glittergoods

skirt obsession

I am feeling mildly obsessed with corduroy this year, which is handy because my quest for the apples & pears fabric turned out to be too brief (successful, but brief) to keep me occupied for long, but there plenty of options when it comes to corduroy.  Sometimes the quest is the thing (although that fabric is the thing, too.  I hope I still love it when it gets here.).  So I get the quest, & my kid gets to indulge in her funny new passion for SOFT; I was happy to finish the latest skirt not just because of 1. corduroy & 2. adding an inch to my favorite little skirt pattern made it just the right length for fall, but because I am hoping that putting something velvety on her own self will make her a little less inclined to follow me around endlessly rubbing my velour homepants.  (You know the kind, not really sweats, you probably wouldn't go out in them but you could get away with it if you needed to, but also not pajamas although sleeping in them is pretty comfortable?  Homepants.)

I think she overheard me telling my husband that I don't think that three is too young for some tall black boots to go with her kicky new skirt, because she decided to give us a very stompy modeling show featuring my own black boots, which are just the right height for my own new corduroy skirt.

Consider this a parenthetical picture, I know it's terrible.  But despite the blur & the bad lighting, you can still sort of get the idea:  I used that book I was so excited about & sewed myself a skirt, & even though it's maybe a little big & the zipper is a total hackjob (not like, I say "oh!  this is terrible!" & then you say "but no!  your stitches are dainty, even, & mysteriously slimming!"  It's complete hackery, but that's what you get when you're putting in your first zipper ever at 1:30 in the morning & you can't find the good seam ripper.), the pattern I made actually worked pretty well & it's the exact right length below my knee (being very tall, this is like the holy grail of skirt lengths).  I am satisfied!  Plus, I ended up really liking the book.  If you are experienced in the ways of skirts, it is not for you, but for my level of experience (competent with machine, reasonable understanding of the whole concept of how to sew things together, but zero experience making clothes for anyone over the age of three) + desire for very basic skirts, it's fantastic.  I've got some olive green denim that I'm dying to cut into, but I think that I'm going to try to refine my whole zipper experience first.

And, in non-corduroy news, the second batch of rings is up on the site now.  (The aqua/red is my favorite this time, I think, although moss/avocado is a close second.  Oh, sparkly!)

A short list for Wednesday

Five things I love today:

1.  I  felt fast & hard for the Alexander Henry fabric that small hands posted today.  Beautiful little apple + pear print, will you be mine?  Hopeful googling hasn't turned anything up yet, but I'm determined.

2. I got another wholesale order out the door:  people in Denver will soon be able to find my knitting cards at Fancy Tiger (which looks like a mighty cool store).

3.  Speaking of my knitting cards (like how I just slipped that in there?), they were recently selected as an editor's pick in the Interweave Knits Holiday Gifts issue:

(they're in the picture frame on the upper right side of the picture.)  As a knitter (albeit a currently nonpracticing one), what I have to say about getting my cards into IK is:  yay!  I think I'm going to have to start up one of the projects in this issue so I have an excuse to carry it around with me (I have my eye on the pattern for a sweet little pair of cabled fingerless gloves).

4.  I've been sneaking in more rings & pendants when I can find the time.

When I'm making these, I'm just playing around with colors, but when I get them all together for pictures I can see that I'm a big fan of green for the rings, & I'm feeling sort of fallish when it comes to the pendants.  The black/avocado ring on the far left & the purple pendant on the far right are custom orders, but the others will find their way to the site (when I get a chance) or to my upcoming shows.

5.  Oh, Russell + Hazel binders, you are ridiculously expensive, but I think I love you.  What if you really did make dread paperwork tasks that much better?  Will you make me glamorous & sophisticated as well as organized?  If I meet all my deadlines, will you be my reward?  (You might have to duke it out with that one pair of moss green J.Crew cords, though.)

boo, little bat

Yesterday I spent my morning setting up a fancy new display for my products at Venue, where I'm artist of the month for October.

There's a reception-type thing happening tomorrow night as part of Ballard's ArtWalk, & I discovered today that I'm expected to be there (this probably should not have been, but was, a big surprise to me, I thought the whole artist of the month thing just meant a fancy display + lending them my mannequin for a month), so if you're in the neighborhood tomorrow night, stop by & say hi.  I'll be the slightly bewildered-looking one hanging around by the baby shirts.

