag. (All for a very reasonable price, I’d like to add.) I also really enjoyed Mary Ellis’s art glass booth. Gorgeous pieces! Plus she was awesome enough to be doing demonstrations of how she makes her own lampwork beads and to answer all of the questions I had about the process!

For myself, if and and when I decide to sell there myself I will bring my own lights. It is a parking garage and it is pretty dimly lit and I feel like the lighting just didn’t do a lot of the pieces being sold justice. Better lighting would benefit everyone, it would make the whole place feel cheerier  and product would look brighter and I think lights would make the whole venue feel cleaner and more professional.

Overall, I enjoyed my experience, and I’m definitely planning to book a table for myself in the future! Hope to see you there!

Dyeing Yarn With Kool Aid

I learned to knit only about a year and a half ago, but since learning I have a developed a deep love of all things yarn. I enjoy finding new yarns to play with. My Grandmother recently took me to a yarn shop and told me to pick out any yarn I wanted and she would get it for me as a gift. You remember being a kid in a candy store trying to pick just one candy? Well that was me. I think I picked up at least one of every yarn on display at least once!

I find myself attracted to yarns with unique and interesting color ways and after leaving I started thinking about ways I could increase my color options and I got the idea that I should try dyeing my own yarn!

I jumped on the internet just like any self respecting 21st century woman would and did a little research. I knew that for my first round of dyeing I didn’t want to spend a ton of money on materials so I was pretty excited to find out I could use Kool Aid to dye natural fibers.

Food based dyes means I don’t need containers that are just for dying to avoid contaminating food dishes. Also, Kool Aid is extremely cheap and comes in a wide variety of colors and flavors. Finally, I got a 40% off coupon for Michael’s and used that to buy a huge skein of 100% wool Fisherman’s Yarn by Lion Brand. 465 yards is enough to really play around and try several different color combos and that’s what I really wanted to do for my first dyeing foray. So, I used some old coffee cans as vats, Kool Aid as dye and my discounted wool yarn at a total cost of less than $10. Not bad for about 3 hours of fun.

I started out by unrolling the yarn into hanks. I decided that I wanted to do multiple colors each skein so that my yarn would be stripey when knitted up so I would up hanks of various sizes. using the backs of my dining table chairs. Then I started the dying fun. For one I used to shades of dark pink, a lite pink and purple. (I should have saved the kool aid packets so I would remember which color I got from which flavor.) I dumped the packets in the coffee cans, then filled them with hot tap water then put the yarn in. The other I used to empty glass jars and the third got split up between 3 plastic tupperware bowls. The other 2 color ways were a salmon pink, orange and yellow combo and a third that was 2 different pinks, which ended up with bands of lighter pink in between where the yarn wasn’t submerged.

I left the yarns to soak over night, and when I poured out the water in the morning it was pretty clear, so I guess that means the yarn soaked up all the dye. I rinsed the yarn with cold water in the bathtub then hung it up to dry on the clothesline outside.

Now I have 3 skeins of pretty and custom yarn and I’m so excited to knit it up,  but even more excited to give the dyeing another go!

New winter accesories to keep you warm!

 

Warm winter hats and scarves available in our Etsy store!

Hello world!

Please bear with us as we transition from Google sites to WordPress!

Thanks,

Management

New Feature: Double Features!

Hi guys! As a reward for being patient with us while we get all of our… stuff… together, we have created a new feature!  We’ve cleverly titled it “Double Features” and you can access it by clicking on the link of the same name, either up top or to the right.  This is where you’ll find information on our current featured items, sales, promotions, and other special stuff going on in our etsy shop.  We will be submitting new items periodically, so keep your eyes peeled!

As new shop owners, we are very much open to your input and suggestions.  If there’s something that you think isn’t working, something you’d like to see more of, or hey, if you just want to chat, drop us a line!  We can be reached through the shop or by email at darkandtwistydesigns@gmail.com.  You can also follow us on Twitter or like us on Facebook!

Thanks for supporting the handmade option at Dark and Twisty Designs!  We look forward to bringing you even more awesome stuff in the coming months.  Thanks for playing!