Etsy Love

I love Etsy chat and am quasi addicted to it. Etsy etiquette is to go into the chat room, say hello, then proceed to juggle conversation, seller shop surfing, posting surfed items in order to feature favorites of other artist shops and modestly (or shamelessly) promote yourself a tad while you're at it. Some chatters are virtual masters. Not I.

Here's the rub. I'm not much of a juggler. I constantly have as many tabs open in my browser as there are chatters in the room; genuinely enjoy getting to know and converse with the other sellers - resulting in chatty cathy syndrome; get lost in shops I'm surfing because I want to see every single thing they sell while reading descriptions, etc. and somehow, somewhere in this shatter fog, I completely forget the promo part altogether. It's only when someone else mentions their blog or twitter account and I happen to see the chat stream mention fly by that I'm jolted into recognition, "Hello. Genius. You have a twitter account. You have a blog. Wait, what are the link addys again? Crap." Then it's off to open even more tabs to copy the correct hyperlinks to post, find my way back to my buried chat tab in the sea of firefox tabs that surround me and post in time before the vibe is lost to another streaming conversation or fabulous item that flies by and disappears upward into item ether from the photo stream to the right. Heaven help me if someone happens to post a photo of one of our Mello items before I see it and my aging eyes struggle to see who it was before it and they disappear forever, amen. Any fly flittering about on my 3-D wall would literally die laughing. Who needs a fly swatter? Not I.

Oh and what about when someone leaves the room and they're one of my open tabs? Well, too bad they weren't there to see me giving them a nudge into the "wouldya look at that" spotlight. I'm little slow on the uptake once and again but better late than never. That last photo could turn into a sale. Ya never know...

So because the entire purpose of blogging is supposed to be about promoting Mel and by extension, my handiwork... Here's my new sewing machine hobby. See, I didn't lie about smaller and easier projects.

This phenomenal fabric came from the "garbage heap" of a local interior designer. Can you believe this gorgeous wool was going to be abandoned and left to waste away in a landfill? I think that's textile blasphemy. The price tag was a whopping $330 (a yard, I assume) to adorn your furniture with it. We didn't rescue enough to cover the couch, so I cut the four squares from the discarded sample and made them into two little hip pouches with high quality leather drawstring and added fat square wood beads for better pullability. A google search for similar items returned stash bags, backpacks, clutches, fanny packs, etc... This is none of the above and all of the above I s'pose. What do y'all think? Be kind. I'm remarkably sensitive to harsh criticism - but appreciate all forms of direction with loving purpose. :P

Sewing 101

So I just learned how to sew last month. Admittedly, I'm far from fantastic but my first project was a patchwork skirt/dress. Am I crazy? No. The long story goes a little something like this...
I've previously mentioned that we have three craft rooms in the house. Did I mention that one of them has several floor to ceiling shelves of recycled fabric? No, I'm not kidding. We contacted a few interior designers last year and they were only too happy to unload piles of what they called 'scrap' for our stacking pleasure. Mel subsequently hopped on the rolling bowling ball and began cutting many into 4" squares and arranging them for us to assemble into patchwork clothing. A friend of ours committed to the seamstress duties.
Meanwhile, Mel & I were Walmart'ing one afternoon and stumbled into the fabric section, where we proceeded to stock up on feminine John Deere and pink camo fabric so Mel could design a hippie-hick patchwork dress for me. The friend/seamstress never came through for us, so I got tired of looking at my designed-but-not-assembled garment and tackled the giant task of learning to sew, using it as my first project. Voila! Hippie, hick, chic.

It's lined, custom cut (the pattern was the human body) and has a slit in the back. I prefer to wear it as a skirt: Now that the long overdue task of completion is, well.... complete, I've moved on to bigger and more difficult projects. No, no, no, that isn't true. I've moved on to smaller and easier things.

I'll photo and post tomorrow. For now, I'm off to clean craft room #2. It saw a fair amount of clay play today.

