8 pages....

Official NaNoWriMo count - 8 pages...better than nothing?

NaNoWriMo - It's that time of year again....

This year, I am GOING to DO IT!  I swear!  It's National Novel Writing Month.  I don't know who or what decided that  - but it is a great excuse to get up and write everyday.  To put myself on the hook.  I am a short story writer.  What business do I have writing a novel?  In a month?  Why not?  What about you?  Have an inner novelist?  Why not check it out?  I will do my best to keep you updated on my progress on this blog.  I ask for your encouragement and  support - comments and words of encouragement greatly appreciated!  click me!

Happy Halloween!

My Pillows in Winter "Do It Yourself" Magazine

My hand sewn pillows featured at bottom left!

One more time, in honor of Halloween...

Honey, will you fetch me that muppet's head on a pig-pole?

Spoonflower

Yesterday, I tweaked and uploaded a design to Spoonflower.  This is terribly exciting.  In about a week or so, I will have a fat quarter of self-designed fabric in my mailbox.  It was insanely simple.  

The impetus behind designing and printing my own fabric was necessity.  I use remnants, swatches, one-of-a-kind finds for some of my pillows. When I found out one of my favorite fabrics was going the way of the buffalo, and, my jobber wasn't giving up his source, I had to take matters into my own hands.  I had a design in mind, something basic, traditional, with a few of my personal flourishes.  (I am partial to arrows and circles).  DIY Magazine had a post on The Facebook about Spoonflower.  Perfect!  I drew up my design, scanned it in, futzed with it in Photoshop a bit and uploaded it to spoonflower.com.

I knew I wanted a mirrored repeat, so I only uploaded a quarter of the actual drawing to make sure the repeat was truly mirrored.  Spoonflower gives you multiple repeat options and converts it for you.  I could have done this in Photoshop, but, eh.  

Next I wanted to see what kind of fabrics these guys had.  I had a quick email volley with Gart at Spoonflower, and less than a week later, there were three fabric samples in my mailbox.  Even better, the samples were printed with the Spoonflower color chart so I could see how the printing came out on each fabric, the colors they used and how each fabric finish impacted the final color of my design.  For the record, I went with a cotton-linen blend (it was a heavier weight than I expected - good - and has a great natural tone - even better as my design will be printed without background and rely on the fabric's natural color), in T28/Y2.  Don't be afraid, that is just the color designation - which I downloaded from the Spoonflower site.  And that, my friends, was that.

I ordered a fat quarter swatch for something like $5 bucks.  I want to see how the design is represented, what the bleed is, and how the full color prints in earnest.  I will keep one and all posted - hope to get the fabric late next week.

Ultimately, Spoonflower may not offer the quality I really want for my pillows.  I have fantasies about beginning my own micro-lending woman-powered community in India to foot weave my designs.  But, I figure, may as well use Spoonflower, test the look of my designs for an incredibly cheap price, before I take that leap...xx A

I am currently in love with Take Me Homeware

May Luk Ceramics make me weep with joy. Check her out! Click and love....

I am now at Urban Alchemist

Come See Me @ DUMBO Flea!

Sunday, May 3rd - come on down - I will be at the DUMBO FLEA!  xx A

CLICK ABOVE IMAGE FOR MAP/DIRECTIONS/SUBWAYS!

Good Cause, Housing Works