So I've gotten myself a new camera! I've been playing with it a lot and it is much better quality than my previous camera. The shutter response time is really quick and some of the pictures I've take are lovely. The camera is a Ricoh Caplio GX100. Its small, light weight and incredibly powerful. Also has a wide-angle lense, which no other compact digi cam offers. Anyway, enough tooting the camera's horn, here are some photos!

This is a macro of Asuka's face! The detail is great and the color is really perfect.
Here is a black & white photo of our dining room. It was taken at a higher ISO so its a little grainy. I think it adds something to it.


Also I went and took photos of all my recent projects and uploaded them all onto ravelry. Some of them aren't the best photos I've ever composed so I'll probably redo a few. Yesterday was really really dark and cloudy all day, not the best photography day.

Having been busy!

So I just bought two foam wig heads off of ebay to create, display and photograph the hats I've been making recently. I think they are some of the best things I've ever made. Some times when I make things I get outside of myself and what I'm doing and when I finally finish I can't believe I've made it. I stare at the object and think over and over "I made this?" "I MADE this?" " I made this!" I am most definitely strange.

Here are some photos of Castle Rock State Park from when we went there a few weeks ago.
It was lovely and this post needs photos.

So we moved

So we finally moved out of the duplex half we were renting from Eli's parents who lived next door. It was getting too stressful for everyone. It has taken up way more time and money than I could have imagined and I feel like I've lost my balance, my equilibrium. The old hopeless feelings are creeping up on me and the sinus infection I've been battling is just making it that much worse. There are just too many things that need to be done, and not enough time. I'm going to be a vendor at YarnCon on Oct 4th. I have to have product ready to sell and I am just not getting enough done, I want to cry when I think about it!

I probably shouldn't have moved right when starting a new job. It really feels so destabilizing. I liked doing my work for myself and not haveing anyone to be answerable too. It helped me controll my anxiety. Now I have a good job, working for and with really nice people but the act of having to be responsible and not forget things and get myself in order feels really really hard.
I hope I feel a little better once this sinus shit clears up, I think it will help.

Crowing

Ooook so I was a big braggy yesterday wasn't I? Something I should mention is that I didn't actually make any sales from this front page listing. My prices were too high I think. So I lowered everything a dollar or so and bam, I've sold 3 items today. Its good to know where the limits are though, I know I couldn't actually be selling things for more make me feel like I'm not ripping myself off. I don't want to do that, I'm trying to make a living.

On the accounting side of things I downloaded a really great spreadsheet from Its Your Money, a blog I randomly found a link to. I'd been looking for something along these lines for a while and I'm overall pretty happy with it, though it is basic, it helps me keep track. It has a catalog section where you keep your inventory and a way to keep month by month sales records that also calculates your gross profit. It also will keep track of any sales tax you've collected, though you have to manually imput most info, its a good way to keep track if you don't have a huge volume of sales. I'll keep looking for some free software for accounting that works on a mac, but I haven't had any success so far. All the good free ones are for windows only. SUCK!

Front Page!!!

I was in a front page treasury at Etsy today! I didn't actually get to see it but I know it was because one of my items got almost 200 hits and I have 20 new hearts and holy crap. I'm pleased as punch. I knew those pretty photos would get me noticed!
Yay!

Vintage Beauties

So I've been looking for some vintage 1950s cotton shirtwaist or sun dresses. I like the style and it fits my curvy body better than a lot of things made today which are make for women who look like adolescent men. I have boobs, hips and butt. I have a smallish waist. Voila, 50s. I was looking on etsy but the sellers mainly had things that wouldn't fit me (TINY waists) that were too expensive so I headed over to ebay. Which had a lot more things that were too small and expensive, but also several things which were not. I bought 2 dresses

This one is my size and will look much better on me than on this too small mannequin. I'm rather excited about this one, it has so many cute details. I was the only bidder bc I think the pictures were bad, but I trust my judgment. I am reasonably certain it looks off because the mannequin is much too small. If I'm totally wrong than y'all can laugh at me.


This one is a little more demure but it also quite nice. I like the muted color palette of the stripes. It also has darts in the front to give the fitted appearance I prefer

Some day I hope to get good enough at sewing to make my own dresses like these. For now I'll buy used vintage though. They are very nice.

Navajo Plying

Today I taught myself how to Navajo ply using the joyofhandspinning.com's video tutorial. Its easier than I thought, and fun. I was very excited yesterday when I unraveled a sweater that was a silk, nylon, and angora blend and it was a lace weight single. I almost never get singles. This presented some possibilities. To the left is a photo of the unplyed yarn on my huge bobbinsand on the right is a a good view of the single before plying.

