The month in review

I've been ridiculously busy lately, which is why I can go for more than a month without updating. But there's plenty to talk about, so here's a nice little recap.

We did Go Play Northwest in the middle of June, which was a weekend of indie games. I ran a Best Friends game (The Girls of Hogwarts), which turned out to be utterly ridiculous. But that's my favorite sort of game to run. (Of course, I finally read books 3 and 4 of the Harry Potter series over the past week, and discovered that my major plot was similar to something that happened in the books!) I also got to play some games I had not played before, and generally enjoyed them.

The following weekend we had fun at a tapas party with some of our gamer friends. I made chocolate chip banana bread, which was very popular, but all of the food I tried was incredibly good. Lots of little dishes, and lots of chit chat. We also did a quick visit to the zoo, which we found is very nice first thing on a Sunday morning. It's not too crowded, it's still cool out, and it's a good way to get some exercise not at the gym. We're hoping to do this more often when our schedule permits, since we do have a zoo membership. :)

I had a long weekend for the Fourth of July, but that was also the weekend that I had to ship Jeremy off to Kansas for his writer's workshop. He left on the 4th, and I spent most of that day and the next day in my studio, working on sewing projects. I got some designs figured out, and also had fun with making handmade labels for my stuff. I'll have pictures of the new stuff after this coming weekend, when I've wrangled a couple of my teenaged friends (well, technically they're 20 now) into modeling for me. I need the pictures ASAP, so that I can apply to vend at SteamCon. *fingers crossed*

While Jeremy was off doing writer things, I got to spend some time crafting at Black Door Studio, and learning about referreeing for the Jet City Roller Girls. Yeah, I totally needed another hobby, I know. :) But they were looking for skating and non-skating officials, and I think I'm going to try to do the skating side of things. Wish me luck. :) I haven't skated in 5 years, but I'm picking out skates tomorrow night. The good news is that the season has already ended, so I will have some time to get my skating skills up to par before the new season starts next year. And if I discover that I am absolutely a wreck on skates, I can get involved with the non-skating side of things. :)

I spent last week in Kansas City for work, and got to spend some extra time with my sister and her family. I took my nephew to Steamboat Arabia, because he had been asking to go for a while. It ended up that I took him by myself, rather than with my sister and niece, but it worked out surprisingly well. I told him that since he did so well, we would try to do other things like that when I have extra time in KC. But we'll see if this is like the way that kids behave themselves the first time they get a new babysitter, and then start pushing the boundaries... my nephew is pretty well behaved though, so we may be okay. :)

After that, I headed out to Lawrence, where Jeremy had been staying, and got to meet some of the folks he had been workshopping with. It was REALLY hot in Lawrence, and I wasn't there much more than 12 hours before we had to head back to KC to fly home. We made it back safely, and had an apartment full of cats in need of love. But they're always in need of love. :) I got to spend yesterday at home to get caught up on chores and such, which was very nice. I even made a semi-elaborate dinner. I'm so domestic when I have time. :)

We've already got a bunch of stuff planned for this week, and then I'm off to Kansas City again on Sunday. No rest for the wicked. None at all.

And I'm back

The four day weekend was pretty much as awesome as advertised, with only a couple of exceptions. The theater we tried to see Sherlock Holmes at was packed to the gills, so that we ended up in the front row. By the time the previews were rolling, I was getting motion sickness. I thought maybe the quality would improve when the movie started, but I couldn't do it. :( Then either as a result of that, or just ongoing headache issues, I had a bad enough migraine on Saturday night that I had to ditch out of D&D.

Aside from that, it was a good weekend. The present haul was small but exciting this year. Jeremy's Seattle family got us a membership at the Pacific Science Center. I've actually never been there (though I did see Watchmen at their IMAX). Jeremy got me the first volume of the Absolute Sandman, which is a GORGEOUS reprinting of my favorite comic series ever. It's something that I would never buy for myself, because I already own all of the comics. But it's nice to have the fancy collector's version as well. :) (And he's a smart one, in that he's probably already figured out what to buy me for our next three Christmases as well. :) ) And really, that's about it. I'm not sure if I'll get anything from my dad this year, and we all agreed to just do presents for the little kids on Mom's side. But that's okay. I don't really need stuff. :)

I also managed to get in about four hours in the studio on Saturday, which had moments of awesome and moments of frustration. I got decent photos (but not great), I pulled a bit of stuff to destash (but I'm having trouble letting go of some stuff), and I worked on four sewing projects. Two of the sewing projects turned out fine, while the other two had challenges. Still, I'm not gonna get better at this by just letting my machine sit in the studio. :)

