the feto soap blog

Hey  Houston! I am back from Austin and ready to serve you up some freshly made soap! I’ll have 40 + kinds of soap to choose from at the Midtown Farmers Market on Saturday, November 1st from 8am - Noon. The Midtown Farmers Market is located in the front of Monica Pope’s T’afia. 3701 Travis Street @ W. Alabama directions here.

Brand new soaps are Rosemary Mint, Lavender Citrus Mint & Cool Water with Kelp.

If you can’t make it out this week, I’ll be back next week on the 8th, same time, same bat-channel.

I loaded in on Friday and set up my booth. I ran to Maru, which is this Korean owned and operated Japanese restaurant for one of their famous J-Bombs (and currently my favorite thing to eat in Austin) and then headed back to Maker Faire. Like last year on Friday night they had an evening for the makers with food and a few exhibits set up so we could enjoy a little of Maker Faire before it opened the next day. I got to spend some time eating tamales with Jennifer Ramos of Textile Fetish, Claire Chauvin of Poopscape and their families.

On Saturday Maker Faire opened at 10am and my booth was set up right next to the life-sized mousetrap game. To give you a sense of scale - instead of a marble, they used a bowling ball to launch it. All day I was surprised by friends visiting from Dallas, Houston & Austin at my booth. I came to Maker Faire by myself this year so I’m glad I was set up next to A Punkin Card Company and her entourage. They watched my booth for me when I needed to take a break. I was interviewed a bunch of times by a bunch of people, and hopefully I didn’t embarrass myself or the mafia. I got to meet a ton of photographers - they all started taking pictures at my booth. Here are some shots that John Knox from Austin took of my soap at Maker Faire.

Cool Water with Kelp

Blackberry Sage

Sunday - I bartered with a bunch of people for cardholders, scarves, pouches, cards, earrings, sold out of a couple of scents/styles of soap… and Kai and Winnie (who were running around interviewing people about a new show Make: Television) convinced me to stay another night, so I ended up eating sushi off of a boat at yet another Korean owned and operated place, Korea Garden. They told me about Flipside which is something like a regional Burning Man close to Austin. I am thinking about going next year.

I haven’t done a farmers market in ages! I took the month of August off and at my next scheduled market in September Hurricane Ike hit, but I’m back with 40 + kinds of soap to choose from.

I will be vending at the Midtown Farmers Market Local Crafts Spree on Saturday, October 11th from 8am - Noon. The Midtown Farmers Market is located in the front of Monica Pope’s T’afia. 3701 Travis Street @ W. Alabama directions here.

SECOND SATURDAY SHOPPING SPREE!! Lots of local craft vendors on the patio such as Houston Craft Mafia Members Eutectic Handcrafted Jewelry & A Punkin Card Company will be there! Shop Local and Shop Handmade!

Cheers!
Lisa Chouinard, Feto Soap

Hey Austinites! Feto Soap will be at Maker Faire this October as a part of Bazaar Bizarre! The Bazaar Bizarre is a juried craft fair that selects vendors based on various elements such as: Individuality, DIY-sensibility, Quality of work & Diversity of Products

Travis County Event Center and Fairground (It’s where they have the Rodeo) and it sounds like we are going to be in the Show Barn. 7311 Decker Lane,  Austin, TX 78724

Bazaar Bizarre will run from October 18th, 2008 10am to 10pm and October 19th, 2008 from 11am to 6pm.

Maker Faire Schedule:
Saturday, October 18th: 10am-10pm
Sunday, October 19th: 10am-6pm

I arrived in San Francisco on Friday at noon, and call Kai (my assistant for Maker Faire) to see if he wants to go for lunch. By the time I get to the car rental place, it was 2:00pm! I couldn’t remember the name of the restaurant, so I looked up Green Apple Books, drove there and walked a block to Burma Superstar. I ordered Samosa Soup and then my food poisoning from the plane kicked in. Kai put me to bed and after a few hour nap (I had been traveling since 4am that morning - flying directly from Burlington, VT after attending the Handcrafted Soapmakers Guild Conference). Thankfully it was a short bout of food poisoning and I was able to eat after my nap. Then we made our way to our host for the weekend and we went to Moshi Moshi for dinner.

For Maker Faire, we were going to be making melt & pour soap, and to make one bar at a time a microwave is ideal. I asked my host if I could borrow his, and he said that would be fine… I guess I didn’t really explain my need… (his microwave is bolted into his kitchen) so I ended up buying a microwave on the way to Maker Faire and arrived 10 minutes before it started!

After getting setting up people started streaming into my booth pretty much non-stop to create their own soap. I had no time to train my assistant or eat! He fed me while I chopped and melted soap. Many people made soap - we used up a 24-pound block and a few 2 lb trays of soap - over 100 people made their own custom soap in my booth! They got to pick a mold - round, oval, floral oval, bee and honeycomb and rectangles were the choices, a toy (or toys, one kid fit 6 toys in their soap - a butterfly, army man, horse, goat, dinosaur and ballerina), colorant, glitter, and fragrance!

