With all of the business sewing lately, I’ve not had much spare time for fun sewing. Well, it’s all fun sewing to me but I meant solely for fun, throwing responsibility out of the window. That means…

Girly stuff! Nellie is such a girl = clothes maniac = pink dresses. I had a T-shirt that was handed down to me, in great shape but it was nothing I would ever wear, at least not in public. So, I turned it into a nightie/playdress for Nellie. I cut off the sleeves and made new, smaller ones and added side wedges of flowery darker pink for the swirl factor, then finished off the hem and sleeves with lettuce edging on the serger.

(Look at those dirty feet!! And camo shorts.)

Guess who was jealous? Yep, Josie is turning out to be a girly-girl, following quickly in Nellie’s dainty footsteps. Poor, poor, clothes-less Josie.

I had another T-shirt handed down to me that will never, no matter how hard I try, fit me in any way suitable for public consumption. Out came the scissors and a toddler dress emerged. I took it outside to where Josie was playing and slipped it over her head. I think she liked it.

Steve hit the road this afternoon for a possible out-of-state job but, before he left, we got to make and give him a couple of gifts.

Glow-in-the-dark dinosaur fossils welding cap.

Sharks welding cap.

(In other words, I needed a guinea pig for further tweaking the welding cap pattern I’ve been working on.)

Photography has never been my thing. I can appreciate good photography, sure, but do it myself? Nah, I’ve been content with family snapshot-quality photos. I have a pretty good little camera David bought me a few years back, a Canon PoweShot A510, but never bothered reading the manual or doing anything other setting it to “auto” and maybe turning the flash on and off on occasion.

When deciding to start up the new biz, I looked around at what I thought were successful ones or at least ones that appealed to me, trying to find what they all had in common. I did this for months. What did I find? Great photography! That was an absolute in all of them. Good products are, of course, needed but good products won’t sell without great photos.

I’ve been reading, reading, reading on various photography skills. I’ve been playing with my camera, getting to know it better. I still haven’t read the manual all of the way through but I’m working on it, bit by bit. I’m staring to lose my fear of playing with the zillion buttons and settings on the camera. I’m not good yet but I do sometimes stumble upon a good photo so that’s an improvement.

On top of that, I’m now starting to learn Photoshop, beyond simple cropping & resizing. With Steve’s help, I’m also building a miniature photography studio in the greenhouse for controlled conditions. I’m hoping to get that finished this weekend (the greenhouse is trashed!) and will post pics of it for you.

This morning, I practiced a bit on macros in low lighting. These flowers are about the size of a quarter.

Not too bad but there’s still plenty of room for improvement.

Another thing I need to really work on is placement and posing of things, maybe props. Taking photos of cloth things is not so easy, I’m finding. It slouches and wrinkles, poofs and smooshes. Oy. Still, I think I’m getting better. It’s going to take quite a bit more learning and experimenting until it becomes second nature — or even sixth nature. (If you’re really bored, click on the Artfire shop link at the top of the right sidebar to see my progress this week alone.)

Finally! I went with Artfire in the end. Got my buns in gear and set up shop, finally listing my first thing today. Yay! Much, much more tweaking to do as I learn the ropes but it’s a start, right?

So go check it out already!

I’m giving myself a week or so to settle into the shop there and then I’ll tiptoe towards opening the SpeedKin.com website. Baby steps, baby steps…

While you’re here, check out my so-close-to-being-done-it-hurts chicken house flower raised bed!

The poles and gate still need prettied up and painted and the gate is awaiting its latch but the bed is now safe from giant dog butt. Yay!

It houses various bulbs, a lilac, my recently acquired spiderwort, dwarf sunflowers, cleome, coleus, begonias, Solomon’s seal, and an odd assortment of “Man, I have way too many assorted flower seed packets and I really should plant them so how about I have the kids help me scatter them about and then won’t be able to differentiate them from weeds as they sprout” things. Ahem.

A bulby thingymajig of the most beautiful sort.

Steeping stones are in place so I can keep perennials safe from my giant, clumsy feet throughout the year.

Oy. I missed my self-imposed deadline of opening the Etsy shop on Monday.

I think I have most everything set up. Shipping is throwing me for a loop but I think I’m missing the postal gene so it’s to be expected. I even have the first item sewn up and ready to go, complete with a SpeedKin label.

The only thing missing is daylight. I tried taking photos of the finished item but they just don’t look nice without natural light. Steve has a doc appointment tomorrow so it’ll have to wait until tomorrow afternoon once we get home.

Alrighty, so here’s my grand plan: I’m going to make and list one new thing each day, trying to get into a rhythm. Just to get over the initial hump of… fear, I guess, I’ll stick with one main theme each week (or maybe two weeks? I’ll have to see how it goes.) This week, I’ll only be making bags. I love making bags. I’m comfortable making bags. So bags to begin, nothing fancy or intimidating. I don’t even care if they actually sell. Well, okay, it would be a good thing but I just want to get settled in to the process of it all before I worry about the pressure of what sells and what doesn’t, know what I mean? After a week or two of bags, I’ll move on to a week or so of something else, say hats or kitchen doodads or whatever. And so on and, before I know it, I’ll be at ease with the entire process and can start branching out more without making my head explode from too much pressure.

