Well I've decided to switch my blog over to Blogger. Vox has been great but most of the blogs I enjoy and the people reading mine are over at Blogger, so I'm jumping on the bandwagon too. Part of the reason for this blog is to gain more exposure to my work (yeah yeah yeah, ok so this is just a tiny reason, I admit, I really enjoy blogging, hehe) and I feel moving it over is the best choice for that.
So from this point forward you can find my inner chatterings over at magnoliaskies.blogspot.com
Thanks Vox, you've been a wonderful host!
what a day, what a day. right now my head is spinning with visions, daydreams, and questions of the future. today I got to walk to work. i was really excited, I always wanted to be able to walk to my job. It's a one time thing, we are doing a site assessement at a historic building about 10 minutes walking distance from my house. I went there, it was cool, I came home, started doing some research.... partially for my job, partially out of personal curiosity. you see, part of my hates the town I recently moved to, but part of me is fascinated by its history. So much history I didn't even know until today. The town is famous for the first makings of rubber, something that ran the town until not too long ago. The industry finally fell, leaving my current town in a brownfield post industrial mess. I always said it was the drinking water that has left Naugatuck with so many single 40 year old men living in their parent's basements (haha, and my research today shows that, yes, I could be right). I always said I would never live here- but then I married someone who grew up here and here I am. I always said I would never buy a house here, renting is as far as I would go, and this is only temporary.
Part of my fascination with this town is my fascination with old factory and industrial buildings. When I see them I'm in awe, I daydream at what they could be. I daydream of what they were. I'm in awe at their expanse, really everything about them.
Today I learned something specifically that has opened my mind a little to the town I live in. Renaissance Place. Coloring a brown legacy green. In short, a major revitalization of this town is about to take place. Wind power, solar power, water power, an off the grid stretch of revitalization of the town I live in. "A first in the northeast". Could this be true? It's passed, it's on its way. No one can predict the future, who knows how these plans will go through. But according to projects this developer has done, he has been true to his visions and has been successful in many.
So now I'm wondering of the future. I know I want to invest in property. If all goes well we will be buying our first house the end of this summer. I am seriously thinking of buying a two family house to start off with, living there for a few years, then buying the house we really want, keeping the two family as an investment property. I guess it will work out how it will, if we end up finding our dream house first, perhaps the two family house will come after. I just feel like if we do it first it will be done. But now I'm wondering the future of Naugatuck. Looking past all my trash talking, eating all my words, will it be a good investment to buy property in this town now while it's still in it's brown state? Will it really go green? Will it really be revitalized to what they're envisioning. A revitalization like that has the potential to bring in people of a different mind set from all over. It has the potential. Do I jump on board, eating all my words, saying sorry to Naugatuck, sorry I trash talked you so much. I did always love your state forest (yes, amongst the industrial waste, we have one of the few state forests in the state). Base purely on the plans of this revitalization, I would be on board.
I guess people buy and sell houses every day. If plans fail, selling is always an option. My biggest fear is to jump on board, the plans fail, the brown waste of a town turns into another version of it's failed self, and here I am stuck in the middle of it. People get stuck in a place all the time.
Wow it boggles my mind all the time how things go in circles, somethings always connected to something you never thought would be connected. The world grows smaller every day as experience grows larger.
I was feeling out of it all day today and it was driving me nuts! I had planned to start a new project today, no not new like sewing a new dress, new as in I've never done it before..... more to come on that. I think I was feeling out of it b/c of all the junk food I've eaten over the past couple days. I've been living off of my mom's oatmeal cookies (hey they've got oatmeal in them, that's a breakfast food, right?), her peanut butter cookies, and sneaking in a few girl scout cookies too. Ughhhhh cookie overload. That and it was pouring all day today and yesterday. So I've been cooped up in the house. One good thing is it hit 60 degrees out today!!! For about an hour. The temperature was all over today, every time I went out to let the dog out it was either colder or warmer by alot from the last time I brought him out.
Anyways, I started the day preparing to do this new project.... well after I had to clean the entire kitchen of wet dirt since one of our kitties Rusty Peanuthead decided she was going to be very bad and go digging in my plants on top of the fridge that I had just watered yesterday.... mud all over the top of the fridge, all over the counters, all over the floor. Not happy. But I did what I had to and moved on to getting ready for my BIG project. Then I realized I never picked up some of the essential items needed- all these months prepping and daydreaming and I didn't even bother getting what I needed, nothing like last minute! Not only did I not have half the stuff I needed, suddenly I didn't want to do it anymore. Perhaps it was the anxiety of doing something new, knowing I was going to be pissed off and upset if it didn't work out the first time, even though I knew there was a good chance it was going to take practice to get it right. Something.... But I sucked it up and decided there was no way I was not going to do this. So I ran up the road to Walmart in hopes that they would have what I needed this way I wouldn't have to drive a couple towns over to the next nearest store. I needed a lightbulb, a pie tin, and those clear overhead projecter sheets. Went to the dreaded Walmart, and got so thrown off that they didn't have the overhead projecter sheets that I left without getting the rest of the things I needed. Just went into an instant daze, walked out, driving down the road, and then SHIT I forgot everything else. Well I had to go a couple towns over now anyways, over to Staples to get the projecter sheets. So I headed over into unknown territory. I never go to this town and on this trip I had to hit 3 of the stores there.... Staples for the sheets, KMart for the lightbulb and tin that I spaced on at Walmart, and the grocery store to get some non cookie real food in my body.