So one of my goals for the upcoming year is going to be to try to find one day a week (or one every two weeks, if need be) when I can get to the studio for a chunk of time. Some of that time will have to be spent doing photography and other exciting things, but the bulk of the time will hopefully be devoted to sewing stuff to sell in my Counting Stars shop. I've got one definite new line to work on that will be one of a kind items, but along a similar theme, and then the rest will probably be truly one of a kind stuff. The majority of it will be reconstructed clothing for now, though there is at least one item that I know how to make from scratch. But first, the overflowing fabric bin must be reduced... and I'm not quite willing to destash that just yet. :)

Another goal will be getting some of my items into shops. I've got a standing offer from Julia at Black Door Studio to keep her stocked with eyeball cat toys, so I'm trying to get those stocked up and delivered by the end of January. I think I've got another place where I could sell my Firefly-related stuff, but I need to talk to them about it. And then I need to look into places where I don't know the owner. :) I really should find a place that is interested in my crocheted roses, and I really should do that well in advance of Valentine's Day. :) And I should find some indie coffee shops that might be interested in the coffee cozies. And... my goal list is getting long. Time to start getting to work on that. :)

I made stuff!

So I managed to squeeze in a quick trip to the studio on Saturday, while Jeremy tried to get some rest at home. He's still fighting off a cold, and it was making us both pretty miserable on Saturday. Of course, I still haven't taken pictures of the studio, as I arrived there with a nearly dead camera battery, and a ton of product pictures to take!

Aside from my photos, I made a couple of big fleece blankets. On bringing those home Saturday afternoon, Jeremy was astonished. "You made those today?!" Apparently he thought that the pattern on the first one I showed him was something I had stitched or woven or some such. He has not seen me with my bags of remnants. Clearly. :)

I also altered a dress that I had found at Goodwill a while back. The dress itself was cute enough, but it had an elasticized waistband which was not very flattering on me. So my solution was to take the dress apart at the waist, reattach the top to the bottom, and end up with a long vest. I also added ties to the back, because the dress was kind of shapeless both before and after my initial alteration. The photo that Jeremy took before I went out on Sunday isn't great (especially because I accessorized heavily OVER the skirt of the vest), but there it is. In addition to the alteration of the line of the dress, I also replaced maybe half of the buttons (taking the rest off entirely), added a patch to one pocket, and put star buttons on the collar points. Oh, and part of the waistband (the non-elasticized part) became my headband. :)

(For the entire outfit: altered vest/dress over an old belly dancing top (which you can't even see), with my black skirt (so worn it looks blue now), and a gorgeous velvet scarf with burnout panels at the ends draped over my military belt. And sandals, because it was bloody hot last night. This is one of my many steampunk gypsy variations.)

The whole reason I worked on the vest, of course, was for the Abney Park show on Sunday night. Jeremy wasn't well enough to attend, so instead I dragged our friend Katie along with me. She was reluctant to tag along until I told her she could dress up out of my steampunk collection. She ended up going with a tan button-up shirt and a long rust colored vest/dress with a grommetted belt, over her jeans. She also borrowed one of my flight helmets, and Jeremy's goggles. Super adorable. :) (And she had a blast. :) )

Oddly, I didn't see even a moment of the show, as I volunteered at the merch table, as per my usual. I get paid with hugs and thanks from the band, and it means I didn't have to brave the heat and crowd in the venue. I had a chair! :)

Ugh...

This week has turned out to be one hectic week. I know that part of that I've done to myself, like insisting I had to run to the post office right after work, and silly things like that. But ugh! TGIF!

My plan is to spend the majority of tomorrow sewing, and then probably hitting a few thrift stores on Sunday to get more stuff to sew. My hour-each-way bus commute this week has gotten me WAY ahead of my self-imposed schedule on big order #2. This means I can start working on stuff for the Green Edmonds show, which is in mid-September (more on that later, of course). It's not that I don't have stuff for it, but I feel like I don't have enough stuff for it. I don't want to go too overboard, but it's nice to be able to offer options. :)

In other news, it's beastly hot in Seattle right now, with no real signs of cooling off any time soon. This kind of sucks for my plan to sew all day tomorrow, because I'll probably be melting the whole time. Melting onto your sewing project is generally a poor choice.

The newest line for my Etsy shop!

