Craft fair chronocide

While today wasn't a complete bust -- I made a sale and got a commission -- it was largely customer-free. Much like the Little Shop of Horrors in the fall, the LoudSpeaker Festival Market lacked promotion but it also ran up against a beautiful day and a half dozen other events, including the torch's return to Victoria ahead of the Paralympic Games and the annual Be A Tourist in Your Own Town promotion.

On the other hand, it was as good a place as any to focus on creative things so I whipped up the felt "Hello" badge that I've been meaning to for a long while -- I will likely start selling these as custom items on Etsy:

I also set myself a goal of writing 100 haiku while I was there. I got to 38 and, while they are not all keepers, there were a few good ones and a few more that could benefit with some polishing. I'm back tomorrow (come visit me at the Victoria Event Centre on Broad St!) and suspect I will get to 100; I'll share more tomorrow.

On a side note, look at these wonderfully-creepy "Beaster Bunnies" from another member of the Monster Etsy Street Team!

Haiku Miscellany is ready for the world

The project I was working on that I didn't want to talk about until it was done is DONE! I think I annoyed hubby because I wouldn't even tell him what I was doing, but the tactic works so I may employ it again.

Anyhoooo, Haiku Miscellany is a collection of 25 haiku poems acompanying 25 photos of 25 of my creations from Creative Miscellany. It's available through Lulu.com in print or as a download.



Next on the to-do list: Craft Market this weekend, followed by spring break, then I can set up my Zibbet shop!

Craft Market next weekend!

So, I took the plunge and signed up for the LoudSpeaker Festival Market on both Saturday and Sunday -- I am hoping it will be busy. It's free so if you're downtown next weekend (which is also Be a Tourist in your own Hometown), please come visit me at the Victoria Event Centre on Broad St. Saturday 1-6 pm, Sunday 1-5 pm.

The available table is smallish (only 30 inches in diameter) and round, so I set up a test table to see how much stuff I could get into that space. I think I will be fine, thanks to the carousel I picked up (where, I can't remember, but I didn't pay much for it). I am working through a short to-do list in order to get everything ready -- worst case, I will do the last prep on Friday as I am off work.

One of the things I need to pick up is more small bags for things that need to fit on the carousel like the catnip mice -- in small bags, I can get three or four in each side; in larger bags, just two. I also want to pick up some more sleeves for my art cards (ACEOs) -- I know I bought a package of 100 but do you think I can find them..? Sigh. Actually, I was pretty impressed that I pulled together enough stock for this show in a very short time. After the show, a lot of what doesn't sell will go up on Zibbet as my start over there.

creative overdrive

Shhh, I'm creating!

Actually, I am working on a little project that I thought would take almost no time and instead is taking me... well... more time. But that is all I am saying about it because it seems whenever I discuss details of my projects, they disappear into the ether of woulda-shoulda-coulda. So mum's the word until it is done (hopefully by the weekend).

In the meantime, I also signed up to sell my wares on Zibbet -- kind of like Etsy but no fees! Seriously. I did however spring for the premium account -- right now on offer for $7 per month (nearly half off the regular $15), plus if you sign up now, use the code 30FREE to get 30 days of the premium account for nothing. If you want to sign up, please consider clicking the banner below so I get credit for spreading the love :)

I'll let you know when my store is ready and when my other project is done. Woo!

Oh, and I also got an email from the coordinators of the LoudSpeaker Festival asking if I wanted a table at the market. It's a busy weekend and I'm not sure I can fit in a random sale day or two, but I have asked for more information, just in case. Again, I'll put out the word if I'm going to be there!

the start of something....

... not sure what yet... but something.

(And, if you are interested, Frazz is for sale in my Etsy store.)

Little Shop of Horrors Market

Hubby and I are off to the Little Shop of Horrors from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. -- we have a table at the Zombie/Halloween Market being held at Logan's Pub, 1821 Cook Street...


I'll be taking Creative Miscellany monsters, a few other odds and ends plus the Special Zombie edition of Bümfmag.

Drop by if you can -- say you saw it on Flotsam & Jetsam and I'll give you $2 off a minimum $10 purchase.

Vacation's End

All told, this was one of the best fall vacations we've had.