Maker Faire added a Saturday night portion to the event, so after the sun went down we closed up the booth and wandered around. We had some delicious Oysters Rockefeller on the grill, and while we were wolfing them down people from Brittany Knitting Needles were also at the booth slurping down oysters. They had some needles they were passing out and I scored a wooden pair of 19’s! I can’t wait to use them with some chunky yarn! We got out of there pretty late, so we ended up eating wonderful Clam Soup at the Clamhouse in San Mateo.

On Sunday Kai was totally trained to show people how to make soap. We had an assembly line system going with chopped soap ready to go in paper cups that corresponded to the mold sizes, and we got to explore maker faire for 30 minutes at the end of the day. I went straight to Bizzare Bazaar and met Tammy from RoxyCraft.com, Kathy Cano-Murillo craftychica.com, Starving Artist Bazaar. Jenni from Hambones and Jennicakes stopped by my booth as I was breaking down and I am now a proud owner of one of her infamous sleep masks - mine reads ” hung over”!

We are having a sale! All items at market will be a flat $5.00! Come and buy something for your mom!

t’afia
3701 Travis St.
8am - Noon

Houston Craft Mafia Member Feto Soap will be vending at the Midtown Farmers Market on Saturday,  Feb.9th  from 8am - Noon.

The Midtown Farmers Market is located in the front of Monica Pope’s T’afia. 3701 Travis Street @ W. Alabama
directions here

The Market is open RAIN OR SHINE!

- locally grown fruits, vegetables & herbs
- cut & potted flowers and plants
- artisanal chocolates from Brown Paper Chocolate
- organic pastries
- fair trade, organic coffee
- prepared foods, preserves & meals to go

Stitch is this Saturday Nov 10th at the Austin Convention Center and
here are a few more reasons we are hoping you can make it out.

ADVANCE TICKETS – Did you know you can buy your tickets in advance
through Front Gate Tickets?

SHOP – You won’t believe your eyes. The room is jam packed with vendors
for guys and gals alike! We’ve got jewelry from Figs and Ginger
(http://www.figsandginger.com) and Gypsy Born
(http://www.gypsyborndesigns.com), wallets from RandL and Chikabird
(http://www.chikabird.com/), scarves from SuperMaggie
(http://www.supermaggie.com) and more awesome t-shirts, bags and
designers from around the country that you can’t find anywhere else in
Austin!

ENTERTAINMENT – In-between shopping for amazing handmade goodies and
watching the runway show enjoy a Double Dutch Team
(http://www.myspace.com/doubledutchwtyh) and a clip from the upcoming
documentary Hand Made Nation (http://www.handmadenationmovie.com/).

WIN FREE STUFF – Enter the raffle to win sewing machines from Baby Lock
(http://www.babylock.com/), books from Chronicle Books
(http://www.chroniclebooks.com/), Tickets to the Paramount
(www.paramounttheatre.org/), drills from Dremel and tons and tons of
amazing things made by our vendors!

600 FREE GOODIE BAGS – We have 100 extra bags and we want you to have
them! The bags are all unique - choose one to match your outfit!
Stuffed to the brim with Hair Clips by Tasty Jewelry
(http://www.tastyjewelry.com/), T-shirts by Parts & Labour
(http://www.myspace.com/partsandlabour), Sewing patterns from
Simplicity (http://www.simplicity.com/) sweet and sassy lip chapsticks,
tons of amazing magazines and more!

AFTERPARTY – After Stitch (11ish) please join us at The Mohawk on Red
River (http://www.mohawkaustin.com/events/) for our after party. Free
with a Stitch wristband, $5 otherwise. DJ Abominatron and DJ Orion
will spin the jams and give you a chance to see the models up close and
personal.

Doors are 4PM and the fashion show is at 9:30PM. Be sure to arrive
early so you can make sure you get in!!

(http://tickets.frontgatetickets.com/choose.php?a=1&lid=15977&eid=20301) It’s true, I swear. Only $10 a pop!

If you click on the video a shot of my table at Stitch comes up about 1:12 min into it!
http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/shopping/entries/2007/11/06/stitch_fashion_show_4_pm_nov_1.html

If you don’t already have plans for this Saturday (and even if you do!), come out to the Midtown Farmers Market for the Second Saturday Shopping Spree event.

Houston Craft Mafia members Feto Soap and Rara Avis will be there with tables full of handmade goodness. Rara Avis has new notebooks from the The White Tree stationery lines, new Signature notecards, and fun summer jewelry from EUTECTIC. Lisa from Feto Soap will have her lotion bars, shea butter lip balm and handmade soaps. Come by and say hello.

The Midtown Farmers Market runs from 8am - Noon on Saturdays at t’afia restaurant (3701 Travis & W. Alabama) rain or shine. See you there!

Feto Soap and EUTECTIC handcrafted jewelry will be vending at the Midtown Farmers Market on Saturday, July 14th from 8am - Noon. The Midtown Farmers Market is located in the front of Monica Pope’s T’afia.
3701 Travis Street @ W. Alabama
directions here

Feto Soap will be at the Midtown Farmer’s Market on Friday, December 24th from 8am - Noon. The Midtown Farmer’s Market is located in the front of Monica Pope’s new restaurant T’afia. 3701 Travis Street @ W. Alabama directions here

Lotion Bars in White Tea & Ginger, China Rain, Ginger Lime, Sparkling Citrus, Lavender, and Chocolate will be available!