Urban Fauna Studio » News

CCE 2010

admin — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 06:04:07 +0000

This is just a short note to say how much CCE was a success for me personally! I met so many wonderful people and connected with old colleagues. Every time I attend a conference I learn something new about myself and my own goals as a creative professional……

here is our group shot:

One of the most awesome things about being at CCE is you discover very cool crafts and artwork. I was SUPER lucky to strike up a pleasant conversation with Rachel of Danger Peach (sister of the fabulous Moxie – felting queen!). She works with shrink plastic and has developed techniques to get all kinds of fun textures and colors in her pieces….she gave me a pair of these AWESOME shrinky dink plastic earrings in the shape of seahorses. I love them so much!

More details and pictures about the sessions I attended and things I learned to come! Along with our first fiber video podcast….

Anniversary Sale and Mini Fiber Fest

admin — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 06:55:59 +0000

Don’t Miss Our Once A Year Sale on Saturday August 28th 2010

Join us for our 2nd anniversary party and mini fiber festival. Your support has helped make our dream to contribute to the fiber arts community a reality! Partake in fiber fun, shop with local vendors and join us for cake and refreshments ONE DAY ONLY. Everyone is welcome! ** Enter our FREE Raffle for Product & Gift Certificates ** FREE Gift Bags with purchase of $50 or more ** Product Demos

Free Activities and Demos

Weave a Loom Flower Brooch – ALL DAY

Yarn Tasting with in-store yarn brands and *NEW* yarns donated by Knitcellaneous – ALL DAY

Nuno Felting Demonstration with Shannon Herrick of The Spun Monkey – 1:30PM

3-D Needle Felted Woodland Friends With Jenny, Lizzy and Friends – Starts at 2:30PM

Shop With Local Vendors from 12-4PM

Kira K – Unique knit patterns and notions
Girl On The Rocks – Clever notions, stitchmarkers and more
The Spun Monkey – hand spun yarns and fibers
Pigeon Roof Studios – elegant hand dyed fibers and yarns

Goodie Bags

For the first 50 who spend $50 or more, goodies include fun treats such as….
Current issues of Fiberarts Magazine
Mini Yarn Skeins
Monkey Sock Monkey Postcards
Publications from Chronicle Books
Hand Dyed Roving Samples from Dicentra Designs
Stitchmarkers, notions and more!

Discounts on commercial yarns, floor model spinning wheels, fiber tools, books, fibers and more! New Product Lines In Store! Items marked 10% 20% 30% and 50% OFF FOR ONE DAY ONLY

RSVP on Ravelry or Facebook

1311 16th Avenue (between Irving and Judah)
San Francisco, CA 94122
View Map »

Open Studio Sale at Pigeon Roof Studio

admin — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 03:19:16 +0000

We’re excited to announce that Krista of the popular Pigeon Roof Studio will be joining us for our Anniversary Sale/Mini Fiber Fest! Krista is known for her unique dyeing technique that produces stunning depth of colour. Each skein of yarn or braid of fibre is dyed individually, so please be aware that there are no dyelots.

If you can’t wait till our sale be sure to visit her at her OPEN STUDIO tomorrow! Karrie from Girl On The Rocks will be there also selling her novel accessories and hand dyed fiber!

Open Studio
Saturday, August 7th, from 12:00-5:00 p.m.
305 Vernon St., #2, Oakland, CA 94610
http://www.etsy.com/shop/pigeonroofstudios

July Newsletter

admin — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 22:15:37 +0000

We hope you are enjoying the holiday weekend! Jamie and Blas are back from Ireland and England and what a wonderful trip it was. We interviewed artists and visited spinning mills. Along the way we made some great friends too. We have hours of video, and over 2000 photos to go through and hope to share it with you soon. More in the coming month! Special thanks to all the people who hosted us in their studios and mills…

Above: Blas and Ian Gammon, manager of Cold Harbor Mill. Cold Harbor is a 200 year old water powered spinning mill which produces worsted spun yarn in the UK.

Above: Felt artist Nicola Brown and her dog at their country home in beautiful Ballybrack, Ireland.