This time last year we had just moved in. It seems hard to believe it's been a year, so hard that until I looked it up on the blog I wasn't completely sure what day we had moved in (it was October 9th).

With the getaway at the start of the week off, we got back relaxed for the rest of our week off. We balanced some hang time with getting-stuff-done and some time with friends and family (though Thanksgiving was extra tense this year -- not sure what really was going on there...). Kiddo and I did some crafting together including a "rag doll with Coraline eyes" that she designed and we collaborated to finish:

Hubby made lots of headway on getting the new deck stairs underway (the "deathtrap stairs of doom" have to go -- the new stairs will go down the back of the deck, toward the apple trees and easier access to the bbq. It's the first step toward prepping for the addition.

Today, Hubby pulled down most of the weird carport skeleton over the driveway to reclaim the wood for the project, too. And you know what? I really wish we had pulled that sucker down earlier. After it was down, I moved and re-stacked the wood we had hastily thrown there, and our driveway looked pretty good.

We had an unseasonably warm and dry week, too; tomorrow we are expecting rain with frost forecast for this evening. We turned the gas fireplace on today for the first time in months and I decided I had best get in the last of the cucumbers (the vines were dried up anyhow) and pull out the tomato plants. There were 6 cucumbers left and I don't know how many pounds of mostly green tomatoes... I think I may try pickling them...

Back to work tomorrow. Sigh. At least it's a short (if busy) week.

Bag of holding completed

After uttering many, many curse words, ripping a few seams, and acknowledging my defeat at the hands of what looked like a straightforward pattern, Kiddo has a new messenger bag.

Unfortunately, I failed to read the instructions properly and ended up boxing the corners three inches from the edge instead of three inches across. The resulting bag is much boxier than it should be but at least it is consistent. However, it may not fit her agenda which was the goal. OOps.

The other big fail? Poor choice of fabrics. The main fabric is heavy and slippery and frays easily; the poly-cotton tshirt was too stretchy; and the cotton I used to line it all was thin and slid away from the main fabric. Grr.

Aside from the unintentional cornering modification, I made one other change to the strap. Due to the various qualities of the main fabric, sewing a quarter-inch seam along a four inch wide piece of that stuff was very tricky -- tricky enough that I eventually gave up, cut a piece 8 inches wide and folded the edges into the middle then folded it in half. The finished strap was a full two inches wide.

In the end, I am happy to have finished the bag but content that I will not be attempting anything similar any time soon. Happily, it is functional which means it is not going to be sent to Craft Fail either. Besides, Kiddo seems to like it.

Trying something new...

Since unearthing my stash of knitting needles, I wanted to knit something. I still haven't decided what to do with the green wool so I hauled out a bundle of chunky chenille style yarn, grabbed the last print issue of Craft and looked through my needle stash for 8mm dpns (double pointed needles). I had a 7.5mm set which I decided was close enough if I knit the larger size of the pattern for Knit Gradient Mitts.

I had no idea at all what I was doing with all those needles but the pattern for fingerless gloves is ridiculously straightforward otherwise (just knit stitch) and I further stupid-proofed it by omitting the stripes (mainly because I only had one colour of yarn). I am making some progress, slowly, and regardless of whether my technique is sound, the end product seems to look the way I expected it to look.

I don't think I will ever consider knitting with dpns relaxing (Amy's description of "wrestling an octopus" keeps popping to mind), and I don't think I'll be knitting in public with dpns until I can compare my technique to someone else's.... but it is good to remind myself that I understand enough about knitting to be able to pick up a new tool and make it work by just applying what I do know.

Ahhhh. Better.

Now that my sewing machine is working again (=ahem=) I can get on with Christmas gift giving. This is the first item -- a custom ballet Huggitz (named Tabitha) for my niece who is in ballet (if any relatives are reading, Shhh! it's a surprise).

I think I will make her some other things too, or maybe give her a family of finger puppets or a book.

I also realize I need to reconsider what I am charging for my Huggitz dolls. I actually paid attention to this one which took about two and a half hours start-to-finish (planning, hand-stitching, sewing, stuffing and finishing). I have been listing dolls this size at about $25 to $30 but I think I need to up that a bit so that I am making more than minimum wage. OTOH, I think that might be a fair wholesale price. We'll see.

I have a few more projects to sew before the 25th but this was the one I wanted to make sure I got done. Yay!

