Category Archives: General

bad timing

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See that dot on the left side of the head of my new girl? Yeah, it is not suppose to be there. My Canon G10- which I have loved since I got it last December, is making me unhappy. We are thinking (around here) that it is dust on the sensor. The store where I bought it- for full price, I might add- was amazingly unhelpful. Gee, sorry, send it back to Canon. How much? We don’t know. How long? Who knows! Why?! Standard usage- What? This is not a camera that you can open in any way. How can it possibly be my fault?  Anyway- I’m pissed. I will not be buying anything from there again.

This camera thing is incredibly bad timing. Remember this back in March? Well, it is going up next week- August 26. I am nervous and excited. I wanted to give my regular readers a heads up because there will probably be some odd, explaining kinds of blog posts when the video goes up. We’ll see. Of course, now I feel like I am about to have a party or my in-laws over and the vaccuum cleaner is broken!

Also, after sort of limping along all summer, I am getting a rush of ideas- so why does my camera have to break now! Waah! Okay- I think I feel better.

One more thing- I had been hoping to go to the NIADA conference in Tennessee in September. It is now obvious that it is not going to happen. Just wanted to let anyone I’ve talked to about it know.

another studio update

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I am actually working in the room now. The move got to a certain point of trying to get things arranged, and I realized I had to start working in the space to know where things should be. The result is that the room doesn’t look great but I am essentially moved and back to work. I will probably do a blog studio tour in a month or so when things have settled a bit.

The desk area-

This is working pretty well, although I have been rearranging the drawers as I try to find my tools. I moved my sewing machine off the desk and onto a smaller desk. The big desk will be my main work area now.

The shelf above my desk is still rather empty. I haven’t brought any of the dolls that were on the attic studio shelf down yet.

And I have to work more on the wool storage bins. They still seem disorganized, but what can I do? It is so hard to decide what is the right way to organize. Color? Material? (wool, cashmere, etc) Size of the fabric pieces?

On another topic- I will be in the Columbia, SC area around Labor Day. Does anyone know of any not-to-be-missed crafty goodness in the area?

tiny world class 2

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I taught another tiny world class yesterday. It was a great day for it- overcast and cool. Perfect to gather with friends and do a project! There were 9 students all together, but, as usual, I forgot to take photos and only have a few of the projects to show.

In the morning, we all worked on little houses-

After lunch we made our “hills” and put them all together. Here are some that got finished- sorry for the not-so-great photos.

Betsy’s–

Greta’s- glue drying in progress-

She added a side garden- isn’t it adorable!

Crystal‘s- she wrote more about the class here–

And my son, Julian, took the class too. Here is his-

Everybody did really well. Each person was able to do something unique which made it their own. It is so much fun to see what people come up with.

I will be teaching again on Saturday, October 17. Space is limited to 8, so let me know if you are interested.

this week

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the studio is coming along-

doesn’t really look much better then a week ago, but things seem much more in control. These photos were from this morning-

My desk- see- I’ve got some dolls going!

And this is the fun part- I’ve been organizing my threads.

All those colors make me so happy.

I have my next tiny world pincushion class this Thursday. I have had a request to hold another Tiny World pincushion class in October. If I scheduled a class for October 17, would anyone be interested? Email me if you are- mimik@pobox.com. I will need 3 more people to make it a go (min. of 5).

and the winner is…

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Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

3

Timestamp: 2009-08-06 16:09:45 UTC

*** Drumroll please***

Sister Diane!

If people are interested, I can check into how much printing would cost and then get some more of these into my Etsy shop. Would people rather have an academic year calendar or a 2010 year calendar?

more on the CHA trip

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The Orlando CHA show was probably 80% scrapbooking related, at least. Scrapbooking is not really my thing, but I still managed to find some booths that caused me some serious crafty supply lust.

When I saw this booth, I literally gasped. Why do I love this stuff? I have no idea! It has no application for the work I do, but… I just love it!

The Clover booth was the only sewing related company I saw at the show. There were lots of fun gadgets to think about. One thing I was intrigued by- a light to attach to your rotary cutter. Sounds like a very good idea. I watched a demo of their new rose making devise. Can’t have too many fabric flowers!

And then there was the May Arts booth. Please, can I have one of each?!

You see these spools? 100% silk. Sigh. I have got to find a place that sells it in the Boston area.

Other fun happenings- I got to say hi to the famous Crafty Chica.

It is strange how you feel like you know someone after you’ve listened to a few podcast interviews. Hope I didn’t come off as too stalker-ish. She had a photo box (not sure what they are called?) in the iLovetoCreate booth-

Mimi as Chica- not quite sure it works.

