Some stuff I've made

This is a close up of a purse I made a while ago. I put it on my ETSY site, because I would love for someone to love it, too! I have so much stuff that needs a home. I don't know if I'll sell anything at all on ETSY, but heck...it beats sitting at a craft show not selling anything!

this guy down here is the Man in the Blue Moon. He's hand-painted/inked on fabric, which was kind of fun. and then he's sewn into a little wall hanging that's about a foot square. I have a sun that goes with it, but not in a wall hanging...that's an embroidery, and I haven't taken a picture of it yet. I'll show them together when I do...who knows, maybe I could do a wall hanging of the sun and and embroidery of the moon, and then I'd have a whole celestial line of products going on!
Here is another purse. It's made of all kinds of fun, funky fabrics from my 'reconstruction' days. I bought alot of novelty remnants and alot of old dresses and stuff from goodwill and cut them up and sewed them back together. that was really fun and freeing. I'd like to do some other pieces in a similar vein when I get my posing suits and embroidery jobs all caught up! Maybe some quilts and pillows.
It is Girl Scout cookie time right now in our neck of the woods. I spent two hours freezing my ass off yesterday with my daughter and her friend Jessie. We did okay, sold about 44 boxes of cookies. That's $22 for the troop. They are saving to go to Savannah next summer (not this coming summer, the one after that!) to the home of Juliet Lowe. I think I'm looking forward to that! A week on a bus with a bunch of adolescent girls? Yeah, can't wait.

Cookie sales I don't mind so much. Yesterday was pretty miserable, and for some reason, I am enough of a control freak with managing the cookie business for our troop that I always seem to be the one standing there the first weekend...which is in FEBRUARY, duh! I could hold out and do my share towards the end of March when there is at least a hope that it won't be below freezing, but no, I have to get out there while the cookie sales are fresh! The girls were funny...they were telling people about the kinds of cookies they have, and when talking about the 'Trefoils' or shortbread cookies, they would say, "These are old cookies" and then show them the "cinnaspins' and tell them that these were "newer" cookies. I suggested that they say "Old-fashioned variety" so that people wouldn't think we had been keeping them in the basement for two years!

More on Etsy and big dogs

Okay, I've figured out how to resize my pictures to fit on Etsy, how to post things, and I've had some window shoppers! I even had a couple of vendors list me as 'favorites'! I think that's really cool. I wonder if all the shoppers on ETSY are other vendors? There is so much beautiful stuff on there, I am a little out of my league, I think!

In other news, I finished the silver two-piece that I am making for Abbie for the March show, but the batteries in my camera pooped out so I don't have pictures. I'm going to meet my body builders today for fittings, so maybe I'll take some pictures on the bodies these suits are supposed to fit, to give Phyllis a break from modeling!

Other stuff: I finished reading "The Darkest Night of the Year", by Dean Koontz. I think I need to have a talk with him about his female protagonists...why must they be so chaste? Interesting...but maybe he's just a good Catholic boy with a very twisted imagination. Anyway, I really liked the stuff about the dogs. We have labs rather than golden retrievers, but they stuff about puppy mills and rescue organizations and such. Makes me want to open my house to more and more dogs. But frankly, the ones that I have drive me nuts, I absolutely don't want any more...not until I have won the lottery and have that house in the country!

tmhCreations on ETSY!

Okay, I did it! It took me most of one night to figure out how to post one item, but it's up there, and I feel confident I can post more any time I want! We are sort of snowed in here today, so I may be able to get two or three more things up there today!

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5641028

Okay, I'll keep you posted!

From Doodle to Viki

Okay, I really don't understand what the deal is here, but this was a really cute colored in picture that I saved...I tried to upload it twice here, but it's not working, and I can't seem to get rid of it, so I'll just let it stay at some sort of abstract thing. Anyway, what I was trying to show is the drawing I did for the embroidery below, modeled by our lovely Phyllis.

I gave it to Karen last night, and she was delighted, and even noticed all the tiny K's inside the big K!