One fewer thing on the To Do list

Phew.

After I'd gotten home, eaten dinner and sat for a moment, Hubby looked at me and said, "You look beat down and grumpy."

I looked at him and said, "I just worked six and a half hours retail. What do you expect?" And truthfully, I worked that without all the breaks I am used to either. I ate at my booth and only managed to get one brief bathroom break in the morning.

Add to that the fact that when I arrived, there was no table for me (a snafu with my cheque not making it from the school office to the PAC). Thankfully, the coordinator worked hard to find me a space. Unfortunately, that left me with 20 minutes to set up instead of the hour I'd been counting on. That meant I just started unpacking and hoped for the best. It also meant I didn't get a lot of things staged the way I wanted, although I did come up with the bright idea of tipping a wicker laundry basket on its side.

There was a lot of traffic, and I made more than the cost of my table, but not a lot more. However, some tables didn't even do that well, so I feel OK about the day.

Crafty Tutorial Time!

I finally finished the tutorial for the Creepy Severed Body Parts Garland I whipped up for Halloween....

The garland itself is a knit intestine; pinned to the innards are various severed felt body parts. The full PDF is available for download over at ThoseDeWolfes.com.

E is for Exhausted.

After being sick most of last week, we still took Kiddo out trick-or-treating. It was actually really nice to do a fairly quick route around the neighbourhood, meet some of our neighbours, and then sit around while Kiddo answered the door for the dozen or so trick-or-treaters who showed up here. Oh, and she looked great in her costume... as Sarah Palin.

(Yes, she chose that costume and I think she will actually be sad if the McCain-Palin ticket fails to get to the Whitehouse. Sigh.)

I also think her trick-or-treating years may be numbered; it already seemed like she wasn't interested and yet she had heaps of fun working the door and handing out candy to other kids.

Saturday we popped up to Nanaimo and got a wardrobe for the bedroom plus a nice electric lawnmower that was being cleared out at the end of the season. I still have to put together the lawnmower, but there's no rush until the rain lets up enough to dry out the lawn a little.

Today we finished putting together the wardrobe (we started last night... it's a bit of a beast even as flat-pack furniture goes, but it looks good in place) and did some shuffling downstairs. Hubby took a load of construction debris out of the basement to the dump then we cleaned and moved boxes while he framed in a closet.

Anyway, I am still tired but determined to go back to work this week, even if my mind keeps drifting to thoughts of preparation for the craft fair at Kiddo's school at the end of the month -- I've committed to a table and the organizer from the PAC was very excited to hear that I would be bringing plush toys and finger puppets.

Collage-Mosaic cards

ACEO_loveshouldbe
Originally uploaded by triviaqueen

So, I was able to get 8 ACEO/ATC size cards out of each page from the scrapbook I thrifted the other day. Using some pages I'd scavenged from old books and sheet music I've created a series of art cards with which I am fairly pleased. So far this one, "love should be" is my favourite.

I'll likely make a few more before listing any on Etsy, but expect them there within a week.

Garden of Senses!

Well, it was not perfect, but I was still pleased with the finished product and I now know what I would do different with future cloth books. For starters, I would actually measure and mark the base fabric, har-har.

My only real regret is that I finished sewing it just a few minutes before we had to leave for the party (actually about 4:55 but Hubby was working on Cthulhu, so we were still 15 minutes from leaving) so I didn't have time to really appreciate it, or show it around as much as I normally would.

I took a bunch of photos though, and I made a Flickr set for Garden of Senses, but here's a peek at the finished inside of the book:

The birthday girl was a bit too overwhelmed, but the bee on the "ears hear" page got a smile, so I figure it will be a hit.

Counting down

One busy weekend and four work days until vacation starts -- WOO!

Today, job #1 is "finish The Garden of Senses" (see last post for details) but we're also going out for dim sum this morning, so that will take some time out of my day before the barbeque get-together this afternoon where I hope to presenting the book.

Tomorrow, Kiddo gets to be a test subject for a psychological study at the University. Basically she will be in a control group as the study aims to develop aids for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Asperger Syndrome in the area of face recognition. However, the research team has cleverly designed a whole day of activities in between the testing and re-branded it as "Face Camp." I actually signed her up before getting her buy in, but "free pizza" and "t-shirt" was pretty much all it took to get that. I think she'll have a great time.

