I'm a Find!

I woke up the other day to a convo from the lovely Steph, letting me know that my Passport Wallet is an Etsy Find!


For the uninitiated, Etsy disperses news/how-to's/style commentary from its Storque site and often selects sellers to feature. I'm thrilled to get mentioned!

Now I need to focus on my weekend plans:
-Mow the lawn
It'll be the first time this year, so I'm expecting it to be like the jungle in "Romancing the Stone" sans a young Michael Douglas with a machete. Bummer.

-Photograph shoulder bags, flip wallets, pouches
Yay, the weather folk are finally predicting sun!

-Take the kidlings to see "Busytown" at the Children's Theatre
For the third time (but I love it just as much as they do).

-Sort my scraps

-Sew a bunch of stuff

-Rent "Romancing the Stone"
Hey, do you remember an old movie called "Napoleon and Samantha" with an itty-bitty Jodie Foster and my childhood heart-throb, Johnny Whittaker, and an old circus lion? I got it from the library the other day to show the kidlings and Michael Douglas played a poli-sci student (or "hippie") who saved the day. The movie was much more surreal than I remember.

What are you doing this weekend?

New Passport Wallets

Yay, some of my new superbuzzy fabric is now a passport wallet called "Happy Map"!


Here's the interior:


The youngest kidling picked out the orange dotty fabric. She's developing a great eye for color! My favorite thing about the main fabric is the little quotes, like "Without a purpose, being free, to please myself, it seems the time stops." I love non-American English syntax.

Here's another new Passport Wallet:


My friend, Laurie, put together most of these fabrics for a custom order passport wallet and I like them so much, I put her design into production. Here's the inside:


These will go into the shop today and tomorrow, plus I have some new flip wallets to photograph. Oh, and those new shoulder bags, too. I hope my Seattle sky can stay clear for the next few days!!

My Own Project Runway (I think)

True confession: I've never seen Project Runway. I caught about 30 seconds once. It looked like someone was rushing in from the Dry Cleaners. I mean to watch it, but we don't have cable and I keep forgetting to put it on hold at the library. I don't what my problem is because it sounds like my kind of show.

Anyways, this is a boring introduction to my pronouncement of May as my personal Project Runway month. This month I'm going to make myself some clothes. I'm tired of looking like I threw on whatever was lying on my closet floor (which is how I actually pick my daily ensembles) and I hate shopping for clothes with the intensity of a white hot sun. Especially with 2 kids in tow - someday, if we ever meet in person, I'll tell you the story of trying on bras at Target with both kidlings in the dressing room. Hilarious and far too mortifying to discuss here. So I figure turning clothes acquisition into a craft is my best bet.

And the Interwebs have aligned to encourage me in my endeavor! A few nights ago, as I ordered this from Amazon

photo courtesy of amazon.com

Sew, Mama, Sew! announced their Women's Clothing Month! They are even having a Sew-Along which I'm excited for, especially since I missed their Quilt-Along.

So it was all meant to be. I'll try and post some updates and photos (if I don't look too freakishly strange) throughout the month. Wish me luck!

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.

Pattern Patter

I've been thinking about patterns a lot lately. It all started when the kidlings were helping me tidy up. Through a typical parent/child miscommunication (the kind where a kid's brain translates, "Please run upstairs and change your socks" into "Please run upstairs and change your socks and then play Pioneer Girl and wash the dirty socks in the bathroom sink with extra soap and wear a funny bonnet for extra authenticity and be sure to make Mommy wait for 20 minutes wondering how long it takes to change your socks.") my book of patterns was lost for a heart-stopping 20 minutes.


I know it doesn't look like much, but that notebook carries almost all the pattern pieces and construction notes for my wares. I'm sure I could replicate them if need be, but I'd really rather not. And practicality aside - while I love to watch the number of sold items in my Etsy shop click upward, that notebook is a more tangible marker of my sewing accomplishments. Sometimes I can't believe I actually created patterns that work! (We found the notebook on the dress-up box, by the way.)

At the other end of the spectrum, I've been struggling with a lack of knitting patterns lately. I was always a knitter firmly wedded to a pattern. The connection between a specific yarn and a specific pattern was absolute. Then I started spinning and ending up with lovely yarn that had no pattern to go with it. What to do?