Some Upcoming Classes at the Studio

Monday 7.5 Fiber Club Night at Old Jerusalem Cafe* FREE This coming Monday we will resume our fiber night! We’ll be bringing some felting supplies and spindles for people who want to play. Bring your projects and come craft along with us!

Saturday 7.10 Drop In Clinic: Crochet and Knit with Barbara Barbara Iachini has been crocheting for 25 years. She holds the Master of Crochet Stitches designation from the Crochet Guild of America. Currently, she teaches both knit and crochet at a yarn shop near her home in Colorado. Have her help you start or finish your next project. By appointment. Please CONTACT US for details.

Sunday 7.11 SpinLab: Entrapment! $55 In this three-hour workshop we will explore various potential add-ins for your yarns and many ways to spin them securely in. We will also cover techniques that involve wrapping or trapping your yarn in threads, from lovely candy-striping to wild tornados of whirling thread.Instructor: Shannon Herrick

Saturday 7.17 Intermediate Drop Spindling with Wonder Mike $45 Now that you’ve mastered a spun single, let’s show you how to ply and finish that yarn. In this “Part Two” Intro class, Michael will show you how to Handy Ply (a version of Andean Plying), how to skein, and set the twist in your yarn. He will also review your technique and suggest ways of refining and getting the most out of your spindle spinning.

Sunday 7.18 Needle Felted Bird $16 This fun technique uses a special needle to transform wool fleece into everything from detailed surface embellishment to 3-D figures. Using a felting needle and wool, learn to needlefelt a lovely bird! You get to pick from a rainbow of colors to make your bird.

Photo by SpiderFelt

Saturday 7.24 Merino Wet Felted Flowers $25 With a wonderful kit by Spiderfelt.com and Blas’ help you will assemble 2 large or 3 medium sized 100% wool felt flowers using a wet felting technique.

Sunday 7.25 Fiber Blending With A Drum Carder – Materials Included - $80 Do you love textured yarns and those fun and beautiful carded batts for sale at fiber festivals? Would you love to make them yourself? Learn to create blended batts for spinning using multiple fibers and colors with techniques for basic carding and a variety of techniques for blending fibers. Instructor: Keena Golden

All class registrations entitle you to 10% off the cost of supplies, yarn and fiber on the day of class! Private classes and fix it clinics are always available by appointment, e-mail us with your needs!

Upcoming Events

July 31st – August 1st Renegade Craft Show (Studio Closed)

August 2nd – Fiber Club Night

August 28th – Studio Anniversary Sale and Mini Fiber Festival – ONE DAY, BIG DISCOUNTS!

September 19th – World Wide Spin In Public Day for SF

For the latest news check our Event Calendar for full details

Summer at the Studio
We’ve adjusted our hours for summer and Kira will be in the studio regurlarly two Sundays a month! For private lessons and drop in clinics give us a call or e-mail to find out which days she’ll be here.
Mon 12-7 pm Tues, Weds & Thurs – By Appt. Friday 12-7 pm Saturday 12-5 pm Sunday 12-5 pm

Show Us Your Creativity Contest

We’ve picked TWO lucky Winners from our Flickr Photo Contest!
PJ_Church AND tizana682003 Please come by the studio to pick up a goodie bag for youself!

Support Independent Artists and Creatives!

admin — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 20:19:07 +0000

Hello All! Please take a look at this video my colleague Lauren Venell made for another project I am working on called the Conference of Creative Entrepreneurs. It’s special event to support people like myself, yourself or someone you care about! Take a look and consider supporting our Kickstarter Campaign or register yourself to join our creative business community! – Jamie

May Newsletter

admin — Sun, 02 May 2010 18:57:47 +0000

We hope you spent some time spinning, felting and knitting your way through the April showers. In the coming summer months we’ll be doing a some local shows and festivals, bringing new products into the studio (felting kits, books and tools), and improving and diversifying our workshops….more news soon! We wanted to give you a peek into what we’ve got at the studio…

New Products In The Studio

Hamanaka Needle Felting, Amigurumi kits and books have arrived…lots of cute animals and designs to choose from! The great thing about our distributor is that they include ENGLISH translations for all their kits.