I made myself an apron to use at shows a while back, and I've discovered that it's really handy. I can have my change, my receipt book, a pen, my cell phone, and anything else I might want close at hand all in my apron. What's even better is that the apron itself is upcycled from an old pair of jean shorts!

After making some modifications to my original prototype, I've got upcycled aprons in my Etsy shop now! These are constructed from old jeans or jean shorts, embellished with upcycled dress shirts and a little bit of trim that I have on hand. This is a lot of fun, and surprising to see what I can come up with out of my own clothes that either no longer fits or isn't quite my style any more. (And so little of what I own is IN style, that it makes better sense to convert these items than donate them.)

There will definitely be more to come, including some in children's sizes (made just from shirts, thus far). I spent most of Sunday working on the first batch, and I've got more stuff on hand to make additional ones! :)

The end is in sight!

I have very little left to do on my freelancing project at this point. Just a quick review this evening, and then it's off to the author.

This means my time will be TOTALLY opening up, though I've got pretty much the rest of the week already planned out. :) But I think this means that Hello Kitty (sewing machine) will come back out to play, as Jerome wants more kilts. If only I could figure out pockets for kilts, he'd never wear pants again. :)

(And yeah, I know about UtiliKilts, and I've seen how those pockets are attached, but the fabric that Jerome has selected isn't really the right weight for those sorts of pockets. And we'd just buy him a UtiliKilt, if they made them small enough to fit his tiny little waist. The only reason we can't wear the same jeans is because his legs are WAY longer than mine.)

I've also got some fun stuff planned for my Etsy shop, just as soon as I learn whether Hello Kitty can handle denim... if she can't, the old beast of a sewing machine is just waiting for the chance to see the light of day again.

Look, it's the sekrit project!

A while back, I made myself a small fleece blanket. It was mainly small because I used a couple of remnants of fleece, rather than actually buying a couple of yards of fleece. I like remnants, especially when they are gray, purple, and burgundy with flowers and paisleys. So I ended up with a very narrow blanket that works far better as a caplet than a blanket. But I'm small, so that's okay. :)

Well, Jerome was jealous of my new blanket. He has a nice BIG fleece blanket that his grandma made for him, but I think he's had it for most of his life. I think, also, that one or more of his dogs must have stolen it on a regular basis. Whatever the case may be, it's pretty worn out and not really all that fluffy anymore. And he wanted to have a new one. So I told him I would make one when I found enough fleece in the remnant bin.

I stopped in Jo Ann's on Tuesday, purely on a fluke. Well, I was probably looking for yarn, even though I shouldn't buy any. But I always have to check out the remnant bin, and, as luck would have it, I found two LARGE pieces of green fleece... the only problem being that they didn't really match.

I am creative, however, and decided to go with it. And then I decided to get fancy...




I also grabbed a fat quarter of solid purple cotton, with the plan to add on "Mista J" on one corner. For those who don't know, "Mista J" is what Harley Quinn calls The Joker on the Batman cartoon. Jerome loves Joker and Harley (all four of his tattoos thus far are either Joker or Harley related). He also has drawn on the corner of his drawing board a rather fancy rendition of "Mista J."

So I waited till he went to work on Saturday, and then broke out the supplies, which I had been hiding in the back of my side of the closet. I finished it up in a couple of hours and had it waiting for him when he got home from work. :) Of course, my lettering is much chunkier and less elegant than his drawing, but it still captures some of the little flourishes that he drew on the ends of the letters.

And, of course, he loves it. :)

I did also want to find an old T-shirt with The Joker's face and sew that on too, but I had this memory of a T-shirt that was The Joker in the middle and the rest of the shirt, completely, was covered with "Ha! Ha! Ha!" But I have no idea where I saw this shirt, and I couldn't find it anywhere online. Between that and the fact that Jerome probably would have rather me found him the shirt to wear, I decided that I'd just go with text. :)

Weekend projects!

So I managed to complete a couple of crafty projects this weekend. I have pictures of one, but not the other. This is partially because I was thinking that the latter project wasn't quite done, but now I'm thinking it is, and partially because I never can take decent pictures of myself.

Project uno was a board from which to hang my necklaces and display my ACEOs. This was a project inspired by both Emma, who made a board from which to hang necklaces, and Kinichi River, who made a bulletin board for her craft room to hold ACEOs.



