November is Craft Sale Month!

For me, at least!
Here are the craft sales where I'll be appearing this month:

November 3-4 - Rachel's - Cavendish
November 9-10-11 - Three Oaks High School - Summerside (I'll be in Band Room B again, for anyone who visited me last year)
November 16-17 - Colonel Gray High School - Charlottetown (now confirmed, I'm in the gym!)
November 24 - Bluefield High School

Here's a little preview of what I've got ready for this weekend. I should have a few more frames and bags ready for Three Oaks!
Hope to see some of you out! If you're not on PEI, don't fret, I'll have the leftover items for sale on Etsy on November 25th, plus many more to be added in the following weeks!
Wish me luck!

progress

Things are coming along! My first sale is this weekend, and I don't have as much done as I'd hoped, but I think I'll have enough for a nice display. I have one day of work left, then I'll be madly finishing frames all day Thursday. Set up is Friday afternoon, so I also have to figure out my display setup before then. I got a hanging rack yesterday, so I think that will be a better way to display my totes.
Here's what I've got on the go:

Cut-out frames:
Assembled frames:
Tiled frames:
Everything is coming along!

2 new bags and a sneak preview!

I'm back! What a great weekend! I'll post about it once I've uploaded my pictures. For now, here's last week's post that I missed!
I finished off 2 new bags from the beige corduroy and Pucci-like print.

And....here's a little sneak preview of the first two new fabrics for my new handbag line! I probably won't get started until after/during craft sale month, but I had them in mind for a few months so I wanted to pick some up before they were all gone.

You may remember the second fabric from such bags as Julia's Knitting Bag and Tweed Evening Bag with Silk Lining. I love the fabric, and it was very popular at the sale last year. When I saw it at the fabric store again, I thought I'd get some more, as I'm looking for a tweed-like material for one of my fabric options. I'm super excited about the plaid, too. I can't wait to cut into these!
I picked up some new screen printing ink in Halifax this weekend, I can't wait to try it out!
So many crafts, so little time!

roadtrip!

So, I actually did do some work over the last couple of weeks, but my camera battery died on Sunday night so I didn't get any pictures. I killed a couple more fabrics, and (uh oh!) bought two new ones! I'm very excited about my new line of bags, I really want to start, but I'm pretty committed to destashing first. I've got to get my butt in gear for the craft sales next month, though!
We're going on a roadtrip tomorrow! I can't wait! We're going to Halifax for the Halifax Pop Explosion. We've got tickets for 3 nights of shows, Apostle of Hustle and Grand Theft Bus on Thursday, Matt Mayes on Friday and (woohoo!) Eric's Trip on Saturday! I hope I'm not dead on my feet by then, I'm not much of a late night person :)
I'm a little nervous about this trip because I'm going to do a little shopping. I've been waiting patiently to get to the art store, MEC, 2 great yarn shops and MANY good restaurants. I think I may have to leave my credit card at home!
I don't feel too guilty about it though, because I'm actually knitting something with the yarn I bought last time I was there! I got it from The Loop, I was looking for some sock yarn that wasn't wool, and they helped me pick out a self striping cotton/wool blend by Opal. I'm knitting the Anastasia socks out of them, but I think they're going to be a gift, so I probably won't post them here until after they're received! I also bought some pretty purple Cascade Superwash, and I just started an Odessa hat out of it. I've done that pattern before, but it ended up a little small so I gave it as a gift. I'm going to make this one a little taller to accommodate my big forehead :)
Time for pictures! Since Yahoo photos is closing, I got my pictures moved over to Flickr (you should do this if you have Yahoo photos, they gave me 3 months free for my pro account!). There are some good oldies there!

first socks and friday night geekdom

I finished my first pair of socks! I'm so excited! It also became really cold here in the last few days, so I've been wearing them every night. I need more!

I actually like the yarn a lot more now that I can see them on. I still have the majority of a ball left, maybe I'll make some socklets or something. (It's hard to tell, but in the second picture I have my feet up on my craft table while I was sitting on my stool. I almost fell, it was scary!)

Friday night, we watched Sicko, but it was over by 9:00 and I didn't know what else to do, so I organized my ribbon boxes and made LOTS of gift tags. It's a good way to use up ribbon! What am I going to do with them all though?

And finally, the Mom received her birthday gift! Sorry it was a little late! I found these beads in Halifax back in June, and they reminded me of Mom.

I did lots of woodworking over the weekend, but made the mistake of going for a hike yesterday afternoon in the cold. It was a great hike, but after dinner I was too pooped to do any more work, so I cuddled up on the couch with my second pair of socks! I'd call them about 25% done already! I really meant to get some mosaics done, but I'll plug away at them in the evenings this week.

miscellaneous stuff

I feel like I've been really busy for the last month or so, but I don't seem to have anything to show for it! I guess that's not true, now that you've all received them I can talk about the HUNDREDS of photos I made into mini-albums for the wedding party and our parents. I felt like I was drowning in photos for a few weeks. Now I just have to finish our own album. We got the one from the photographer, but I'm going to add pages to it for the reception photos.

I've been meaning to do this for a while, but I made a special knitting bag for socks. I'm obsessed with sock knitting all of a sudden (though I still have to finish my first pair! I won't let myself cast on a new pair until the first one is finished!), and I've seen these cute little bags all over the place.
I also made another bag for my Etsy shop. Just one! I can't believe it! It looks like a tote, but it's actually pretty small, about 8" x 5". It's so cute, I really want to label it "the cutest handbag EVER," but that doesn't leave any room for the next cutest handbag that I make, so I'm leaving it open ended. It's just labeled "adorable."

I also made some stamps. I've been wanting to do this for a while, but my drawing and carving skills aren't the best. I saw a tutorial on a kids craft site for making stamps with that craft foam (I don't know what it's called!), so I just cut some squares and used a hole punch for the circles. So easy, but so many possibilities!
And finally, I've added some photography to my Etsy shop! I know I'm not a professional photographer or anything, but I've got some photos that I think look pretty good hanging in my house, so I thought other people might like them too! And it's another way to get more people to see the shop by having items in another category, since photography falls under Art while the rest of my items are under Housewares. Anyways, I thought it might be worth a try!

I almost forgot! I went to a knitting group for the first time on Monday! I've always wanted to go, and I found out about a couple of different groups a few months ago, but I've never ventured out. It was a lot of fun, and I met some new people. It's held at the art gallery, and I found out about some other events put on at the gallery, so it was a very informative night! I'll definitely be going back, it's held every two weeks.

adventures in screenprinting

I've been wanting to learn to screen print for a really long time now. I finally got my stuff together, and I made my first successful screen this weekend!

The original picture:
The screen:

First print (oops, not enough ink!):
Second print (a little better):

On white:
On canvas:

I made 3 new screens last night, these ones I'll be trying on tile and wood. I hope they work, I need to get in production mode for the big craft sale in November!

how much stuff do I think people have to carry?

Yes, I finished more tote bags this weekend! This black twill was bought for a tote bag for me back when I took the bus to work and hated carrying a lunch bag AND a purse. I only needed about 1/2 metre of fabric, but it was buy 1 get 2 free, so I have a whole lot of it left. It's super sturdy, though, and I tried to jazz it up with some different fabrics on top. I also made a couple of smaller purses, mostly to use up some smaller pieces of fabric. And I'm totally hooked on keychains, these are some fabric ones, but I've also got some cute wood ones on the go.
Julia got her bags! I hope they last a looonng time!


My next goal is to learn silkscreening. I bought a kit last weekend, I just have to figure it out. I'd love to have a better way for decorating my bags, stenciling can get pretty tedious.

totes are us

There was more stash-busting fun last weekend! Julia ordered 2 tote bags from me, so I thought I'd use the opportunity to use up some denim. Hers are a surprise, so I won't put up pictures until she gets them, but here are the rest. I also realized that I have a ridiculous stash of ribbon as well as fabric, so I tried to use some of that up, too.

I also made myself a laptop bag. Now that I'm needing more computer time, Chris has let me use his laptop, but his bag is hideous and huge! I needed something cute, you know, just in case I need to take it somewhere.

I made a couple of other things, too, but they're all gifts so they'll have to wait!

I'm also working on my product photography, and I'd love some feedback! My makeshift lightbox seems to work well sometimes, and I've been working at altering the brightness and contrast a bit for the times it doesn't.

A stash-busting rampage!

So Friday night I pulled ALL my fabric out of the dresser and spread it all over my cutting table. The time had come to KILL my fabric stash, and I finally got some momentum. I started with the napkins from Value Village, moved on to some tea towels from Wicker Emporium (bought on sale because the pattern was so cool, but sat in the closet for 2 years!), then finished off the tan ripstop (still have lots of blue!), and finally killed any ideas of making a lampshade from the blue flowered brocade.
I also got tired of searching around my sewing room for my pincusion with a mouthful of pins (I know Mom knows what I'm talking about!). So, I made 2 pincushions, one for the sewing table and one for the cutting table. When the one on the cutting table gets empty, I'll switch them. Genius! Also, a great use for the little 5" squares of fabric that I can't seem to throw out. (Note to self: need to kill that tan cordouroy, I hate working with it!)
It's a little sad to retire my old pincushion, one of the first things I made. Does anyone remember when this sun and stars fabric was popular? I'm thinking about 1994. I remember there was a girl at my highschool who had pants made out of it, so I got Mom to make me a jacket with it (which was so cool! I have to find it, I think it's in the closet in Merrickville). I think Gill had something in her bedroom made out of it, pillow cases maybe? I lined my sewing basket with it and made this pincushion. Anyways, the basket was thrown out years ago, and I think I'm over the pattern now, so it's time for retirement :)
I also finally finished these coasters that have been sitting on my workbench for months, just begging to be polyurethaned. You know, because coasters can talk.
I finally learned to use my router yesterday! It's a lot easier than I thought, and will be even easier once I get the right bit that I need.
It's so hard to come back to work Monday morning after a weekend full of momentum. Maybe I'll sew something tonight (right!) :)