Next Big Thing 2008

Hop hop horray! I was selected as one of the finalists at Fred Flare's 2008 Next Big Thing design competition! Gregory, a froggy iPhone cozy that I designed and made, is being featured in the shop.
EDIT: ** Click here to vote for me July 2-16! **
You can read the article about me here and see the other finalists here.

We were on vacation in Palau when I got an email from Keith at Fred Flare that I was one of the 27 finalists and that they wanted 50 Gregories -- Yikes! When we got back, in the midst of whirlwind packing, moving and work, I stitched up all fifty froggies over the space of a few days... Yup, it was a little crazy; my fingers were a little sore and I was kinda delirious afterwards... I think Gavin suffered a little, too.
-- Ring, ring --
"Hello?"
"Hey, what's up."
"I'm running out of eyes."
"What?"
"I've done like 20 pairs of eyes. I need more eyes. I mean buttons."
"...Ohhh, you mean the frogs."


After I shipped off the 50 froggies, I went to sleep dreaming about... frogs. I got to thinking, in every large population, there are always a few mutants. Especially nowadays, due to all the pollutants in the air and water. So now that there are all these Gregory iPod cozies in the world, it seems reasonable that there might be some mutants, too. So, the next morning, I stitched up Goggles, a 3-eyed froggy iPhone cozy, and I posted him in my Etsy shop… He's sold now, but I'll be posted up some more when I have time. All proceeds from selling Goggles will go to Tree Walkers International to help (who else?) frogs!

Maybe this summer, we'll try to find some new frogs for our courtyard. They'll eat the mosquitoes! In the meanwhile, here are some pictures of our old frog friends, Mr. & Mrs. Chombagi.

And now for some happy links, my bookmarked guaranteed-mood-picker-uppers:
Fuzzy baby animals
Dancing dog!
Rapping shark & b-boy bear
MarsPhoenix Rover's Twitter

Moving & Making

1. New house day, 2. New house night

May and June turned out to be kind of hectic months for us. The owners of the house we were renting suddenly sold it, and the new owners wanted to move in, giving us 3 weeks to scramble for a new place to stay. Add to that the fact that we were leaving for vacation in a week when we heard the news, and you can understand why we were kind of in a panic.

Luckily, in Korea, everything that can be done, can be done quickly. It's the "bali bali" (Korean for "speedy, speedy") curse, but it's also a blessing. We knew that we wanted to continue living in a traditional Korean house, so within a week a real estate agent showed us a flurry of "hanok," we fell in love with one of them, Gavin's firm handled the details and we signed the lease.

The week we were to move coincided with the largest protest that Seoul has seen in two decades, and since we were moving to a neighborhood near the President's Blue House, roads were blocked every night and traffic was mayhem. The owners of our new home only just managed to move out before the police blockaded their area, but they didn't have time to clean. We spent the night before moving day cleaning the new house from top to bottom.

In Korea, moving companies offer a packing and cleaning service as well. What a godsend! On moving day, two men and an ajumma (a middle-aged Korean woman) arrived at our old house with boxes and crates. The ajumma immediately set to work in the kitchen, taking all the contents out of the cupboards, packing them into crates, wrapping plates and breakables, wiping the kitchen down. The men packed our wardrobe and drawer contents into plastic boxes. In our new house, everything went back into the kitchen cupboards and drawers in the same order. They started at 8:30 am at the old house, and finished by 1 pm at the new house. It was amazing! I wish moving companies did this in the States. Here are some photos of the new house. I'll post more as soon as I get it looking homier...



1. Elephantasy Journal, 2. Elephantasy Card
3. Sir Hamilton, 4. Goggles

Amazingly, I was able to get some crafty stuff done during this mayhem.
Elephantasy is an illustration that I sketched out ages ago that I Gocco screenprined onto some journals and greeting cards. The journals are made out of handmade mulberry paper that I bought in Luang Prabang, sewn with hand-spun and dyed silk thread that I also picked up in Laos. I've posted them on my Etsy shop, so go take a look.

Sir Hamilton is a flying pig with high hopes to become your favorite iPhone / iTouch cozy ever. And Goggles is... well Goggles is a mutant-3-eyed-frog iPhone / iTouch cozy. It's happened; increased pollutants in the air and water (and an exhausted slightly delirious Annamatic) have given Goggles one more eye than his fellow frog cousins. He's a bit self-conscious about it, so try not to stare. Goggles and Sir Hamilton will be making more appearances in my Etsy shop soon, so keep checking back.

