That's A Relief!

I've had a handbag design floating around my brain for months. I think the original sketch is on the back of one of the kidling's art projects. I made a prototype a month or two ago and was so discouraged I gave up.

Then my friend, Alizah, invited me to sell some bags at her jewelry show. I dusted off my miscellaneous scribbles and finally pushed the design out of my head and through the sewing machine so I could have some new bags to sell at her show. Chris likens this to when we throw one of our extremely rare dinner parties and I decide to make something I've never made before that usually involves a technique I've never tried or perhaps lighting something on fire (Hey Mom, remember that time I singed off part of my eyebrows making Steak Hong Kong?).

Anyways, here's my latest Shoulder Bag Design:


I'm pleased with how they turned out, although I might tweak the closure system for the next iterations. I'm so relieved to have the design out of my head. Sometimes the knocking got a little deafening. Several of these bags will be in my Etsy shop eventually, once I've taken pictures and come up with a better name than "Shoulder Bag." Any suggestions?

Happy Street

Here's some cuteness I got in the mail yesterday:


I've already made up some little stories in my head about the adventures of Hedgie, Woolie the Sheep and their flock of chicks. The Happy Street Fabric is destined to become Passport Wallets, because isn't Happy Street what we're looking for when we're traveling?

I got these fabrics from Super Buzzy, one of my favorite on-line fabric sources. They are having a big Spring Cleaning Sale that I found out from my new favorite site, True Up. True Up is all about fabric. It highlights manufacturers, designers, self-printing options and sales. I love indulging my fabric geekiness there, although my PayPal account has felt its effects!

I'm getting ready to sell my bags at my friend Alizah's house this weekend. She has lovely jewelry so I'm planning on adding to my earring collection. I've been trying to figure out if I have time to include Hedgie and Co. in some new wallets...

P.S. Some of my things got a little blog action! My Owls of Athena Passport Wallet got a mention at Blue Orchid Design, and my Retro Blue Dots Brooch Clusters made it into a terrific collection of retro items at smashingmagazine.com. Yay!

The Sad Truth About My Head

I've noticed a disturbing trend - so many of my blog posts open with sentences following this pattern:

"[Insert quaint non-expletive exclamation], I didn't mean to take [Insert embarrassingly long span of time] between posts, but I've been busy with [Insert random life occurrences]!"

I must try and break this habit. After this post.

Let's play a game. I'll make a list of Inserts and you can come up with an opening sentence for this post. Here we go:

Quaint non-expletive exclamations:
Darn
Dang
Golly
Gee Whiz
Sweet Kitty
Cripes
Jiminy Cricket

Embarrassingly long spans of time:
A week
A fortnight
A month
A year
An eon

Random life occurrences (based on true events)
Jury Duty
Tax Preparation
Family members struck with colds, stomach flu and strep throat
Organizing the Elementary School Carnival
Teaching an Etsy Workshop
Teaching at the YMCA
A Spring Break trip to Olympic Penninsula
Briefly walking next to Danny DeVito

Wasn't that fun? Hmm, now my life looks more like a Mad Lib and less like blah blah blah boring stuff.

Anyways, back to the sad truth about my head. It hates hats. Especially handknitted hats. I've knitted three hats for myself (including one while participating in the aforemetioned Jury Duty) and my head has rejected all three with such force of personality that the hats immediately defected to the oldest Kidling's head.

Here's one traitorous hat knitted with some of my handspun:


And here is another, modeled with some matching Knucks I made for the oldest kidling to match her father's. When I asked when she'd wear them, she said, "When I'm working on the scaffolding with Daddy."

The hat is The Greenery Hat and lots of fun to knit. And, really, the hats look so cute on the kidling, I'm over being sad about my bulbous head.