Andy Lien

Better late metformin weight loss co uk than never.  Sure, I meant to post a run-down of the No Coast Craft-o-Rama when it was happening last weekend, but I’m also on the road crew for that thoroughfare to you-know-where which is paved with good intentions.

That said, I’ll repeat: Better late than never.

Minnesota’s No Coast Craft-o-Rama has been held at the beginning of December since 2005.  Meet our generation’s version of Arts & Crafts.  It’s where crafts become art.  Patterns are optional.  Rollergirls.  Runway shows.  Book signings.  Baby slings.  Letterpressed cards with expletives on them.  Original prints of local landmarks in surreal colors.  Doggie couture.  Reduced, reused, recycled and repurposed anything and everything.  Flour sack dish towels with needlepoint depictions of vegecide.

Speaking almost entirely of women, we twenty-, thirty-, and forty-somethings are hybrid feminists.  I think of that term loosely and simply.  We watched our grandmothers do it one way, the “old-fashioned” way.  We experienced our mothers choosing the workforce over home economics, getting their Masters over being the Missus, using the microwave over the oven, and going to malls over sewing from McCall’s.  With all of these approaches to life in our collective conscience, we younger women today get to pick and choose what we’d like to do–something neither our grandmothers nor our mothers may have had the full freedom to do at our ages.  Rather than seeing a needle and thread as a means of oppression, we see it as a tool of self-expression.  We watch the Food Network and get a kick out of doing it ourselves thanks to the DIY movement.  We have babies and choose to stay home.  If we want.

Because we can.

Thanks to our mothers and grandmothers.

I feel that “Because we can!” energy at the No Coast Craft-o-Rama, put together by a labor union, Crafters Local 612.  I see a reclamation of domesticity.  I witness a revamp of femininity.  An infusion of sexuality.  A redefinition of Arts & Crafts.

As a hybrid feminist, I want to buy a trivet with Adam Turman’s artwork on it.  I like to see a pimped-out sewing machine that looks like it could fashion a nice tattoo on my forearm.  I want a ball gown made of sock monkeys.

Even its location is a subversion of history.  The Midtown Global Market is in what used to be an old Sears store.  Unpack that.  A mecca of homogeneity turned into a hub of cultural exchange.  In Minnesota.  It couldn’t be more enriched.

I walked around the Craft-o-Rama and soaked in the ingenuity until my fingers got pruney…or, to be truthful, until I got tired of the crowd.  It was a place to buy gifts, to see brilliance, to get inspiration…and to pick up a little noshery.

Sock Monkey metformin hydrochloride 1000 mg side effects ball gown by Hazel & Melvin's Room.

Monkey butt pants. Do they come in plus sizes?

Illustrator Blake Himsl-Hunter with my favorite flour sack dish towels...aside from my "Days of the Week" ones from Gramma Ruby.

Get your own vegecide scenes at trophiogrande@yahoo.com.

Artwork and die-cut tiger jewelry also by i like you which sells "small things for a prettier life."

Chocolate Salted Caramel Love-of-my-Life by the Salty Tart.

Don't miss it.

Awesome baby stuff by Natalie & Friends.

More awesome baby stuff...but I forgot to grab a card for the vendor. Let me know if you recognize it so I can give credit. Bad Andy.

Artist Amy Jo Hendrickson...I bought her print of the Saint Paul Cathedral. I know. Big surprise.

Prints by Adam Turman.

Letterpressed postcards by Rar Rar Press...

...one of which is now on the wall of Grendel's Dining Room.

I applaud you, Crafters Local 612.  You did a fine job yet again.  May your sixth Craft-0-Rama surpass the previous five in every way you wish.

To the vendors, I wish that your mission to enhance our world with your talent is prosperous.  Please, do not be dissuaded by these perilous times.  We need you.

_________________

Links to featured vendors (because WordPress removed all my painfully linked hyperlinks from the photo captions):

i like you
Natalie & Friends
Hazel & Melvin’s Room
Salty Tart
Miss Amy Jo and the PRINT I BOUGHT!
Adam Turman
Rar Rar Press