Using up scraps

Since I can never bring myself to throw anything away, I have a pretty large remnant collection.

Lately I have an even larger scrap collection.  I mentioned before that I was working on an early Christmas project with flannel, and all the bits and pieces of all those cut-up flannel shirts and pajamas have been taking over.

Potholders to the rescue!  I've done these before, but generally in cotton fabrics, which I've found to be a bit on the flimsy side unless I use more batting/padding.  These are all a combination of flannel and denim, with the exception of the red, white and blue set which feature some of my aunt's chicken print apron fabric.

Because how can I not use a chicken print?

Potholders available in the Etsy shop.

Time to take your Potion

I started working on these embroidered apothecary labels this summer.  I didn't have a purpose for them at that point, I just liked the look of them and knew something would come to me eventually.  I did three of them on a piece of ivory linen and then put them aside.

Recently they came to light in the workroom and I started thinking about what to do with them.

What I eventually came up with was somewhat obvious, when I thought about it - labels go on bottles and jars, don't they?  So I needed to find some bottles and jars.  Or make some instead.

The bottles here are cut from a pair of dark grape purple velvet pants I found at my local thrift store, purchased several months ago and stashed for just such an occasion.  The mossy green linen backing fabric was leftover from a dress I made for myself a few years ago.

These are going to be more pillow covers.  I think I need to make a fourth label, because the "Miracle Cure" just doesn't fit well on the first pillow.  But thankfully, there is a fourth label, and I'll be starting that shortly.

Apothecary label designs are from Urban Threads.

Tweed Bears . . . Finally

This blog is supposed to be for my personal sewing, not the craft show/business sewing, but since there hasn't been any sewing for me since the recent top-fest, I thought I'd share what's been coming out of the workroom anyway.

These recycled tweed teddy bears were the biggest seller at the craft show in April, which of course means I should have had the remaining ones listed on Etsy ASAP, right?

Except I didn't.  Because there were only a few (so I made 8 more).

Because I didn't have decent photos of them, and I couldn't decide how I wanted to photograph them, and I didn't have a decent backdrop, and every time I wanted to do photos outside it was too early, or too late, or it was raining.

The hell with that.  I was walking back from a friend's house the other day and I saw these great wooden pine slats sitting out in the trash.  There were 6 of them, but I could only carry 4, since it was nearly a mile walk home.

Since it has been raining, these were set up this morning in my downstairs hallway, which gets good light, and I just got down on the floor on my stomach and took the damn pictures.  Uploaded them, tidied them up, got them listed on Etsy.

Why was that so hard?

Why do we put off things that need to be done until we can do them absolutely perfectly?  These may not be the photos of my dreams, but you know what?  They exist, and they're up on Etsy, and now people have a chance to actually see them, and if I ever get around to taking better photos (which I will, now that I at least have something, I can always swap them out.

Procrastination is my friend.  I think we need to stop spending so much time together.

Bears are up

What are they talking about?

My recycled tweed teddy bears were the biggest selling item at the recent craft fair.

So successful, in fact, that I had to come home and make a bunch more - I didn't see the point of listing the 3 remaining bears on Etsy, though I probably should have.  They aren't doing me or anybody any good just sitting around.

Now that there are a dozen on the living room bookshelf, looking down at me and supervising my typing here, I thought it was time to get them down, get them photographed and put them out there for the rest of the world to see.

Shall we dance?  Or are they plotting?

 Not all the bears are dressed yet - I've had some requests for girl bears, so they can have either ruffled collars from plaid flannel or a gathered lace collar with a ribbon bow.

Personally, I like the boys.  There's just something about a bear in a bow tie.  Very serious looking, aren't they?

Bears are now listed in the shop, with separate listings by color.  Due to the limitations on some of the fabrics, there are 5 tan herringbone, one black and white, 2 dark brown, one medium brown and 2 gray.

With more to come.

Family gathering

And there are more animals in the arsenal, I just wanted to get a decent collection of one before I started in on something else - that's always my downfall, starting something, then getting another bright idea and going on to the next thing before I've finished the first.  I'm trying to do this the right way, which means that my desk and my worktable are covered in notes and fabric samples for the other ideas I've had that I haven't let myself work on.

Yet.

Soon.

Very soon.

A new day

Big old button sculpture on the Penn campus.  I don't know why.

You might be wondering what my day is like now that I'm a lady of (cough) leisure.  It goes pretty much like this:

7:00 a.m.   Alarm goes off; Mario gets up for work and I feed the chicken and then go through the house, feeding cats and cleaning litterboxes.  Generally I grind my coffee and set up the pot then, so all I have to do later is turn it on.  By then it's about 7:30.  Some days I stay up, but often I  am joined by a cat or two and I go back to bed for an hour.  Because I can.

