Craft Sale Recap

So, as I had mentioned, I did my first craft sale on Saturday. Thank you so much to all of you who offered support and encouragement! It wound up being a pretty slow sale, with a lot of browsers over buyers overall, so I think I did pretty well considering that. Enough to make my time at the sale and the table worth it for the items that sold, and I’m planning to list a lot of what was left on etsy. Since I went into it with the mindset that this would likely happen and it would be a good chance to stock up my store with ready to sell items, I’m not at all disappointed!

I’m just going to embed some pictures from instagram, because it was a hectic week and I didn’t get around to taking good pictures, and whenever I get a good photography day whatever is left will get it’s little photoshoot and wind up on etsy anyhow.

I was really intimidated when I got to the sale because all of my stuff fit on top of the one brown basket and one load in from my van. The tables were much bigger than I expected and a lot of people really had their tables just full! I consoled myself with the thought that a lot of those folks were out of the stage of their lives where they had young kids at home, and/or had worked with others to fill their tables. The table beside me had a lockbox and I had this tiny little nearly empty ziploc bag of change, and wound up being quite grateful to my hubby when he popped by partway through to drop off some more.

 

These bibs were a very popular item. I only sold one, but many browsers declared their love and wished for grandchildren. (Apparently not many people there had babies to buy for, but half the items I sold were baby items anyways, and it was the baby stuff that was exclaimed over the most. I personally also enjoy exclaiming over baby gear and pining for babies, even when I have no business pining for babies.) I plan on releasing a free pattern for the bibs after I double check that someone hasn't already done so. The first two-tone bib was a bit of an accident, I was piecing to make the most of the fat quarter pack I had of this freakin' adorable Cloud 9 fabric by Made By Rae. Then I fell madly in love with the look, made pattern pieces for it, and went to town.

 

This girly outfit sold, and I was pleased as punch and simultaniously mourning just a little bit at the loss of the ability to take it out and coo over it at random moments.

 

The little foxy onesie went too, along with a bib, for an impending baby. Glad to see I'm not the only one who appreciates a little hand stitching. (You can blame Kristie for my current hand stitching obsession, she has been instagramming and blogging all sorts of goodies with horribly perfect hand stitching all over the place.)

That's it for now for the craft sale stuff. I'll leave you with a tiny little sneak peek video of Nicole's little bedroom, which I also finished last week and have yet to blog about. I'll be doing some catch-up next week so you may get two days of DIY posts!

See you on Friday for a round up!

a nickel for my thoughts

You know, since the penny is obsolete here now? Although I guess realistically one would round down and I’d be giving it away for free. Considering how few rational thoughts I’ve been having this week you would think that would increase the value a bit, no?

I have some really fun stuff in the works and/or finished and ready to share, but I’m elbows deep in preparation for a craft sale this Saturday, and if it goes truly abysmally then I may need a few days to recover emotionally. Outside of that, I’ll be listing a bunch of stuff in my shop right after. But I digress; I’m busy in a tizzy sewing away in my own personal sweatshop. Since it happens to be full of cute prints I’m not exactly suffering, although someday my autopsy will read something about copious amounts of various fibres that seem to permeate every bit of my being. That’s right, I’ve been snorting faux furs and flannel dust again. Intervention may be pointless.

Meanwhile, feel free to peek at my Instagram feed for a sneak peek. And if the code worked right, below is embedded a picture that includes two reversible bibs. I made a pattern for the two-tone one and if I can’t find a pattern or tutorial that already covers it, I’ll share that pattern and tutorial soon.

Mo It Up

I’m still working on launching Clothespins, but since someone reminded me it was Movember, that November is the Month of the Mo, I had listed three of the scarves for presale on my facebook page, and they went pretty quickly. I have made one more scarf available for sale on ebay here, and then I won’t be selling any more until after the craft sale I have a table booked for in Southeast Winnipeg in two weeks.

Scarfpocalypse

So, I have been sewing and crafting away this week and last, but not really taking the time to do good photos or to post them. Back to my old tricks already, eh? Oh, yes and no. I’ve signed up to do a nearby craft show on Nov 23rd in conjunction with preparing to relaunch my online shop. I’ve decided to relaunch shop{thelaundry}line rebranded as CLOTHESPINS by ON{thelaundry}LINE.

Look, I have a poorly shot picture of a business card and everything. Don’t count on these particular items showing up in the shop, there are people infinitely better at bows than I scattered all over the interwebs already, and as far as I’m aware a few of my online friends sell some form of the crocheted bows I was playing around free-forming. Some items will primarily be sold at craft fairs, while others (like my infinity scarves) will be available online soon.

I just got a shipment of more moustache fabric in, girlcharlee (referral link) suddenly had more available to preorder and you bet your buttocks I preordered right away. (along with a plethora of bird and feather fabrics, which cracked me up when it arrived as I hadn’t noticed the pattern.) The right picture is various knits cut and ready to be made into scarves, many of them already are and some of them are already sold.

I also did some sewing for Kids Clothes Week Challenge which I have yet to share, and some sewing for me that is on the table and not completed. We’ll get there.

In other news, I have become a bit obsessed with some british television lately and I couldn’t help but notice that everyone was wearing half-finger mittens. Well I mean, not everyone, but enough. And at first I thought nothing of it. Then I sort of thought it looked cool. Then I slowly started to get obsessed. I briefly considered knitting myself some, but I am not a superknitter and I wanted something cabled. Plus I would likely get one mitten done, minus the probably finicky half-fingers (double pointed needles, hiss!) and then toss it in the basket as I panicked and tried to finish a table full of handmade accessories in the last week before the sale, never to be seen again. Soooo I went shopping on etsy. Since I missed both sharing my own handmade goods this week, AND missed my friday favs, here are the mittens I added to my fav list before making my decision (which was the last pair.) Click any of them to buy, although two are already sold so you’ll have to click around the shops of the sellers. WARNING: DO NOT ADJUST YOUR MONITORS. Grey gray grrrr, eh!
And yes, I noticed one was a men’s pair.