I swear I felt like I was stoned out of my gourd. I don't know if it was driving in the pouring rain and the dark, being in a new area, new stores, etc. But I felt like I was in the twilight zone. Especially KMart, I felt like I flashed back to the 50s. Everyone was smiling and the associates actually asked me if I needed help. It was weird. The grocery store was just as bad. Driving home I swore I was going to get abducted by aliens or something. Something just wasn't quite right.
But I made it home without getting abducted or crashing the car b/c I couldn't see out the window with my shitty windshield wipers. So here it was 9pm, I made myself a delicious sandwich (turkey with sauteed spinach, melted swiss cheese, and a thin layer of strawberry preserves and cinnamon, a rip off of the most delish sandwich I had a few weeks back at this cutesy little breakfast/lunch shanty). Suddenly I started to feel a little better. Hmmmm was I going into cookie overload on my trip to the stores? Was it the combination of that and the unknown territory?
So at 10pm I was finally ready to get going on my big project... screenprinting! This is something I've been wanting to play around with for awhile and have been preparing for for months on end. And today was the day. I've been picturing this day for weeks now that I've had a bunch of designs ready but either no time or no motivation to learn a brand new skill. But I did it, just finished up. I was really anxious the whole time, especially the 45 minute wait while I exposed the screen to the light. I did enjoy all the shadows the bright light was casting in our kitchen though, and so did the cats.
That is my ghetto rigged setup in my kitchen. As much as I mentally prepared for this project, I so wasn't physically prepared for it. I knew I needed a clean workspace, but hey that's not me. That and it was 10pm and I had been dreading this all day. Yep. Silly, completely silly. It went fine. Nothing to dread, nothing to be anxious about. Now just visions of all my other images crisp white screen on a blue emulsion. One thing did go wrong while exposing it. I bought I lightbulb in between wattage than the chart and when I turned it on I didn't expect it to get so hot so fast, so it started to burn where the light was hitting in the center of the screen. Like within a minute of turning on the light. So luckily I was just a little prepared and had my fan handy, plugged that in and that took care of the overheating in the center of the screen. But I was just a little too late, when I washed the screen after exposure I had melted some of the emulsion in that spot on the design. But having been refueled with non cookie energy, my brain was thinking a little clearer than earlier in the day, and I saved the day! I took a little of screen reclaimer and dabbed it ever so carefully in the spot that needed opening and voila! Fixed screen. Ready to print. Can't wait. Yahhooooo!
So if all goes well I'll be playing around with printing tomorrow. I have another screen to make but after all that trouble buying the overhead projecter sheets to print my images on, my printer isn't printing heavy enough for it to work for screenprinting, so I may have to postpone that screen. I ended up having to cut my image out of cardstock for this one. But it was a simple image, the one I have planned for the next one will take a LONG time if I have to cut it out. I may take it to a copy shop and have them put it onto the clear sheets.
And since I've been saying I have pics of my latest sewing projects and haven't been posting them, here they are. The kid's skirts are being put aside for festival stock (except the dragonfly one, one of my lovely customers has purchased that for her daughter).
And these are the two dresses that have motivated me to continue making the hippie dresses.... sometimes after screwing something up you just need to do something your really like to get you back into the groove. Cause now all I want to make is dresses :)
Both went onto my website. The brown one is the first one I made after screwing up the dress a week or so ago. And I just adore it! It's made of hemp/tencel, such a beautiful drape. I dyed that piece up probably over a year ago and have been saving it for something special. And it finally called out to me for this dress. I also added a cute gathered pocket on the side.... this dress just screams warm weather relaxing blue sky to me. Ooooo I can't wait till it's 60 degrees to stay, then for the summer.
