To get things started for Maker Faire Detroit, we gathered in Shed 3 at Eastern Market for an impromptu conference, calling all makers, crafters, thinkers, etc. From learning what business opportunities there are for the up-and-coming maker, to an all-local lunch from Detroit Evolution and meeting Lee Zlotoff, the creator of "MacGyver," (!!!!!!!), it was a great group of folks passionate about making it in Detroit and putting creative folks front and center. If you missed the lineup, check out our great group of speakers. Inspiring stuff!

Check out more photos here.

Our very own Brookelynn was waaaaayyy more relaxed then I was when she met a cockroach from one of the Detroit Maker Faire exhibitors at Can Do Camp. I stayed on the protective side of my camera just to be safe. We crafters are pretty gutsy (well, Brookelynn is!).

Lately I've been hanging out with a friend who is really into crop circles. So today I was thinking about crop circles, and then my mind went back to crafts, and then back to crop circles ... And I made a delightful discovery - this sweet crop circle quilt, made by Jaime Kuli McIntosh (Georgetown, KY) of Twisted Textiles. She documents her process on Craftster. I love the quilt squares in various shades of gray. This is not the bed covering of choice for those in fear of alien encounters. Who knows what that pattern communicates?

Susan Beal of West Coast Crafty brings us more of her excellent crafty finds in this month's Bazaar on Photography. I love how she made a Qoop calendar with beautiful photos of her daughter Pearl.

Feel like putting your crafty thinking cap on? Join us on the DIY Stage, located in the Automotive Hall of Fame, this weekend at Maker Faire Detroit. We'll have presentations every half hour.

Congratulations to Summer of London, Ontario, Gloria of Norwalk, Calif., and Kristin of Ames, Iowa, who each won a copy of The Art of Preserving. Enjoy the book and let us know your favorite recipes!

Vickie Howell knows knitting. Check out the complete Knitting 101: Basic Stitches tutorial, including a special six-part introduction to knitting in this week's CRAFT Video. In the video above, learn the basic knit and purl stitches in the Continental style of knitting.

Subscribe to the CRAFT Podcast in iTunes, download the first m4v video directly, or watch the playlist on YouTube.

Yesterday the Maker Faire hosted the Can Do Camp at the Eastern Market in Detroit. The day was filled with amazing discussions about the future of creative innovation and enterprise. Young entrepreneurs connected with veterans of business, and many amazing ideas were sparked. Yet it wasn't all business chatter, thanks to lunch and flowers from Detroit Evolution.

More than just a catering company, Detroit Evolution is a movement encompassing sustainable agriculture, education, and even yoga and bodywork. They created a vegan feast made with locally produced food, and my instantly fell in love with their amazing menu signs.

Created by the talented Jessica Reid, the frames of each menu were a stunning collage of scavenged materials that included wasps nests, bark, turkey tail mushrooms, and even metal bits from the abandoned Packard plant. I love that she incorporated tiny bits of litter like bottle caps and can tabs in with all the natural textures. She did a beautiful job turning information into art.

Wrapping up this month's Design Studio tour we have the independently minded design company, Volume Inc., comprised of Adam Brodsley and Eric Heiman. Eric and Adam met while teaching at San Francisco's California College of the Arts. They founded Volume "at the dawn of the new millennium" and the rest is history. Living history, that is ...

Cool, now I know what to do with all my dust-gathering knee x-rays! This anatomically awesome lampshade was designed by Sture Pallarp. [via Street Anatomy]

Cross-Stitch Ninja created this cross-stitch piece based on one of the most famous quotes from Mythbuster, Adam Savage. She's even posted the pattern for it, so you can make one for yourself!

Congrats to Emily from North Carolina, Leslie from Columbus, OH and Stephanie from Ontario, Canada for each winning a copy of The Sewing Answer Book by Barbara Weiland Talbert from our recent giveaway. Thanks to all who entered. More giveaways are coming soon!