(This is the new Halloween shirt.  It says "boo.")

Oh, the other thing I've been meaning to mention about Venue is that they're really starting to have some cool little classes there -- coming up over the next couple months are calligraphy, bookbinding, mask making, & chocolate truffle making.  I'm thinking pretty seriously about the calligraphy class, since I have nixed my sister's idea of using computer-printed labels to address her wedding invites, & there was dead, echoing, mocking silence on the other end of the line when I said You know, just find some writing that you like & practice copying it, didn't you used to do that when you were younger? -- all of which means that I may find myself with the job of fancily addressing a whole bunch of envelopes in the not-too-distant future.  (Yeah, twist my arm.)

The one concrete thing that I managed to do today (this has not been the most productive of days, but it was very important that I spend a lot of time online looking at refrigerators) is get the first batch of rings up at glamscience.  The olive/aqua one is gone already, but since it's one of my favorite glitter combos, you can be sure it'll show up again.

more of the same, really

I was so happy to find a tiny little patch of sunlight for this picture.  Aren't they pretty?

I am busy like a slightly frantic bee these past few days, plus, thanks to my children I am also locked in struggle with some fevery schoolkid plague or other (me personally, I mean, the kids are their usual little healthy hooligan selves), but in spite of all that (or because of, more like), I'm starting to fantasize about my next quilt.  I even got to the point of pulling a stack of fabric, although now that I'm looking at the picture I can see (my obsession with spotted prints) that I'm not there yet.  Which is fine, because if I got all excited about putting the fabrics together I'd start trying to make it or something.

Ooh, plus, this just now arrived in the mail

which should distract me from quilts for a while.  I've been wanting to try a skirt for my own self for a while now, & I am excited about the patternless, measurement-based, very basic designs this book promises.

Thanks so much for the comments lately -- I'm sorry I'm so behind in responding!  I love hearing from you!  Yes, I will post my soup recipe, but since that was my first time making it, I want to make it once more to fine-tune a few things first.  Also:  to fry sage leaves, just get some nice fat ones, rinse & pat dry, then drop them in 1/4" or so of olive oil (I use a pretty small saucepan for this, so I don't have to use too much oil) heated to the point that a drop of water sizzles in it.  Cook for maybe 30 seconds, until they darken up -- don't let them brown, or they get bitter.  They'll get crispier as they cool off.  They're strangely delicious (one of our favorite restaurants serves them as an appetizer, with salsa & aioli for dipping), I promise.

new kid on the block

I never really thought of myself as someone who needed a mannequin.  Don't get me wrong, I kind of love it, & I actually do need it for an upcoming store display + all my holiday shows, but still, it surprises me a little every time I see it (which makes me doubly glad that I found one without a face, because then it would probably be scaring me every time).


In actual productive news, after a fine long visit with my old nemesis "taking good representative pictures of glitter," I finally got the first batch of resin glitter dot pendants up at glamscience.  I think my two favorites are the pale pink with brown in the lower R corner & the sushi-inspired one in the top R (that's the custom glitter mix I use on my sushi cards.).

This morning I had my three year old with me when I ran into JoAnn for something & she came this close to talking me into sewing her a Cinderella dress for Halloween, which sounds like a sweet thing to do right now but there's no way it fits into my current schedule, & even if it did, it would undoubtedly cause me to want to eat my own head at 2am on Oct 30 while trying to sew a zipper into slippery $1.99 costume satin.

Me:  well, no, I can't do that right now, but today we're going to a yoga class together!
Her:  that is exercise, I am talking about PRINCESSES.

Can't get anything past that one, these days.

work, progress

I took this picture last Friday, for WIP Friday & also to document for myself that there is something happening around here, that no matter how far I feel like I'm falling behind, I'm still managing to get good-sized orders out the door (this one is to a new store in MN), & maybe also to document that thinking about slimming down my product line might not be the worst idea on earth.

This Friday, I found myself taking this picture:

which is part of an order that I just got out the door to a different store (Naka, in Ferndale MI).  It's great to be busy, but it's...busy to be busy, too.  Between trying to keep my little business chugging along & continuing to adjust to life as a two-school family, I feel like I can't catch a breath.  This, however, did not stop me from going to a meeting today & agreeing to help my son's teacher plan & execute some sort of mathy quilting project with his kindergarten class.  I'm sure there's some late night looming in my future where I'll be sewing like a frantic zombie, but right now the whole idea is completely irresistable.  I confess that I don't understand how it will help them with the whole math thing, but that's what the teacher's there for, right?