Well it's late and I have a big mess to clean up tomorrow and more fun to be had with screenprinting. And hopefully a new piece for either the site or for festival stock. Since I didn't get anything sewn this week, too busy daydreaming. And this coming week should be busy at the day job. But ya know, I usually am more productive the busier I am. So hopefully this work will work out that way. I have a pile of freshly washed cotton calicoes sitting on my sewing table waiting to be turned into some summer dresses :)
So I have pictures of my latest creations, but the other day I was inspired to snap some pictures around the house and thought it would be fun to share them in a photo essay here :) What inspired this? Our broken dryer. Yep our beloved dryer died on Sunday at the beginning of laundry day, leaving two wet loads of laundry and LOTS of dirty laundry waiting to be washed. I couldn't bring myself to go to the laundry mat... I really hate going there. My first apartment didn't have a washer and dryer so every week I went to the laundry mat, and I hated every minute of it. So instead we turned the heat up a little, and I hung all the necessary clothing all over the house above the radiators, haha :) Yeah it looked a bit ghetto but oh well, it worked. Tonight I went and bought a brand new dryer, oooo our poor savings account that we've been working so hard on the past month :( We were trying to find a used refurbished one but all the ones that were cheap enough were like 6-7 years old so it just didn't seem worth it. Oh well, hopefully this one will last us atleast 7 years, which will make the investment completely worth it.
Anyways, on to the photo essay. Completely random, things I hate, things I love. NOTHING staged, nothing tidied up (I had to say that b/c I see so many beautiful pictures in the crafting blogs I read and you just have to wonder what the "rest" of the picture looks like!). Oh and background, this is not our house, it's our home. It's an apartment and we rent it from someone. I don't think I could put up with it if it was ours!
The dreaded laundry the day our dryer died. This is the far end of our tiny bathroom, which houses our washer and the blue hamper. Our dryer is out on our back enclosed porch b/c this area only fits a stackable, which we obviously don't have. The striped fabric in the upper left corner is our shower curtain that I made, I love that fabric :) Ooo and the laundry detergent on the washer, eco-friendly! I finally am trying it out, I've switched almost all of our cleaners to eco-friendly/all natural, but laundry detergent is something I haven't been able to do, simply for the price. But this was on sale to be cheaper than the brand I usually get, so I had to try it out!
I've been told that the couple who owned the house prior to our landlords lived in our apartment and the wife was extraordinarily tall. This is the mirror above our sink.... this is the view I have, at 5'7". My calf muscles have become extremely toned since living here from having to tipie toe whenever using the mirror (brushing teeth, hair, doing makeup, etc.). Pat has an easier time seeing into it at 6'2". Oh and this reminds me, there are wooden shelves in almost every room of this house, except the living room, that the previous owner monkey glued onto the walls. Yep, no screws, monkey glue. Which means you can't get them off without the risk of taking down the plaster with it. These people were a bit strange.
This is part of our kitchen. If for some absolutely crazy reason I had bought this house, the first thing I would redo would be the kitchen. To start off, notice our lovely pale mint green cabinets. Not only are they pale mint green, they also don't close all the way, have a lot of wasted space, and are so low to the counter that most of our counter top appliances don't fit under them (big pain in the ass). I do however adore these pictures on the wall.... I picked them up at Ikea, they are a set of three. One day I will give them the frames they deserve.
Another thing I hate about our kitchen is the countertop. It's tiled. I'm sorry if you dig tiled countertops, but to me this has to be one of the stupidest things for a kitchen, especially an area that is used for food preparation. See that icky brown grout? That's what it looks like after Pat takes a bleach cleaner to it. Oh and to top it off, sproradically placed amongst the white tiles are these floral tiles, all different ones. Lovely. I do however like our stainless sink in the right side. Our kitchen sink is a deep double basin, very convenient.
Our house has a strange "hallway".... It's a hexagon shaped space that is about twice the size of our bathroom. It's huge wasted space. My mom and I were trying to figure it out.... the house is about 100 years old, built around 1900. Either this was in style then (I've seen something similiar on one of those DIY shows in an older house in New Orleans) or the house was previously a one family and the stairwell came up here. Who knows. Anyways, our landlord painted this room a very pale blue-grey color, and I was delighted that this frame fit perfectly in this spot, and the paint on the walls actually matched the prints in the frame perfectly. The pictures in the frame were taken and given to me by a good friend, he was starting to study photography and was working at a greenhouse, flowers, what perfect subjects.
I think most of the trimwork throughout the house is original. And it's in pretty good shape, most of it. I kind of like it. Oh that black wire.... that's the cable wire to our tv in the living room. The hookup is on a different wall than our tv so we had to send it over the doorway. We've lived here a year and a half and Pat was supposed to staple it down that long ago so you couldn't see it. Yep....
I really love old homes. We live in the "historic" section of our town.... In the early 1900's it was the place to live. This whole area used to be a big industrial area, with the owners of the different factories living in huge mansions and beautfiully large homes overlooking the downtown area and their factories. Alot of the homes have been converted into multi families since it is no longer a booming town and all the factories have since vanished. But I love walking our neighborhood and admiring the houses, they are charming. I really hate new cookie cutter houses, they lack any kind of charm at all. Not to mention they're not made very well either (coming from Pat the carpenter). Sometimes when walking and admiring these mansions and houses I daydream about reviving the area, turning the mansions back into one families and turning this town into how it must have been in it's glory days.... reminds me of Savanah Georgia (or atleast what I've read about it).
