EKRA | Emily Kircher Recycling Artist
Birthday Sale!
Posted at 11:34 PM on May 3, 2012 | 2 Comments »

I’m celebrating my 35th birthday, which is May 5, with a sale that starts NOW!  I was going to have it just on Saturday, but I got antsy and wanted to start earlier, and I’m the boss, so, hooray! Help me celebrate with 35% off anything and everything that is ready to ship in my etsy store.  And while we’re celebrating my birthday, how about a Happy Birthday to EKRA too!  My business is 8 years old this May!

So, use code BIRTHDAY at the checkout to receive 35% off your order of ready to ship items.

Fine print:  Not valid on custom orders or made to order items.  Sale goes through Saturday, May 5.

 

How this works.
Posted at 09:20 PM on April 30, 2012 | 2 Comments »

Another start to finish post for you! A customer contacted me wanting to have a rug made to match this quilt from littleauggie.com.  She wanted it primarily green and ivory with accents of deep pink and turquoise.

 

That yellowy chartreuse green is really hard to match, so I did my best with a couple of other shades, one of which had a lot of white in it too.  I wanted to match the lightness of this quilt, it has a lot of colors in it, but it is primarily white.  I showed her these fabrics and she gave me the go ahead.

In the end, I didn’t use the tans or the more solid pink I had in this pile.  I relied on the pink that is in the pattern of one of the sheets, which also had a soft, celery green shade of leaves that also blended nicely with the greens I was trying to go for.  Here’s the finished result:

This is going to be a present for an expecting mom, I hope she likes it!

Jumble Rug
Posted at 05:54 PM on April 15, 2012 | 2 Comments »

En route to New York, I got a message from a potential customer saying she would like to custom order a bright rug with lots of colors all sort of jumbled together.  So, we got the details worked out and when I came home I went through my tubs of fabric yarn, mostly left over from other projects, and sent her this picture.

She thought there was too much light blue and she would like more bright blue and orange added, so I added some of my t-shirt scraps from Krista’s Kreations, removed the light blues, and sent her this picture.  She thought this was great, so I got to work.

I’m not going to lie, I was intimated by this pile of random fabrics when I started.  I usually have a plan of action, a general idea of what to do, and I work from there.  The instruction for this rug was to make it random, which is a bit difficult for me to do sometimes.

 

Well, not as difficult as I thought, actually.  After I got started, it was really fun just adding what seemed natural to go next.  Also, I noticed some of the fabrics in the pile weren’t really as bright as others, so I left those out.  I just worked and worked and the rug worked up in no time at all!  It is pretty crazy bright, but it is for a children’s reading area.  I hope they will be comfy reading on their new rug!

Shades of Green
Posted at 01:52 AM on April 10, 2012 | No Comments »

Hello! I’m back from the Etsy symposium in New York.  I learned a lot, was able to meet some other Etsy sellers, and had a blast being in a big city for a few days.  I have lots to work on to make my Etsy shop better, but I’ll need to work on that in between custom orders.

Here’s the latest one I finished up.  The customer wanted a rug that was shades of green and said she preferred yellow greens to blue greens.  We used an online paint chip sort of page to pin down the shades she was really interested in.

This rug presented a few challenges.  First of all, she wanted it 4 feet in diameter.  I’ve never made a “shades” rug that large.  In fact, I’ve never made one to order at all, so I wasn’t exactly sure how much fabric I would need.  Second, I didn’t have nearly enough shades of green on hand to make this a really nice “fade” rug.  Lucky for me, we were planning a trip to St. Louis, so I scheduled in a stop at the Goodwill Outlet store.  While there, I grabbed everything that looked like it might be good for this green rug and another gray rug that I was working on.  I ended up with about 30 pounds of green and gray.  After several photos and ranges of green, this is the set of greens that the customer decided on. (There is a lot of green I collected but didn’t use, so watch for more green rugs in the future!)

 

I was paying attention as I crocheted.  I didn’t want to reach 4 feet before I got to the dark greens.  I threw out a few lime greens and ended up with less dark green than was in the original photo, but I’m hoping my customer still likes it!

Who likes Snuggies?
Posted at 02:17 AM on March 29, 2012 | 3 Comments »

I’ve been working hard here, lots of custom orders coming and and getting mailed out.  I hope you follow me on Facebook, I’m a lot better about showing off my work there than here. (If you aren’t following me on Facebook, search “Emily Kircher Recycling Artist”)

Lots of orders means lots of recycled fabrics coming into my house too.  This is actually the FOURTH Snuggie I’ve purchased at thrift stores to use in making rugs.  Now, when the Snuggie was introduced, I thought, “Wow! That looks great! A blanket with sleeves!”  My husband insisted that I didn’t actually want that, what I would really like is a robe.  It turned into a non-issue though because I never bought one, or a robe for that matter.  Well, when I bought the first one with the intention of using it in a rug, I thought I’d test it out for its intended purpose before I cut it up.  What an uncomfortable garment! It was big and bulky and it wasn’t very easy to crochet rugs while I was wearing it.  So, I tried wearing it backwards, you know, like a robe, and that was a lot easier to crochet that way, but it wasn’t very comfortable, and when I’d get up to walk around, it would just flop around.  The verdict, Snuggies are not for me and I would prefer a robe.  Imagine that, my husband was right! (He usually is.)