And speaking of podcasts, I also met and talked with Margot Potter, The Impatient Crafter, who was recently on Craftypod. Carol Duvall was somewhere in the building, but I missed her.

That will be all for now on the Florida trip. I was hoping to have a finished doll to post today, but instead I have one shelf and 2 bulletin boards hung up in the new studio. That took me all day!

I’m home!

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I got home yesterday, but no rest for me here! There is lots to be done here with studio organization and filling up my Etsy shop, but first things first.

Tomorrow is my birthday and that means a give-away. I will post details tomorrow instead of doing the drawing on my birthday like other years. See you back here then!

Also, there will be a few days of CHA reporting. It was all new to me, I met lots of interesting people, and wow, was it exhausting. I am simply not used to being out and about with loads of people interactions for 5 days in a row. I need more practice at getting out of my studio!

That is the hotel restaurant on the first night, before any of the work began. I went to Orlando with my sister-in-law who was showing Twisteez, an art wire that her family has been making and selling to schools for 50 years. This was her first venture into finding retail outlets for the product.

This is what things looked like when we first walked in-

soon, we were getting the booth put together-

and here is how it looked on Tuesday morning, opening day-

We kept ourselves very busy. In between talking to people, we played with the wire. Here are some of our creations-

Sandy made a dragon-

I made a dragon slayer-

together-

I made an articulated little girl-

We both made flowers-

Sandy made a horse-

And I cut out a bunch of elephant shapes and we tried different approaches to them-

Mimi-

and-

and Sandy-

As I said at the beginning, there are no retail outlets for Twisteez yet, but I am going to help my son set up an Etsy shop to sell them- soon! I will let you know when they are available, in case you are interested.

oh, so exciting!

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I am at CHA right now. Here is the most exciting thing that happened-

The keynote speaker at the convention was Maria Thomas, the CEO of Etsy- speaking at 7:30 am (!) so we had to haul ourselves out of bed and over to the conference center very early yesterday morning. She spoke about social media, what it is and how to use for business and marketing.

I met her last March and so knew it would be an interesting speech. I sat in the front row. When she came on stage, she glanced over, saw me and said hi- I was so pleased. With all the people she must meet every week, I was surprised she remembered me. So, she is talking away, all very interesting, and this slide came up-

And she says, And these dolls are by Mimi Kirchner who is sitting right over there! I almost fell out of my chair! What a thrill! Really, after that, no matter what happens, this has been a great event.

When I get back home I will report on some of what I saw on the convention floor- in case you need a preview though, it is mostly a ton of scrapbooking related stuff. See you soon!

yikes

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somehow that title from yesterday- getting there- seems like it is laughing at me today. No more wide open spaces-

In the middle of the day yesterday it all seemed so sad. I was pulling down the old studio, packing things enough to be ready for the boys that were scheduled to move it downstairs. Now I am feeling overwhelmed with the challenge of making it workable again. It is probably a good thing that I am going away for a bit. Hopefully, when I get back, I will be able to approach the room with fresh eyes and ideas.

I am not sure if I will be back to post before I leave on Sunday, so it might be quiet around here for a week or more. Then again, who knows!

getting there

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the continuing saga of the studio…

On Monday afternoon I declared the fixing up part of the project finished.

On Tuesday morning we started rearranging furniture. I live in the kind of environment where gridlock was a serious worry. By the end of the day though, some serious obstacles had been moved out of the room and the main pieces of studio furniture were in.

This is the room on Tuesday morning-

Futon sofa on the right. Blanket box under the left-hand window. File cabinet. That is what needed to go out.

Doors closed and doors opened. Nice closet. I didn’t repaint the closet, but I washed the walls and ceiling. Can you see how fantastic the door looks with the frosted glass? Still lots of tools and supplies in the room.

And, here is the room this morning (Wednesday).

From the hall-

Flat file and two desks in place- sort of. I bought the flat file back in March. I am planning to organize all my various threads in it. The large desk is now down from the (old) studio. The small desk was one that my son used for years.

I found the perfect storage rack on Craigslist. It is deep- 24″- metal and, it has wheels!

The file cabinet is still in the room- well at least the shell of it. The drawers are now in the attic. I will work around it until it can be carried up by someone other then me or Ben.

And here is what the door looks like from the hall, when it is closed-

I am going to hire a few hours of heavy lifting tomorrow and hopefully get most of the bins, books, babies, bolts of cloth, bobbins, buttons, bobbles… and all the other letters of the alphabet, downstairs. Then the reorganization. Hopefully, I will get back to serious work in the first week of August. My middle son is coming home from the west coast tomorrow and will be working as my intern until he goes back to school in Minnesota in a month or so. Oh, and in the midst of all this, I am going to Orlando, Florida next week to help my sister-in-law at CHA…

Okay, deep breaths!