I think the doorknobs are original too.... I really love these. None of them work (none of our bedroom doors shut right either so it doesn't really matter) but they're beautiful just as well. I love the design on the metal part and the antique key hole. Part of me wants to take them when we move out of here.... just replace them with cheapo ones.... I doubt our landlords would notice or really care for that matter.
This is our broken bedroom door (also I think an original to the house). And this is my favorite door stop ever. I actually have two of these... they might be bookends or just decorative pieces, I'm not sure, but I got a deal on them! I found them at Marshalls in the clearance section for about $6 each. They each weight about 10 pounds. The elephant is beautifully detailed metal. The base is wood and the paint was peeling when I bought them, almost looks like it might have gotten wet, perhaps that's whey they were so cheap. But it actually looks perfect with the peeling paint, gives them an antiqued look. Under the elephant stop is our hideous bedroom carpet. In the lower left corner is the hardwood floor under the carpet. Our living room and two bedrooms have pretty nice hard wood floors.... except the bedroom one is covered by this awful rug. When we looked at the apartment the landlords said they were either ripping it up and leaving the wood floors or they would replace it. The forgot and we were too anxious to move in to remind them. This rug has to be over 20 years old, it's sagging and bunching all over the place. So when our dog puked on it one day, I decided I didn't want to clean up the puke off the rug, so instead cut the piece out (we had talked about ripping it up ourselves so I figured this would give us some motivation to actually do it). There was about a half inch of dirt under the carpet. No joke, no exageration. Knowing what the underneath of an old carpet looks like makes me never want to put a carpet down in the house I eventually own. So the ripping up of the carpet has been postponed until spring when we can open the windows for proper ventilation. This will also give us time to buy some dust masks for the job. This will deifnitely be a two person job, one person to rip up the carpet while the other stands right behind with the vacuum cleaner to prevent the great dustbowl.
This is the view out our front living room window. One thing I love about this house is it is very bright. I love it. Pat started a Christmas traditon of getting me a painted glass window ornament each year. This is most of them, I have a few in our kitchen window and one more at the top of this window. My favorite is the peacock one, the small oval one at the bottom. The one that makes me laugh is the "I love my labrador retriever, we are family" one that Miles "got" me for christmas.... yes I know he's such a generous puppy :) And then there's our proud display of using wind energy to power our house.... one of the few good things about living in Connecticut, they have a clean energy option for power supply for a very small amount extra each month.... we pay about $3 to $4 extra a month for 100% wind power for our electricity. very cool. This photo also shows how crowded our area is.... in this picture I can see 5 of my neighbors houses. There's the three across from us, and then we live on a corner and we can see two houses down the side street, the back of their houses and the little backyard they have. You can also see the edge of our front porch (we're on the second floor if you couldn't notice that from this pic). I can't wait to move back to a town where you can't watch your neighbor's tv. All my life I've lived in fairly private houses/apartments, so moving to this place where the houses are on top of each other was a bit to get used to.
This is a corner in our living room. It was especially messy this day, it usually isn't this bad, not usually bad at all. But I had been on a crochet kick so the side table is overflowing with yarn and patterns, and the cat had knocked over some books off the bookshelf where I had some yarn shoved into since there was no more room on the table. That red light, that's our new answering machine. We didn't have an answering machine for a year, and we don't have caller id or a voicemail. So I'm not quite used to having to check the answering machine. Especially when it's buried in yarn, sometimes it goes for days with messages on it before one of us remembers we have an answering machine. oops, sorry friends and family, we're not ignoring your phone call, I swear!
This is a little money stash jar my mom got me for my birthday. I know they're pretty common, but I adore it. I love the coloring and I love the "hopes and dreams". I collect all of Pat's change from around the house since he loves to leave it every where, and claim it as mine once it goes in my little jar. This is also the bookcase in our living room. We have a couple bookcases since I inherited a ton of books from my grandparents.... they were awesome. They had an entire room devoted to books, ummm yeah I think it's called a library. Well they called it their study. They were on my top 5 favorite people in the world list, maybe even my top 2. The other people would be my parents and Pat. My grandpa loved non fiction books and my grandma loved fiction, so we have quite an interesting variety of books. I hope to one day have a study of my own. Oh and their study was wallpapered with real maps they collected over the years. It was cool.
Speaking of my grandparents, this is a wind chime type thingy I also inherited. They got this in Hawaii back in the 80s and I've always adored it. It's very organic ceramics stringed with beads, with bright colors. It's really long, about 3 feet. This is hanging in the window in my sewing room.
