And now... a word I've been longing to write:

UPDATE!

etsy.

First etsy sale!

So this morning I woke up to a nice surprise; my first sale online at etsy.com!

I have to admit, I didn't think this day would come for a long time. I listed a few items on etsy just the other night (2 wallets and a zippered pouch), just to get the hang of how etsy listings work. I had no idea what to charge for shipping, so I guessed at it. The girl who bought the Lady wallet was in NY, and my shipping estimate turned out to be right on the money!

I dropped it in the mail this afternoon. Now I have combined excitement at getting the item to her (she's probably excited to get it) with extreme seller's anxiety. This girl shelled out serious dough for something she hasn't gotten to physically see, touch and handle. My description was pretty straightforward... I would just hate for someone to be disappointed. I'm eager to hear back from her when she receives it in the mail next week!

This sale makes up for the fact that the Underpass project has been delayed by one week. I was supposed to be out there tomorrow, but I guess the 18th will be my first sitting. This is just as well; I've been busy with my thesis and haven't had a chance to make much new stuff since the last Basement Artists show. Now, I have another week to spruce up my inventory, and my online sale this morning was definately a source of motivation! Go me!

I think I'm going to have to invest in a good camera if I'm going to make use of etsy. Kevin is great for complex shoots involving models and stuff, but I can't ask him to take hours out of his life to shoot every single wallet, purse and shirt I churn out.

A good weekend

It's funny; when you're sick in bed you become desperate to do all the things you didn't feel like doing when you were well.

I fell ill immediately after moving, so I was sick in bed with packed boxes surrounding me. When I felt a little better on Friday and actually got out of bed for awhile, I quickly became overwhelmed at how quickly May is flying by. I knew it'd be a busy month for me, but I hadn't accounted for two weeks in bed. The Basement Artists show is less than two weeks away, and I started to panic that I wouldn't be ready in time; that I couldn't even if I worked night and day.

However, in one day (yesterday) I managed to set up my office ("studio") and work on my thesis! All this, and I still had the time and energy to have dinner with a friend and go to a coworker's birthday party afterward. I was pretty impressed.

Today I slept in, and spent most of the afternoon at my parents house (mother's day, after all). When I got home, I got to work on the incomplete wallets I had started last December. Having been seperated from my sewing machine for four months, I was actually nervous to first turn it on. It's like hanging out with your childhood best friend after ten years... familiar yet somehow awkward. Once I got going though, both my hands and my heart immediately remembered what to do and why I was doing it.

I can't even describe how much I love to create. There's nothing like getting into a creative groove where every finished item is better than the last. As you feel your skills improving and refining, your aesthetic options widen and you can do more than you thought you had the skills to do. I worked for hours until I realized that I was incredibly thirsty and that my back hurt from hunching over my machine. I am no longer worried about having stock for the show.

Now, my only worry is what is known on etsy and craftster as "seller's anxiety"; is my stuff good enough to sell? Following this question is an equally stressful but more urgent one; how much to charge? The rule of thumb is to factor in the cost of your supplies and a decent hourly wage for yourself. Thing is, I spend HOURS on every piece. If a seam comes out even slightly crooked, I rip it out and do it over. Often times, I throw away something I've been working on for an hour or two because it has a tiny flaw that I can't accept. For reasons like these, I can't even afford to pay myself a measly $10 an hour; my products would be too expensive. But what can I do? I refuse to lower my standards of perfection. I guess I can only hope that I will eventually make less mistakes and pump through the more technical sewing parts faster and more efficiently.

I have a lot of work to do this week; I have an appointment with my photographer for this Saturday to shoot products for my portfolio and website. I hope to make exteriors for all the wallets tomorrow, and work on clothing Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday... I have some ideas stewing. We'll see.

In other news; website updated with my snazzy new logo. Like it?

Yesterday was the most productive day EVER!

Normally, when Tom and I have Mac he wakes us up at 7 and Tom gets up and I roll over and go back to sleep. Yesterday, I decided to get up and get cracking on my T.A. assignments. As such, I had them finished and in the mail by 11am! Then I worked on my thesis for hours and hours, doing laundry simultaneously. I worked on both an empirical portion and a theoretical one. Then, when Tom headed out to the hockey game, I made wallets and wallet and wallets.