8:30 a.m.  Second alarm.  Turn on computer, go downstairs, make coffee and breakfast, feed Lily a little of my breakfast, check my emails, Etsy and do a little blog reading over breakfast.

From 10:00 - noon is a bit of a blur.  I shower and dress (not letting myself get into the habit of working in my pjs).  Then I generally go out back to check on Bonnie, which ends with me puttering in the yard for a good hour or two, or coming into do some cleaning if the weather isn't accommodating.  Slowly, the house is getting cleaner.  It's amazing what you can ignore when you're too busy to deal with it.

Noon - 2:30 p.m. (at least) is time in the workroom, doing whatever project I set up the night before.  I've been trying to do things for the Etsy shop in assembly line fashion - it makes it go much faster - so the other day I watched a movie while stuffing 8 bear bodies and 32 arms and legs.  Then I cut out 2 toddler dresses and left them on the table.

2:30 or so, I walk down to the post office if I have anything to send out.  The vintage shop is slow but steady, so most days there is generally something.  From there I'll also hit the fruit and veg vendor if we need anything, or maybe pop my head in the thrift store to scope out what might be on half price sale on Saturday.

The garden is starting to bloom - and I'm home to see it!

4:00 p.m. - Good afternoon light, so usually I take photos for the Etsy shops then, on big white boards on the kitchen or bedroom floors.  I'll upload and clean them up for posting later.  Usually I'm in the living room on the computer when Mario comes in from work.  Then he generally goes up to his office to work on whatever he's been doing and I go in the workroom, clean up the earlier mess and arrange the next day's work.

7:00 p.m. - dinnertime.  Sometimes this has been started earlier, depending on what I've gotten up to (yesterday I made a big pot of soup).  This is generally eaten upstairs on the couch so he can get in an hour or so of news viewing before we both can't take it anymore.  Then he generally works on a project on the laptop and I'll either bring out some handwork (finishing on bears, embroidery, sewing on buttons) to keep him company, or I'll retreat for a bonus few hours in the workroom.

11:00 p.m.  Daily Show/Colbert Report - a must have unless one or the other of us has fallen asleep on the couch, and usually the survivor watches anyway.  I get more news from them than the actual news anymore.

After that, it's bed.  I tend not to fall asleep right away because late night is my best time to plan.  It's also my best time to obsess that I'm a complete and total failure and my venture will never work out, so the planning is also an attempt to quiet the other voice.

7:00 a.m. - the alarm goes off . . .

Something to Cluck About

I have a small show coming up on Saturday, so of course I should be working flat out to get ready for it, right?

Nope, not yet.  For a couple of days, I worked on Christmas stockings, just to feel like I was getting that under control, and today, when I should have been finishing a few other half-completed items, I started a new baby dress.

This one is going to be a size 3, in a soft denim, with a red and white polka dot chicken on it.

I have a fondness for chickens - I have one in my back yard (there were 2, but Bonnie doesn't seem to be a flock animal) - and I just like them as a motif, fresh eggs completely aside.

This little bird was cut more or less freehand from the polka dot fabric, then stuck down to the previously cut dress front with Wonder Under.  I've had that stuff for so long I'm actually surprised it still works.  Then I zigzagged the edges, for security and interest, and now that I've stopped for the night, I'm debating the rest.

The inside facings will be in the red and white polka dots, and I'm still trying to decide about the neckline trim - white rickrack or red.  Probably red, since I'm on a kick here, but I want to add some embroidery to the rickrack to mimic something I saw online.  Can't find the photo for that, so I'll just have to show you.

Or find the photo and show you.

More chicken to come.  But no eggs.  Sorry.

Getting a jump on Christmas

I know, logical, isn't it?  Just as spring finally reaches the East Coast, I'm working on some holiday items.

And it's not like I don't have a show on May 10th, and another one on June 15th, but yesterday it began to bother me that I was getting a bit behind with a particular project, so I put some hours into it yesterday and today.

I made some Christmas stockings last year for a local show, and they did okay.  I made one other stocking, which was a bit more labor intensive - and would never have sold at the local show because I would have had to price it accordingly.  I decided to send it to a friend and fellow blogger, who had hosted me at a workshop at her farm in October.

When she showed it on her blog, it was a total surprise to me.  The reaction it got was also a total surprise, and led me to approach her after the holidays with the idea of running a holiday ad on her blog  next year, featuring - you guessed it - that stocking.  Which, if it's being sold to people who understand, and if I get started in time and can do a little bit of assembly line work, won't be quite so labor intensive.

It's those one-off, prototype projects that really slow you down, but sometimes the best work comes out of them.

So right now my sewing table is covered in scraps of plaid flannel, and there are 30 stockings cut out, with linings, waiting to be embellished.  I feel a little better now, especially since I'm starting a project to deal with all those flannel scraps, and those can be made up for sale at the upcoming shows.

It all works out in the end.  Right?