THE EPIC BLYTHE CARRY BAG

Yesterday was the happiest day! My friend E brought Beatrix back from Eureka Springs, where she was staying with E's mom Margy to work as a model for the Epic Blythe Carry Bag. I first blogged about that here (it's about 80% of the way through the post).

Margy is awesome... I grew up sleeping under quilts she made at sleepovers, and when my youngest sister was born, Margy made her the baby blanket she grew up with! She sells beautiful project bags, knitting needle rolls, and smaller this-and-that bags in her Etsy shop! Artsy Eureka Springs shops also carry things crafted by her -- I saw purses, table runners, and stockings in a shop during my visit there. She loves to work with customers to design things and I saw her crazy brain coming up with idea after idea in person -- but fair warning, the product you get will still BLOW YA MIND.

When I requested a bag to carry my girls around in, I was envisioning a little tote-style bag with a little partition down the middle... "It would be awesome to be able to take TWO girls with me," I said. I'm accustomed to wrapping up a doll in a t-shirt and sticking her in my purse.

What I got was this beautiful, lightweight, sturdy, roomy bag that can fit over my shoulder (which is what I prefer in a bag), quilted to the nines, that I can carry three Blythes in easily with room to spare for A) more Blythes, B) purse stuff -- like tons of it, and/or C) crocheting supplies and yarn, which I also like to take with me places.

I got to paw through Margy's fabric stash myself, and she, E, and I all pulled out what became this bag from the starting place of "I want pink!" We found this awesome paisley/stripes print that has coral-toned pinks, olive green, and deep dark burgundy in it. From there we pulled in a more neutral white and tan stripe and then a burgundy bottom with swirls in the pattern. How it came together was totally organic and fun and unexpected. I watched Margy measure and put together a sketch for the pattern... but the finished product is just wowing the crap out of me. It's much more than I envisioned and could have asked for. The way she emulated the paislies in the quilting...

The beads on its zip-pull, the system she designed inside for carrying three Blythes without the danger of them getting stained, their faces knocking together, or them rolling around inside... all so beautiful and ingenious! When the bag is zipped shut, the girls overlap inside, the one middle Blythe compartment sandwiching between the two others -- all three girls safe and sound!

Besides the little "sleeping bag"-like Blythe compartments, which each have a zip so you can open them up, slide your girl in easily, and then zip them back up again safely, the bag has three extra pockets inside, a large one for -- I'd say a cell phone or mp3 player, but I'm using it for their brush right now -- and two smaller ones that velcro shut for clothes and little things like shoes.

I zipped Aury, Gavin, and Beatrix in the Blythe pockets and had room to spare for Plummery to just hang around in the bottom without any worry, and I would literally have room for at least three more Blythes if I wanted to -- like, I swear this thing could fit six or seven girls in it, between the built-in compartments and room to stack more. Gosh!!! That makes it sound huge, but it's actually just perfectly crafted for its purpose! I don't feel like I am carrying a huge thing, and it's not heavy at all, even with all four of my girls inside it. If I wanted to, I could just go to the movies with a handful of Blythes in this bag tossed over my shoulder, and no one would be the wiser!

One of the reasons I wanted a custom Blythe carry bag was so I wouldn't have to carry around anything shaped like a body bag, and I didn't want a big plastic coffin-shaped carrier, either. For me, it's personally just easier to pull a girl out of her little compartment by grasping her head than it is to unwrap a girl from a roll-style carrier. That's exactly what I wanted to be able to do and Margy worked it out perfectly.

As a super-awesome bonus, Margy also made Beatrix this adorable dress set out of some other fabric that I had pulled out. She had a pair of shorts made out of it when she was younger. It's perfect for Beatrix's coloring and green/yellow eye chips! And what a delight it was to pull my girl out of the bag to see her again after two months of her absence from my dolly family and to see her in a cute new dress. It was so fun!!