Matthew Borgatti makes these laser-cut t-rex skull cufflinks, perfect for that fancy-pants paleontologist in your life.

Jenny Hart points us to the embroidered work of artist Peter Crawley. I love the crisp, stark quality of the stitched illustrations, and think Jenny sums it up well on her blog, Embroidery as Art:

Worked almost exclusively in black thread on paper, the precision and line work that could be mistaken for pen and ink is sweetly betrayed by the soft burs and errant fibers.

Photography by © John Gruen, from Toe-Up 2-at-a Time Socks by © Melissa Morgan-Oakes, used with permission from Storey Publishing.

Congrats to Ellen from Briarcliff Manor, NY, Mary Anne from Ontario, Canada and Nina from Vancouver, Canada, for each winning a copy of Toe-Up 2-at-a-Time Socks by Melissa Morgan-Oaks from our recent giveaway. Thanks to everyone who entered!

Mary P. (Nebraska) made a fascinator for her mom and posted about it on her blog, Pretty Good Things. Her mom loves Jimmy Buffett, and she concocted this glittery desert island awesomeness for her to wear to the next Jimmy Buffett concert.

Note: You learn something new every day: Parrot head is a commonly used nickname for a Jimmy Buffett fan.

She explains the thought process behind her creation:

I wanted this little guy to be a bit more demure (who doesn't like miniature?) yet still have some fun with kitsch, loads of glitter (who doesn't like a little glitz?) and generally, just keep it toned-down in size. The size thing is an issue of both comfort (foam, acrylic, or polyester based headgear just doesn't breathe, I don't care what you say) and consideration (no one wants that dude in front of them at a concert...everyone likes to see what is in front of them...right?) This fascinator is comfortable AND nice! how about that?

Ha! If someone were wearing that in front of me at a concert it would really be awesome.

Nikol here. I'm almost finished, but I still haven't committed to a sleeve. I knit one of each and I'm parading around in the mirror trying to decide. Help me pick?

That's the cap on the left and the flutter on the right. The wee sleeve variations eat very little yarn, so I'm making the torso longer, which I think suits the plainer version. In fact, you can get this length of the collarless, mini-sleeve variation out of a mere 4 balls of yarn.

I also have a great tip for people knitting the original, collared version. I'm a loose knitter, especially in seed stitch, and I noticed my collar was starting to stretch over time. Here's a very quick way to stabilize the collar, and it has the added bonus of defining the fold.

It's fastest in crochet, but you can produce the exact same effect by knitting.

Start the wrong side facing and your collar on top, look for the first row of stockinette after the seed collar. It will be the first row that's composed completely of purl stitches. You'll loosely work a stabilizing row through those purl bumps.

You'll need an H/8 crochert hook or US 8 knitting needle. You need to use a needle one size up and work loosely so your collar will be stable without pulling in.

To crochet, working one stitch through each purl bump, work one row of slip stitch.

To knit, pick up and immediately bind off one stitch through each purl bum across the row.

Voila!

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Apologies for the alliterative title, but I couldn't resist, and I think it's true! About four years ago, my freshly affianced boyfriend and I took an old Soviet train with some friends from Helsinki to St. Petersburg at the height of the white nights (it's true, it never really get dark there in summer). We found our lodgings and wandered around the still-hopping streets (no one seems to sleep there in summer, either) looking for dinner. We found a dark and dingy-looking restaurant and of course ordered borscht, a little nervously.

What arrived was a revelation. Not the sloppy red soup of my experience, but a richly layered stew, with tender beef, sweet beets, and a myriad of other exquisite flavors. I've been yearning for this borscht ever since, but it was the fresh beets tumbling off the farmer's market counters that sent me searching for the right recipe.

I looked at countless recipes online before settling on this beef borscht recipe from Emeril Legasse. Surprisingly easy, it actually managed to match my expectations. (For really tender beef, make sure not to overcook it in the first step.) Even my picky husband gave it a thumbs-up. In fact, the flavors were close enough to my memory to spark another memory, of hard-boiled egg in the original borscht. I'll throw a few chopped up boiled eggs in the mix next time. And yes, there will definitely be a next time.

