Category Archives: other projects

travel and all

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I’m trying to get back on track here.

I was away last weekend, visiting my sister in South Carolina- Hi Tina! There was quite a bit of time sitting in airports and on planes so I put together some project bags. I cut out 4 Purl girls. I put the parts for each girl in a separate zip bag. I added the matching floss colors to each bag. In one of the bags I added needles and small scissors. I filled a gallon bag with wool stuffing and some small forceps. I brought tools that I wouldn’t mind losing, in case airport security made a fuss. They didn’t.

baggies

It worked out really well. By the time I returned, I had done all I could. That was not because I was finished, but because I had underestimated how much stuffing I’d need! I also underestimated how much floss I needed but I was able to add some from Tina’s stash. All in all, it was an excellent travel project.

We drove to Charleston, SC for a day. I felt very much away from New England- pink houses and palm trees- ah!

palms

We ate some fantastic southern cuisine- like these fried green tomatoes… oops! We’d gobbled them up before I thought to take the photo- so delicious!

plate

We drove to the ocean and walked in the water.

beach

Then, an amazing rainbow on the way back to Columbia.

rainbow

I am back home now, trying to get my thoughts back to my work.

window

I am having a really hard time adjusting to the new space. For every hour I work, I seem to spend 2 hours rearranging. I am sure it will settle down soon… I hope?

Let me see- other news. Two weeks in, the son seems to be very happy at Art School. He is home for the weekend. And he now has a tattoo. Um, is this surprising? I guess not. Actually the artwork is very nice.

My brother and sister-in-law have an etsy shop. How fantastic is this card!  So many of my friends and relatives are getting Etsy shops that I need to get my act together and make a page with all their links. Geesh, that list of things I ought to do is so long… yeah, when I have time. OK.

reminders and a little project

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reminder one- One more day to get in on the giveaway– don’t say I didn’t warn you! You must send an email (with a link) to mimi.kirchner.giveaway@gmail.com to be entered. The winner will be announced on Tuesday, 9/8.

reminder two- I will be doing another Tiny World workshop on October 17. Let me know if you are interested.

And the little project. I always seem to do these sort of projects before I go on a trip. Yep, I am going to South Carolina for a few days. Does anyone have any crafty recommendations for the Columbia area?

Hurray! My camera is back! I decided to make it a present- a cover/pouch for when I am carrying it around in my bag. The camera looks so clean and unscratched right now. Maybe this will help keep it that way.

It is made from a vintage linen table napkin.

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?

birthday give-away!

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It is a Mimi calendar!

It goes from September 2009-

to August 2010-

with lots of goodies in-between!

All you need to do is leave me a Happy Birthday greeting comment on this post before Wednesday night becomes Thursday, Eastern Standard Time. I will pick the winner on Thursday at some point by random number generator. I am happy to mail it anywhere.

This was one of the projects I did in my Photoshop class. Don’t worry, I’m keeping the one with all the mistakes.

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.

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!

July update

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geesh, it’s July already. How did that happen?

Scheduled for this month-

7/6- 7/17 I will be spending every afternoon taking a class in Adobe Suite– stay tuned for vast improvements or total meltdown in my web presence.

7/11- Boston Handmade Marketplace in Union Square, Somerville. Click through for all the info.

7/26- 7/31- I will be in Orlando, Florida at the CHA show, helping my sister-in-law. I have no idea what this will be like. I may not have a minute to spare, or then again, maybe I will. Suggestions for interesting places and possible meet-ups would be great.

I seem to have misplaced my creative juice, muse, mojo, juju, whatever you want to call it. I have one doll finished that I haven’t photographed yet- I will sometime when it stops raining.

I’ve been working on the room-

It moves forward. My daughter is coming home for a visit at the end of July and that needs to be my deadline- hmm, I seem to  make these deadlines all the time- otherwise, I am not sure where she will sleep. I have covered up any possible sleeping surfaces with stuff out of this room.

I have also been doing some dyeing and over-dyeing, hoping to get inspired again.

It has been fun. And positive in several ways- mostly it fills the need to create and so keeps me from the funk that I fall into when I do not. It keeps me from going to the thrift shop and buying more woolies- which is not so bad except that since I am going to be moving my studio, I shouldn’t be bringing more stuff into it right now. And, I am taking fabrics that I won’t use-ie yuck colors or previous dyeing mistakes or just boring- and turning them into something terrific. And, that red on the left- I used some old dye that I picked up somewhere… did someone give it to me or was it from an estate sale? The box cost 15 cents and the illustration style makes me think 40’s at the latest. Maybe later I will post pictures. Anyway, such fun using up the old stuff.