I decided to give it a bit more spin as it was a little fragile and to make a tighter ply. So I ran the whole bobbin through the machine last night and gave it a bit more twist. Today I plied it and it came out great. I love only having one bobbin to deal with and the balanced nature of the 3ply yarn that results. So here's the skein of the yarn I've made. Its so purdy. The yarn is a really soft and nicely drapey fingering weight now and can actually be used. I think I'm going to do this with the rest of the sweater too. Yay, I love unraveling singles.

Good ways to enjoy fresh black raspberries

Black raspberries grow really well here and they are really in season right now. A friend of mine invited me over to pick some a while ago and I also have bought some from the farmer's market. They are so ripe and fresh that cooking them seems to be a shame so I have a few ways I like to use them (other than stuffing my face) that let their ripe freshness shine.
I made a tart from a recipe on Epicurious.com the Raspberry Sour Cream Tart.
I made it just as written (with a few flubs on the crust, but all was well in the end) and it was extremely delicious. The lemon juice in the cream cheese and sour cream filling gives it a lovely tartness that goes well with the berries. Its also very easy and delicious to make your own graham cracker crust. I didn't have a food processor like in the recipe, so I just put the crackers in a plastic bag and crushed them with a rolling pin. YUM.

The other think I've been doing with the berries is concocting drinks that involve berries.

Here is my fresh black raspberry cocktail.

4 cans ginger ale or a bottle of your favorite dry white wine
24 or so berries

Wash and place berries in a small bowl or plate. Smash them with a fork until they resemble jam. Pour 4 wine glasses with your ginger ale or white wine. Pour an equal amount smashed berries into each glass and serve. If you really hate seeds you can strain the smashed berry to get rid of them, though it looks prettier with the whole bits of berry swirling around the glass.
Serves four

I'm actually drinking one right now. Its delicious!

Things are going along

I woke up this morning to the sounds of a construction crew digging up our sidewalk to do something to the plumbing I think. They've been doing it all up and down the street and today was our turn. Can you feel my excitement? Ah well they woke me up at 9:45 so not so much.

I've been working on these socks pretty hard core and they seem to be coming along nicely. I've had a few bumps along the way but so far so good. I nearly had a crisis where I KNEW I wasn't going to have enough yarn to make them knee socks so I scrambled around on Ravelry and I got a very kind person there to sell me a skein of the yarn. The making of the pattern portion is going well too. Here are some pictures of the socks. I've already turned the short row heel and am working on the ankle. I am knitting them 2 at a time using magic loop. I really like doing it this way, the socks are much more similar and this way you don't have to "do" another one when you finish the first. You're just done.
I went to the Fine Line shop on Saturday to buy some fleece to practice spinning with. I bought this Merino lamb brown & white fleece. Its a little rough with vegetable matter but it is super soft and it is fun to work with. I think I'm starting to get the hang of spinning. I really like the electric. Its nice not to have to worry about treadling or how to get the speed I want. And with the GIANT bobbins it comes with I can easily spn as much onto a bobbin as I like.

I have posted a new yarn in the shop, and will post another one today. I need to get working on the boxes for the belt buckles so I can, ya know, sell them? But these boxes seem important to me. I think I'll work on them today. And then maybe I can post those silly things. I have sold the one necklace I put up in my shop, I was a bit surprised as the jewelry portion of Etsy is really saturated. But I'm happy to see it go home. I hope the person likes it.

I am going to be have a a booth at YarnCon in October and I'm going to be teaching a class! Its very exciting, but I am a little nervous. I have a few months to get myself together however. I'm going to be teaching a design your own hat class with an a la carte structure so the students can mix and match different designs and make it their own. I think I will sell a heck of a lot of yarn there as well.

I hope I get a lot done today. I wasn't very productive yesterday due to PMS mostly because I get terrible general anxiety from it. I just end up feeling like a doom is upon me or something. It's unpleasant and makes me unable to focus. But today is better I think. I will be productive!

Toe Up Lace & Cables Socks

My spinner finally arrived about 7pm last night. I spent about and hour cleaning up my work area so it could fit and then I put it all together. It works pretty good, and I'm starting to get the hang of plying with it. I plied this nice white merino I had into a sock weight and a silk pink cobweb weight into a lace weight. I also plied the strands of some cotton yarn, which makes it easier to work with. The motor is fairly quiet at low speeds but the higher speeds are quite noisy.