Note: I ran out of fresh dill for the photo (the dinner hour is murder for food photography) and used a sprig of parsley for a dash of green, but it's crucial for the dish, so make sure to find some!

When I was a child, I inhabited a fantasy playland that existed only in my mind. (Yes, I still spend much of my time there.) If only I had Photoshop to bring my magical visions to life! Forty-two roads took her daughter's crafty creative play to a whole new level.

By Diane Gilleland

Zines (short for "fanzines" or "magazines") are self-published booklets about any subject that grabs you. (Seriously, you can find a zine about just about anything.) There's a rich zine culture around the world, where music fans, writers, comic book artists, citizen journalists, poets, and others of every stripe are making, trading, and selling their creations.

Zine-making is also a fantastic activity for kids. Not only are zines a fun means of creative expression, making them gives kids a little insight into how published books and magazines are made, and may help them think more critically about what goes into those mainstream publications.

Here are some fun ways to create zine-making experiences for kids of all ages.

My son turned 8 last week, and in our family when it's your birthday you get to pick the type of cake and the birthday dinner. He chose crab legs and artichokes for dinner, which basically translates to things he can dip into butter, and Snickerdoodle for his cake flavor.

Never having heard of Snickerdoodle Cake, I scoured the internet for recipes, finally settling on one that used a cake mix (thank you, Betty Crocker!) and called for cinnamon in both the cake batter and the frosting.

I substituted applesauce for half the butter in the cake, and sprinkled cinnamon sugar on top once it was frosted. And it was delicious, if I do say so myself! We were all amazed at how much it really tasted like a Snickerdoodle cookie, and how enjoyable that flavor sensation is in a moist cake with buttery topping. Ah, there's that butter theme again. He's obviously wise beyond his eight years...

Download the Recipe PDF Right click to save the PDF to your desktop. Directions on downloading PDFs.

Snickerdoodle Cake with Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting
[adapted from Henrie's recipe]

Cake Ingredients

• 1 pkg. yellow or white cake mix


• 1 cup milk


• 1/2 stick butter, melted


• 1/2 cup applesauce


• 3 large eggs


• 1 tsp. vanilla


• 2 tsp. ground cinnamon

Frosting Ingredients

• 1 stick of butter, room temperature


• 3-3/4 cup powdered sugar


• 3 T milk (or a bit more to thin the frosting)


• 1 tsp. vanilla


• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon

Fancy sugar sprinkles and more ground cinnamon on top for the finishing flourish.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease and flour two 9" round cake pans.


2. Place cake mix, milk, melted butter, applesauce, eggs, vanilla, and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl. Mix for 3 minutes until well blended.


3. Divide batter between the pans and place them in the oven side by side. Bake until they are golden brown, about 27-29 minutes.


4. Remove cakes from oven and cool for 10 minutes, then invert them on a rack and cool completely.


5. While the cakes cool, prepare the frosting (directions below).


6. Frost the cake and put it in the fridge until the frosting sets if needed, probably for about 20 minutes.


7. Sprinkle fancy sugar and a pinch of cinnamon on the top if you like, or make a simple cinnamon sugar mixture and sprinkle liberally.


8. If you have leftovers (after breakfast the next morning we had nothing left), keep refrigerated.

Make the Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting

1. Place butter in large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low until fluffy, about 30 seconds.


2. Add powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla. Blend on low until sugar is incorporated, about 1 minute.


3. Add the cinnamon, and Increase the speed to medium. Beat until light and fluffy, about 1 minute more.


4. Blend in up to 1 tablespoon milk if the frosting seems too stiff.

Flickr user, sarahxsea, created this awesome cross-stitch for some friends as a thank you/housewarming gift.

They gave me an awesome Lego set of an RV when I moved into my apartment last year, so I thought I would return the favor!