Something

Well, unfortunately nothing too terrible interesting occurred over the weekend to give me much to do. Instead it was a quiet family weekend with errands to run and movies to see with friends. The only craft I got up to until Sunday was this felted art kit I mentioned before. There is something therapeutic about all the stabbing necessary to make felted stuff and this was no exception. Once I'd finished the picture, I picked up a cheap, blank canvas bag and sewed it on. Not that I needed any more bags, but I'll put it to use anyway and even more importantly it gave me something to accomplish for the weekend.

On late Saturday I got a request to make up some small black tatted hearts for my same wonderful customer who had me make some small red ones not too long ago. It's not a huge project, but it gave me some tatting to do yesterday and I have just a little more to finish today. After that's done I'm hoping for something to fall out of the sky as usual, because I am truly at the end of my projects. So many things are just waiting for some criteria to be fulfilled before I can get back to them. I need to sell some RPL before I make more, I need another pair of bobbins before I make more, I need more tatting to sell so I have something to remake, or I need an idea or request so I can make something new. I'm on the edge of a thread knife here, just waiting.

I Tried

Well that was a bit of an odd Monday. I oscillated back and forth between cleaning and tatting with just a bit of lazy stalling thrown in for good measure. The husband had it in his mind to clean our bathroom counters, so I cleaned the floors downstairs and since it's been getting colder in the morning, I cleaned out behind the gas fireplace grills where apparently spiders think it's great to hang out. Then I spent far too long cleaning up my supplies as I searched for jump rings that had gone missing. I found them, but I really need to order more of so many things. Unfortunately that will have to wait until sales pick up so you know, I can pay for them.

By the afternoon, we were all ready to do a little nothing, so we put on the extended edition of the Hobbit and while that was on I managed to not only finish all the tatting I needed to get done, but also started making more needle felted soot sprites. I decided that they would look great as ornaments, so I put some head pins through them and gave them a ring to hang from. Of course I didn't take a picture of them then, but they're cute either way.

I've got all the tatting I had in queue to be done, done so I'm not certain what I'll get up to later today. I do have yet another teacher meeting to go to this morning, this time for the youngest child. There are a lot more meetings with two different teachers than we had with one. I miss having just one. Oh, well. That means school will go longer today, so hopefully something interesting will happen between now and then so I'll have plenty to keep me from lazy.

Weekend Recap

While I did get a couple of orders over the weekend, giving me tatting to do during our downtime, most of our weekends are now family time. We're not very good at finding things to do that aren't cleaning or shopping, but sometimes we figure something else out.

The weekend started early with a field trip to the pumpkin patch on Friday morning. There were walks, regular errands and the like, but on Sunday, we got creative. I did a little needle felting because the kids wanted me to make them soot sprites. If those aren't familiar to you, you must watch a few Miazaki films. The soot sprites feature in My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away. I only made four, but if I can figure out a fun way to display them, I'll probably make more. I also picked up some skull foam shape for the kids since Halloween is already on dramatic clearance at Michaels. Christmas has already thrown up in the store and it makes me a little sad inside especially as there are 10 days left before Halloween even gets here.

We also baked. I know I haven't shared with you how much I don't cook, nor bake, but I just hate cleaning up. Also, I'm lazy and it takes too long with all those steps. I'm still waiting for the replicators from Start Trek so I can tell a computer what to make me and it instantly appears, but I digress. We baked because I found a kit for skeleton gingerbread cookies. The mix it came with wasn't the best, but I now have an awesome cookie cutter that I'm sure I can use with a better recipe. Plus, it's good to bake with the kids so they know that I have the capability to bake and just choose not to and not that I'm just bad at it.

I don't really have any plans for today. While there are still a few piece left in the queue that I probably should make up, I probably won't. There's a mask I made with hand dyed thread and I'm almost out of it, so I'm not even sure i could get a whole mask out of it and there's a fascinator to make and I don't really feel like sewing anything to a base. So, I guess I don't know what I'll get up to today. Hopefully it will be something interesting though.

New and Eyeballs

After schooling was wrapped and lunch, I just picked up my needle and thread and started doodling with them. Sometimes when I doodle, I at least have a bit of a picture in my head to guide me, this time it was pure and aimless. After just a few elements I saw the pattern emerge. It had a nice bit of stretch to it and it was quick and easy so I turned it first into a bracelet length and then a necklace length. I haven't bothered with hardware yet, that's for today, but once they were lying side by side, another pattern emerged.

It took a little while to figure out the best way to turn the design to
the second side and working the second side backwards was fiddly. It would probably have been easier had I worked them separately instead of in one round, but I quite liked the negative space so I kept right on working. I made this one to bracelet length as well and added a hook while working, so technically this one is done. I thought about making this version choker length as well, but the final design is just too thick to be comfortable around the neck. It would get all folded up while worn as well.

Once all that was made, I decided that I would save finishing and listing for today to give myself something that needed to be done. Then I happened upon this short how-to video on Etsy for making needle felted bloodshot eyeballs. Since I had all the needed materials and I found them adorable, I spent the rest of my evening stabbing wool to make them. I kept working on them while watching our evening television, so I have four of them now. They're even all about the same size, which I was pretty sure I couldn't accomplish given that I have felted for at least a year.

So to recap, new bracelets and necklace were tatted and will be finished and listed today. Felted eyeballs are fun to make and I'll probably make more of those too unless I get some sales to give me something more important to do. Either way, I guess I'm good.