Actually, I didn't finish any wallets; I just made a whole bunch of the interiors. The interiors are the trickiest part, what with the interfacing and the zippers and shit. I'm waiting till I get those labels in before I tape them and add leather exteriors. I wish they'd come!

I did one black and red wallet interior that looked like it needed something on the change purse. So I drew up a quickie logo of a heart with batwings on it. It's an idea I've had based on a doodle I made in my notes at school last year. I bleached it into the change purse and it looks AWESOME. Pics to come when my camera batteries charge (yeah yeah, my camera needs batteries.)

Later last night I get an email from my sister's boyfriend, who is a graphic designer. He's been tinkering around with some logos for undeadclothingco. So he sends me these two logos and they look almost exactly like the one I bleached into the wallet! I was very impressed and very very excited! In fact, my excitement carried on to this morning; I sat at my computer with a cup of coffee and squealed with delight when I saw that it was in fact as cute as I remembered it.

LOOK!

How cute is that little frigger?! I have some ideas for tweaking which are apparently welcome because I am apparently also "art director" of undeadclothingco. How rad it that? I must remember to add it to my resume.

Poor Tommy is sick today so I'm taking care of him. I'm also making stuff (of course)!

Today I made another set of coasters; these ones are black with tweed bats on them. I set up an etsy.com shop, but I'm rediculously hesitant to list anything... seller's anxiety, they call it on craftster. I'm not sure how much to charge; I know it should be relative to how long they take to make, but that's such a variable... it depends on so many things. Supplies are hard to price too, seeing as I use one snap per wallet and they come in packs by weight. I'm also concerned about the quality of my products. I know that handmade wallets can't really stand up to machine-made industrial ones. The last thing I want is to charge someone $30-40 for a wallet that wears out in 2 seconds.

I think I'm going to have to ask craftsters for help on this one.

Today is a rainy shit-sandwich day, and normally I don't like rainy shit-sandwich days. However, now that I "work from home" and don't necessarily have to go out in the shit-sandwich rain, it's a great excuse to take a day for crafts!

Today I'm going to test out my new Linda MacPhee foil kit... I put some glue in a design last night and I'm going to try to foil it. Exciting! I'm still out of bias tape and interfacing, so I probably won't get any done today, but I can assemble parts and decorate exteriors and stuff. That's really the fun part anyway.

I've come up with some new products for undeadclothingco, due to inspiration from my trip to Workshop, Victoire and Ma Cuisine. I'm thinking; coasters! Ma Cuisine had sets of leather coasters all wrapped up in a leather strap with a snap on it. Lovely presentation, makes a great gift! I could do that. Totally. I can even envision some kind of reverse applique going on... yes. Also, passport cover? It's really a simplified wallet, when you think about it. And if the design on the front has something cool to do with travelling... and it can come with a matching luggage tag!

Okay, now I'm getting carried away. I'd best get to my crafting (and laundry!)

...can't... stop... making... WALLETS!

It's getting real bad. It's all I feel like doing. The satisfaction is palpable, and since each one is turning out better than the last, I'm starting to crave the increasing satisfaction.... it's a fix. I've started enstating rules, like "I can only work on wallets after dinner/before bed". It's getting in the way of my research, a LOT. I'm also not getting enough knitting done for xmas presents. eep.

I want to look into more advanced leather tools... stuff that can emboss, or draw... I like the look of the applique I do, but it does take a long time. I timed myself making a wallet last night, and the general assembly of the interior takes about an hour and a half. 15 mins to cut and interface all the pieces, 40 mins to sew 'em all together and install the zipper coin purse, 20 mins to do the bias tape all around the outside. Then I embellish the outer cover and sew it on. *whew*

As I need to start thinking about pricing, I also need to consider the materials I'm using. I got the leather wholesale; a frigging boatload of it for $25. I seriously don't imagine I'll ever run out of that. I bought cheap broadcloth on sale for the interior... $4 a meter, and a tiny fraction of that meter to make a wallet. Do I have to figure out exactly how much that fraction is to determine the cost? I suck at math. Then there's the cost of the zipper (4 for $.99, pretty negligible), the snaps (I forget), and the bias tape (I forget too). I'm considering opening up a line of credit or a bank account strictly for this endeavor to help keep track of my expenses relative to my profits.

