Craft blogs are full of inspiring handmade gift ideas this month, here's a round-up of some of our favorites. Ornaments are quick and easy gifts to make, plus they can be used year after year, and if they're sweet enough they may even stay out long after the tree's down. We love these yarn ornaments on Craftster which we first saw on Craft. Three simple supplies are all you need, yarn, an old ornament......

Yowza, Chronicle Books! All you need to know about this book is right there in the graphic. Didn't we promise this book to you guys last month too? Crafting meets, uh.... crafting in today's giveaway, which has instructions not only for a variety of tube-shaped objects, but also how to make certain electric accessories, a knitting pattern for a sensitive male organ, crocheted restraints, chocolate body paints, and much, much more (50 projects in all).......

Our sister site over in Shanghai notified us to this. Sure, on the surface it seems like a viral, isn't-that-darling clip of a Chinese man executing a well-choreographed tribute to "U Can't Touch This" by Oakland native MC Hammer. But the underlying theme here is a heartbreaking one of a young man craving a scrap of affection from a frosty and heartless mother whose only concern is that of her gauge. Watch it and......

Droll NPR commentator (who was previously fired for cursing) Sandra Tsing Loh brings her one-woman show, "Mother On Fire," to the Women's Building tonight! For a 9 night run! The show's about her travails trying to find an appropriate school for her kindergarten age daughter in the California school system and ran for 7 months in LA. Here's the one-liner. "I looked at public schools, private schools, parochial schools -- even Baptist school. It turns......

It's our week up on the weekly-reading duties! Last week's winner from SFist Sarah L, the SF Weekly. A letter writer says: "While Matt [Gonzalez] may not be the next Picasso (but don't count him out)..." It doesn't matter what the rest of the letter says. The SF Fire Department gave a bad test. Cover article: We hate baby boomers and their dirty self-centered hippie ways. Carnivorous plants! Yay, the SFIFF! A flyer fell out......

Image from My Paper Crane It's been a productive year for us. Between knitting and cupcakes, we've been crafting up a storm. But our favorite new craft has absolutely no function other than looking cute. We're talking about softies, soft homemade (although they don't have to be) toys that may not be all that functional but are certainly fun to make and coo at. For inspiration head on over to my paper crane, where master softie maker Heidi Kenney has an incredible gallery of softies for sale. Flickr of course has a great gallery of softies as well as some fabulous pictures of amigurumi. Amigurumi is the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small stuffed toys. These beauties take a little more skill and time, but they're certainly fun to look at. We made our first softie this weekend and although it took most of the afternoon, we're going to blame that on our hangover and not the skill level required to make a softie. A cupcake may have been a bit ambitious for our first ever hand sewn toy, but it made a cute birthday present and Richard seemed to appreciate its homemade appeal....

In case you don't think there's anything crafty about baking a batch of cupcakes, we've got the pictures to prove you wrong. And we've had so much sugar today, we doubt you would really want to argue with us. Maybe it was the decadent cakes and sweets we saw inMarie Antoinette, our hero Amy Sedaris's cupcake obsession, the new book Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, cupcake blogs, or our own local cupcakeries, but we've been itching to make cupcakes for months now. Lucky for us we have a good friend who happens to be a pastry chef (not that you need a pastry chef in your life to make cupcakes, we're just less baking savvy then most). Sure, part of crafting is the satisfaction of planning, playing, and making something permanent with your hands. But baking is as much an art as any craft out there. And there's something just as satisfying in mixing, measuring, baking and then eating your creation. Cupcakes are the perfect palate for some edible artistry. ...

There was no shortage of craft books on the market this year. From knitting to t-shirt reconstructing more and more crafters are sharing their ideas with the world. ...

We admit that we're not as diligent about our food consumption as we should be. Being raised as good Catholics, this causes us a judicious amount of guilt. (Which is different than merely feeling bad about eating bad food--after all, Jack in the Box has its own special way of punishing you. . .) We spent this weekend on a trade show floor in Las Vegas, eating candy from the booths and dinner at......

Hey, why do an events post twice a week, when we can bring you one every day? Say "hi" to SFist Tonight! Those wacky punsters at Project Artaud Theater (450 Florida Street) begins their NOIR'taud Noir Fest of Cornell Woolrich series. Featuring readings by Word for Word, films by Danger & Despair Knitting Circle, Gaucho Jazz, Thick is the Fog Noir photography and more, it runs from August 21-23, at 7 p.m. Buy tickets here.......