And this is the mushroom I mentioned in a previous post, the one my grandma carved in and dried to preserve it. One of those sentimental things, I can remember admiring it in their glass hutch as a little girl.
This is the calendar hanging above my computer, which is also in my sewing room. No ordinary calendar.... you may recognize those folks as me and pat and our old dog Delilah. I made this at one of those online photo hosting places, I forget which one, but they were doing a promo thing and you got the calendar for free, regularly $20! You put all your own pics in it and can customize the dates too :) Couldn't pass it up :)
And last but not least, this is the most cluttered area of our house. Yep, I'm ashamed of it. Because this is all me. My desk is an absolute disaster. Every week for the past year and a half I tell myself I'm going to clean it off and organize it, yet every week it doesn't get done. No matter how clean and organized our house might be when we have our cleaning sprees, we will always have one eye sore and that would be my desk.
Ok one last one.
Isn't he so damn cute! He was very sad this day b/c he ripped apart the webbing b/t his toes that day while hiking and he was in pain. It was pretty bad. Imagine splitting in between your toes. OUCH. This is our spoiled dog on our couch. I never let our dogs on the furniture before him.... I'm a sucker, what can I say, he is my first puppy of my own. There's the first thing I ever crocheted too, a granny square blanket I made Pat about 6 months after we started dating :)
Well that was kind of fun, nothing like procrastinating! Haha, I really don't mind our home that much, it's nice and bright, it's clean, and best of all it's homey. It's in a nice neighborhood, we have a little yard, lots of storage, a cool downstairs neighbor, and it's walking distance to the post office. It's just all those cosmetic things that I wouldn't be able to live with if I owned it.
One of my lovely customers just contacted me, she lost the beloved peacock top that I made :( She lost it in the vicinity of New York City this past week.
If by some miracle you have found it and are reading this, we would both love if you could return it. I will send you a small reward of my handmade goods if you do!
I hope that if this top is not returned that it has found it's way to a new kind soul and not in some dusty lost and found box or a dumpster somewhere in the city. This piece has been my most treasured creation to date.... I love peacocks and I had been envisioning this applique for a long time, but knew it was going to be a lot of work. I finally broke down and did it, putting a piece of my heart and soul into it. I couldn't have been happier with the results.... it was magical for me. Reading the gal's email that it is no longer with her broke a tiny piece of my heart when I thought of it's possible fate of being tossed into a dumpster.
On a not so sad note, I'm in the process of making a dress, should be finishing it up tonight. I went hiking today in the snow with the dogs instead of photographing my newest creations like I had planned, but I should get that done tomorrow and have some pictures to share!
I remember almost every year in high school, right before school was about to start in September, I would have one of those nightmares. On the first day of school I left the house without any of my notebooks, I left the house without my left shoe, I forgot to take a shower, I got on the wrong bus and it was taking me to another state, blah blah blah, you know those dreams.
I never felt stressed before the first day of school, I guess those dreams were brought on by anxiousness perhaps? Well this morning while sleeping I started having one of those dreams. Background: In waking life, I just finished up a custom order last week for a bamboo hoodie. I shipped it off to the gal's address and a few days later it came back to me. Turns out she left one of the numbers off the address. So she requested that I overnight it to her mother in law who was leaving this Thursday to come down to visit them (she's currently living in Mexico). I overnight it and haven't heard anything else, so I'm assuming no news is good news and it got to her MIL before they left. So in this mornings dream I was at a house we were remodeling, poking around seeing how everything was going. Suddenly I spotted something very familiar, the bamboo top. OH NO!!!! Oh no oh no oh no! I sent this out overnight, what is it doing here???? OH NO! Did I send the wrong top out?! So who's top did I mail? OH NO! What am I going to do? This gal is going to be so mad! And I can remember racking my brain for an answer, a solution to this big mistake. But I coulnd't think of one....
Thankfully you wake up from dreams.
Anyways, I have some new pieces to share, probably tomorrow. Besides my disaster dress I posted about last, I made a beautiful sundress yesterday, which boosted my motivation to continue making hippie dresses. Although I broke my goal and used all hemp instead of the calicoes that I need to use. But I figure this dress will go on my website this weekend, so that's OK. On the web I'm more likely to get people who appreciate hemp and who understand the cost that comes with it. I also finished up another custom hat last night.... more on that with the pics, but I'll just say it was a LONG night! And finally I want to share the three little girl's dresses I made last weekend, those are being set aside with the other two for festival stock. And I guess hopefully I'll get another item done today for the website, although I just found out my boss wants me to stop by for a couple hours to learn a new program. That's good b/c I need any money I can get this week but it sucks b/c it's right in the middle of my "work day" here in my sewing studio. Oh well, it's Friday night and I don't have any plans, it can be another late night of crafty working :)
days like today i wish I could just throw my fabric stash (excluding my beloved hemp and bamboo fabric) into the back yard and start a big ol' bon fire. I'd invite my friends, we'd toast to new beginnings, and roast marshmallows.