As you can see, it's quite chilly in our basement, and Phyllis isn't wearing the appropriate undergarments for modelling clothing for the pre-teen girl, but we'll give her a break...it was late.
But I'm really pleased with how well the embroidery turned out. It took FOREVER to stitch, but it's so pretty and colorful! One thing that I learned was that you have to be careful with smaller shirt on that big hoop...the edges of the shirt kept flopping onto the embroidery and I had to snip away one tiny bit cause it got caught. Maybe I should devise some way to clip things to the edges to prevent that.
I've decided to name my Huskvarna Viking Designer SE Viki. Viki is alot easier to spell than HUSK....whatever. When I am mad at her, I'll refer to her at That Rotten Hussy, since that's in the name, too. Last night we got along fine and I am calling her Viki today.

I also took lots of pictures of the stuff I have accumulated in my box labeled "Finished Evidence of Creative Genius". I hope to start a site on ETSY to sell some of this stuff. I love it, I made it all, but I don't have that many babies in my life right now to give cute little hats to. I don't have enough stuff to do the craft show thing, and I don't have time to make more, so it seems like ETSY might be the best option for me. Hopefully I'll find some time to set all that up soon, stay tuned for a grand opening!

In which the Author ponders the importance of location.

I really thought I might take a picture of my building in the snow this morning, but then I left my camera at home and I haven't figured out how to get pictures from my phone to the computer (I'm sure I could TRY to figure it out, I just haven't, yet). So just imagine that thing up there has naked trees and white stuff stuck to it.
This building is called the VONTZ CENTER FOR MOLECULAR STUDIES. Doesn't that sound cool? I'm impressed. I have mixed feelings about this building. It looks like Dr. Seuss built it. In reality some famous architect guy (Frank O. Gehry) designed it. it leaks. The shades in my lab don't go up (I sit on the other side of the topmost window on the left in that picture up there). There is only one elevator in the public part of the building, although the service elevators usually work (one day last week, one of the elevators was leaking). It really doesn't seem to me that there is much in the way of efficient use of space here.

But you know what? This building is REALLY COOL! When U.C. first started building it, I was working at Children's, and I thought, "I'm gonna work there someday". Instead, I had a couple more kids and wound up quitting research to teach a couple of nights a week at Cincinnati State and being a former scientist. Then, when Karen started first grade, I got back into science at Children's again. I kind of forgot about the Vontz. I was doing CANCER stuff, which was equally as cool as MOLECULAR STUDIES. And I loved working for Children's. It's like being in the Peace Corp, you know?

But, the Children's job ended and I sent my CV out to the world at large, and the Vontz found me again! Okay, Sarah found me, and gave me this great job here. Interestingly, the actual doing of science isn't any different in this building than it is in an interior cinderblock lab at the medical school or looking out over the Cincinnati Zoo from my perch high atop the research building at Children's...things still go wrong, sometimes go right, I have good days and bad days, I love science, the art of thinking about science, and I wish I could win the lottery so I could quit science and be a full time artist/mom/goat farmer.

Could I write any more run-on sentences? I could, but I think I'll go make a cup of tea and sit in the middle of the VONTZ CENTER FOR MOLECULAR STUDIES and think about science...or just watch traffic on Eden avenue.

Bad Science Day

Maybe today should have been a snow day. I started this week full of ambition about work, ready to get in here and do good science and get wonderful results and help all kinds of people. Instead, I have probable contamination in my Olfactory Epithelium cultures, not enough Neurospheres in those dishes, no mouse pups to start fresh with...the camera on our incredibly expensive microscope imaging system is somehow full of condensation and may need to be replaced...I think we can afford to replace that or keep me on for a couple more months. Kind of a catch-22 there.

But that's why they call it RESEARCH...because we RE-PEAT things.

I have to say that I don't have as many bad science days here as I did at my last job, where I was totally overwhelmed much of the time. Here the pace is much calmer, so I don't panic and make alot of mistakes. I liked working in a really chaotic busy place, the day went by quickly and I got alot done, there were always people to trouble shoot with...but I like having some time and space to myself here more, I think. I can putter around and not worry so much about tripping over someone else.