Happy Spring! Which means its time for Spring cleaning. While we here at SFist are all in favor of small rent-controlled studio apartments, we're not so fond of the small kitchen. Justin Spring, courtesy of Heidi Swanson, taught us some ways to organize our confined kitchens more efficiently and also had some good tips for non-lethal cleaning supplies. A new blog for us this week is Sweet Napa. She's attending culinary school in Napa and......

We have a winner in our Fake Tales of San Francisco contest! As you may recall, we're giving out "The Heart Is Deceitful" movie swag to the person who came up with the best, most fakest San Francisco story. After disqualifying Matier and Ross when the Gavin dating a Scientologist actress thing came true, our winner is...... KWillets, for this tragic tale of San Francisco gone very, very wrong. "Speak up Patrick", I said breathlessly......

The love of our life is prersently reading The Howling, and he is scared out of his mind. As we walk the dog he insists a werewolf is stalking us, and you don't even want to know what he's been keeping under his pillow. While we may mock him as he insists on sleeping with a light on, we're also a little jealous -- it's been a long time since a book scared us......

SFist made it to the W. Kamau Bell Gets a Haircut Show last Thursday and have to admit that we were a little put off about the false advertising. While we did see cut hair, we did not see an actual hair cut. Instead, that took place off stage during the last hour of the show. Sheesh. What we did see was several comedians, an impressionist, a magician, some slam poetry, cartoon projections, songs about......

Hark! Do you hear the hosannas of angels wearing roomy striped ponchos and the clicking of bamboo sticks? That's right -- the hipster goddess of knitting, Debbie Stoller, is in town promoting her new book, Stitch 'n Bitch Nation, a sequel to her massive hit, the original Stitch and Bitch: The Knitters' Handbook. Stoller, who also edits the zine Bust, is all about bringing knitting to the new millennium: reclaiming knitting as a feminist art, organizing knitting circles (or Stitch 'n Bitches), encouraging a community of online knitters and crafters, and now, writing a new book that features even more contemporary knitting patterns from contributors across the nation, such as snazzy rasta caps, yoga mats, bags with pictures of Jim Morrison on them, and Henry Rollins dolls, among others. Stoller will be bringing her intarsia mojo to San Rafael's Dharma Trading Company tonight. Tomorrow, she'll be launching a new program with Amtrak, Stitch-n-Ride, where knitting circles can take Amtrak from Oakland to Sacto every Tuesday (and free patterns from Stoller's book will be distributed -- you can find them online too). If you're a knitting commuter, meet at 5:30 in Oakland, take the train to Sacto, and then triumphantly carry Debbie aloft a carriage made of knitting needles to Rumplestilskin's for another reading. Those of you who don't commute by train, Stoller will be back in SF on Wednesday, for an appearance at Urban Knitting. And hey, can someone teach us how to knit with double-pointed needles? Thanks to Rebecca G for the tip!...

We usually save these things for the blotter, but this one can't wait until Friday. Six students and a knitting instructor at Montclair's Knitting Basket in the Montclair Village in Oakland were held up at gunpoint Monday night by a man described to be a white 60 year old homeless man missing two front teeth and carrying a camouflage-colored rifle. A witness said, "He looked very out of place at a knitting store." The suspect was also wearing (yup) a knit black hat. The police are on the lookout, and the Montclair Village security staff will escort nervous shoppers to their cars if asked. This is why we're sticking with cross-stitch. ...

SFist has been known to be a little crafty - and not just in our excuses why we can't buy that next round of drinks either. We've got some skills and one of them is knitting. We've made scarves for everyone we know and, well, we hope you like what we got you for Christmas this year too. And now we can put our skills to greater use. Afghans for Afghans is an organization that......

Calling all feminist hipsters (and those looking to pick up the same) – the second Ladyfest Bay Area will be hitting the Mission this weekend (July 29-August 1). Ladyfest is the feminist DIY post-riotgrrl community art, activism, and punk rock festival, which started in 2000 in (where else?) Olympia, WA, and has since spread throughout the land and throughout the world. So naturally, girl bands play, spoken word poets rant, knitting circles purl, self-defense classes take out the eyes and kneecaps of the oppressor, and positive female energy rules the day. It’s volunteer-organized, non-corporate sponsored, and appears mainly to have been advertised by spray-paint stencils on Valencia Street....