burn baby burn. I spent most of the day working on a dress using the new bust pattern I drafted yesterday. The one i spent 3 hours working on. I thought I had it right. I paired up this beautiful quilter's calico that I got at the quilt shop a couple of weekends ago (thankfully it was one of their 3 yard bargain cuts at half price), my hand-dyed bamboo twill, and another calico to make this dress. so two pricey fabrics that deserved to be in a very cool piece. But from the beginning I just wasn't digging it. I think it was the ruffle I added at the bottom. It looked so, I don't know, frumpy? But I pushed on, did a big swirling leaf vine down the front, which took me almost an hour, finished the dress up, put it on and, BIG SIGH, the bust looked totally wonky. The two darts per cup, well I guess I didn't draft them right after all. And the ruffle on the bottom, yep, I hate it. Applique.... love it, but looks weird where I put it.
I'm mad that I wasted my day making something that needs to either be ripped apart and redone, tossed into my discards pile, or cut up and use for scraps. I'm mad that I have no work this week at the day job and was planning on putting this onto my site in hopes of bringing in some money this week to supplement the slow week.
Before I had finished, but almost at the end, I was thinking to myself that I really don't want to make this dress. Not so much the style, but the fabric combo. I just don't dig mixing calicoes anymore for the most part, at least not how I used to. Not mixing as in patchwork, b/c that seems to work out, but the way I used to make my dresses. A calico for the bodice, another calico under the bust, a calico for the skirt portion, and the calico from either the bust or the underbust strip for a ruffle or bottom trim. I'm moving more and more towards simple pieces with a cool applique, and becoming a fabric snob. I guess my tastes are changing. I want to make what I wear. Like the hoodies I've been making out of the hemp jersey and the bamboo fleece. Those are more what I wear. I do like to add a small calico trim to the sleeve, but that's about it.
So what's the problem with that? I don't know what the demand is for simple yet artistic. If it was only my website I could just go for it and if it sells, it sells, if it doesn't, I know I either need to target a different audience (assuming there is an audience for that style) or go back to making what does sell. But I have committed to a couple festivals, where in the past it's the long hippie dresses in calico fabrics that are the big sellers. Will people like my simple stuff with cool applique work on hand-dyed hemps? Do I take the risk and make what I want, and risk losing money? Or do I suck it up and make what I know will sell? Another thing that sucks and kind of makes part of the decision for me is I just bought a bunch of calicoes last week while they were on a good sale. Not designer quilt shop fabrics, Joann Fabric fabrics, like I have always used for my calico hippie dresses. I knew I didn't have any yardage left in my stash to make long dresses, so with those festivals in mind, I stocked up for about 8 dresses. Grrrrr, this is what I hate about doing festivals, it's work to get ready for them. It's pressure. It's a risk. It's a cost. But they're SO much fun to vend at. The positives out way the negatives. I just wish I was feeling like making hippie clothes right now. Or that I could see into the future and know if the styles I'm envisioning in my head will do well there, and I can focus on those instead.
One thing I do know from today is I will be going back to my one dart bodice design. Oh well, Andrea has the big busted gals covered, and I have the small busted gals covered. I always did say we make a complimenting team.
Tomorrow my goal is to get up early (this is a really big goal), and get another dress made up, out of the calico fabrics I stocked up on. Then Friday, I need to make one more thing, and get both items onto my site. Oh and tomorrow I need to crochet another custom hat that I've been putting off and should have gone out a few days ago. Oooohhh I hope the store has that yarn he wants, eeeekkkk. This weekend I think I'm going to devote to letting the creative energy I've been bottling up out, and make what I want to make. Or I shouldn't even say make, even if I want to spend the day sketching or coming up with more ideas. But only if I get some things on the site, that will be my reward to myself. Kind of like this bowl of raspberry swirl frozen yogurt with a sliced banana was my reward for trying to get something accomplished today, even despite it didn't work out.
In the past couple months I've heard several people mistakenly or slip of the tongue call muslin "muslim's cloth". When they are corrected each one became very flustered, babbling nonsense and apologizing. I giggled to myself everytime. It makes me wonder if they would have been so flustered if they had accidently called it Christian's cloth or catholic's cloth...
I, like many others, hate making a muslin preview of my patterns. Many times I know I should, but I'm too lazy. I cut right into the good stuff, most of the time it works out, sometimes I'm cursing myself for ruining such a beautiful piece of fabric to my laziness. Well tonight I wasn't lazy. I'm trying to alter my pattern for the bust of my dresses. Not that the bust area is bad how it is, it's just that after seeing my friend and vending partner Andrea's dresses, I know mine could use improvement in the fit. Andrea makes the most flattering handmade "hippie" sundresses I've yet to see. NOTE: her website pictures do the dresses absolutely no justice. When properly adjusted, her dresses lift and flatter the biggest of breasts. Everytime a big-busted gal walks out of the dressing booth, I'm always amazed at how well Andrea designed those cups. Her fit lies in using three to four darts in each cup.