(This is where you’re supposed to tell me that I’m not the only one who has to play head games with myself and, frankly, I’m a friggin’ genius for doing it this way.)

I’m waiting…

Alrighty, I need your input. Isaac and I have been working on a banner for my new site/shop and have it mostly how I want it. (For those who may not know, I’m starting up a sewing biz and opening an Etsy shop as one sales outlet.)

You can see the banner here for now. You can also see it on my Not Yet Ready for Primetime Etsy shop.

I like the color. I like the simplicity. I like the general light, spring-ish, outdoorsy feel of it. I’m not going for a boutiquy vibe as that’s just not my thing. I’m not really sold on the onion bloom but wanted something there besides text. I don’t want to limit myself with a photo of specific product(s), just something eye-catching, something to give the flavor, ya know? I’ll likely be making a wide variety of sewn (and even a few wooden) things but not so much on the clothing front. The onion popped out as an idea since I’ll be doing a lot of summery and garden-themed things initially. ‘Tis the season!

Any ideas in keeping with the simple, homespun vibe? Something to replace the onion? Keep it? Other parts of the layout you don’t like? Once I’m 100% happy with the banner, I’ll carry that flavor over to finish the SpeedKin.com website, badges, etc, etc.

We traced feet and gathered supplies.

We knotted and played with nylon napalm.

We threaded. And rethreaded.

Charlie went with the slip-on style.

Isaac opted for a toga style.

Then we went for our morning run. (Isaac, Charlie, Duke, and I have been running together for a few weeks.) Not bad! I stuck with my FiveFingers but I think I’ll be making myself a pair of huaraches pretty soon.

You can see how to make huaraches here and here. Being cheap and tasteless, we chose to use some old rubber bathmats for our first attempts. The kids had to cut off the suction cups on the bottom but they work pretty well for a cheapo imitation from on-hand stuff.

Oh, how we all love tomatoes!! If we could only grow one thing, it would easily be tomatoes. Tomatoes for breakfast, tomatoes for lunch, tomatoes for supper, tomatoes for toilet paper… Okay, maybe that’s pushing it a bit too far.

In honor of getting all of my tomato seedlings planted into the garden this week (pics to come!), I sewed up some tomato-y things. My main machine decided to have a hissy fit so I sent it to the shop. My secondary machine also needs a visit to the shop as the stitches have become a bit wonky but it sufficed.

But enough of that. On to hats!

A floppy sun hat that I drew up a pattern for — I’m not terribly happy with it but it has potential. And a welding-style cap that I also drew a pattern for based on one of Steve’s favorite ratty ones — it’s pretty good and only needs a few minor tweaks before I start cranking more out.

Of course, no sewing session of mine would be complete without a bag. This shopping/tote bag has long handles for slinging all sorts of ways without cutting off circulation. (I have a thing against short-handled bags at the moment.)

Both of the hats and the bag are reversible. Red tomatoes on one side, green tomatoes on the other. Did I mention we love tomatoes?!

The freshly-painted floor is dry. Horse mats are down. Various torture devices are in place. It’s getting closer to completion…

The weight lifting area. Horse mats are tough and can handle the iron. Bare concrete + slinging iron = deafness & chipped floors. The squat rack Steve built me is on the left and the orgasmatron (pull-ups/hanging leg raises/bench press/etc station) he built me is on the right.

Looking towards the other corner, we have the cardio cave with NordicTrac, treadmill, elliptical, and… bike-row-whatever-it’s-called contraption. Between the cardio cave and the lifting area is the (finally installed!!) punching bag.

This is all in the wellhouse, now that Steve’s moved his work tools out onto the new (covered) concrete pad adjoining the wellhouse. The rest of the walls will be finished eventually but it’s nice even as is. The cistern, pumps, pressure tank, and well are still in there, taking up a 10′ x 12′-ish area but that still leaves plenty of room for the workout area. It’s so much nicer than when we had it crammed in the house!

Next up, weight trees for all of the plates — hopefully tomorrow!

Unrelated note before I forget: I recently did a quick little how-to on making easy pants. I found a great one at Dana’s!! She walks you through both shirts and pants. I’ve been subbed to her blog for a long time but apparently missed her pattern tutorial all of this time. Doh! So go! Learn! (I love her blog!)

I just could not resist. I mean, really. What did you expect me to do? Walk away from my dream fabric? I think not.

So there aren’t any real tomatoes but there is some green happening.

Garlic is saying, “Hello, world!”

Some of the miracle lettuces that have survived the winter’s cold spells.

Bulbs in the chicken house flower bed are awakening.

And… things, whatever they’re called, doing their cute little green baby thing.