One Inch World

So, when I created the tutorial for this felt doll house chair I wondered what would happen if I turned it into a toddler chair. Well, when the next One Yard Wonders book comes out, you’ll be able to decide if it was successful or not. Clearly the ‘muslin’ (canvas) pattern holds weight, but, I don’t know, I’m not totally satisfied with it. Is tying a chair weird? Should I have used upholstery buttons instead of just thread? But I don’t think I can do any serious redesign now.

I do still need to make the final version, that’s next on my table. I’ve finished one project for the book, and I have two more and a looming deadline that is totally stressing me out! It’s like I have a real job again! Stress! It makes me want to crawl into bed and wait until those in authority come and haul me away for pretending that I can accomplish something good. Erg. But! One foot in front of the other, and not wasting time online can work wonders. Also, just a little sake before I sit down to write really helps me get out the first draft of a pattern! I found that out last week. Is that bad? Should I not admit that? Maybe, but it was nice to have a little help with the voices in my head saying, ‘no!’ ‘that’s awful’ ‘no one will understand that’ ‘that’s too basic! People will think you’re condescending!’ ‘give up!’ But what would be the point of life if we gave up, right? So, forward forward forward.

I had a problem with timing this year, the call for submissions to the second One Yard Wonders book came out while I was packing to move, and with the approaching deadline last month at the end of March I was still unpacking. I was not very happy about this. So a week before the deadline, desperate to submit *something* I made this fairy skirt and play silk. And I told them about all these other brilliant ideas I had that I didn’t have time to make before the deadline.

Long story short, they did not take this skirt, unsurprisingly really, but they *did* extended the deadline for everyone for another ~2 weeks, one of which my little sister was visiting playing au pair. So I got three more projects sewn, although one was a little late, and they were accepted! The down side being that now I have to finish writing up the instructions for three projects and re-make them with the soon-to-be-provided fabric for the final versions. So along with making things for Rebecca’s birthday party next week, I’m going to be pretty busy for the next month! And here I was wanting to get back to working on patterns for my sadly neglected Etsy shop. But life just is. I’m doing what I love, so I can’t complain.

And here’s a picture just for fun:

This picture sums up what I love about my bounce flash. Is that shallow? Okay, silver lining lifestyle comment: since our mattress was saggy and pokey by a year after we bought it, 8 years later Rebecca is allowed to jump on it whenever she wants. Bonus. She jumps on the couch too. It’s a nice couch, but we got it for free from family, and jumping always seemed more important than preserving the couch. It’s holding up so far.

Finally finally finally! This is what I’ve been working on for the last month besides my 2007 photo book. And suddenly I find I have nothing to say… I think the pattern came out nicely though, this time I decided to illustrate it instead of photographing it. I like how it looks, it isn’t overloaded with pictures for each tiny step, and I think the illustrations are easier to understand. I wanted to get this done further before the holidays, but it’s pretty easy to make, so maybe I’ll get some adventurous takers.

I think finding wheels is a little intimidating, so I put some sets of those up for sale in my shop too, although I really don’t want to get into the business of selling wheels. If I was a business major I’m sure I’d think it was great and call it something like horizontal productization or leveraged diversification or something, but there’s a reason I’m not a business major, and I don’t run a store. Because I want to make things, not resell them. Except, now I have a store. Hrm.

On a separate note, Thanksgiving was really low key at our house this year. We were going to go over to a friends for a group shindig, but Rebecca got sick Tuesday night. Thursday it got to be time to cook dinner, well, 20 minutes until dinner is supposed to be ready is a little late to start, and I felt lame that we didn’t have anything Thanksgiving-ish. So in 40 minutes I managed to cook elbow noodles (Rebecca survives half on whole wheat noodles and half on milk and fruit), sour cranberry relish, biscuit wrapped chicken sausage bits, and roasted chestnuts. And the biscuits didn’t come out of a pop-tube either. We opened a bottle of wine, and had the chocolate cream pie Jesse made for the party for dessert ourselves. I was quite pleased with my adrenaline fueled speed cooking session. It brought back the days when we used to have Iron Chef cooking parties at our house.

I should probably have some kind of giveaway now, shouldn’t I? Maybe tomorrow.

Finally finally finally I have a pattern in my Etsy store. Now of course I need to start another one! But the ice is broken and I’m getting my toes wet, or frozen, or something!

Now I have to go do one of those sidebar widgety things…