So now that I've taken a few minutes to feel sorry for myself and to get over it, I'll head back into the world of antibodies, collagen and culture supplements and try to do something that I can't mess up!

Phyllis's new bikini

I finished this suit for Maja this weekend. I hope it works for her, it's kind of saggy on Phyllis! The fabric is an orange with little silver dots...it's going to look great on Maja's brown skin.
I also ordered a white/silver hologram fabric to make a suit for Abbie...and a couple of other fabrics for one-piece suits. Oh, and I ordered some rhinestones, too. It's hard to tell what the new kind of stones will be, I ordered less expensive glass stones instead of crystal to see if they look okay. If not, I'll have to spend a bit more for crystal, but the bling is important!

I spent alot of time this weekend working on samples of embroideries for shirts for my brother Tony's business. He's an accountant, and he's getting a bunch of golf shirts with his logo to give to his clients. I'm also pulling together samples to show the Mothers of Twins Club in the Kenwood area...those are really cute, I'll shoot them next to show off.

My old Kenmore is acting stupid right now and I have fear about taking it back to the sewing shop yet again, but I do need to have it available, so I'll suck it up and take it in tomorrow night, I guess. I just hate to be like, "uh, yeah, you fixed the first thing, but I think you broke something else on it..." But I guess that's all part of that whole boundary thing I am supposed to be learning to do.

Meet Phyllis!

I got a naked woman in the mail last week. I looked everywhere for just the perfect one. I think it would be really cool if someone would invent a mannequin/dressform thing that is adjustable with inflatable rings around it or something. This posing suit thing is really challenging, because the suits have to fit absolutely snuggly without pulling things out of whack...the only thing ickier looking than a baggy posing suit is one that is too small. I have taken measurements of my clients (I have two now!), but without a perfect model to try things on, it's hit or miss right now. I'm just not good enough at figuring out how much lycra and elastic will stretch appropriately.

So we bought a naked woman. Her name is Phyllis. (Interestingly enough, Phyllis was also the name given to my evil twin during my wild and wooly party days. Phyllis made a lot of questionable choices, back in the day. )Here she is modeling the first suit I made for Maja. It fits Phyllis nicely, but Maja is a little longer in the torso, so I need to figure out how to pad Phyllis a little--or I could cut her in half and slide a bit of something between the two halves...

I have seen the how-to's for making a dressmakers dummy out of duct tape and an old t-shirt, but I don't see myself asking each new client to stand around being bound in duct tape--there is a level of trust required for that sort of thing that seems like it should be lacking in a new relationship.

meanwhile, I have been fighting with my Designer SE...what a pain in the neck. I appreciate the options, I really do, but fer crying out loud...it's so fussy! I am trying to make samples of some embroidery for my brother to put on shirts, and I just can't seem to get a nice, small font to work. I think I understand the technical difficulties, but I just can't seem to overcome them. Well, we have a whole weekend with very little to do, so maybe something will work out so that I can have better success!

Recoverying from the WHITE DEATH

OMG...it snowed and iced and stuff and we got to take yesterday off as a snow day. Actually, I took it as a sick day because I've had a cold, but the kids were home because of the snow. It was nice to relax in my jammies all day in spite of my pathetic miserable sick self. Today I'm back to the sweatshop, doing science, science science!

I finished another quilt yesterday....this one just needed a binding, like the last one, and a label. I did the paper piecing a long long time ago from a pattern that I worked out on EQ4, and the border is something I kind of invented as I went along. I like it.

I guess I would call the quilting a kind of pebbles in the stream type of thing...big circles surrounded by swirlies.
And the label is a doodle that I digitized. I used orange thread for the underlayer of the embroidery and it shows through too much in places, but that just gives it character, right?

Weekend in Latin

Michael, Sam and Dan, preparing to attend a slave auction followed by a Roman banquet. Students offered themselves as slaves for dinner in order to raise money for a scholarship fund.

