Craft:

As many of you know, we celebrated the release of CRAFT: 06 with six nationwide release parties last Sunday. The parties were a big hit, so I wanted to give you guys a city by city wrap-up here on the blog.

Our Atlanta party was hosted by Christy Petterson of Indie Craft Experience fame and Glue & Glitter's Becky Streipe, along with some helpful folks from the Atlanta Craft Mafia. Party guests enjoyed making felt robots and monsters, won door prizes, and enjoyed snacks and drinks. The Atlanta party venue was ParkGrounds, a crafter-friendly coffee house that offers free WiFi, a cold cereal bar, and has a leash-free dog park nearby. Thanks so much to everyone involved!

Chicago's CRAFT party was hosted by vinyl genius Miss Alison, who also teaches the occasional class at our party venue, The Needleshop. The Needleshop is a cozy sewing studio offering a variety of sewing and craft classes where you can learn skills from how to silkscreen to how to make a messenger bag. They sell cool fabrics, too! Thanks so much to the crafty Chicagoans who came out to make a fun monster.

Here in Los Angeles, our party was co-hosted by yours truly and Cathy of California, who writes the Old School column in CRAFT. Our venue was Handmade Galleries, a 5,000 square foot store operating on the antique mall concept--except they rent individual booths out to crafters, who leave their goods to be sold by Handmade's friendly staffers. It was so great meeting our readers--including the Zuill family, who drove all the way from San Diego (3 hours away!) to hang out and craft. Thanks so much guys!

Milwaukee's release party was hosted by Handmade Nation director Faythe Levine and Janelle Gramling of Fasten Designer Collective. Fasten also served as the party venue, which is fitting since they are Milwaukee's premiere place to make stuff! They offer classes in sewing, knitting, embroidery and more. They also host a monthly craft night! Faythe reported that about half the crowd at this party was male, which is awesome--let's hear it for guys who craft! Thanks Milwaukee!

Our NYC party took place on the Lower East Side at Make Workshop, which offers an incredible variety of hands-on classes like pattern drafting, letterpress, crochet and even wallpaper making! Partygoers whipped up funny felt monsters while hanging out with our hosts, Becky Stern and Michelle Kempner, CRAFT (and MAKE) bloggers extraordinaire. Thanks so much to everyone involved!

Portland cemented it's rep as a super-crafty town with a party hosted by DIY powerhouses Sister Diane of CraftyPod and Susan Beal, whose beautiful new book, Bead Simple, is a must-read for anyone interested in making jewelry. Party guests learned to make Mary Beth Klatt's Pantyhose Petals project from 06, and Moxie even came in from Seattle to demonstrate how to make the lovable felt monsters thet adorn our cover. CRAFT's Managing Editor Shawn Connally made a guest appearance and had a blast hanging out at our party venue, Twisted. Twisted is a great yarn shop that also sells cool craft kits and offers a wide variety of classes, too. Thanks so much Portland!

The photos in this post were all nabbed from the new CRAFT Release Parties Flickr pool--feel free to check it out to see more party pix and details from each city. Many thanks to everyone who came out to craft with us, we hope you had as much fun as we did. If you'd like to see a CRAFT Release Party come to your city next time around, please let us know in the comments and we'll see what we can cook up!