Finishing Touches

I've been so busy tidying up loose ends for tomorrow's market, that I've nearly forgotten to blog. But here I am.

The only thing left on my list are to tie a few more business cards--they're printed, but I want to add the strand of handspun fibre to set it off.

A friend of mine is droppng in after work to have a look at my stall. I've got it all set up in the spare room. I want to add a few more details, but I'm deliberately working through in order of necessity to stop me rushing from one thing to another. I'll also need to head out to the shops one more time to see if I can track down some tablecloth clamps. They're proving surprisingly difficult to find so far. I've made a full length calico tablecloth and I just need a bit of extra insurance in case some-one accidentally steps on a trailing edge. Failing that I'll use some heavy duty clamps from my woodworking tools, but it would be nice to have something a little more subtle. Oh, and if I find myself with either time or adrenaline to spare this evening. I'll make up the lavender sachets. They haven't made it to the top of the list yet.

 Just in case I've sharing the details somewhere along the line:

Made 'n' Thornbury Market

10 am - 2 pm

99 Leinster Grove

Thornbury

There are kids' activities, home-baked sweets, coffee and soup and hand-made wares galore. And it's indoors, so there's no need to worry about the weather.

See you there.  

Proportions and Compromises

I finished off this chain necklace and earings recently. I started them a year or so ago and they had been sitting neglected until I'd just about forgotten about them. I've enjoyed wearing them a couple of times in the last week or so. Neither is a length that I usually wear. I've included a 50 cm snake chain for reference.

Here's a detail shot:

























I'm thinking of remaking yesterday's set in a similar length, though that will probably make it heavier than I like. There's always a catch!

Length

I made this necklace and the matching earings years ago. I expected it to be a favourite, but I rarely wear it. Yesterday I put it on to remind myself of what I do and don't like about it.

I love the colour and the variety of beads. The length of the necklace is wrong: too short for most of the tops I wear. And the earings are too straight up and down. I like a bit of flexibibilty in my longer earings. As you can see there are a few beads from this collection left and a spare earing. I think I made a second pair at the time and one was lost. There's also a small blue seed bead in the necklace which I think I have still in my work-box. So the plan is to pull it all apart and start again. I'll let you know how I get on.

Pretties

It's a week until Christmas and there's lots to do, but I haven't got today planned out very well. It's going to be a hot day. I have some gifts to make and the studio would be the ideal place. I have plenty of pretties.

Unfortunately I'm missing some of my basic jewellery findings and supplies. I'm guessing I didn't replentish my tool box after my last creative burst--whenever that was. That means I need to go shopping, which at this time of the year is not my favourite activity. I'll have to think about how I can fit everything in without getting too hot and bothered. Meanwhile I'll brew myself another coffee. Hopefully I can get a bit of focus and make myself a list.

Drawing Board

Yesterday morning I got stuck on how to arrange my new furniture in the living room. Thankfully the actual furniture isn't here yet. I took my room layout plans back to the drawing board. I drew up a scale drawing of the room and the furniture and played around with different possibilities. I'm sure my mood didn't help, because I still didn't come out with an ideal arrangement. I'll probably need to decide which compromises I'm willing to live with.

By mid-afternoon I'd had enough of getting stuck in my planning efforts. Instead I took myself off for a walk by the river up at Warrandyte.

I wish I could say that the fresh air and beauty made it all clear, but that's not the case. Still I had a good walk and picked up a few pretty leaves. This morning I have sore feet and a slightly fresher mind to have another go at it.

Now What?

The chairs I sold on eBay were picked up yesterday. It was a bit of a saga since the buyers had seriously over-estimated how quickly they could travel to pick up several items in different parts of the city. I had a good book and my crochet flowers to keep me occupied, so the waiting wasn't too bad. Now I need to arrange for the delivery of my new lounge suite. I put off having it delivered last week because I really didn't want to have to cope with two sets of furniture in my relatively small space. This morning I thought I would rearrange the other items that need to move to make everything ready.

I'd like to be able to say that I'm excited about it all, but really, I'm feeling overwhelmed by indecision. I thought I had it all planned out, but now I'm not so sure. I've been measuring and looking and re-measuring. Then I decided to stop and write this post. That's done. Now what?

Well . . .

What can I say to shed a positive light on my experience of the market yesterday? Or is that a positive spin? I spent the day spinning while sitting next to my stall. The spinning demo was quite popular. There were lots of kids interested in what I was doing and parents and other adults asking question and trying to figure out how it all works. I gave my contact details to a couple of knitters who might like to give spinning a try and I may get a call from a Textiles student who wants to interview a spinner. Also I got lots of my plain white tops spun and ready to ply. And I had plenty of time to think about what colour I might like to dye them.On the other hand the sales were painfully slow. My friend A and her partner M came to visit and encourage me. They even brought my favourite "take-away decaff latte with one sugar"! A bought one of my handspun wool rosettes and a couple of herb sachets. That was it for sales. My neighbour on one side seemed to be doing very well with quality prints, cards, badges and collages from her original art works. The potter on my right also had a slow day. I still think it's a lovely market. The building is glorious, full of light, with plenty of room to move around. The varous live music groups provided a lovely background throughout the day and some were good enough to make the trip worthwhile in their own right. I can't be at the July market as I've already planned a trip interstate. I've booked in for August--that's August the 6th--please come. I'll make an effort to improve some of my display and transport arrangements before that. Then I guess I'll see how it goes.

As for today, I'm going to take it easy and do some tidying up. I still have to unpack the car and my Saturday chores are untouched since I went straight from the market to visit my friend R at Werribee.

Planning

I'm planning a new quilt for the Neighbourhood House. This one will be a raffle quilt--so a fundraiser as well as a chance to promote quilting within our community. This interlocking stars pattern was suggested:It's based on a Friendship Star, but instead of just one set of stars there are two. A pattern of interacting Friendship Stars sounds like a great metaphor for a Neighbourhood House. Plus it's a simple enough design that relatively new quilters could be involved.

My first dilemma: the most efficient way to piece this design would be to work in rows: each row alternates a plain square unit and a unit made up of two triangles. On the other hand, Neighbourhood House is all about participation. Piecing the quilt in blocks--each made up of one Friendship Star--would be more inclusive and would give more people a sense of ownership of the project. Since the stars interlock, though, there'll be an odd row between each clear star block and only half the stars can be pieced as blocks. Oh well, I think it's still worth going with participation and ownership over efficiency.

You can see that my drafting is still done with paper and pencil. I've played with the idea of getting one of the software packages, but I haven't bitten that particular bullet yet. Sketching designs out by hand is time consuming, but it's a way of getting familiar with the pattern and anticipating the piecing process. I find it relaxing and absorbing. I don't know if that would be the case working on my computer--then again, I'm enjoying blogging well enough.

Planning

Well, I didn't get to sampling yesterday. Here's what I did do:

I guess it's a question of approach. My basic training is in science, so before I set up my experiment--sampling--I wanted to test my theory on paper. I'm planning to make a double-weave tube. My goal is for the folds between the two layers to flow seamlessly. So I spent several hours yesterday with pencil and paper drafting out the weave structures for my top and bottom layers and checking how they interact. I think I've got it. Now it's time to test my hypothesis on the loom.