So my other obsession lately has been these toe up lace socks I've been DYING to write a pattern for that I finally got to work on yesterday. They are going to have small alternating vertical stripes of lace and cables. So I'm almost to cast on. I have my gauge swatches all set, I have a plan of how to proceed, the only thing I'm missing is what kind of lace panel I'm going to put on the back of the calf for a increase. I need more stitches so I am going to go to the library tomorrow and see what they have for stitch dictionaries and maybe look at the Modern Lace Knitting books again. I think I can get cast on and work on them before I get that set though because it will take a while to get to the calf increase portion. I MAY just chart something myself. We'll see. Something has really clicked lately with my planning projects, I'm really getting how to start with and idea and take it to reality (with knitting)
I like it. And so this post isn't too boring I leave you with a fuzzy web cam pic of my tubular gauge swatch.

I created my first real pattern!

Today I created my first real finished pattern. It was a pretty easy one for a wash cloth but its the first time I really professionally wrote the whole thing out in a way others could understand. I'm pretty proud of it really. I think I'm going to put it up in my store tonight. Also I'm offering it free to anyone who purchases a cotton yarn from me. I did all the layout in InDesign and I have to say I'm pretty happy with the way it came out. I'm knitting one up now to test it, but I should probably have someone test knit it.

Wheee!

Car Accident

I haven't made any blog posts about this but on Friday the 13th of June Eli and I got rear-ended at high speed on the interstate. The neon is dead, which is a blessing. That car needed a lot of work and now its gone. We bought a new car (brand new WTF) and its a 2008 Honda Fit. We love the damn thing so much.

Aside from that I've been injured. Its not a terrible injury as far as they go and I didn't have to stay in the hospital or anything. I thought I would be fine for the first few days after the accident I didn't even really feel too bad. Then the neck pain started. Its been crippling me more every day since then, with constant aching pain interrupted by sharp stabbing pain when I try to do normal things like bend over or pick up the cat. My work has suffered terribly, as my capacity to unravel the sweaters has gone way down and I fear I'm making it worse by continuing to try to work. I push my self too hard and injure myself. I do that kind of thing a lot.


I've been to the doctor twice and every drug that they have given me I can't take. They switched out the muscle relaxant that made me doped up and stupid for one that gives me stomach aches, terrible nervousness, and makes me slightly dopey. They switched out the relatively side-effect free ibuprofin for the diarrhea causing naproxen. It feels like I can't win.

I've just started physical therapy yesterday and I'm going again today so I hope that helps more than the other things I've been trying. Yesterday though, I had to cancel going to the farmers market because I hurt so bad afterward. I can't even get a massage because my muscles are so spasmed that I scream when anyone touches them. I've been crying a lot. All I want to do is work. I want to make my business grow and prosper and I was starting to do that and now I've been knocked down. I can sell as much as I can make it seems, but I can't hardly make anything.

This is the first time I've ever been so badly injured. Its really really difficult for me and for Eli. Its hard too, because I don't look like I'm injured, or sick or anything. I look just fine, like I should be able to do anything, but it all causes me so much pain. Even typing this is making my neck kill. I'm beginning to think I would have been better off with a damn fracture. At least with that you put a cast on it and wait for it to heal. Muscle damnage is so very hard to deal with. All the body's compensation methods actually make it worse.

So I'm hoping that I start to heal soon, and that I can have the strength to let myself do so. I hope everyone sends some healing thought my way. I could really use them. Hopefully I'll have a nice post soon with all the lovely projects I've been working on and all the new equipment I've been able to buy.

K'nex Motorized Skein Winder Part 2

So I've gone ahead and made a little video about the k'nex motorized skien winder I created telling a little bit about how it works and how I built it. I'll get around to making more detailed instructions some day I'm sure.
Anyway here's the vid -




A couple of notes; the skein winder can used as a swift by pulling the motor gear out away from the axle gear. You can also give it a handle if you don't have a motor, they are fairly inexpensive however. Also I think if you use this with a cone I would put the guide at a right angle so it hovers above the cone. You'd get better feed I think.

Enjoy!

Vintage Car Mark Tin Plaque Belt Buckle

So I started work today on those belt buckles I've been talking up. I started varnishing one to see how the glossy varnish would work and if I should get some satin. The verdict is that some of them will need glossy and some will need satin so I need to go buy some satin. I did my test run on the one in the poorest condition which happend to be the Dodge one. (Have they ever made anything quality?) I decided to varnish them with polyurethane because it seemed the the paint was a little fragile and I didn't want them to get all the paint scraped off if you bumped into something. I've my buckle backs and I'm going to use epoxy to glue them on to the backs. That stuff should last longer than the metal and is super strong so I think its a good, if toxic and stinky choice. So I'll post more about these when I get them more done. All I can think about them is "Damn, these are SOOOO cool!"