So, does anybody like these?  I’ve purchased 4 for rugs at thrift stores, but I’ve seen far more than that for sale at them.  What do you think?  They are fun to pose in though!

 

Here’s the rug that this Snuggie ended up in:

I’m off to Brooklyn for the Etsy Success Symposium tomorrow! I’m very excited.  I can’t wait to see the Etsy labs and meet the people that work there and the other etsy sellers that will be there and learn all the stuff they have to share with me.

Laundry
Posted at 03:53 PM on February 29, 2012 | No Comments »

I do a lot of laundry.  No, I do TONS of laundry.  Every piece of fabric that comes from a thrift store or estate sale or yard sale gets washed before I use to to make a rug.  This past weekend, I bought about 25 sheets. So, like I said, I do A LOT of laundry.

I have a high efficiency front load washing machine and I buy the most ecofriendly laundry detergent available at the grocery store, but I was still ending up with lots of plastic bottles to put in the recycle bin, and always wondering about what sorts of chemicals are going down the drain.  One of my favorite etsy sellers, Daisycakes, started offering laundry soap (different than laundry detergent that you buy at the store).  Since I love her body soaps and have been using them pretty much exclusively for about 4 years, I bought some to try out immediately.

 

Wow! My sheets came out softer and fresher smelling than ever before! I bought the citrus splash scent (she also offers lavender scent).  It makes the laundry room smell great, but the clothes come out without scent, which is prefect for me because I don’t like perfumes on my clothes (or anywhere else for that matter really). So, if you want to try a more eco-friendly laundry soap, give this a try!

Hello!
Posted at 03:04 AM on February 29, 2012 | 3 Comments »

Hello!

I sketched out this “hello” a few weeks ago and have been wanting to use it as an appliqué since then.  I made the appliqué while avoiding cutting up a massive pile of fabric for a custom order, and then sewed it onto the rug after that order was completed.  I think the next word I would make into an appliqué is “smile.”  What word would you like to see on a rug?

Bands of color.
Posted at 09:05 PM on February 22, 2012 | 2 Comments »

I just finished up another custom order for a nursery rug.  This customer wanted gray, white, light blue, and orange and liked the look of my bands of color rugs better than my streak rugs.  I like making the bands of color rugs, but I get nervous making them as custom orders because I can’t give the customer a good idea of what the rug will look like when it is finished.  I don’t even know what it will look like until it is finished!  I collect the fabric, cut it up, and then pretty much go with the flow until it is large enough.  I take several things into account, like the amounts of each fabric I have, thickness of bands, and placement of color, but really, it is all just floating in the ether until the stitches are made.

 

 

Press.
Posted at 03:11 PM on February 17, 2012 | 1 Comment »

I’m sitting here waiting for the thrift stores to open.  There has been a surge in the popularity of gray tones, I have a custom order for a 5.5′ round rug and another for a 4′x6′ oval rug both with mostly gray.  I’ve already bought out and used up the pounds and pounds of gray mill ends I bought.  I have been running my fabric scout ragged looking for for gray at her thrift stores.  I’m hoping to find some gray today.  Actually, I’m going to buy everything that looks remotely interesting to me today.  I made the mistake of not buying an orange and white plaid sheet at Goodwill the other day because I didn’t need it immediately, and then of course, later that same day I get an order for an orange, brown, and blue rug that that sheet would be perfect for.  I worried that someone purchased that sheet for a day before I could get back to Goodwill, and thankfully it was still there.  No more fooling around!

So, yeah, I’m busy with custom orders, just the way I like it.  But the title of this post is press, so you are probably wondering what that’s all about.  I was recently informed that my “Emily” Rug is going to be included in the 2012 Summer Etsy Look Book that they send out to media outlets!  They said that magazines or TV shows might request the rug so they can photograph it themselves, so I had to change the listing from “This can be your very own Emily rug” to “Contact me about getting a rug with a name on it, this is just an example”  I’m pretty excited about it and I hope it leads to more custom work!

‘Sup?
Posted at 04:23 AM on February 14, 2012 | No Comments »

I had a great weekend, we headed into the city to see a concert and eat fancy dinner (lobster and bacon pizza!).  And as if that weren’t enough, we stopped at one of the thrift stores on the way and I bought lots of new fabric to work with.  I already have two new custom orders to keep me busy and happy, but while I was custom order-less, I made this rug.  My mom found me this queen set of sheets (the whole set: flat sheet, fitted sheet and two pillowcases).  The pattern was one I had never seen before, it was yellow and white with black polka dots striped, but also with the occasional bouquet of pink and blue flowers.  There was a lot going on, I don’t know how anyone could fall asleep on such busy sheets.   I used all the fabric and crocheted it into this 28″ diameter rug.

The other big news is that I’m included in this month’s Poppytalk Handmade’s curated online marketplace.  You can check out what I uploaded along with lots of other great artists.  One of my favorite artists is also participating, Matte Stephens.  I love his mod style and the fact that he paints a lot of cats.  So, check out his work and the other Poppytalk artists!

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