While she's doing that, I plan to use the time for research. I'll take the EEE with me this time (much easier to carry than my laptop) -- though really, the smartest thing I did was to take my camera to photograph the microfilm images on the viewer rather than create a lot of paper waste and spend a lot of money on blurry print copies.

Next week at work, it's full speed ahead with digitization -- trying to finish off one project while we go all out to push through another. The one we are finishing off is mounting the original serialized version of Charles Dickens' Pickwick Papers. The project we need to get through is digitizing and posting about 450 theses and dissertations from the past two years. Needless to say, my role in that will be more of coordinating the work than hands-on. I have been re-thinking the workflow to allow for better sharing of the workload.

Friday will be spent madly running about packing and prepping for our week-long road trip up to the top of Vancouver Island. I am looking forward to a vacation that involves no ferry or air travel and lots of rugged West Coast forests and beaches.

A crafty experiment...

wip_scale
Originally uploaded by triviaqueen

I finally found something to inspire me ... I have been in a creative funk for a while, so when the muse/voices in my head started whispering "what about a cloth book?" I started sketching. Before I went to bed last night, I had a plan and several of the pieces cut out.

Tonight, I finished most of the embroidered details and the title on the cover (seen here with my hand to show the scale). Still to do: stitching the wording on the pages inside, stitching the felt images to the pages, adding quilt batting and building the book!

The plan is to give this to a friend's daughter who is celebrating birthday number two with a party this Saturday.... here's hoping I can get this finished by then!

Kiddo's Chichian Empire...

chichians
Originally uploaded by triviaqueen

A few weeks ago, Kiddo used some scrap fabric left over from a Huggitz crafting session to make her own little critter. She called it a Chichian and she took it to school for show-and-tell. Soon afterward, other kids started asking her for them -- she has made two others for friends -- and she is off to a birthday party today where the birthday girl asked for one as a gift! I suggested making a pair (regular size and BIG), so that's what we did this morning.

Right now, Kiddo picks the fabric and the buttons for the eyes, and does all the hand-sewing; I prepare the fabric and do the machine sewing. She also helps to stuff the critters.

I think it's very cool that she is making these little things but even cooler that her friends and other kids actually want them; they even play with their Chichians at recess!

And, yes, I have suggested that she sell them on Etsy... but so far, she hasn't gone for that yet!

Mini-Huggitz creations!

minihuggitz_trio
Originally uploaded by triviaqueen

Last night, I was sewing up some Swiffer™ sleeves but I got distracted by the little scraps of leftover fleece; the purple floral print lent itself well to the embroidered mouth features and the rest just fell into place!

I love the resulting creatures so much that it's going to be really hard to part with them... I will probably keep one and list the rest (I made six last night) in my Etsy store.

Here's some other photos -- the brown one, Boris, may be my favourite, even though he's made from fake fur instead of fleece.:

Missions Accomplished!

Woo! Somehow, I managed to check three big things off my to-do list this weekend.

Saturday, I spent most of the day sorting and tidying the office/craft room (it was just the office, then it got cluttered with a bunch of storage overflow, then I wedged in my sewing machine... and well, it was out of control). I wanted to do three things: sort out the overflowing mess of stuff, uncover Hubby's desk so that he could actually use it as an office again, and get the big old filing cabinet out of there. All got done on Saturday, though I may have jumped the gun on the filing cabinet as it is currently sitting outside our front door with nowhere to go. Oops. (If anyone wants it, come get it! Hurrah, 3 freebie posts -- Craigslist, UsedVictoria and Freecycle -- and 72 hours later, the filing cabinet is gone!)

Yesterday, I got my crafty websites re-designed. I finished tweaking CreativeMiscellany (adding a link to the Facebook fan-page and building the "et cetera" page) and I totally redesigned the CuppaJoe Cozy and Wradical Wrap site. We moved it to a new server (thanks Hubby!) and finally purchased WradicalWraps.com to point there, too. I still have to build the media kits for both sites and sort out the custom order PayPal tie-ins for the cozies and wraps, but overall I am quite pleased with the results. Here's a screen-capture of the new cozy front page:

Got feedback? Leave me a comment!