Come meet my new friend in my collection of Data Wormz, custom mods of 4 GB USB Flash Drives. They are the cutest thumb drive you could ever have, and now, there will be another adorable little worm to hold all of your data.

 I will be officially introducing IOTA the EARTHWORM, this Saturday at the Bazaar Bizarre indie craft fair at the San Francisco County Fair Building, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco from 11:00am - 6:00pm. For the time being, you can only adopt her at the fair this Saturday, but I will be making her available on my website very shortly.

Without further ado, here's Iota!

 

Little IOTA the EARTHWORM may be a just a squiggle of a thing, but she sure is large in the personality department. She has a passion for learning and can squeeze a whopping 4 gigabytes of information into her noggin'. Sometimes Iota will spend hours on Wikipedia jumping from topic to topic, absorbing all the information she can. Whenever it rains, you will always find her dancing in a field of grass, singing her favorite tunes by the Sugarcubes. As you may have guessed, Iota loves flowers and gardening and is quite content to spend hours just digging through the dirt.  If you adopt Iota, you will never be want for love, because Iota has tons of love to give -- after all, she's got 5 hearts! 

Wow! I'm so thrilled that NifNaks recently was BoingBoing 'ed (both on the main front page, as well as complimentary write-up in BB Gadget !), Gizmodo 'ed, and many other blogs! I keep discovering other web sites where my Data Wormz and Cthulhu/FSM ornaments were embraced with fuzzy-geeky love. I'm thrilled that so many other folks love them as much as I do. Yay!

I'm astounded at the number of Noodly Appendages I've been touching daily, as I poke Him (and Him, and Him, and...) with my felting needles.

And wow, this is new--- International attention! I've gotten orders from Canada, England, Australia, Netherlands, and Denmark, and NifNaks has been browsed by 64 countries. I'm amazed.

I want to extend a warm welcome to all the many people who have discovered NifNaks through one of websites/blogs that have featured me. Please feel free to leave a comment on my blog -- I love hearing from you!

To celebrate this great occasion every family in Arkham decorates their Christmas trees with Cthulhu heads and Flying Spaghetti Monsters !

Celebrate just like families in Arkham do!
You too can join in and celebrate by getting your very own Cthulhu ornament, FSM ornament, or FSM treetopper! Each ornament is a handmade using felted wool exactly how the original Arkham ornaments are traditionally made.

Cthulhu Tree Ornament 

Flying Spaghetti Monster tree topper

I’ve been working hard at NifNaks Studios to create a smarter, more intelligent design to my latest Head Wormz.

Luckily for me, tonight I got just the type of weather here in San Francisco that I needed to complete the experiment. (Imagine lightning a la Frankenstein.)  zzzttt! Zzz, zzzz zzzzzzt!

Behold! I now present to you my very first Data Worm, GIZZY the cutest thumbdrive you will ever see!   His name is Gizzy and he will astound you with his ability to remember things – 4 gigabytes worth, in fact! He loves super tart gumballs, and won’t eat anything orange. He enjoys bungee jumping, but most days he’s content just to sit around and read a book. Gizzy is of course an amazing speller and will knock your socks of in Scrabble.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He will soon be available in my store, along with his other super-smart worm friends. Stay tuned! 

UPDATE:  Check out my newest Data Worm MAGGIE the Maggot !

I got the coolest email from someone today. It was from a graphic designer in Madison Wisconsin, Victoria Prozan McGlinn - who was inspired by my rendition of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and is making silk-screens based of a photograph she took. She even offered to send me one! Cool huh?

I just love how folks in the creative/art/craft community are inspired by one another. It also fills my heart with warmth and joy, when someone reaches out to make a connection like that. Thank you, Victoria.

I created a few more wool tentacle scarves tonight, plus one new design for a wool scarf. It looks very much akin to a Victorian neck ruff of the 16th century. It surrounds my face like an exquisite flower - I’m in love with it!

I can’t wait to make one for my self tomorrow!

 

 

I was invited by a very nice gentleman from the Mycological Society of San Francisco to be a vendor at the Fungus Fair in Oakland next month.



I’m soooo excited to bring my little fuzzy friends to an event where they will truly be appreciated. I’m had some interactions with mycologists that were quite rewarding, but I’m definitely looking forward to bringing my Shroommate pals to an entirely new atmosphere than they’ve been before.

I’m planning on making a few additional species of mushrooms before the Fair. And because mycologists are a discerning bunch, I will make every effort to really capture the particularities of each mushroom by aquireing better resources than mere data I find on the internet. My totally rad mycologist friend, Mella, has offered to lend me a couple of books, of which have both lots of pictures and watercolors of various mushrooms. I must think of a special way to thank her in wool.

I now present to you some of the pumpkins that were carved up last week, at my Guts & Glory Pumpkin Carving Party.  I hope they inspire you to get creative, or just get silly. :)

My Pumpkin, a fish eating a fish, eating a fish, eating.... 

 

Pam's Pumpkin, Brightlight board inspired....

 

Colin's Pumpkin, little pumpkins in the face of a big pupkin.... 

 

Jamie & Ian's  Pumpkin, Space Invaders....

 

Simon's Pumpkin, Abstract Geometry...

 

 (photo credit: Colin Fahrion)

 

This is my idea for a last minute costume idea for a party tonight….

My friend is hosting a Fables & Fairytales Party, so I rummaged around my costumes downstairs, and came up with this green princess-like dress that I got from the San Francisco Opera sale a couple years ago. I haven’t worn it since getting it, so I thought this would be the perfect excuse to do it in 2 years.

So what’s my idea? Why the story of The Princess & the Pea, of course! I now present to you the cute, softball-sized pea that I whipped up for tonight:

It was awesome having the experience of my third vendor event. I think I’m figuring out just what my groove in all of this is, though, I am still learning. Now that I’m getting used to what going to an event is all about, I’m not only learning stuff about myself, both personally and professionally, but also about other people too.

While at the event, I saw many people just sitting back at their booth and not really interacting with other people. This strikes me as kinda odd. I mean, here there’s enthusiastic people, stopping by to check out the interesting things you’ve been making…. How can you just *sit* there, looking bored???  I dunno, perhaps I’m just a people person at best, or a praise whore at worst. ;)

It’s kinda funny, I knew I really was enjoying myself at the event, but this picture that Colin (secretly) captured of me as I was interacting with folks really exemplifies how much fun I have:



Clearly, I love talking to people who get a “sqeee!” out of  my little guys just as much as I do. :)