Must Complet List

The end of last week and this weekend really put me behind. The cold I acquired in the middle of the week is really zonking me out. I ended up making a semi major mistake with my present for Brenna's birthday, and I hope to get it all ironed out and both fixed and finished today. I am also going to finish dying the play scarves for her birthday present as well as getting her "birthday cake" finished as well. Needles to say I want to have her gift all wrapped and boxed waiting for the postage, so I can get it sent out in time to arrive for her birthday rather than its usual late state. My other goal for today is to finish my Grandmother's gift and start my Father-in-Law's gift. I will have pictures of those for the massive post holiday wrap up. Before any of that can be accomplished, I just want to finish off the pants that did not get done in time for Shadow Dance. I almost had them done, but not quite. Today also involves an errands run for both crafting supplies and household supplies. I may also pick up new pots and herb plants. I have decided to throw in the towel with my current set of plants that keep getting infected with slime molds. I cannot win, so I am starting over with new pots, soil, and plants. That is the plan, pictures tomorrow, I promise!

Fog Lifted, New Listing, and Letters Cut

The fog ended up lifting yesterday in the early afternoon, so I ran down to the patio and took some pictures of the Black Roses pair of pants. I edited the photos and listed the pair up on the store.



I think today will be totally devoted to present making. I know I keep saying that, but I really need to put the shop on hold for a little while to get these gifts made. I do have to day that some good came out of the circular cutter debacle a month or so ago. I bought several sizes of circular cutters to try to make a circle template work. I was rather upset to find that I needed the special cutter made by the template manufacturer. What was I going to do with four different size cutters? Well the smallest, 15 mm cutter, is working perfectly for this current project and cutting out letters. I hope to get it mostly completed and take pictures for you all to see what I made. I also have to do day two of week two of my jogging program. I have found that talking about it here is kind of like a confessional. If I don't end up doing it when I say I will here, I feel bad. Oh the inspirational value of guilt. I hope that today stays foggy, so I can indulge in pots of tea while I work, but that seems to not be the case. Well since the fog is lifting, I guess I should go and get some work done myself.

Weekend in Review

This weekend was really good overall. Dan stayed home from work on Friday because he was still not feeling well, which resulted in little work being done for Fabulous Pants. I was okay with this though seeing as I have really been plugging away on things for it on the computer and on the machines. I am just worried that I am going to get stopped by the "rainy season" for listings because I will not be able to take pictures. I hope to get a ton of things done today due to my renewed vigor from taking a break from it all for three days. On Friday I took it easy and did things mostly on the computer. On Saturday, Dan and I went out and did "free shopping." It is fun to do, and I highly recommend it to others. We tend to save up our gift cards and never spend them, so we go on free shopping sprees when we finally get around to using them all. I go to get some items I needed at Crabtree and Evelyn and also learned that they no longer sell my perfume. It was kind of disappointing. We went and got Dan an iPod for him to finally be able to have some music with him. He was happy to have a new tech toy. I also spent a gift card at Macy's to get some perfume and got a ton of free stuff because it was give away time from the counter I bought from. I also got some things, although not for free but on sale, for me. I got a pair of tan wool pants and a new wardrobe item I have never had, a purple hat. I love adding that to my new look that I am trying to figure out. We also got wine glasses and martini glasses from Crate and Barrel. It was great to get so many things for free essentially. We ended our night with an almost free dinner at Ruth's Cris. It was a fun day.

On Sunday I went to a drop spindle class. I am not that great at spinning yarn yet, but I intend to work on it and become good with this. Once I can spin on a spindle, Dan is going to get marching orders to build me a wheel so I can learn on that. Hey I figure he can make me a harp, then a wheel is not too far behind. :) After that, I relaxed on the couch and watch some tv off the dvr while I surfed around the web and Dan worked on his work. I did two minor things for Fabulous Pants; I uploaded my products onto Google base, and I also got Twitter set up. You can follow my small updates on my Twitter Feed and see what I am tweeting about. I then spent the rest of the evening working on a project that is mostly for myself, but also for someone else. I cannot talk much about it now, but look for my recap of items I am working on but can't talk about now after the holiday season. It will be picture filled and action packed.

On the slate for today: jogging.... Yeah you heard that right. I am going to try to get back into shape again. I tried earlier this year and did not do so hot at sticking with it. I am more determined again since I did not fit into any of my dress pants for this weekend's dinner. We will see how it goes this time. I have that same jogging program I am going to try, but I think I will try it on the ellipitical since that is more controlled by my pace rather than having to turn the speed up and down on the treadmill all the time. Perhaps when I get further in the program and there are less intervals I will be able to switch back to the treadmill. I am going to finally finish those lime peacock pants so they can be photographed and listed tomorrow. I am also going to get the black roses pair cut out and hopefully started a bit. We will see though. I do need to clean up around the work area from last night's project as well. Well I am off for a jog...

Supplies Run

I worked on the purple pants yesterday. I got the fabric all ironed out, and folded for cutting, and then cut to only find out I could not sew them up. In all the recent supply runs I have filled in all the gaps for colors of thread, or so I thought. I went into the thread pile to find that I had only three feet of purple thread in the color of the pants I wanted to work on. *SIGH* So, I moved on and worked on ironing out, folding, and cutting another pair of pants in a beautiful light blue. This fabric also has the binding on one side, but the delicate shade of blue was also too good to pass up the day I bought the fabric. It has great little daisy type flower details all along the design patterns. I also like that the gold embroidery on it is a more subtle shade of gold and less bright in spots. It looks almost antiqued. So, on the plate for today is a quick run to the fabric store for more thread. I am also going to hit some thrift shops to look for certain supplies I need for making some of my holiday gifts for family this year. I am trying for once to start my gift making now, so I am not a crazy person come December. I find making stuff for the eldest niece is getting tougher and tougher as she starts to get older, and the thought of her being too old for toys made by her Aunt just gets to me. I need to go and visit them sometime this year while they are all still little and not too cool for me. Well there are many places to get to and my feet and BART only travel so fast. I will leave you with a quick picture of the blue daisy fabric for the other pair of pants I am cutting out.

