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.
Here she is in the sun so you can see her figure (boobs) a little better-
I love this orange fabric. I am going to be very sad when I run out.
She is 20 1/2″ tall. I am trying to finish up a few more dolls this weekend and I hope to get them on Etsy, early next week.
I’ve been working away at some dolls and also my studio. I am see some progress in getting the studio feeling right. Here are a few peaks-
When I decided to move my studio downstairs, I knew I wanted to do this-
I think of this as my internet connections altar and I posted a fully annotated version here on Flickr. These are all things that I have bought, traded, or been given, from people that I have “met” through the internet. Some of them I have also met in real life. It is a tangible display of the richness that the craft blog world has brought into my life. Sorry- gushing!
This is the pin-up board over my desk-
So many goodies, including a sweet little monster by Elsita. Yep, right next to one of my Peewee toys.
Today, I hung my ornament dolls from my display shelf. They are now flying over my desk.
And, some ladies in progress. I thought I’d get one of these finished today but instead got distracted by the organizing/puttering.
The first (of many, I hope) meet-up was this morning. It was fantastic!
There were 6 of us. Liz, Louise, Betsy, Kerry, Crystal, and me. It was exactly what I’d hoped for- we yakked away about google stats, changes at Etsy, shows in the area, blogging and Twittering… the kind of talk that has a very limited audience in my life. And after 1 1/2 hours of talking, we all trooped down to the Goodwill and did some thrift store shopping. It was so much fun! Next meet-up, Feb. 10. Everyone is welcome. If you feel funny about coming into a group of people who know each other, email me and we can have a pre-meet-up meet-up or just get acquainted by email.
And, the first doll of 2010. How apt is it that it is a baby? This little one was all ready to be appliqued- all the pieces cut out and pinned on, but I never got to it before Christmas.
We had an afternoon of buttons at doll club yesterday. I learned so much! One thing I learned was about old celluloid button and how they deteriorate and damage other buttons in their vicinity. I saw examples of what a deteriorating button looks like. I came home and went through all my buttons again. I have now separated out the bad buttons and will decide if I can bring myself to just throw them away. An afternoon of button talk couldn’t have come at a better time for me- since I’d just organized all of mine.
Thanks for all the advise about having my quilt done- I stopped at a local quilt shop yesterday and got the names of several people to call. I’m excited about it!
I actually spent a little time on a doll today. I want to finish my December, before changing to Christmas present mode, dolls. There are a few cut out and even 3 that are stuffed and ready to finish. It would be so easy to leave them and get started on something new but then they haunt me. I know I will feel better if I finish them up.
*Update* photos of those BAD buttons–
the celluloids-
I hope this is clear enough. I will also post them to flickr, where you can look at them very big. Do you see all the little cracks? They get bigger and bigger and then the buttons crumble.
the metals-
Funny thing is, I was looking for this kind of green corrosion when I was making this robot.
I understand that both of these types of deterioration are “contagious” and affected buttons should be removed from the rest of your collection.