A new shipment of exotic wood spindles from green sleeves, butcher’s caps and a few GORGEOUS nostepinnes! Check’em out before they fly away…

Mother’s Day is May 9th

Mother’s day is just around the corner! If you’re looking for that special fiber gift and you want to drop a hint to your significant other or children, come by the shop and pick up a FREE Urban Fauna Studio wish list. ->> Read more

Mother’s Day Felt Corsage

image by Megan Reardon

Check out this felt corsage tutorial by Megan of Not Martha…we love it! ->> Read more

Some upcoming classes….

Monday 5.3 Fiber Club Night **FREE TO ATTEND ** MONDAY **

Join us for a fiber night at our monthly hangout the Old Jerusalem Cafe. Drop in and bring a fiber craft of your choice to work on. This month we’re bringing wheels and spindles to try. Bring your knitting, crochet and felting projects or just hang out!

Sunday 5.9 Needle Felted Bird

Needlefelting, an exciting and easy dry felting method. You get to pick from a rainbow of colors to make your bird. $16 pp

Tuesday 5.11 and 5.18 Beginning Knitting – Now a two part class!

Learn the basics of knitting while starting a simple scarf AND a stuffed bunny! You’ll learn how to cast on stitches, knit, and purl as well as some simple stitch patterns that work well for scarves. This is also a great class for those who are starting to knit again after a long break. $52 per person

Saturday 5.15 Learn to Weave with a Cricket Loom

This class will teach the basics of weaving with a table top rigid heddle loom. Registration includes a brand new cricket loom and instruction. $220

Saturday 6.5 Survey of Knitted Cables

Cables add a wonderful depth to knitting, as well as making the knitted fabric thicker and warmer. In this class we will try a variety of cables moving from simple rope cables to travelling cables and twisted stitches. $26 pp

All class registrations entitle you to 10% off the cost of supplies, yarn and fiber on the day of class! We’ve got more classes, check our Event Calendar for full details

Meet The Artist

This month’s featured artist is Shannon Herrick of The Spun Monkey. Shannon is a felt artist, workshop teacher and fellow spinner! Find out more about Shannon, her hobbies, love of tea and more on our blog. ->> Read more

Show Us Your Creativity…you might win something!

We wanted to remind you we have a Flickr Group dedicated to Urban Fauna Studio events and customer’s creations. We know many of you are crafty ninjas (crafting under the cover of night, never leaving evidence of your fibery creations!). But we’d like to see what you’re making with our products!

If you have pictures of:

Yourself Crafting with supplies you purchased at UFS
Yourself at an UFS workshop
Works in progress made from products purchased at UFS
Completed Projects using our supplies or equipment

Add them to the pool! Joining Flickr is absolutely FREE. Every person who adds at lease ONE photo between May 1st-24th will be entered in a grab bag giveaway! We’ll be giving away TWO GOODIE BAGS filled with supplies and books worth over $25.00 ea for the month of May. Post a picture and be sure to indicate your name and the products used. We’ll announce two winners on May 24th 2010!

Upcoming Shows*

Saturday May 15th 2010 – Inner Sunset Street Festival

Come out to the first ever Inner Sunset street festival! Dancing, crafts, yoga and more!

Sunday May 16th 2010 - Ravelry Meet Up

Mark your calendars for the first ever Ravelry meet-up in San Francisco on May 16, 2010! Meet your fellow Bay Area Ravelers and enjoy an afternoon of knitting, crocheting, spinning, and other fiber arts at the Women’s Building in San Francisco (and of course, men are welcome).

Sat and Sun May 22nd & 23rd 2010 - Maker Faire Bay Area

The world’s largest DIY festival! Maker Faire is a two-day, family-friendly event that celebrates the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset. It’s for creative, resourceful people of all ages and backgrounds who like to tinker and love to make things. So much to see, you will need 2 days to see it all!

* The studio will be closed on these days. But we can open by appt. in mornings or evenings so please call!

