Locust Street Crafts

Hey there! I'm Erica, the shortest and oldest member of the Locust Street Crafts collective. And by oldest, I mean I'm 2 months older than Sam. SO OLD. You can call me Erica, B, Erica B, Bizzle, E, or Smithnarski.

I learned to knit my sophomore year of college when my good friend Susanne bought me my first pair of #9 straight needles and a skein of blue Lion Brand Homespun yarn. For the next three months I proceeded to knit the most awful looking scarf for my then-boyfriend. The scarf began with 20 stitches and ended with 32. At the time, I wasn't sure what I did wrong, but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with accidental yarn-overs and lack of an attention span. Not sure if he still has that scarf...

After the ill-fated scarf incident, I decided to buy Knitting for Dummies. I personally think this book is by far one of the best knitting books I own. If there was a fire and I was told to pick one non-fiction book to save, I would pick this one. But if you said "Erica, you can pick a non-fiction and a fiction book to save from your house fire," I would pick The Thirteenth Tale  as my fiction choice. This hypothetical house fire is bumming me out, though, so let's talk about something else.

I just recently finished a baby blanket for my fiance's new-to-the-world niece, Violet. She's about 3 weeks old now, and itty bitty. Her gray and pink cotton boucle blanket turned out way better than the above-mentioned blue scarf.

 A close-up view of Violet's blanket

I have a fiance named Kevin Smith (not the director of Mallrats). He is a director though! You should check out his work here. We have two rescue cats named Beezy and Xena. They are the reason we can't have nice things. Once of my favorite "family" pictures is one of family nap time.

L-R My foot, Beezy body, Kevin's foot



Besides crafting, movies are my thing. I love movies. If you ask me what my favorite movie is, you should be prepared for questions about genre, decade, actor, or director. I can't pick just one. But here's a list of some of my favorite movies to craft to:

• Dirty Dancing
• Super Troopers
• Downton Abbey
• Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
• When Harry Met Sally
• The Princess Bride
• Despicable Me
• Things without subtitles

So that's me. And I will leave you with this parting thought: