The Artfire Experiment Begins

Yesterday I spent a couple hours cutting circles to make peonies, I had planned to go through the whole creation process with them yesterday but the mail didn't arrive until around 5 PM and I got distracted online earlier in the day.  So I didn't start to actually work on cutting circles out until 3:00.  So since I was off to such a late start I cut out several circles and then took a couple hours break for dinner.  I planned on going back downstairs at 7:00 to move onto phase two of the flowers but despite feeling rushed, I didn't get back down to the basement until close to 7:30.  I had a bowl of ice cream and wanted to keep it away from the fabric, so I didn't have to worry about something happening.  That and I didn't want to come back up the stairs once I finished it, because I knew I was going to just start working after that. 

So I finally made it to the basement and popped the dvd in and worked.  I blew through the entire dvd (all four epsidoes of Emergency! and the bonus Adam-12 episode), I had most of the fabric singed and I made a pair of earrings.  All in all it was about midnight when I finally came up from the basement.  But I didn't actually make any peonies last night.  So this morning I moved onto phase two, assembly and finishing of penies.  Because I wanted to have them photographed around 11, I only made four new peonies which took me longer than expected.  Of course I am working with almost no workspace in my room due to my tiny desk, so that might have caused a delay. 

At any rate, the four were done and I went outside to shoot them.  It was a gorgeous day out, nice and sunny, perfect temperature only problem was it was a little windy.  So I had to move operations insde due to the fact that my peonies were taking off like Dorothy's house in the Wizard of Oz.  So after some frustration with trying to find the perfect spot, I was able to take the rest of my pictures.  You can see the first two listings here:


www.artfire.com/modules.php?name=Shop&op=listing&product_id=3515870

www.artfire.com/modules.php?name=Shop&op=listing&product_id=3514660

Something Needs to be Done

As most people know, sales are non existant on etsy these days so I'm going to give my artfire account a try.  Right now I only have two things in there but I'm going to be listing some peonies in there to see how things go.  I haven't promoted my artfire shop at all and only have a free accont.  So this will be interesting to see.

Baby Shower Blanket

As some of you know, there's more to me than making jewelry and flowers, I am also crafty at other things.  A couple weeks ago I got an evite from an old friend, someone I've known for a good 30 years.  It was for a baby shower/house warming party. I took one look at her baby registry and said "I'm making something."  The reason for this was two fold, one I'm out of work and can't afford to spend much, and two, I just didn't see anything on her registry that I wanted to get for little money.  So I decided to make my money go further by giving her a handmade blanket. 

Since I can't sew a straight line to save my life with a sewing machine, I decided to do a handmade blanket, fleece to be exact.  Rather than tab the edges of the two pieces of fleece to attach them, I went with a blanket stitch.  A quick search on youtube and I found this video:

I watched the video twice, once the day I looked for it and then again the next week when I actually had the fabric and was ready to sew.  It was a super easy stitch, I just didn't know how to add an additional length of thread so I stumbled my way through it the first two times, which resulted in two bad stitches but by the third one I had thought ahead and managed to make it look seamless.

in progress

in progress

finished

finished

All in all, it took a little over 2 hours to stitch together.  Trimming the fabric so that they were even took less than a half hour, I asked my mom to do that for me because I can't cut a straight line anymore and didn't want to ruin this.

As for the results...  it was a huge hit with the ladies that were sitting close and paying attention to what was going on, including my comment about it being handmade.  Not only did my friend love it, but she kept wrapping herself in it.  I kept reminding her that was was for the baby, not her, but she was so cold (the air was on in the house) that she couldn't resist.  As I was walking to my car I once again teased her about the blanket being for the baby, I told her I'd make her one if she wanted. 

Just a little something to share

I spent far more time working on this than I should have this morning because I forgot I have an Illustrator type program now, something I spent over a year without.  So with that said....  Please feel free to share this.