Monday, October 15, 2007

setback

This is the look of despair. With a seam ripper.

I knew the entire time that I was sewing the small and large card holder pieces of a wallet I am mass-producing to sell on etsy.com, that they were too small.

I forgot to take into account the seam I would sew when attaching them to the billfold part, and sure enough, I could not coax a credit card nor Metrocard into the pocket of the one I tried to finish. So my 50 small rectangles of fabric, all fused and nowhere to go. I don't even have more fusing to start anew yet. Let alone the sanity.

I am trying to not think about it too much and keep the momentum. I have spent about 24 hours on them at this point - from sketching to patternmaking to color theory to cutting to sewing, ironing, etc. It is a painful process, but I will finish this. The goal is to have 5 of each of the 4 designs I cut pieces for, not counting the faulty pockets. Inventory, baby.

I am reading the Make It blog with aplomb, getting inspiration from her efforts. I can't recall her name, but she is doing a fabulous job. I also love the mention of her local small business resources. I encourage all would-be and even established entrepreneurs to seek out the usually free and completely legit small business services in their city. I know from experience they are staffed by professionals whose sole purpose is to help you help yourself. Sounds silly, yes, but since most of the ideas that come through are garbage, they will be more than happy to help someone with a solid, sound business plan. Or, help you write one if you don't have the foggiest idea how to.

It always amazes me how few people take advantage of the resources available. Those are your taxes, people. And if you want to think of the very good odds that your idea is probably one of the best to come through their doors, you could be up, running, and successful in no time.

Saturday, October 06, 2007

the happy homemaker

We asked for a bread machine for the wedding shower.

My mother immediately branded me as a deluded happy homemaker, which apparently hurt her indie sensibilities. Keep in mind this is a woman who reared me with the constant refrain "If your father didn't want kids, we would still be living in Manhattan."

So this weekend I made bread. I started with a regular white loaf with regular white all-purpose flour because we didn't buy bread flour. We bought whole wheat flour, but you need wheat gluten something to make bread with it. The white bread isn't bad, but a little too crumbly and blah. I scored, however, with a olive-herb loaf. It tastes like bread should taste. The texture was much better, too.

In craft news, no one has bought from my etsy shop yet. I should not be that discouraged, as my marketing approach could use some work, but I am having a heard time wanting to get some other things up there if they will just languish as well.

I went on a cleaning spree not too long ago in an effort to refine my craft room. It worked remarkably well, I built shelves, so my things are no longer lining the walls, and I just came across a table I thought would be perfect for my sewing machine. Some one left it out with the trash. I dragged it home and used it as a bedside sick table all last week until my husband opened it and realized it was, indeed a sewing table. The top swings over to double the workspace and an arm comes out the side to hold it up. Unfortunately the vintage Singer that was originally attached to it was no longer there. My newer, plastic model won't sit in the cutout, but it is still one for happy coincidences.