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.

Tatted Tikka

And it's all over. The husband returns to work today and though the child is technically on vacation for more than two more weeks, I'm putting her back to work today as well. Not full time or anything, but the routine must be reestablished before chaos becomes the new routine and I lose complete control. So, what did I work on yesterday? Well, I did a little cleaning and I took down Christmas early due to escalating cat related incidents. We usually leave it up until the 6th for Little Christmas, but I began to fear the worst so I erred on the side of caution, but I did also tat.

I know I am going to have to wait until I get in the last stiffener before I really start to work on that idea, so in the meantime I thought I'd tackle another of your ideas, a simpler one. I decided to have at the Indian hair jewelry that I've since learned is called tikka, or at least the pendant portion is. I'm still a little fuzzy on it, but it seems the pendant is suspended from a short chain that ends in a hook that is attached to the hair, either to a braid or bobby pinned in. This is the prototype pendant I tatted up based on the last necklace design I came up with.

Next up I dug though my findings feeling pretty confident I had a hook or two on hand to make the first one with. Well, I did, but they were gold toned. I figured the best way to utilize what I had on hand was to make the piece up in brass. I made the final piece up with brass bits and dark brown thread. I think that the basic design could work with different embellishment options as well. I could hand bits from the bottom as well as bead the outside edge. So if this one is well received, I'll try to source some silver hooks and get a few more versions made up. I'm also thinking I should treat the back of the lace so that spirit gum can be applied to it. I read that is often done to keep the pendant in place while belly dancing. Luckily I've already run across just the product for that purpose.

Hopefully I'll get this and my newest mask listed today after I get some photos. Of course that depends on the sun and my ability to remember how to get good photos. I's been quite some time since I had to do ones that featured my face so predominately. I was enjoying all the simple pieces that I didn't have to get dolled up to photograph. So, that will likely be the whole of the day, unless of course inspiration strikes or someone actually makes the first purchase of the year...I'm still waiting for that one.

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.

I just realized as I sat down that today is Friday and thus the last blogging day of the year. See, I had grand plans of doing a big end of the year post with a look back at this past years "achievements" and placing some goals for the coming year into print, but the week got completely away from me. So, I suppose I'll wing this a bit. I just went back and looked at last years post and this is what I discovered:

"So where do I go for next year then? As much as I do still adore the round numbers, they are not really a true gauge of my success, they are just reminders that we live in a base 10 world. Sure, I could ask for the fame thing again, but that is a wild crap shoot. If I made half an effort to make it happen of course, but we all know I am too lazy and much too chicken to go out on many ledges. So I guess I'll stick with practical this year. I will try to make another Instructable and another video. I will continue to design, grow and learn. I will watch kittens and children grow, take care of my family, make a few new friends, babble in my blog and try to be better person."

Every year before that post I laid out a bunch of round number goals for the year, but given my paragraph of goals here, this past year was a rousing success. This past year saw not one, but four new Instructables posted, a new video and plenty of new designs. The children and the cats kept on growing and everyone appears healthy and happy. I'm lucky to be online where I am constantly meeting new people and folks read and occasionally respond to my babbling. It's been a year full of getting really close to fame and not quite breaking through, but all of that had lessons to teach. Tatting made it to a New York runway and I sold not one, but two of the fanciest masks I've ever made. All in all it was a pretty good year and I won't muck up next year with a list of numbers either. In fact, that stuff I said last year, I'd like to do all that again.

One last thing for the year, a new mask. I was searching for more inspiration for my next project when I ran across a prototype mask made years ago. I was a complete fail, but I never tossed it assuming one day I would have the skills to resurrect it. Yesterday was apparently that one day.  The original is under the new work there. I made it with medallions all of the same size and it fits like it was made by a five year old with a pile of yarn. This time I decided to shape the design by not only decreasing the size of the center medallion, but also making the medallions on the side asymmetrical so they would grow out to the sides giving the piece the proper shape without losing the overall size.

In the end I also added more to the bottom giving the mask more coverage and I completely reworked the edging I used at the top to a more organic design giving the top more structure so the points didn't flop about. The new mask is on the bottom here. I know you can't really tell how bad the top mask is here without it being on a face, but trust me, this was a design achievement I thought I never get. I probably won't get it listed until Monday since I hate doing photo shoots with the husband around...even when he doesn't actually mock me, it is perceived.

So there you have it, the end of the year, a new mask and that leaves us at the weekend. Thank you to all of you who read this blog or the Wunderkammer, buys my tatting, follows me on twitter or joined the facebook fan page. Many thanks for commenting, consoling, commiserating, offering up ideas and for putting up with my occasional  nonsense...or pretending to anyway. Thank you once again for being part of my year and I hope to see you in the new one.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

More Crochet

Man was yesterday morning ever a wash. The extra children stayed until just after noon and it took a few hours before my sanity returned and I was able to accomplish anything. It's not like they're bad kids or anything, but when there are eight of them, it's just terribly overwhelming just to be in the same house with them and winter makes it worse because they can't go outside and run free. I suppose they'll have great memories of these sleep overs though, so it's all worth it then.

After all of that, I did get some things accomplished. First, I finally settled on a needle felting kit I found on etsy with a lovely assortment of colors and just an hour after I ordered it, I got an email saying it was shipped. I love it when sellers are, well...like me. Then I had a couple of small pendants to tat up and that got me right back into my groove. Once that bit of store business was concluded, I had a neck warmer to finish.

This one is my oldest, she picked out the yarn and the buttons. Man, does she love those buttons. I had just finished it and she put it right on and clearly she's pretty happy with it. In fact, she didn't tale it off until I made her get dressed for bed. I made both the girl's pieces as long as my own so they won't grow out of them. So I guess that's the end of the crochet projects for the winter.

I've got a couple more small pieces that need to be tatted up today, but after that I'm not sure which direction I'll go. I did recently acquire instructions to make ribbon cocardes. I have an etsy friend that makes them and I've gotten a few from her. It was driving me batty that I didn't know how to make them, then I saw a how to for sale on etsy and snatched it up. I tried the technique, but still haven't taken one all the way to completion. I might try that today. The process is simple, but time consuming which is much like most crafts I do, so it should fit right in. I also have another craft kit for a beaded, light up wrist cuff, but the instructions are ridiculously complex so I've been putting that one off. My week of almost vacation is almost over though and next week  I will likely shift gears to a new large project or at least something new in tatting. What a week.