Hindsight

So I've been thinking about a couple of things from last night that I let slide into the world wide readership I don't have. Anyway, first I should more specifically address what happens during and after a sister fight. I clarify because it matters.
First, fight actually means argument. No throwing, hitting, kicking, etc... Disagreements don't lead to bodily injury. Just clearing that up... She is after all, my life long best friend.
Second, I do indeed grab my headphones but only after the vocal cords are nearly blown and I've exhausted every possible communication tactic I learned in my vast collection of Carl Jung psychology volumes. He was a genius. I'm not.
What I didn't reveal is that Mel grabs one of her many bead boxes, or a canvas, or a wad of clay, or any number of things in her vast collection of creator volumes. Believe me, she has an arsenal. We live together and two rooms of our house are craft rooms. A third is an office with hundreds of her creations inventoried or hanging on pegboards like a workshop. Okay, so that room is a workshop. As soon as I get around to fixing the light in there, I'll snap a photo and plaster it here for proof. My point, which keeps getting obscured in the tangents, is that she's still able to create when she's angry or upset. It's such a beautiful thing that she can make beautiful things for catharsis. Don't get me wrong. She wasn't mad at me or anyone else when she crafted that adorable pair of barefoot sandals I'm sneaking around in up there on the bottom of the blog page. She can create ANY time. I suspect she could even create in her sleep - aside from dreaming of upcoming creations. I may sneak in her room tonight and slip a pen into her hand and see if she wakes me up in the morning to show me a masterpiece. Check this out:
She imagined this illustration many years ago when I accused her of only seeing things in black and white. I had her so confuzzled and irritated. Little did I know that as soon as I simply left her alone, she would grab a pen and go with the flowing doodle of mankind's black and white divided mind. More recently, she discovered the wonders of shrinking actual images into pendant sized wearable art and I reminded her of that two decade old drawing. This is a reproduction of the original but it's rather spot on. As soon as I figure out how to hyperlink the image to our etsy shop, I'll get on it. Right now I'm patting myself on the back because I know it's called a hyperlink. Heh. Hey wait, I think I just figured it out. Could you click on it and make sure for me? Thanks!
Okay, the proverbial air is clear. Hindsight usually is - relative to our perspectives anyway. :)

Here goes nothin'

Well, here I sit, wondering what the hey I have to say that will be worthwhile reading for any number of 'followers". The idea itself admittedly triggers a giggle. I am, after all, historically the quiet chick at the window who avoids attention like a plague of locusts and loses countless minutes staring into the sunny sky pondering astrological remedy and omenology. As you may have surmised, this is my first foray into blogging, so it should be a scream for all who dare to enter - or for me at least if none happen upon my addled brain-to-fingers spillage...

I'll start with this: I love Kitaro. I mean really love. I mean feel his music to the core of my bones, can't believe the spirit speaks so stirringly through each of the gazillion instruments he has mastered without a single formal class. Thinking of You has been called one of the most beautiful cd's of all time. I'm so psyched that someone agrees with me. So if you hadn't guessed, I'm listening to it now. If you never have, I highly recommend it. This is what I listen to when I hope to be inspired, or when I light a candle and run a bubbly bath, or when the cd six pack hits permanent fixture disc number 6. There's a stack that remains close to the magazine but a couple never leave. Time will likely reveal them...

I'll end with this: I'm making a blog because my sis is an amazing maker of things. She's not the best at taking pictures or hawking them to the masses. She doesn't really care about that kind of thing. All she wants to do is create. And because I so want the world to see her stuff and see a few bodies wearing it, shyness notwithstanding, I'm gonna swoop into the web ether and share a few of my favorites. I'm not a spammer, scammer, etc... I've even been tagged as the lady who wouldn't try to sell a hammer to a carpenter who left his on the roof in the rain. Oh well. No pressure. This is simply a social experiment of sorts anyway. And who knows, if you hang out enough, you may get to read me venting in the middle of a scathing sister fight - until I grab the headphones and blast Kitaro. :P

BTW (Did I mention I'm a texting maniac), the barefoot sandals in the corner by the window were made by Mel and I'll let you guess who's wearing them. Hint: Not Hi