But this all sounds so serious. I mean, a bank account?? If I have a business bank acocunt, then I officially have a small business. Am I ready for that? I'm in the middle of a friggin graduate degree. Am I biting off more than I can chew?

Between the trouble I had with the applique, and the fact that I sewed the interior in upside-down, that first wallet is a write-off. Fortunately, my second one turned out pretty great!

Thing is, for the outside of this one, I used scraps from a leather coat project.... so the leather is very very thin. I'm worried that this is the only reason it was so easy to work with... does this mean all my thicker upholstery leather is no good for wallets? That's a sad thought.

This one didn't take as long as the first, but it's still pretty frigging time consuming! I guess the longest parts are; cutting the pieces, THEN interfacing them, THEN cutting them again. I'm trying to eliminate one step in this operation by interfacing the fabric first. Bias tape is also somewhat time-consuming... I guess I'll just have to get used to that.

The good news is that materials are reasonably cheap (especially with the amount of leather I have) and they sure are fun! I'll have to post a bunch in the business forum at craftster to see how much people might pay for them. There's a ladyfest craft sale coming up, but I don't think I'll be ready in time... I should be working on xmas gifts instead of undead wallets!

We're off to Montreal today for Chrissy's wedding tomorrow. Can't wait to show Lisa and Aron the fruit of my crafy labor!

So I swung by yarn forward on my way back from campus and got the lowdown on my machine... or at least I've got some ideas of what to try. It's a tensions issue (which I suspected) and the lady gave me some tips for how to adjust the bobbin tension. She also suggested that I dust the bobbin case. Apparently setting the thread tensions at 0 was contributing to the skipped stitches; thanks, troubleshooting.

Anyway, I'm eager to wake up and tackle this thing again. Making wallets is addictive, and every time I make one, I learn something that I can change to make them more my style. Today's a rainy, shit-sandwich day and knitting circle is cancelled tonight, so what the hey!

my sewing machine made me scream about ten times yesterday. I couldn't (can't) figure out what's wrong with it! I'm trying to do some applique on the front of a leather wallet, and it's skipping stitches and getting caught and the bobbin side is a mess... so frustrating. All the technical support I get is this troubleshooting page. It says that for skipped stitches you have to lessen the thread tension, but I have mine set at ZERO! It doesn't go any lower! If I call yarn forward they're just going to have me bring it in, which isn't extremely convenient on the bus in the rain. I'm going to wrestle with it a little more this morning, but fuck!!

Apart from the leather applique woes, the rest of my wallet project is going well. I went to fabricland yesterday and bought some metres of broadcloth and cotton, some prints and some solids. Also a whole bunch of little zippers; 4 for a dollar! Some bias tape, some fabric glue for the appliques... not too shabby. I wish I could make wallets for a living... but I'm also careful what I wish for.

What else? Work tonight. Should probably get to campus at some point today.

I don't like to nag my significant other about the few things left unfinished in our house, but I am freezing! We still don't have a furnace, and it's starting to cool down! Cold fingers keep warm by typing, sewing, knitting, anything!!

So yeah, finally made guage, starting mittens. Also working on an undead wallet... the construction went pretty well; now I'm trying to do applique on the leather outside. Applique is not as easy as it looks, and leather is rather unforgiving when it comes to mistakes. Fortunately I have so much of it, it's not like I'm wasting it on trial and error or anything. I need some stuff at Fabricland... bias tape, small zippers, lining fabric and fusible interfacing. Maybe I'll make a pilgrimage later today. I'd like to have some product photos on the website by xmas.

Working on my thesis this morning, which is going pretty good. I had originally wanted to do the theoretical mumbo-jumbo first and get it over with, but my supervisor suggested doing the empirical part first to keep my interest and motivation up. Good call! Watching the movies in my dark office with my headphones on is definately lifting my spirits.

Was that a pun?
I think it was.

Today:

• finish correcting assignments; sort, organize, etc.
• go shopping? I actually need stuff, not the frivolous kind of shopping
• draft up some logos for Mallory... this hsouldn't take long and isn't that hard, but I'm dreading it for some reason.

I should have the slippers completed by tonight; I'm just doing the finishing and some appliques on top. I found a sewing pattern for a great leather wallet online, which I may try out later today. If it works, maybe my xmas gifts can be wallets as well as mittens?

I should also go to the gym. And get a haircut.