Mine does both. :) It's made from photo mat board, styrofoam insulation, 25 cent ribbon, staples, thumbtacks, and cup hooks. The only thing I bought for this project? The ribbon. All I had in the apartment was black ribbon, and I wanted to make this black and green, as that goes with two of the ACEOs I wanted to display. Now, of course, I need more ACEOs in that color scheme. :)

(And I know there's at least two people reading this blog who will recognize something that's on display now. Yay! :) )

Project dos was a skirt, made from 3 fat quarters and some shiny fabric that I had lying around. Now, you would think that 24 inches of fabric would make a relatively short skirt, especially when you take into account things like hems and waistbands and such, right? Wrong, at least for me. The skirt ended up about TWICE as long as I wanted it, once I put the 9 inch ruffle of shiny-ness on the bottom. So I messed around with the skirt for a while, trying to figure out if I should cut it off into the mini-skirt I wanted, or leave it long. I eventually just put it back into my sewing stuff, since I didn't have elastic to finish it anyway. I'm glad I did leave it alone, though, because I figured out a way to have it as a short or long skirt, and it doesn't even need elastic. It will also fit me until my waistline doubles. :)

So yeah, I now have two skirt "patterns" that use fat quarters. Somehow, this makes me insanely happy, even though I'm probably paying just as much to buy my fat quarters as I would for a real piece of fabric. :)

Red and black

I seem to be on a bit of a red and black kick lately. I actually made one hat with the intention of adding it to my shop, but when Jerome saw it, he made the "I want it" face, so I let him have it. He needed a good winter hat anyway, and I'd rather him have one I made than one from the store. :) It also matches a scarf that I made to go with my old winter coat 2 years ago, and so he's inherited that as well.

Though it started with the red and black yarn, I later found this red and black fabric, and even though I'm on a self-imposed fabric buying freeze, I had to have it. Because if red and black Celtic knotwork doesn't scream "dice bag and/or tarot card pouch," I don't know what does. Also, fat quarters of fabric make 2-4 dice bags each, which is not too bad! :) (Well, they mostly make 2-4 dice bags. Gotta have something else for the lining though. :) )



And then I threw together another hat, though it's different from the one Jerome claimed as his. But I have a BUNCH of the black yarn (bought cheap when I thought I couldn't get any more of it), and it makes a nice warm hat, as does the red and black yarn. Now I just need more yarn to go with all of the black... ;)

Of course, I'm also working on some other stuff, but I thought I'd show these two things off. I've been adding some Valentines to the shop as well, and I've got a set of those in red and black as well... yes, I'm just obsessed. :)

Monkey ears!

For those who understand, as I was drifting off to sleep last night, my brain was thinking of making monkey ears. It was a wee bit disconcerting. :)

For those who don't understand, this is because I spent most of yesterday at Carrie and Finn's house, helping Carrie to make some of her funny hats. With fall craft shows and Halloween rapidly approaching, she definitely needed some help to get caught up and a bit ahead on her hat making. I am pleased to say that Carrie now has enough monkey ears to last her quite some time, and probably enough giraffe-antenna-nubbin-things to last a little while. I also got her started on some completed monkey hats, but I was a little intimidated by the last step in the process. Luckily, Carrie showed me how quickly she can make a hat once she has the ears done, so I know that we got her headed in the right direction. Hurrah! :)

It was also lovely hanging out with the other EtsyRain ladies and their little ones--Katy, Laura, Leah, and Marlo all stopped by to help as well.

There is something a little bit creepy about a tub full of monkey ears, regardless of the fact that they are made of fleece and not real. I wish I had taken a picture. :)

I've also discovered that I do pretty well with production sewing--making the same thing over and over again. I think I need to figure out how to make this work for my shop--perhaps I will break out the sewing machine some rainy Saturday in the near future...

So I finally started working on the quilt. And it's not too difficult, surprisingly. There's a lot of work to be done, but it's relatively easy work. And that's kewl. :)

Other than that, I'm madly making roses for the Valentine's Day craft fair. I still need to dig out the stems and floral tape, but I've got about 20 already done. Still a lot more to make, because I'm gonna have a TON of different colors. Mostly all rose-esque colors, but some odd ones, like black and purple... no, not together... :)

I'm seriously thinking that a new sewing machine is gonna be my big purchase for February, as that's one that might just be able to pay for itself, if I make the right stuff with it. :)

Oh, and I have an altered dress to alter some more. Thank you, Megan, for doing all kinds of crazy things to a perfectly good dress... now, to make a couple of minor changes, like making it a tiny bit smaller... and then... yeah, it'll be interesting... :)