Linky stuff that I've bookmarked over the past month (sorry, but I've forgotten where I've gotten most of these links... it's been awhile...):

some never-ending web interfaces that i'm loving:
>> helloworld from softbank
>> good things should never end from the orange network

music in unexpected places:
>> the super mario theme played on bottles by a remote control car
>> david byrne turns an abandoned building into a musical instrument

unwanted home improvements?
>> repairing broken spiderwebs
>> snail shell painting

too cute to eat
>> marzipan characters
>> sushi art

Coziness

1. Diablo, 2. Gregory, 3. Nibbles, 4. Boris

Last week I had a little bit of free time again and started stitching up some more iPhone and iPod Touch cozies... I'm going to try to keep them in stock over in my Etsy shop, but if you don't see the one you want there, just send me a message and I'll do a custom order...

Part of the fun of sewing up different styles of iPod cozies is giving the characters names and personalities. If you know me at all, you probably realize that I anthropomorphize EVERYTHING. So... Everybody, meet Diablo, Gregory, Nibbles and Boris!

Diablo comes from an notorious family of iPod and gadget accessories including Mr. Devil and Mrs. Devil, who dedicated their lives to taking care of Nano and Video iPods, the Quintuplets, who left home to seek their fortunes as cell phone and holiday ornaments, and 99.44% pure evil Lucky, who brings mischief and misfortune to those with iPod Shuffles.

Nibbles is... Well, to tell you the truth, nobody knows what Nibbles is. Rumor has it that she's a hamster, but since she can't talk, it hasn't been confirmed. Let's just call her a critter, shall we? Nibbles the critter has a pouch on her back to tote earbuds in. Cuz, frankly, I'm always getting my earphones tangled up in a big mess and a pouch to tuck them in seemed like a good idea.

Boris also has some illustrious family members. You might remember Benjamin, his little Nano-lovin' brother, and Big Ben, his cousin of Video cozying fame. Boris' feisty friend Bounce, prefers iPod shuffles. Who doesn't love bunnies?

And finally, Gregory the frog. Most frogs like flies, but Gregory loves earbuds. Just tuck the earbuds into his mouth and he'll gladly carry them around all day for you. Although it really doesn't matter what kind of music you listen to on your iPod, Gregory wants you to know he prefers hip hop. You know.... because he's a frog... and he likes to hop.... Ok, so I'm corny. Whatever.

About frogs
I've been partial to frogs ever since we moved into our home two years ago and found that our courtyard was inhabited by two adorable amphibians. We called them Mr. & Mrs. Chombagi (Chombagi means "spotted" in Korean) and followed their antics all spring and summer. Sadly, after they went into hibernation at the end of that summer, they didn't return. I'd been thinking of them again at the start of this spring, and casually drew up a pattern for Gregory before going off to Coffeest to meet Younghui.

Sometimes we meet to do our respective design work or sewing or knitting or whatever in some local cafe. On this particular day last week, Younghui was working on a logo next to me while I was stitching up Diablo. Gregory was still a half-sewn pile of felt when the owner of the cafe, who'd been sitting across the table from us, leaned over and asked (in Korean), "What are you making?" Younghui (Thanks!) became my interpreter and explained that I was making iPhone cozies.

Hereupon, the cafe-owner became very excited. Firstly, she loved the cozies, and would declare to anyone in the cafe who would listen, "Hey, look at these pouches for iPhones! Aren't they BEAUTIFUL?! Aren't they cute?! Do you need one?!" Finally, after a flurry of questions and inspections of my products, her companion plopped 25,000 Won (about $25) down in front of me and declared, "I want the frog." And so, Gregory got stitched up and sold right then and there. After attaching the snap buttons to his feet that evening, I returned to Coffeest the next day to drop him off with his new owner.

About gadget-love
Anyway the aforementioned exchange kind of prompted a weird Apple gadget geek orgy. The platform of choice in Korea is Microsoft, and the favored gadgets are made by local kings Samsung and LG, so to see such a convergence of Apple love was a little funny.
Roughly translated from Korean,
"Oh my god, you have the iPod Touch?! Can I see it?" exclaimed the cafe-owner.
"Sure," said I handing over the Touch.
"Hey look at this," the cafe-owner said to her companion, demonstrating the multi-touch features.
"Mmhmm," he says looking it over with interest before glancing up and exclaiming to Younghui,
"Oh, wow, you have a MacBook Air! I've never seen one before! Can I see?"
"Oh, sure, take a look," says Younghui.
"Oh, hey! That guy over there also has the iPod Touch!" the cafe-owner says, pointing across the room.
"Where? Oh, no I think that's an iPhone, it's a bit thicker...."
"No, not THAT guy, the one at the next table!"
"Oh, hey, right, that's funny, there are a lot of Apple products in one room here..."
"Yeah, the girl over THERE has a MacBook..."

Then it was my turn for gadget-envy, because I noticed that the man sitting at the table right behind me was holding the brand new Sigma DP1, the camera I'm drooling over at the moment.

That's one thing that's great about Seoul: It's a city of early-adopters who aren't shy about geeking out over gadgets. People love their gadgets in New York, but you can't be too public about it or you'll be asking to get mugged.

Some linkage:
Using Google Maps to navigate... text.
Read magazines here.
Read a short story here.