Now here's where my issue with my dressform and my small chest comes into play, again. I can pattern away all I want, but do I really know how it will look on a big busted gal? I spent the past 3 hours working on one bodice piece. I threw on my B cup bra onto my dressform (after realizing my form is more like a perky A to B cup, not a full B.... kinda like me), stuffed it with some scraps, and designed away. I used a combination of my old pattern, draping, and my eye. And I think I FINALLY got some where. I settled with two darts per cup. All the while I was wishing I had access to a pattern making class. There's only one school in CT that offers fashion design and it's a drive. The other option is an hour and a half train ride on the commuter into NYC FIT. I know I'll take a class at one of these places eventually, as long as I'm making clothes I know I'll have the desire to be taught by a professional how to draft patterns. Trial and error when your flailing blindly gets old very quickly.
Speaking of flailing blindly, I'm a self taught seamstress. My mother showed me how to thread my first machine and that was the extent of any instruction I ever had. Every thing I learned was by trial and error.... that is until recently, when I discovered the wealth of information and tutorials the web has to offer. The funny thing is it took me so long to realize this. I use the web to reseach everything. Why had I never thought to look up sewing techniques? In the past couple months I found out how to use bias tape the correct way.... wow this would have made those cardigans I made so much easier. I found out how to install a zipper in a lined bag.... wow that would have saved me hours of racking my brain on how to do that. Along with numerous other tricks and techniques, that as obvious as they may be to some people, I just never thought to try it that way. I'm also discovering that splurging on those little tools makes a world of a difference. Not that they're expensive, it's just I never thought I needed them. For example, something that has saved me much angst in making my dresses and other darted patterns... the tool seen in the above picture and double faced tracing paper. now I just slip the paper in between my pattern pieces, roll over the darts, and I have both sides of the garment darts ready to be sewn acurately. No more marking dots on the garment and taking my ruler to connect the dots with lines. Geez this has saved me so much time. and so much dread. I also bought some bias tape makers after seeing a post about those things. I haven't used it yet, but I know i will be in my glory when I do.
Well I'm living and learning as I go. It seems almost every time I make a new garment, even after making hundreds of items, I feel like my skills are growing and growing. And that's good b/c that's what keeps it interesting for me. I love learning new things.
Tomorrow is Wednesday... I havne't had work all week and I havne't gotten anything done. Well ok I finished up this custom hat.
He wanted a tighter weave than my usual hats so I had been dreading making this hat.... I hate using anything finer than a worsted weight yarn and smaller than an I hook. This was both. But it actually went by quickly, I guess b/c I was using single crochet instead of double like I usually do. Somehow it worked out to be not so bad. The yarn was 100% cotton that I got from a local yarn store, it worked up nicely and I think it will break in nicely too. Oh and I made up three more litttle girls' skirts over the weekend.
Tomorrow I'm determined to wake up before..... uhhhh.... I'll leave the exact time out, but WAY earlier than I have been. It's no wonder why I just start to get into my sewing studio and it's time to make dinner. Puttering around the house and on the computer, taking care of the dog, running to the post office, and doing who knows what else, and before I know it it's getting dark out and I haven't even begun to get any work done. So today I gave up and spent the 3 hours I should have been sewing organizing my cds and re drafting the bust pattern. Tomorrow I WILL start and hopefully finish that dress. I don't think I'll have any work at the day job this week, which sucks big time, but that means I should get atleast a few things onto my site to make up for it. And a few things for stock. If, if only, I was self motivated enough this would be easy seeing there's three days left in the work week.
Well if i'm going to get up at a decent hour I should get to bed at a decent hour.... I'll leave you with some pictures from our (me and the dog) snowshoeing this past weekend.
Miles is such a doofy dog... such a retriever when it comes to him and his sticks. or should I say tree branches. This one was atleast on the very skinny side, but he insists on dragging the biggest tree branch he can get his mouth on and carry it the entire hike. So there he is carry his branch that is about a foot longer than he is.
I had big plans to sew today.... I was either going to make an adult item or a few kid's skirts. I decided on the kid's skirts and started clearing off my table, thinking to myself, wow I'm doing good today, getting right to work. That is until I picked up my sketch pad that I busted out the other night. I've been trying to draw up some things but it hasn't been going so well. That is until today, the day I planned to devote to building up stock for summer festivals. Suddenly I had the urge to draw and I needed to do it now. I tossed aside my sketch pad and opted for crisper computer paper, emptying my printer of all the paper in it. I drew and drew and drew. I drew all day. I just finished drawing at 10:30 pm. Only taking food breaks and a break to run to the store to pick up more of the pen I just discovered and tracing paper (which they didn't have, much to my dismay). I think it was the combo of feeling inspired and the pen i was using. It's a Papermate felt tip marking pen in medium. I love it. It's perfect for drawing.