I thoroughly recommend checking Margy out and giving her a convo if you're interested in a custom bag (I hear she'll do more Blythe bags -- you can even send her your own fabric if you want). It's more gorgeous than I can capture and it's really me. I am so stoked. Every time I look at it, I just go, "IT'S SO! FREAKIN'! COOL!" I know that I'm going to use it constantly... when I go baby-sitting I'll take a girl (or two) and some yarn and crochet hooks and still have plenty of room for my purse junk and spiral notebooks and my phone and all that stuff I take with me to prevent post-bedtime boredom. I know I'll use it when I travel and I won't worry about whether my girls are getting squooshed or scratched.

Thank you so much, Margy!

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Eureka! (Part I)

My trip to Eureka Springs was awesome!

It started off super cool because E and I saw a hot air balloon as we were driving along the highway. I haven't seen a hot air balloon since I was about six or seven, so although I couldn't get a great picture of it, it lent an air of floaty magic and freedom to the whole trip.

E's parents have a crazy beautiful, airy house sitting in the forest outside of town, way way off the road where it's just gravel pathways through the woods. I don't want to rudely post pictures of their house, but the view from the back porch was epic. It just dropped down and you could see across what felt like the entire state. My camera couldn't even handle the awesome.

Eureka Springs is a cute town, too. It's got a hippy vibe and is very hilly and surrounded by forest and dangerously curvy roads that hug little mountain-feeling hills. My feeling about Eureka Springs is that everyone who lives there must have incredibly strong thighs from all the hill-climbing and narrow staircases you ascend and descend everywhere you go.

I just thought this shop was too cute! I guess it's kinda my style... but all the shops were very cute.

E, her mom Margy, and I grabbed some lunch at The Balcony Restaurant at the Basin (this virtual tour was taken right where we were sitting, with this steep view of all the shops beneath us!) where a guy playing a guitar with a tree drawn on it sang acoustic covers of Beatles songs, then we got cheesecake for desert across the street at Peace Love & Cheesecake. It was perfect.

Gavin came along into town with us. This was her first big outing. She got to sit in a basket of Neopolitan-colored yarn at a cute yarn shop downtown...

Pose against The Artery wall of paintings...

(I died!!! I love this picture.)

One woman offered to hold Gavin while I was taking pictures at the wall, which was kind of nice and interesting. I don't often go out and about with Blythes in a blatant way, but I felt fairly comfortable doing so with E and her mom since they didn't seem to be embarrassed by my desire to take dolly pics everywhere. There's just nothing so fun as having a girl along with you.

I did bring all four of my girls, because Margy is going to make me a custom BLYTHE CARRY BAG! Her workroom up there in the loft of their house is filled with lovely light and shelves and shelves of fabrics and projects and gosh, I don't even know what.

My Blythe carry bag is going to be so awesome, I could cry. It's going to hold up to three girls, I think, which is nutso, and it sounds like it's going to be insanely intricate and so handy for me, the girl who wants to bring a Blythe everywhere.

Margy's work is insane, too! Quilts by her hang everywhere in the house (I grew up sleeping under them at sleep-overs too). One of the artsy shops downtown carries tablerunners, bags, and adorable Christmas stockings made by her. She also has an Etsy shop where she sells beautiful knitting needle rolls, project bags, and all kinds of handy little carriers for crafty this-and-that. You can see how well-made, durable, and beautiful each of the things in her shop are. My bag is gonna be off any kind of hook, chain, hizzy, ledge, or hinge you can imagine!! I got to pick through her fabric baskets, and together we pieced together something with pink, green, maroon, stripes, paisley, and swirls... it was such a fun process that I can see how much joy she derives from creating these bags and rolls. I'm so excited! Even just the laid-out fabric looks so good, I can't imagine how great it'll look when it's put together and quilted and detailed.

E and I spent lots of time crocheting and knitting. E is a knitter like whoa... she was working on a golden-nutty brown hat.

Now, I can't knit... I learned the knit stitch once about four years ago, but forgot it quickly. Margy sat down and helped me re-learn that and also taught me how to purl, so I was able to sit and practice knitting and purling.

I think how I knit is English style? I hold the yarn in my right hand and loop it that way, and it's easier for me. I don't know if I'll ever be as good of a knitter as E, but I'm still excited (and also trying not to forget everything now that I'm home again).

I took a buttload of pics of my girls out in nature. I'll post those tomorrow!

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