11 SPINNERS Zine

admin — Sun, 02 May 2010 16:00:38 +0000

I (Jamie) was honored to be invited to contribute to a handmade zine by the fabulous Melissa of Mustache Rides Yarn! I’ve known the lovely Melissa as an online friend before the rise of Facebook…..yes that looong ago

From Melissa’s Site

personal interviews with:
LEXI BOEGER * JACEY BOGGS * JAMIE CHAN * CINDY COLE * KATHY FOSTER RACHEL-MARIE * HOLLY KLUMP * NIKOL LOHR * LINDA SCHARF * EVONNE WEE * LYNN WIGELL

topics include: slugs (Jamie’s pet topic!), pineapple stuffing, sheep tending, travel, favorite smells, creative working method, favorite music & movies, migas, teaching kids about wool, spinning from bunnies, favorite flavors, recipes, favorite writers… and much more!

24 pages. 4 x 6 ” approx
made with repurposed Indian magazine pages, Joss paper, Wayne’s World dice game pages, construction paper hand-collaged, hand-stamped, hand-stapled. each copy is different, except for the interviews… the interviews are the same in each.

Price: $7.00 at www.etsy.com/shop/moustacheridesyarn

It was a great short read. I never knew Rachel Marie’s favorite smell was clean laundry or that Jacey Boggs is a sucker for Harry Potter! That plus all the included recipes (I finally got Holly’s famous Miso recipe!) and Nikol Lohr’s “Migas” was so so yummy.

There were some great questions about “process” and each artist was able to draw upon literary, art and musical inspirations…it was nice to read and I really felt like I knew my fellow spinners better.

In short: order a copy, it’s a fun read and the handmade pages, illustrations and cartoons are a hoot.

P.S. Check out Melissa’s art yarn….it’s AWESOME:

and her handmade Mystery Batts (all made in the Mustache Rides Laboratory!).

Thanks Melissa!

Best of The Bay

admin — Sun, 02 May 2010 02:44:11 +0000

We’re excited to announce that Urban Fauna Studio was nominated for the Best of the Bay in the Art & Craft Supply category. That alone is quite an honor. Being less than 2 years old, we’re so happy that people recognize our commitment to green and local business! If you’re feeling the same ….please VOTE for us!

You know if we WIN (hell, even coming in top 10!), we’ll throw a party, champagne and yarn will flow…come on! Click away…voting ends on May 29th.

Mother’s Day is May 9th

admin — Sat, 01 May 2010 22:58:49 +0000

Mother’s day is just around the corner! We personally couldn’t get half as much done without help from Mom (love you!). If you’re looking for that special fiber gift and you want to drop a clue to your significant other or children, come by the shop and pick up a FREE Urban Fauna Studio wish list. Fill it out and slip it to that unsuspecting family member or leave it in the shop on file for them to check out. The wish list is a postcard on the other side so you can mail it too. We’ll also be on hand to help you pick out something nice for Mom!

New Yarn Store & Hair Salon in Sunset

admin — Sat, 01 May 2010 17:30:08 +0000

We wanted to let everyone know there is a new knitting supply shop in the Sunset! Located inside Overload Salon, it promises to be a great place to stitch, bitch and get your hair done!

From their website…

“Knitters! I am starting out small. Humble beginnings. You know, that whole mustard seed analogy. The mustard seed in this scenario is 3 shelves in a beauty parlor. 3 shelves with a total of 54 square cubbies with which to fill the yarn-shaped hole in my heart.

You see my problem already, don’t you? So many soft, colorful choices, so little space. My work horse yarn is Cascade. My slightly more interesting yarn is Crystal Palace. I need a wow yarn. Nothing too crazy making. Something on the special side like Malabrigo, madelinetosh or Misti Alpaca. I’m really leaning toward madelinetosh but this yarn is hand dyed and getting it may take some time.

The Cascade order arrives on Monday and I hope to pick up the CPY stuff on Tuesday. Wouldn’t it be perfect if I could have the grand opening on April 10th?”

SF Knitting Supply did indeed open on the 10th and we wish them the best of luck! Check out the salon and yarn store here: http://sfknittingsupply.com/

3811 Noriega Street (near 45th Ave)
San Francisco
Shop 415-681-3001
Classes 415-254-2588