Inspiring Weekend

This weekend I decided to recharge the creative batteries. I went with my husband and a friend to the De Young museum to see the Chihuly exhibit. It was full of beautiful glass works, and it was nice to see someone else who seems to love vibrant colours. He also has a very whimsical view it seems, and his love for natural forms was also something I connected with. Below is a picture of his glass ceiling. It was a great piece and seemed to be a gigantic "I Spy" picture made of glass. If you go to the above link, you can see pictures of the entire exhibit. I highly recommend it to anyone who can see it when it comes to your city. Pictures just do not do this exhibit justice. It is something that must be experienced in person.



After that, I went with my husband to see Lewis Black in Berkeley. It was a great night. The show was really funny and rounded out my day nicely. On Sunday, it was back to finishing work on some pairs of special order pants. They are finally finished after much wrestling and wrangling, but I think they came out beautifully.

Yesterday was filled with house cleaning. I have let it slide for too long, and it really needed to be done. I tackled it all yesterday. Who knew such a small apartment could take so long to clean. It is great though, and I love having a sparkling clean house. Now, I can mess it all up with pants making! I have some great fabrics I bought a week or so ago and some older ones that I can finally get to. Today I am going to work on the purple moon flower fabric that I have. While the sari binding is only on one side, I could not give it up. I thought it was too pretty of a pattern and colour to pass up. Here is a quick picture I took of it. Hopefully I can get these made today and photographed tomorrow. It is all weather dependent on that. I want to get them up for sale by Thursday though. On that note.... off to iron this great fabric out to get it ready to cut!

To Do Today

Toady I am hoping to get a lot done, only, in a quiet fashion. My husband is working from home today to try and get things done. His office space is shared and therefore very loud, so he is using the house today to try to get more done. This means that machine work will be limited today. I have that special order pairs of pants that should be finally done today. They have taken a while, but I am learning a lot about working with cotton knit fabrics. I am beginning to think that I like it.... I know, crazy but true. I was so petrified of working with it when I took on the project, but through diligent study and trying out different solutions, I think I am well on my way to working effectively with this type of fabric. Who knows where this will lead in the future! I am also slowly getting my hairfalls done. I did some research looking at other sellers of hairfalls as well yesterday and felt better about my lengthy making process. I did not understand how some people got their falls done so fast and why they looked so different. Upon further looks, I found that these sellers string yarn onto hair ties and do not much else where as I braid almost all the yarn I place on the ties except for the few "highlight" yarns and metallics that I use to make them look more dread like. Hopefully the hard work on these will pay off for me. Time will tell. Well I am going to head into the work space and try to get some great work done.... quietly.

Warm or Hot?

I hate to think that I have acclimated to the Bay Area this quickly, but things I used to consider just being very warm are now quickly becoming hot to me. Perhaps it is the lack of a breeze, perhaps it is the lack of readily available air conditioning at home, I am not sure, but the high 80's have now officially become unbearably hot for me. It used to take high 90's with very high humidity to make me say that, but I guess it is part of becoming one with the Bay Area. The heat is so bad, I am actually dreading my trip into 826 for tutoring today. With no windows and only two small doors that can be opened in the Pirate Store, it gets really hot really fast in there. I am going to finish up a tooth fairy pillow for the nieces this morning to move onto a special order for this afternoon and evening. Hairfalls are slowly forming at nights, and belt ideas are rolling in my brain. I just need to sketch them out or write them down somewhere so I don't lose them this time! Well lots to do and little time before I need to head into SF! I am slightly sad I have already lost my Illinois weather tolerance.

Artisan Pants?

So recently I had someone ask me what was so artisan about my pants. I had to think about this only a little while seeing as I hand picked the word artisan for a reason when I put it on my tag line. My reply boiled down to the following points. One thing that makes the pants artisan is that they are made in small batches. I do not tend to make more than five pair out of any singular material, unless it is a troupe order. I like to limit the number of alike pairs out there in the world, so each owner can feel like they have something that is not owned by hundreds or thousands of people, like a manufactured piece of clothing is. I also search out my materials and purchase things that I think are beautiful. Then I hold onto that fabric for a period of time. I want to make sure that I don't see a ton of other things made out of the materials I pick. I want to ensure they are unique for my wearers. Another artisan touch is that I make sure all my seams are turned under where ever possible, so there are no exposed cut edges. When that is not possible, seams are sealed with a serged edge to ensure a clean finish. I also have certain special touches I use with my pants to make them artisan. I make all my own labels for the pants from recycled material. Each label is cut from former dress material, seams are rolled, and then I hand stamp my logo and name on each one. For clothing that tags would be excessively annoying, such as choli tops, I hand stamp right on the interior fabric so no tags get in the way, show during performance, or irritate the sensitive skin of the arms or back. Finally, the pants are artisan because each package is wrapped in hand stamped wrapping paper when ordered from my Etsy store. Hey, who doesn't like to feel like they are opening up a present for no particular reason! Treat yourself! So that was my reply, and I think I won them over to calling my pants and products, artisan.