In the midst of all this, I of course managed to find some time to play with resin.  This ring was the test case for an adjustable sterling setting, & I'm very pleased with the results.  (Yes, Scout, that's some purple glitter you're seeing there.)

This is yet another incarnation of the glitter dots, a sterling pendant.  I'm also experimenting with coating the original dot pendants with a layer of resin, & I'm not sure which one will win out.  This one is a little more jewelry-like (& therefore more expensive), the other one is all about the glitter.  I'll probably end up rolling both out at my next show & seeing how it goes.

With all the work happening this week, it was nice to get a little payoff in the form of the latest issue of Country Home (Oct 06).  They'd asked me to send some of my knit-themed cards for use in their fancy concept kitchen for the Kitchen/Bath Industry Show, & my cards appear in the shot of the bulletin board in the October issue (p.139).  You have to know what my cards look like & then also squint quite a bit to make them out (I put notes on the photo in my flickr account for the curious but non-squinty), but, yay!  This was my first copy of CH, & I have to say, I'm surprised at how appealing I actually find it (I have a subscription to Metropolitan Home, which, admittedly, is an apparently perpetually-renewing gift subscription & not one that I actively seek out myself, but still, the person who gets it for me is not entirely wrong).  It reminds me of MSL, except made by people who might wear rumply clothing every now & then.

This weekend I'm planning on sewing another skirt for my girl (I am developing a little bit of a corduroy obsession), eating a delicious pumpkin donut from the neighborhood donut shop, working on a couple of Halloween items + some display stuff for the artist of the month thing I have coming up next month at Venue, & maybe baking some bread if the weather stays cool enough.  Turns out I'm ready for fall, after all.

hello, drizzle

Today was the first fall-feeling day around here this year:  drizzly, grey, chilly, plus it had that smell in the air.  As a result, I:  1.  felt very sleepy all day, like I always do when the weather starts to change; 2.  when alert enough, admired what the increased humidity did for my hair; 3. while watching my no-body-fat son shiver on the playground before school this morning, made a mental note to pick him up a few more sweatshirts; & 4. felt very pleased that I managed to get some good shots of my resin projects over the last couple of sunny days.

I love, love! these rings.  I'm still working out a few kinks in the process, but I've had this idea for the next generation of glitter dot jewelry knocking around in my head for over a year now, & I'm thrilled to see it panning out.

The resin does gorgeous things to the color & sparkle of the glitter, which, if you're me, is very exciting.

The smaller pendant is 20mm & the larger ones are 24mm, on 18" chains.  They're nice & lightweight, & turn out to survive road-testing by a three year old quite well though (like many other things she touches) somewhat stickily.

(Speaking of, here she is performing the swirl test on her finished skirt.  She's probably sticky in this picture, too.)

In other news, I've just signed on to be one of the designers involved in Scout's Indie Swag Club -- a sock yarn of the month club, featuring Scout's lovely handpainted sock yarn + a little knit-themed something or other from another indie designer each month.  Signups for this fall's round are already closed (those knitbloggers move fast!), but I think she's already planning another round for January, so it's something to keep your eye on if you're a fan of the handpaints.

back to school, 2.0

The first day of kindergarten was a success for all involved:  my boy was pale & quiet & big-eyed in the morning, but he determinedly sent me on my way, & after I picked him up he had a lot to say about three recesses & how he's going to start riding the bus home next week.  I feel this indescribable sense of relief, like, ok, whatever ridiculous parenting blunders we've made over the past five years, at least we managed to produce someone who had a good first day of kindergarten.  He's the school system's problem now!

The end of pre-first-day jitters has freed up a lot more creative energy around here, so of course I immediately turned to my new resin kit.  So far, I haven't done more than make a series of glittery lumps:

Which are cool because I made plastic, but otherwise pretty useless.  I think I love this stuff, though.  I have big plans.

In the meantime, there I was with a lump of glittery resin + a ring blank, so, why not?  My daughter is just green with envy.  (Any sources for kid-sized ring blanks would be much appreciated!)