New

Huzzah to the giver! The first sale of the year has finally been recorded in the etsy shop and it brings with it a sense of relief. Every year things get incredibly busy for the holidays and then stop cold turkey sending me through withdrawals. After a few years you'd think the knowledge that this happens every year would temper my reaction to the event, but it hasn't yet. I go through a bit of a panic where I fear I've become suddenly invisible, but that's over for now. I know things will remain relatively slow, but now that my visibility has been confirmed I can deal with it...better anyway.

The spare time is something I can work with though. The newest mask and tikka are now listed in the shop though I fear my excessive makeup wearing for the photos has annoyed my eye, it's all red and irritated this morning. Once that was done I set into another of those, 'what's next?' funks. Then after I made that sale, I had an idea. The sale was of this necklace. It's been selling quite well lately which is kind of odd to me since it was one of my first original creations that I retired from the shop for quite some time before bringing it back this summer. But I digress, I decided to use my newest necklace design and morph it into a similar necklace.

This is just the prototype and it's different on each side as I tried to work out some design details. I figure I make up a plain version first and get that listed and then I'll go and do a second embellished version with some seed beads on the joining picots and perhaps something shiny hanging in the center portions like I did on the tikka. It finishes with a tatted chain too which means less work after I finish tatting. So, that's the plan for today and hopefully the inspiration with this design will keep coming and I can create a whole line with the basic construction. I already have a bracelet idea percolating, so that's a good start. I love it when the new year finally kicks in.

2012

Happy Monday 2012. So far, it's been a slow crawl to the New Year. The etsy shop got real quiet, real fast and with the husband home and the child off school, absolutely nothing is as normally scheduled and that means nothing much gets accomplished. We have one last quiet day around here before the husband returns to work and then I shall have to institute routine again or risk my sanity as the children rage against boredom. Speaking of raging against boredom, I got my order of roving in the mail from asherjasper on etsy. It is a box of painfully sharp joy. It came in on Saturday and the requests for small colorful items started coming in immediately from the children.

Here's a small pile of odds and ends I've managed to create. I'm definitely getting better. The felting process is time consuming and I really must work on my posture while I work it because my back is killing me, but it's fun. The husband remarked that I wouldn't be making any money from these creations should I decided to sell them. Worry not people, this one is just a pastime. Until I achieve the skill level to make skulls or dragons, you probably won't even see this stuff again. On a side note, I received a book for Christmas about crafting with cat fur. I know it was mostly a joke and the book recommends a wet felting process for most of the projects, but there was a cat right next to me, so I brushed her and needle felted up a ball...when the summer shedding starts, it might get weird around here.

In other news, I think I've been steered in the right direction for an project. As I kept asking for ideas, I honestly had no idea what I was looking for, but I knew when I heard it, it would stick. Over on the facebook fan page, I received some great inspiration links and ideas, but here's the one that set my gears in motion. No, I'm not going to make a chair, but formed lace beyond a simple bowl or small 3-d shape intrigued me. The one major drawback is that this sort of thing requires much planning and I'm a fly by my seat kind of creator. 


Already, I am asking for advice on stiffening lace. This chair here by Marcel Wanders is described as being draped over a form and stiffened with resin which means it's rock hard, not lightly stiffened like we usually do with lace. So I've got a few different products on order as per lovely twitter advice and I will be experimenting to find the right one to use even before I settle on my object and pattern. It's going to be a slow process I imagine and that's going to drive me up a wall, but hopefully all my patience will pay off and I'll end up with a jaw dropping piece of art too. I will of course accept any suggestions or advice in this, as I am, as always flying blind. So, here's to a great and creative 2012.

Felted

So yesterday I made a mistake I had surprisingly never made before. We ran some errands in the morning and I dropped an order off at the post office heading to Canada. When we got home I pulled up the order on the computer to mark it shipped when I realized that I had packed the wrong pair of bobby pins. Yikes. In my defense the order came in Christmas day and you know I wasn't in the proper frame of mind to distinguish a white pair from a white and ivory pair. I sighed and thought and came to the conclusion that I best just remake the accidentally shipped pair and get the right pair ready to ship. I suppose it could have been worse. I could have not noticed at all and then the customer would have contacted me all upset in a week. At least this way I was able to email the customer and let them know what had happened and that I would be shipping the right pair today. I also figured letting them keep the wrong pair would be much easier than asking then to ship it back.

Since that was all the tatting I got done I thought I'd show you the needle felting project I did on Christmas eve. Go ahead and mock if you must, it was my first ever attempt and wings in articular leave much to be desired. After I worked this up I used some of the left over roving to practice the concept some more and I believe I have it down now. Sure, I should have done that first, but hindsight and all that, right?

I tried to find more roving locally so I could play some more. I know I probably won't have much time for it, but I'd still like to have some around. Shockingly I could find none anywhere. I suppose I'll just have to suck it up and order some online if I ever want any. There are lots of kits on etsy and I might even try to trade for some.

In other news, we had all the nieces and nephews over for a sleepover last night. They still slumber upstairs. That's eight children between the ages of four and twelve so as you might imagine it took hours for them to finally fall asleep, chatting and laughing just loud enough to keep us from sleep as well. We'll cook them a big breakfast and then they play all morning while I get nothing done. I still have one kid's neck warmer to finish and that's the end of the family projects. I'll probably stall for a while trying to figure out the next side craft to tackle. I might get a couple of pieces remade for the shop or maybe I'll start plotting my new year projects. I feel so adrift without my schedule and no one was around to comment on my mask yesterday...uh oh, the whine is starting, I'm off.