I Would Rather Be Tatting

It was a long day...a long, hot day. It began with and hour and a half walking tour of an air museum. This would have normally been lovely in October, but it seems that October has morphed into some other crazy summer month that left us walking on asphalt in increasingly warming sun. It was still nice I suppose with the picnic at the end, but there you have the whole of the morning.

Afternoon started with the children taking a nice nap when I managed to finish yet another mask and get most of the way through a necklace. The whole time I was dreading the evening though and it was fast approaching. I was also crushed to learn that one of my twitter friends had a very tragic day. Before I had left for the field trip she had tweeted that her husband had collapsed and was with paramedics. I thought about her all day and by this point in the afternoon I learned that he had died. We aren't close, but she is a wonderful and wacky personality and young. I am crushed for her and I wish her anything she needs to get through this and I hugged my husband tight when he got home.

Then I went into the belly of the beast. My mother is moving and I have been little help, but I was asked to go into her old apartment and help finish packing. I hate moving myself and last evening with do nothing to reverse that feeling. I spent hours there and feel like nothing was accomplished. I must point out now that I myself am a bit of a pack rat. I got this trait from my mother who I fear has developed into more of a hoarder and that is all the description I'm going to give. Hopefully the move is a fresh start, because I am so not doing this again.

Today should theoretically be back to routine, schooling and tatting. I've caught up with all the orders so it's just remaking at this point. I'll get that necklace finished this morning and maybe onto another mask. I think this shall be a 'whichever way the wind blows' sort of day.

I'm A Shark

Just in case you were concerned about the daughter's grasp of math facts, I thought I'd tell you straight away that just another day of flash cards along with a few tips and tricks seemed to have done the job. She is by no means all of a sudden a number expert, but she went from complete disaster to general competence so I count that as a win. As you can imagine that I accomplished very little in the morning as I focused on the task of math and then school became even more complicated with the construction of science...instruments. She is now studying the weather and wind and this means trips outside with things cobbled together from drinking straws, pencils and paper plates...highly scientific and time consuming.

After all the school business I was able to finish the custom convertibles and the mask I was working on and get it listed. I was also gratified and this point in the day to receive payment for my most recent order. As I started work on yet another mask I got that, 'I don't wanna be doing this anymore today' feeling. I know we have entered that three month magic zone where I can expect an uptick in sales and I will be tatting nonstop for that whole time, so I stopped. I took a break, packed the recent orders and then I cleaned. I know, I know, cleaned? Well, when you need a break you do the first thing that needs doing. Oh, but why wouldn't I just take a break and relax? Yeah, I don't do that much. Most days I'm like a shark. No, I'm not a man eating menace, I just can't stop moving or I'll drown.

Today there's a field trip to out local air museum. We've been there before of course and it is quite the walking tour. It can be lovely in the right weather, unfortunately this October is still behaving like June or July and I'm sorely tempted to bring my umbrella and rock the sun parasol look. When we return, it will be back to the masks and other recently sold goodies. I cannot get lax now, must keep up. So off to it then and sorry about the lack of pictures again.

Math Facts

Well, let's see...I spent the morning hurriedly finishing a necklace and almost the moment it was complete it was time to head up for schooling. Up to this point my child has soaked up most things fairly easily. Sure, there have been a few struggles, but we hit out first brick wall. She is suppose to be memorizing addition fact with sums up to 16 and this was the point at which she broke. She was handling up to 12 alright, but apparently 16 was a magic number and a timed test ended in complete failure. Sure it's no big deal, we just back up a bit and slow down with them. What does annoy me a bit is I don't have automatic recall on some of these. I still do the math in my head so why does she have to be all rain man with them? Oh well.

As soon as school was over I grabbed some mask wires and got to work on a mask, which by the end of the day was complete. I did take a break on it when I got my custom color order sorted. I've got two convertible pieces, one in camel and one in brown that need making. At this point, I have just the brown one to finish. I took them to a comic book shop meeting to finish and I'm sure I looked a little more off than usual, but I feel like I can't slow down on anything right now.

I'll finish up the convertibles today then start back on the masks. I also woke up to another sale lacking payment so I'm crossing my fingers that it resolves itself quickly. I used to send out a message that indicated that all orders not paid for within 3 days would be canceled and this time I sent one that shrunk that time frame down to 24 hours. I just don't have the patience anymore to wait and see, especially when a large portion of these have a complete lack of communication whether they eventually pay or not. So it's off to math boot camp today followed by mask making sweat shop...good times, good times.

Weekend Recap

What a weekend. The sales started on Friday with a couple of masks which put me in a right pleasant mood. We headed off to the Ren Faire on Saturday knowing I had a few extra pennies to justify the trip. This is the first time we've made more than one trip over in a season and it is odd being recognized by the denizens, but we did have a lovely time.

I had been getting a bit grumpy over a recent trend of folks asking if I could somehow customize a pieces, size, color, etc., and then seemingly disappearing into the mist. Well, a couple of those reemerged and there were also more mask sales waiting when I got home. I, however couldn't get to much on Sunday as my Mother was moving and though we missed the bulk of the carrying phase, we were just in time for the assembling phase. I put together a table and chairs, started the entertainment stand, but a vital piece of hardware was missing. You know the kind that must be acquired from the manufacturer. That then was the end of my task. Of course my poor husband was left helping to cart over a refrigerator and washer and dryer, so I won't be complaining.

So that leaves me with a custom listing up waiting for payment and further instructions that I will need to get to straight away and a necklace I need to finish for shipping tomorrow. There was a veil that needed expedited shipping for a wedding this coming week, thankfully UPS is open today. Now there are also a handful of masks that need remaking. I won't re list any of them as custom until after the holiday so I don't get any 'make it now and ship it now' orders. I will try to get them remade as this is really the last week that things can reasonably be expected to ship by Halloween.

I also have a field trip for my daughter later this week not to mention her regular schooling. I suspect that I might be a bit focused on getting things done and that this headache that I woke up with is going to stay with me much of the week. I also predict a boring, picture-less blog for the week as I have no time to return to the halter top idea now. My apologies in advance.

Convertible

Proving yet again that I rarely have a handle on what is going to happen in the future, I have sold just two masks this month. I know it's still early, but in the land of Internet orders there is an earlier cutoff for sales since shipping is only so reliable. So I've got maybe two weeks left of Halloween sales. I should have recalled that last year I didn't really sell all that many for Halloween either. They really do work better as Masquerade masks. Anyway, that was just a bit of a whine over spending so much time getting masks made, when I could have been doing something else I suppose.

The frilled vine piece was photographed and listed yesterday.The biggest challenge was as a convertible piece, I never know what is best to show in the first picture. It works as a headband, armband, necklace and the ruffle makes it look great all tightened up as a bracelet too. I thought it might make a great garter as well. It would if it were like twice the length. Why I always forget how much bigger around ones leg is than their neck, I'll never know. Well, it's likely because I really don't need to know. Though I suppose I could make one long enough for that purpose, but that would take forever.

The profound lack of orders on my plate meant I did get to work on the crazy halter top idea. The bottom edge is already sussed out so it was the challenge of the triangle. I am first testing out a vintage design made of small square motifs. The motif is the same one I use in my Starburst pieces. I initially connected them wrong and had to cut them apart to start again, but I not even certain they are going to work. I'm working using my own sad measurements and trying to adjust things to what might be considered normal sized. There will be little room for adjust-ability in the end design so I want it to be as average as possible. Though I not so secretly hope to be called away from the project with pressing orders to attend to, I will keep working on this one. I may have to just buckle under and design from scratch for this bit. I guess I'll just have to work up the prototypes as see how it comes together.