keeping busy

I promise, I didn't go into a failure-induced craft-coma after my last post. I have proof, even!



Crossing off one thing from my "things to do after the craft show" list, I painted my stool. If I had to guess, I'd say I've had this thing since I was in middle school. At my mom's house, it was used as my side table, dinner table, homework desk, sewing and craft workbench...I can't count how many glasses of orange juice I spilled off of this thing! (okay, hopefully it was just the one, but it was a traumatic experience)

Mostly now it serves as a portable table for my sewing machine, when I want to sew on the bed or couch. And now it looks brand new, like it's actually a part of the decor instead of a dirty little workhorse.



I've also been quilting feverishly on this beauty, instead of packing. Packing you say, but I thought you just moved 3 months ago? Well, yes, I won't go into the gory details now (or ever?), but soon there will be pictures of my amazing new loft, which I am sharing with my amazing new roommate (hint: it's a boy!).

The quilt is my first queen size, and is about 1/9th of the way done, so don't expect completion pictures from me any time soon.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We will be spending the day at Mark's grandparents house with his family. If only it weren't 30-something degrees!

first show: bust

My apology for not posting sooner, life has turned more hectic than I ever thought it could be, and that was after the craft fair was over! But I'll get to that in another post.



Set-up didn't go too terribly, nerves let me get up at 6:00 a.m. even though I hadn't gone to bed until 12:30. I did forget to bring chairs (duh!) and had to ask a tired, sickly boyfriend to drag his butt out of bed at 8:30 a.m. to bring them to me. I have to say, formally, that I couldn't have done this thing without him.





I met a few very nice people, and talked to several others. I really appreciate all the nice comments I received, however small. I just really wish someone would have bought something.



I don't mean to whine. It looked like very few others sold anything, either, which is sad. There were some very talented crafters there, considering how small it was. Turnout was poor, that's all. And to the three people who did buy something from me (even though we already knew each other), thank you!



My mom came up from Arkansas to spend the day with me, because she is the best mom ever, ever.



She and Mark were my little helpers! And kept me from going totally insane, both from nerves and frustration.



See, we had fun, don't worry!

Now, thanks to the wonderful Whitney (Mark's big sister) all my crafts are going to the Rock'n'Roll Craft Show in St. Louis. We'll be going up there the day after Thanksgiving and hopefully it will be a really great, productive weekend away from home.

tommorrow, tomorrow!

The tables are at the venue, the last of the business cards are printed and ready to be cut out, most of the sewing is done (shhh!), and I am so, so ready for tomorrow!

Okay, I'm nervous...maybe very nervous. But however tomorrow goes, I know it's going to be great.


For anyone visiting this blog after coming to the show on Saturday, before I can make it home and write up a recap...

I know it isn't much right now, but I have big plans for this blog! I hope you'll bookmark it, or add it to your blogroll, or "follow" it, or however the internet bloggy world works. Coming soon, I hope, will be an online shop, which will include anything that didn't sell Saturday (second chance sale!), new items I'm making all the time, and some extra special items from my vintage clothing collection. I'm also looking forward to creating some really awesome and helpful tutorials on repairing and altering your own clothing.

More tomorrow, or Sunday, depending on how tired I am after the show. :) My MOM is coming up from Arkansas to see my booth! She is my inspiration for doing craft shows, so obviously I couldn't be more thrilled.

new booth banner

Who needs to have things to sell when you have this amazing banner to put on the front of your table?



I really did finish it at around 2:30 a.m. so I think that's a decent excuse for the awful photo.
I'll have a better one when it's finished (stitching around the letters, ties at the corners). And when everything else for the show is finished, so I can photograph that stuff too. You know, the stuff that will actually be for sale.

The top half is a tan, heavier linen which was once the bottom of an Eddie Bauer wrap skirt I hemmed at the shop (more upcycling!). The bottom half is a lighter weight gray linen I bought months ago when I was working at the fabric store (stash busting!). The letters are odds and ends + Steam-A-Seam2.

sunday stash #1

At the very last moment, as I am likely to do.



I'd like to call this first (of many, hopefully) Sunday Stash, "The Best $20 I Ever Spent (On Fabric. This Year. Probably.)"
I mean, come on, I can't keep track of all the twenties I spend on fabric. Ahem.

Twenty amazing discontinued FQs for a dollar a piece. Snagged from The Quilt Sampler accidentally when I was going to pick up my serger they had worked on. If you live in Springfield, near Springfield, or ever happen to be passing through, I highly recommend you pay this store a visit. It's a real joy.

blogs!

I fell asleep at around 10:30 p.m. while cutting out Christmas stockings. It's never a good idea to do sewing projects in bed, because you inevitably end up drooling on your stack of fabric, with scissors and pins just inches from your face.

This lead me with a bout of insomnia at 5 a.m., so I took the time to be a bit productive, and updated the blog links over on the sidebar. Previously I was going through my Firefox bookmarks any time I wanted to catch up on my blogs, so I'm pretty thrilled I can just come to my own blog and have a peek at who's updated recently!

There are some really delightful reads over there...much better than mine, so I highly advise checking some of them out!

Okay, now to try to get back to sleep before the sun comes up. I have a big day tomorrow, a lunch date with Elliot! It's our first time hanging out together alone (besides when I'm babysitting, but that doesn't count) and I'm so, so excited.

halloween pt. 2

Okay, time to show off my goofy costume!
I'm not really good at being things that are recognizable. For example, last year I was the best darned home-made Katy Perry you ever saw.



The jumper was sewn using a vintage pattern I snagged off ebay. Kind of painful considering I get most of my vintage patterns for 10c or so from thrift stores. But I needed something specific!

Now this year...I was a fish. The rainbow fish. A rainbow trout. A "Big Fish" (for my roommate's Tim Burton costume party, natch). Whatever, just a fish!


Here I am with my good friends Blake and Laura.


The tail, of course, the most important part.


And a really terrible photobooth-closeup of my gills/makeup.

The outfit consisted of:
a dress slip (underneath, for warmth and decency)
a skirt slip with the slit worn to the front, the hem pleated to the back with fabric attached for a tail
a gray nightgown with strips of fabric (previously hems of dresses I salvaged from the trash at work, yay upcycling!) ruffled and attached
tights and FISHnets
amazing feather fake lashes for gills

We spent the night at a First Teenager Ever house show, and it was fairly uneventful for me. Not so much for everyone else. The evidence...













Click for larger at my flickr. Hope everyone had a fun, safe, creative Halloween this year!