The funny thing about today is I don't draw. I don't paint, I don't draw, I don't sketch. But today I drew. And I impressed myself. The photo above was taken about mid day, so less than half of what I finished today. The lighting was beautiful in my sewing room where I was drawing so I snapped the pic. I love the way the trees came out, so real looking. They were done freehand out of my head. About half of what I drew was out of my head, the other half were inspired by vintage images I've been collecting, along with some photographs (the magnolia was inspired by a photograph). I've finally exhausted myself, so I'm forcing myself to put down the Papermate and get to bed soon. I should hide my drawings this way I don't get the urge to draw again all day tomorrow, I really should get some sewing done. But all wasn't wasted today, I know these drawings will have their use eventually.
The tree drawings reminded me of my grandma. She taught me along time ago how to draw tree branches, and I became obsessed with drawing trees. They looked nothing like the ones I did today, but I thought it was so cool that she thought to draw in the branches on trees. She was a pretty talented lady, dabbling in all sorts of things such as sewing, painting, drawing, etc. When my grandpa died a couple summers ago I inherited some of my grandma's stuff, including this pillow....
There's actually two of them. She hand embroidered the mushroom scenes and sewed them up into pillows. They so don't go with our living room, but since we haven't really established any sort of style in our apartment (since I feel like we're in limbo) and I just adore these pillows, I have them brightening up our living room. While my mom, aunts, and uncles were snatching up antiques and valuables, i was rumaging through all the stuff they tossed aside such as these pillows.... and a real mushroom that my grandma carved into and dried, a little drawing of a local waterfall and a date that they were there and she carved it. They always had that mushroom in their glass hutch with their collectables, and I always thought it was cool. So now I have it, dated October 1978.
Among a bunch of other things (such as a brand new kayak and car roof rack, 50 years of National Geographic magazines- yes I said 50 years, and hundreds of books from my grandpas library) I got my grandmas few craft books. I can remember when I was very little my grandma making about 10 cloth dolls. I adored them and would play with them all the time. I inherited one of those dolls. While going through the craft books I found a manilla envelope with the doll pattern that my grandma drafted.... so I've decided when we have kids I will make them a doll using this pattern :) Here's Rusty Rustball keeping the dolly company....
Last night when I heard we were most likely getting alot of snow today, I decided to run to Joann's to pick up some eyelet trim for the little girls skirts I've been making. I had just enough left to do the two skirts I shared the other day, but figured I may want to sew up some more this weekend since they're quick feel good pieces.... feel good about getting something sewn instead of dreading starting another large sewing project as I occasionally do. And we did get alot of snow today, in fact it's still snowing heavily and we already have about 6-7 inches and I don't think they're calling for it to stop soon. I just hope it doesn't switch over to rain like it has the past couple times, I NEED to get some snowshoeing in this winter!
Anyways, back to my trip to Joann's.... I had to pick up some batting for the baby quilt I'm making, along with a walking foot for when I start the quilting. I'm hoping this will make quilting a little easier for me. While in the batting/fill section I was really surprised to see a few "eco-friendly" options for this stuff. One was bamboo and the other was a corn blend. Working with "eco" fabrics for awhile now, I've done some research on what's really eco-friendly.... Hemp, bamboo, organic cotton- they all claim to be eco-friendly. They definitely all have they're eco-friendly traits, but all have atleast a few downfalls. I can't remember where the website was that had an excellent list of pros and cons of each of these fabrics, if I find it I'll post it. What I'm getting at is just b/c a package is claiming eco-friendly, doesn't necessarily mean it's the greatest thing for the earth. That being said, if you were using poly batting, then definitely these in my opinion are much better, just for the simple fact that they're not petroleum based.
Seeing these new battings and fills at a commercial chain like Joann's reminds me of the trend we're currently in... a broad eco-awareness extending beyond just keeping our water and air clean. I know this concept has been growing since the 60s/70s when people started realizing all the "new and improved" things and methods we as humans were developing, were actually "new and detrimental", but the concept seems to have snowballed into the 21st century. I'm amazed when I watch the tv and see that 1/3 of the commercials have some sort of eco spin on them. When I go to the commercial chain stores I see them toting about their eco clothing or other eco products.
Suddenly it's trendy and cool to be eating organics and wearing hemp/organic cotton/bamboo clothing. Finally things are catching on to the mainstream! Now let's hope this trend becomes permanent and doesn't fade out like your old acid wash jeans :)