My first forays into winging it did not go well. I used these 2 of my handspuns



to knit 2 garter stitch scarves that were awful. Far too wide and just the right length do be supremely annoying. So the poor scarves just sat there and moped. Then I got Lexi Boeger's Intertwined from the library and it really helped me to "listen" to my yarns and let them guide me. So I unraveled (frogged?) the scarves, reknit them and I'm so pleased with the outcomes!

First is this scarf:


It's still a garter stitch scarf, but I re-knit it half as wide and it looks (and wears) so much better! The narrower width concentrates the colors so much more and blocks are in more pleasing proportions. The yarn was made with one of Hobbledehoy's Happy Batts and pink roving from bethbrown.

Here's the second scarf:


I knit this one with a drop stitch and I love how airy it is. The drop stitch accentuates the lovely candy striping of the yarn.


I probably should have reset the twist after unraveling the yarn so it wasn't so squirmy. But I kind of like the squirms. This yarn was spun from one of artclub's surprise batts.

So that's my pattern patter for today. Anything you'd like to patter about?

Mama's Got a New Bag!

Hey, look, I made a new bag just for me:


It's rather rare for me to make a bag for myself. You usually see me wandering around with a proto-type or minor sewing disaster slung across my shoulder. I splurged on this bag because my ancient messenger bag has been leaving bits and pieces all over town lately AND Craft Magazine and Amy Butler are having a bag-making contest.

I contemplated entering my Sophia Bag, but this Amy Butler "High Street Messenger" pattern was calling to me from my pile of Good Intentions. To better justify this project, I stipulated that I could only buy minimal fabric and everything else was from my stash. Fortunately, I'm a pack-rat and only had to buy the solid curry fabric and supplement my stock of brown twill. I even found the marine hardware I used for a closure in my box of "General Randomness."

I made some modifications to the pattern, mostly by-passing zippered pockets. I trimmed the exterior pockets using Quenna's brilliant faux piping tip.


My favorite part was the patchwork front flap. I used to be a quilter ages ago and this project gave me a chance to reacquaint myself with my loyal walking foot and the joy of hand sewing. I've wanted to participate in Sew, Mama Sew's Quilting Month and just haven't had the time but I think the quilting bug has been reintroduced to my crafty agenda.

All in all, this was a fun project with only a few mis-steps. Of course, thinking about the prize of a new sewing machine kept me going through the hard parts (not that I could say any of these thoughts out loud because, you know, my stalwart Viking was RIGHT THERE!).

P.S. I've been checking out the other entries and there are some amazing bag-makers out there. I don't think my Viking has to worry about being replaced any time soon. That's ok, though, I got a new bag out of the deal!

Experiments with dye

Wow, February is zipping by me at lightening speed! We had the younger kidling's birthday party with a Candyland Theme, complete with a green-screen Candy Tram ride that Chris whipped up in a few days. And we're still reeling from the sugar rush!

Last weekend, through a harmonic convergence of getting caught up with my shop, a well-timed play-date and a technical rehearsal, I had the house completely to myself for 2 hours! So I dug out some natural merino roving I'd bought ages ago and messed around with dying it.

The kidlings and I experimented with Kool-aid dyes before so this time I added Wilton's Food Coloring Gels. I've had these for (literally) years, so some of them were kind of gummy. Next time I do this, I'll go buy some new jars. I used instructions from Keep On Knitting in the Free World and they worked like a charm.


I ended up using Wilton's Brown, Copper, and Kelly Green along with Kool-Aid Lemonade.

Here's half the roving after a good soaking in water with the dyes squirted on with a turkey baster. At this point I seriously doubted my color choices and felt strangely drawn to the idea of spaghetti for dinner. Next up was a few trips through the microwave and drying out in the shower to become this:


I like the colors together but wish I'd used two to three times more dye. I'm excited to spin it up, though, and see what I get!

And finally, I got a lovely award as a "You Make My Day Blog" from Jocelyn! Thank you so, much Jocelyn! (I'm kind of shy when it comes to tagging other people, so it may take a little while to pass along the award.)

"Grand!"

That's how I've been feeling this week for a variety of reasons.

First, I got so many kind and heartwarming compliments on the bag and pattern review I did for Sew, Mama, Sew. Here's the bag:


It's one of Amy Butler's new patterns, The Sophia Carry-All. The pattern review is here.