Just think! One can use one’s smartphone, find the keys, open the gas thinger, dig change out of the cupholder, and various other things that would normally require the removal of mittens. But one’s knuckles could still be toasty, while looking significantly more sophisticated than when using the flip-over mittens I am shamefully fond of. Although to be honest, there is no such thing as shame in Winnipeg when it’s –40 Celcious. You wear your long johns, a hoodie, fake turtleneck thinger, a scarf, a toque (get it right), finger mitts, mittens over your finger mitts, a coat that covers your butt, and some big old boots, and you walk nonchalantly down the street drinking an iced coffee.

But for tropical weather like –20C, half-finger mitts will have me strutting my stuff.

Olivia vs Kittens (in theory, not practise)

So first of all, yay for a majority government, and congrats to Lawrence Toet for the Conservative win in an NDP zone last night! I’m sure he’ll do great. (Also yay that my husband will go take down signs and then be done with it for the next four years, hahaHA!)

Second. So, last night I was tired, and Nicole was in bed, and Chris was watching voting, and Olivia was :D !!!!! but tired, so I thought to myself, “I shall go lie me down with this wee babe, and I shall nurse her, and she shall cuddle with me and we shall drowse off together, and it shall be lovely.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. HA. No.

Have I even MET Olivia?

So I  feed her and then spend the next 45 minutes trying to defend my face, if nothing else. The girl was acting like a kitten on nip. Or speed. Something like this:

 
“EEEEE SO EXCITED LOOK AN EYE. LOOK SOME HAIR. FACE. MOUTH. NOSE. BITE IT! I WILL BITE IT! NO! YES! GRAB! WAIT IS THAT A HAND OVER THERE?! YES! MINE! KICK KICK KICK! EEE BLANKETS! WRESTLEWRESTLE! FLAIL! WIGGLE! EEE AIR! WRESTLEWRESTLE!
EEE SO EXCITED LOOK AN EYE!”

Aaaand rinse and repeat. Seriously, just wow. I eventually sent my hubby a BBM (like chat for Blackberries, fyi. Yup, we chat from opposite ends of the house, lame.)
Laura: DANGER!
Chris: Are you ok?
Laura: No.
Chris: ???
Laura: I’m being attacked.
Laura: Possibly by a bear.
(note: This is Nicole’s current explanation for EVERYTHING. A bear did it. It got out its cage and came to our house and emptied her pencil sharpener all over the floor and then it ran away)
Chris: LOL
Laura: No, seriously, can you come get it and jiggle it while you watch the voting?
Chris: (inappropriate suggestion)
Chris: Sure

And then he came and got her and she wiggled like mad so he gave up and put her in her bed and two seconds later she passed out and didn’t wake up for another seven hours. The moral of the story is, cosleeping my ash.

(disclaimer: don’t egg my house, crunchy mamas. We totally coslept with Nicole for a few months at one point. I have nothing against cosleeping, done carefully and alcohol-free)

 

I also spent that time coming up with a chart in my head. One column read OLIVIA and the other read KITTEN. In the end everything in the kitten chart also applied to Olivia, except for “will eat me if I die,” so I mean I’ll take Olivia > kitten.

THIRDLY, I am sorry about the crochet bootcamp delay for a week there, I couldn’t find my mini tripod. But it was behind my flute for some reason! (I can’t imagine why, I would understand if it was on top of or in front of my flute, as it’s never pulled out, but behind??) So I will get a video up in the next 24 hours hopefully that goes over double crochet, half double crochet, and treble or triple crochet. I also found a reaaaaaally old McCalls needlework book that agrees with me that crochet is easy and awesome and also that it is all basically the one stitch done a variety different ways.

And fourthly, a pox upon you and your household. Oh, wait, no. A pox upon me and MY household. Nicole, specifically. That’s right, the chicken pox fairy popped by and left us a present! Despite that, I may possibly get something done today yet. I’m planning on putting earrings in the store today, even if I have to take pictures instead of eating and do uploads instead of sleeping. I can sleep next week. DEADLINES, people. I thrive on them. (If by thrive you mean ‘caffiene and sleep deprivation and wild-eyed victory’)

 

edited to add: FIFTH: for those of you who don’t follow me on facebook and thusly haven’t heard, Olivia started full-out crawling on Sunday at 5.5months old. It was at my mom and dads house, in front of the whole family. She’d been schlepping around in her usual scooty fashion and then my dad walked in and she picked herself up and crawled across the room to beg him to pick her up. The moral of THIS story is stay away from the grandparents or bad things like crawling infants will happen to you. everybody loves grandma and grandpa.

sneaky peeky

I’m aiming to open SHOPthelaundryline etsy store this coming weekend at the latest. Here’s a few sneak peeks!

Tag graphic (yay tags) Tags will not, however, be found on the tutus. Here’s a smattering of brown/beige tutu magic from last week’s failed tutu shoot. (which is what made me decide I will need assistance shooting baby tutus for the shot… tutus are great photo props for babies, but my baby is not exactly a helpful model for shooting tutus!!)

My kids are just born to model, obviously.

Take two…

Okay, this baby  moves too much. She needs to either be held up or replaced. Hopefully Thursday afternoon I will be doing a tutu shoot with some help, though! (Provided I can find a few volunteers who will work for photographs, lol)