vintage button and playing with rick-rack-
I will be putting these dolls in my Etsy shop tomorrow around noon, eastern standard time.
So finally, some more tattooed men.
There is a pirate in my pile of wips that I cut out in Dec. ’08 and he needs to be finished. I don’t like to work on just one of anything- I think I’ve explained before that if I do, I tend to overwork the one doll. Last weekend I dyed fabric. Early in the week I cut out 3 of the original type. But then, inspired by the tattooed ladies, I started playing with the body types. That is what keeps it interesting/fresh for me. Of course when I got to work on them, the first one to be finished is the new body design.
He looks kind of devilish, doesn’t he! When I stuffed him, I was concerned that he was a little too Bobinsky, but whatever.
I love his hair. I never plan out things like the hair. It always works best if I keep an open mind and just play with the fabric.
The thing is, I had this “great” idea, in the middle of the night. I don’t know about you, but my middle-of-the-night ideas usually turn out to be totally lame in the light of day. But, that aside, I tried to make it work for a while, discarded it, went forward on a completely different hair direction when… somehow that night idea and the hair I was putting on came together and he has his little hair horns. And he has a sewn and stuffed moustache (a first for me).
And here he is, lounging around on the sofa.
I will put whatever men I make in my Etsy shop on Monday, probably around noonish est. There, now I have a deadline for myself and I need to get back to work!
This is how my desk really looks when I am working.
Can you see? Yep, I am making some new tattooed men. It has been more than a year. I spent the whole day trying to organize my accounts so they haven’t progressed yet today. Except that I took the hair off that one guy. You can see this photo BIG over here- and click on all sizes.
I want to show you what I did with the used flat file I bought last March.
The top two drawers are where I store my crewel wool. Son Julian made me those cardboard dividers when he was home last summer.
The third drawer down has misc. embroidery threads- ribbon embroidery, Danish Flower threads, crochet cotton, other random stuff. I store my floss over here.
Fourth and fifth drawer- all my delicious wool felt.
Then comes the buttons- drawer six-
and drawer seven. I just got these 2 drawers arranged after Christmas.
The bottom 3 drawers have papers and things that I stuffed into them when I moved- ie more potential goodie organized storage space. This flat file organizing is working well for me. It helps me see so much of what I need to choose from at one time.
One last thing to show you- my roll of paper. It hangs right above my desk, always handy for when I have an idea or am making a test pattern.
Actually, weekends don’t really mean much around here since neither of us goes out to work. But, this is what I did yesterday-
I am working on flesh tones for cotton. I had a recipe that I liked, using Rit Dyes, but they discontinued one of the colors (Peach) and so now I am figuring it all out again. This is frustrating- not like when I don’t really care what color I get, as long as it is clear and bright. I will do some of that sort of dyeing soon- it is great fun!
I started a new rabbit. It is made of a felted alpaca sweater- which clearly still has a lot of stretch. I can’t believe the difference between the woven wool and the knitted alpaca! Yes, they are cut from the same pattern.
the challenge can be to decide to make a girl kitty or boy kitty and have it look like a girl or boy. As opposed to making the doll and deciding if it looks like a boy or girl and going from there.
I love this pink wool. It was one of my purchases from my visit to Dorr.
4 December wips finished, 3 to go.
More snow today. It isn’t suppose to add up to much, but it is making it hard to get decent photos.
I’d gotten discouraged with this lady. I was questioning all of the choices I’d made when I sewed her together- color combinations, head shape, blah, blah, blah… these are the type of choices where there is no going back. Probably part of the feeling was due to starting up again in January, after the enthusiasm and forward motion of the fall had stalled. Anyway, I plugged away, going back and forth with other dolls and I am very happy with how she’s turned out! Hurray for perseverance!
I’ve been trying to organize my various numbers to figure out taxes. Ben (husband) has been having fun with those numbers- he’s that kind of guy. Below is a map of all the places in the US that I have sold something on Etsy, total. I opened my Etsy shop in March 2006. Ben collected the zip codes, son Julian made the map. Thanks guys!
And I’ve sold to 24 countries-
Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States.
He made me up some other charts like the curve of my Etsy sales but I won’t bore you!
Today is a messy weather day. We started out with pouring rain last night. It changed to snow in the night. We woke up to an instantly recognizable pinging sound on the windows- sleet.
We call this slop. It is heavy and messy to shovel.