I also made some new things for my shop, including this flip wallet:

(Aren't the bunnies adorable?)

And this Passport Wallet:




And finally, I made it to a grand's worth of hearts yesterday!

Now I have a hankering for some Pillsbury Doughboy's Grands Biscuits.

How have you been feeling today?

Extracurricular Sewing

It's a brand new year and yet my Etsy shop looks much like it did in 2007. The poor shop has been a bit neglected because I've been doing a lot of extracurricular sewing this month.

First, I sewed up a passel of bags for my sister's birthday.


It was a particularly special birthday for her this year, so she got an extra helping of presents! I especially like this bag:


I call it "The Light Bright Bag" because it makes me think of the Light Bright toy we shared when we were kids. For those of the younger set, a Light Bright was a backlit panel with a grid of little holes over black paper that you could poke plastic pegs into to make glowing designs. Oh, here's the updated version. My sister picked the fabric for this bag and I think it underscores her excellent taste. If you ever see me wearing anything cute or hip, there's a 95% chance it was a gift from her!

I also made a bag for a Pattern Review I did for Sew, Mama, Sew. The review will appear early next week and I'll post some pics after that. It was a lot of fun to make a bag from someone else's pattern! It's so easy to follow my own well-trodden path and get into a rut. I've been thinking of doing some more pattern reviews here. What do you think?

Anyways, now that my extracurricular sewing is finished, I'll be working on my new handbag design this weekend and hopefully will have one or two for my shop on Monday.

Happy weekend!

So little time...

I have so many things on my to-do list including:

1. putting a new line of handbags for my shop into production
2. adding the PayPal storefront somewhere over there------>
   
3. proto-typing zipper pouches
4. spinning yarn for mitts for my sister-in-law
5. working on a pattern review for Sew, Mama, Sew

And yet I'm obsessing about sewing a new shirt for myself. My inspiration is an article from the Threads Magazine newsletter called "A Figure-Flattering Tee" (and if there ever was a figure that needs flattering, it's mine.)

photo courtesy of Threads Magazine

I love Threads and have been a subscriber for years. I love to go through old issues because there is always some new technique to learn or hint to try. The above article is by Marcy Tilton, whose patterns and techniques are wonderful. I especially love this article about t-shirt construction. Anyways, it's taking tremendous will-power to not run to the fabric store and buy patterns and fabric and dust off my serger.

What's tempting you lately?

Nifty!

Just a quick note to mention some nifty things I gleaned from the Etsy forums today:

1. Heart-o-Matic

This is a quick way to see how many Etsy Hearts you've garnered! You can find out stats for your shop or individual items. It's a much quicker way to indulge my ego than waiting and waiting for my spiral of hearts to stop spinning.

2. PayPal Store Front

You can use this widget to set up a little store-front on your blog! I just messed around with it and it is the niftiest. I'll be adding a little store-front down in the lower right hand corner later in the month when I have it all updated. Here's the Etsy forum thread discussing it. Thanks to Meringue and MagicJelly for letting us in on the coolness.


Also, I just discovered Flickr Stats. You need a Pro account to activate them, but it's another cool way to track views and where they're coming from.

Any cool tools you'd like to share?

Yarn

(Sometimes good post titles escape me. This is one of those times.)

Another activity during my hiatus was knitting up some of my handspun yarn into presents. That was a lot fun and deeply satisfying. It tickles me to no end to know that I took some lovely colored fluffy stuff and turned it into something durable and fun (I hope) to wear. So, let's see, what did I make...

My Sonoma yarn spun from roving from Maine Woods Yarn became these mitts, modeled by my pal (and mitt recipient) Case. I used Midnight Knitter's Potluck Wool Mittenettes pattern.

My Hyacinth yarn, also from Maine Woods Yarn, became a scarf for one of my sisters-in-law. The pattern is Yarn Harlot's One Row Handspun Scarf - a quick and fun one to knit!

I had a lovely time spinning a chunky yarn from Knitspin's Felldew roving, which I knitted into wristwarmers for my other sister-in-law. I made up the pattern as I went along.

I also got my invitation to Ravelry which I am slowly updating. I'm MaiaL there (good user names escape me even more often than good post titles!) if you ever want to visit.