I am recovering from a weekend spent with about 300 latin-speaking high school students...as one attendee declared, "The Biggest Nerd Festival in Kentucky". It was the Kentucky Junior Classical League convention. What an interesting experience! I chaperoned for the Covington Latin School group of 80 kids...the biggest group there. Our kids totally rocked in almost every competition--from classical costumes to academics, from talent to trivia. I was so impressed at how our kids did. They were wild and crazy, of course--but even MY kids seemed to behave themselves. I think they were too busy and worn out to get into too much trouble. I am especially proud of the excellent hairstyles the boys came up with.

Sam (left) and his buddy Michael. I really like the glowy effect this pink stuff gave off...

Dan was going for a Mohawk, but I think we need to practice that at home a little bit. But I think he could qualify to sub in during a Flock Of Seagulls reunion tour!

I spend alot of time over the weekend sitting around watching the kids have fun. I managed to crochet a zillion granny squares which I hope to someday assemble into a baby afghan or something (depending on how many more I make. It seems "a zillion" doesn't go very far once they are assembled).

Vest Day

It's Friday! I get to spend the weekend with my boys at the KJCL convention...that's the Kentucky Junion Classical League...basically a meeting of Latin Clubs. I'm so proud to be the mom of language nerds! Granted, if they had their druthers, they'd have choses to learn German or Swahili or something. But one thing about being a Latin nerd, you get to go to parent-sanctioned Toga parties! The meeting is in Lexinton and involves activities such as Certamen (I think that's Jeopardy in Latin, not sure how you spell "Alex Trebek" in Latin) and a chess tournament. I am bringing a good book and some crocheting.

This is me at my desk at work. I had to do the long armed self portrait thing because I don't have the timer on my camera figured out and there is noone else here yet. I can see that it is time for a haircut and some sun on that fishbelly white skin. Spring, anyone?

I've decided to do something with Granny Squares. I've always kind of turned up my nose at the GS...it seems so...Granny-ish. Not interesting or sophistocated. Recently, however, I've seen some interesting things made with GS's...maybe it's the colors that make the squares less...square. At any rate, I've gathered up my purple, teal and variegated acrylic yarn and a crochet hook to bring to Lexington this weekend. A nice, mindless project that can become something small or something bigger...we'll just see!



This is the vest I made of wool that I dyed and spun myself. I'm so proud of it! I modified a pattern from the Berroco website...I think I might have made it a tad bit longer, but I was so afraid I would run out of yarn. Besides, my boss assures me that with my new slenderer figure, a shorter top is okay. This was knit from the bottom up and I had to divide the stitches at the neck to make two sides (duh)...If I had used one ball of yarn all the way to the divide, the neck would have looked really weird with two different yarns, so I decided to do a kind of a landscape deal with the yarn...make one side be a little bit behind the other. I think this gives it a bit of a wrapped look. Anyway, I like it.



I was almost out of yarn for the back, so I added some commercial yarn (Lion Brand worsted wool) that I dyed with some of the same colors I used for the wool I spun. I guess it works, I don't know. I wear a sweater, jacket or lab coat over this most of the time, anyway, so the back doesn't show all that much...at least not to me, since I can't see it from here!

February's finished quilt

I started this quilt back in....a long time ago. but I finished the binding the other morning during a one-hour snow delay (there was no snow, not even any ice, but we had to wait an hour to go to school because it looked like it might think about snowing?)
I hand-quilted it with embroidery floss, which seemed like a fun idea when I started it, but the thrill was gone pretty quickly...but I still like the quilt.

I've also been working on Maja's posing suit...got a gorgeous purple velvet from Spandex World last week, and I worked up the courage to cut into it yesterday...now, if I can squeeze a few minutes out of the day to go down and start putting in elastic! I also ordered a woman (mannequin) the other day, I can't wait for her to come so I have someone to put my suit on for fittings! One cool thing about doing suits for body builders is that they bodies have similar measurements to the mannequins!