First Blood

I've been sewing like crazy lately making all my t-shirt creations... and thankfully they've been well received. Yippee! It's so fun and rewarding to make something new from something old.

But, I think I started to get a little careless. On Friday... I had my first incident. I was cutting out the binding for one of the dresses and sliced my finger. I think the nail is what stopped the blade. Oh... and I had just changed the blade in my rotary cutter... so it was nice and sharp. At least that meant minimal pain... but tons of blood! I couldn't get it to stop long enough to get a band-aid one... so again, my 5 year old son had to come to the rescue. Robbie helped me bandage it so the bleeding would stop. I looked at it this morning and it's not pretty. It's fairly deep.

My husband's first question... did I get blood on what I was working on (caring right?... really, he was concerned about me). But no, I didn't get blood on anything. I hate cleaning messes, so of course, my first reaction was to go directly to the sink.

To much information? Sorry, I really like to share gory details... and I tried to keep it mild.

My finger is not so happy with me. I was sewing this morning and it seems that it automatically tucks itself in when I am sewing. It's totally involuntary. It makes it difficult to sew since it's my index finger and it's the one I use to feed the fabric through. I can't really blame my finger. After all, if the tip of my finger is it's head... then I slit it's throat - nearly decapitate it - haha!

Okay, enough rambling about my injury. Here are a few of the things I made these past two days. The green one already sold. Yippee!

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Personal Creative Challenge - May/June

Okay, so I've been looking at my stash of fabric and have decided that these beautiful fabrics need to get used. Of course, they are sitting them waiting for inspiration to hit me. Some of my fabrics sit there for a long time. Even if I know what I want to make out of them... it can take me months of figuring it out in my head before I even begin to make a pattern for it.

I also host periodic creative challenges for the local Etsy Street Team, EtsyRAIN (aka Puget Sound Indie Arts). So, I thought I should have my own little creative challenge each month. Since this one is starting in the middle of the month and I have some big shows to prepare for... I'm giving myself to the end of June. If I finish it before then, I'll just start a new one.

I'll post pictures of my creations here. Some pieces of fabric are quite large and might yield more than one item. I'll also be doing this along with the creative challenges I do for the group. This, the group one and my show should keep me plenty busy this summer... oh, and you can't forget all the fun the kids and I will be having!

So the first piece is this beautiful blue & green marbled velour type fabric (see photo). It's soft, but does have a nap (is that the right term), so it will have to be cut with that in mind. I have somewhere around three yards of this fabric (I think). It's also stretchy... so it will lend itself to many things. I'd love to hear ideas of what you picture this fabric becoming. I have a few of my own... but I'm not 100% sold on any of them. Maybe your idea will spark my imagination.

Stay tuned for pictures!

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Spring in Seattle

I love the beginning of nicer weather. I'd say that I love Spring here in Washington, but just a month ago, we had 12 inches of snow. Not exactly my idea of Spring. However, this weekend was very sunny... in the mid to high 80s. The sun was actually out long enough that I got a pretty good sun burn! But it is a small price to pay for the fun we had.

We spent our Saturday having a garage sale... well, the kids and my husband did. I was in bed sick for most of the day.

But, we started Sunday off meeting a few of my fellow PSIA group members at the University District Street Fair. It's quite the event. I went for the good company and to steal booth set-up ideas. Unfortunately, I didn't see any ideas that would lend themselves to what I need. I also didn't buy anything! Aside from some fantastic dragons made from paper mache, fabric and wire, I didn't see anything that I felt I had to have. A bit unusual for me. But it was great to spend a little extra time with some fellow crafty people.

The one thing we saw that was worthy of a picture, was the aluminum base that was being played by a member of the local group, The Tall Boys. I'm guessing he gets a lot of questions about the base because he had a tag on it that said "aluminum". They were entertaining and the base was super cool looking (see photo above)!

After the fair, we took the kids over to Gasworks Park. We were close because we stopped by Trina's in-laws first to pick up some more t-shirts for my latest obsession. Neither Kasey nor myself had been to this famous park. It's a cool place. I especially liked the big hill that sat on the edge of the water. It was a great place to view the Seattle cityscape - especially on a nice clear day. I had one of my T-Shirt capes in the car... so the kids modeled it for me while we were at the park. They love those capes... too bad I didn't have more than one... they ended up fighting over it.

Then Robbie had the idea of going to the zoo. It was only going to be open for a few more hours, so we agreed (we have passes). We spent the remainder of the afternoon walking around the zoo. Oh, and they have this great new feature there... you can feed the giraffes! Kasey, Robbie and Alyssa fed the giraffes (I passed since it was $5 a person). I can't tell you how excited both kids were! After the giraffes... we told Lyssie we were going to see the lions next. Lyssie's response was "yay! I pet lion". Uh... no.

We finished the day off with dinner at California Pizza Kitchen. What a great Sunday... and I have to tell you, Kasey and I are exhausted! And this is just the beginning of the nice weather. We love summers here. The kids and I enjoy the beaches, the free concerts, the water parks, and so much more! I can't wait until school is out and we have no more commitments until the fall (ha ha... I think I'm kidding myself).

So, we begin another week... I am trying (unsuccessfully) to switch gears from t-shirt dresses back to costumes and crowns. I've applied for a three day show in Maple Valley with a fellow PSIA member, Meghan, and I need to stock up even more. I figure a three day show... I'm going to need double what I currently have. Especially since a month after that one, I'll have the Mill Creek two day show. I want to be sure I have plenty of merchandise! Busy! Busy! Busy!

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A recap of Edmonds

So, I'm finally getting around to reviewing the Edmonds show last weekend. If you didn't make it, you missed a lot of fun! I had such a great time. I wish all craft fairs could be like this one.

We gave out 50 fabulous gift bags (notice the bag in the woman's hand in the photo - the bags were also handmade and reusable!) to the first 50 people through the door and they were gone by 11:00! We had a great mix of vendors... kids stuff, jewelry, paintings, prints, crocheted and knitted items, eco friendly items and sooo much more! We also gave away door prizes every hour/half hour. Each vendor donated a full priced item... and some people walked away with some pretty fabulous things!

I did really well to top it all off. I was happy that people were buying. I also love when my items are well received. I got lots of positive comments... and my most popular items were crowns, scrappy little monsters and the alphabet bean bags! All of which I will have at my next craft show.

Speaking of more craft shows... Puget Sound Indie Arts is talking about some more shows in the fall. So if you missed this one, you can catch one of our others. I'll keep you posted as we have more details

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The first of many!

So, I just posted my first recycled t-shirt item in my shop. This was made from two shirts that I bought on Mother's Day. I can't wait to make more! I have a few other items to post... I hope to get them posted in the next few days. I'm so excited about these... I guess because they are so fun to make and it's rewarding using recycled materials and making them look new again.

Lyssie was pretty disappointed she didn't get to keep this dress. But I we can't keep them all! Currently all the dresses are her size... or just a little bit bigger. I'm hoping, in the future, to vary the sizes a bit more.

Yippee for going green!

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