And before I forget, Happy New Year! I hope you all had a fun and safe one. We spent our New Years watching bits and pieces of the fireworks show at the Space Needle from our upstairs window. There was a computer glitch, so it was a haphazard show.

Lifesavers and Ketchup

Golly, I didn't intend to take such a long break, but my brisk Etsy sales (yay!) and holiday preparations kept me ensconced in my sewing studio and away from my blog. I hope your holiday season has been lovely and if presents are a part of your celebration, I hope you got some that made you happy.

I certainly did! For the "Lifesaver" portion of this post, I'll begin with a gift that saved me during my Etsy holiday rush:


It's a Yamata Iron Press that Chris gave me for my birthday/Christmas. I have no idea how well it presses clothing but for fusing interfacing it has no equal! Not to linger too long in hyperbole, this appliance reduces my production time dramatically. And it makes my least favorite part of sewing one of the most fun with its speed and cool sci-fi sounding steamer. Thank you, Chris!

Here's my second Lifesaver:


It's home-made chai that Chris' sister, Jen, made for me a few years ago. I rediscovered it in the back of a cabinet just in time to help me through some late nights sewing. It smells and tastes divine. Thanks, Jen!

And now for the Ketchup....or Catch-Up (yes, I am as word-geeky as that pun indicates). Here are some things I've been doing since my last post:

Making some new flare clutches...



...some custom order Passport Wallets...



...helping the oldest kidling with her school's craft fair...

...and making the Etsy front page!


(I missed the actual Front Page, but this is the treasury that made it. Thanks to you all who clued me in!)

I also hinted a while ago that a Rock Star might be visiting. Ann Wilson of Heart recorded a song in Chris's studio. Which is in our basement. So I got to answer the door for a Rock Star! She was lovely and kind and amazing to hear. The piece is for a production at Seattle Children's Theatre.

I have lots of yarn-y things to chat about, too, but I'll save that for another post.

Any presents you're especially happy about?

More On Photography

Thanks to everyone who chimed in on my "Photo-phobia" issues. I have a feeling that taking good pictures, similar to doing laundry, will be a constant bugaboo for me.

Here is the set up I've been using lately:


Chris made the collapsible staging area for me - it's great. I set it up in the dining room on a card table where we get the most light. I've been using banner paper for a background. Banner paper pros: it is white, inexpensive, readily available and easy to store. Cons: it's translucent and very grainy in cloudy light. And as you can see, we get a lot of cloudy light here in Seattle...

...which led to more research about camera and PhotoShop adjustments. Here are some more useful tutorials I found on Etsy's "Storque":

Bright Light, Big Color: Using EV and White Balance to Make Your Photos True to Life

On the Level: Making your Photos Pop with Histograms and Levels

Knowing how to make these adjustments is very useful, but I've come to the conclusion that I need to reduce those adjustments in the first place with better lighting.

My new plan: use professional photography lights.

My inspiration: Jenn Maruska and her husband, Josh.

Jenn has some of the most distinctive and pretty product photos.

from JennMaruskaDesign.etsy.com

Go and check out her Etsy shop if you've never seen it- it's ok, I'll wait until you're back.

Isn't her shop just lovely? Her husband, Josh, takes the photos and Jenn noted on her blog that Josh posted this excellent description of his set up and techniques at his blog. Here is Josh's set-up:

from Josh Maruska's Blog

OK, now please go and check out Josh's post. It's very informative and the story of how he got his lights is excellent.

Wasn't that a good read? He's added some more information since I first read his post and now I have to go back to take some more notes.

Here's the crazy thing: after all my grousing about my photos, it all comes down to sheer laziness on my part because we OWN PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY LIGHTS! I used them at the beginning of my Etsy adventure but got too lazy about setting them up and taking them down all the time (keeping the lights up isn't a practical option with kids in the house). Also, they are very hot and I got really sweaty. But I am now committed to using them and hoping that my results are half as professional as Josh and Jenn's.

Whew, such a long post about photography! Having high quality product photos is so vital to an on-line business, though, that I'm sure I'll revisit the subject in the near future.

Thanks to Josh and Jenn for sharing their behind-the-scenes look!

P.S. Jenn recently got one my Brown Bohemian Handbags and said some very kind things about it on her blog. Thank you, Jenn!