OK So I made the k'nex motorized skein winder

I did I did. And I love it. I can unravel a sweater with the ball winder, then hook the ball up to the machine and in about 5 min I have a nice 2 yard skein. I'm so going to post a tutorial this week I promise. This is TOO awesome not to share.

30's Marital Scale

So I'm the WORST wife EVER

-4 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Poor (Failure) Take the test!

And an AWESOME Husband. I always knew Eli made a good wife...

84 As a 1930s husband, I am Very Superior Take the test!

Need to work on writing

I need to work on my writing. My ad copy could use work, my explanation of why the hell I started this insane venture needs to be more explicit then "Hmm... well... because I could?" Articulate! If I just keep repeating that maybe I'll get somewhere.

The weather here has been pretty crappy for my allergies and its making me feel run down and tired. I did manage to make it to a few garage sales today like I had wanted. I didn't find too much but I did get about 5 nice sweaters for my trouble. At one garage sale they had these cute vintage dessert plates 7 for $3. They are c. 1975 by the somewhat well know designer Vera Neumann. Here is a picture of one (not my photo I ganked it from google)

See? SO cute. I couldn't pass them up even though I promised Eli I wouldn't buy anything that wasn't a sweater. Now that I have my new kitchen table I want different dishes. I love 70s dishes they are so colorful and can be had for not much money. I like to mix and match things with similar color schemes rather than have everything be a set so it doesn't matter to me if I have one place setting here, or another there.

I should talk about that kitchen table. For the past 6 months or so I've been trawling craigslist for a 50s formica kitchen table in a nice color, ie red, green, yellow, and not grey. I found lots of the grey ones and I almost had a really nice grey one with this adorable apple applique on it but the woman sold it to someone else the night before I was supposed to pick it up. Bitch. Anyway it was a good thing because another table came along that was better. It was THE table. It it vibrant yellow cracked ice pattern on top (in awesome condition) with chrome legs. I had to go pick it up in mundelein on Sunday and it was HOT and my stupid car doesn't have air so I was kinda stinky when I got there but the girl didn't notice. So I inspected it and took the legs off, packed it and headed home. The legs were a bit rusty but having restored a vintage bicycle once I wasn't too worried. The next day I spent ALL day cleaning the rust off with a SOS pad. The legs look almost new. The pitting is barely noticeable unless you look very closely. The aluminum trim shined up nicely too, the SOS pads take the stains off well and polish while they are at it. The aluminum could use a tiny bit more work, but I don't think anyone but me notices. I LOVE the new table. It makes the kitchen so happy. The new little dishes go with it really well.

The house is starting to feel really mine after so long. I've been on a long war of attrition to give back all the furniture Eli had borrowed from his parents. This was not SO much that I didn't like it, but more that his father was so very anal about it. He made up keep an ugly vinyl table cloth on the kitchen table so we wouldn't harm it. I hated that. Now we most have all out own furniture and we can really use it and love it instead of resenting our living space.

Anyway here are the images of the table from the ad. Yes I'm lazy and haven't taken pictures of anything yet :P Also the chairs, sadly, did not come with the table. Thats ok though I think I can find better ones.

So I guess those are the before. I'll have to take some afters to show the work I did. Its great.

I've been doing things OTHER than buy stuff (not too much though Eli and went to tjmaxx last night) I've finished 3 more hats recently and took the seams out of a load of sweater so I can frog them. This is good. I went to knit at the yarn exchange today after garage saleing. I got to talk some with Sandy who it really great. We were talking about machinery and favorite yarns that you can't get any more of. I yakked too much about my business, but then I always do that. Its just SO important to me it pretty much takes over my mind. So Sandy offered to send any sweaters that weren't good enough for encore my way, like ones with stains and what not. This is AWESOME. Free yarn to recycle? Sign me up! So I am very stoked. I think all fibers should be pretty good quality and all. Small flaws that make a sweater not nice to wear don't impact its frogability much.

I have to say something to all the people I have met since I started doing this. THANK YOU!! Eveyone has been so kind and helpful to me that I don't think I would have had the courage without you. Cassie - thanks for contacting me out of the blue to be in the Eco Art Fair.
Kristin - thanks for all the great advice and encouragement.
Knitting group members - you guys are awesome and fun, thanks so much.

Yay!

Today when I came home from my appointment with Dr. P to find I had sold 6 skeins of yarn on etsy! I was sooooo happy. I made like $50 today. I've been posting a skein of yarn everyday for the last 4 days or so and I guess it has paid off. I also spent a lot of time yesterday putting all of my yarns on ravelry so who knows, maybe that worked. One of the purchasers was actually my first internet sale which was awesome. So now I have a repeat customer. YAY!! Now I have to package it all up and ship it out. I need to unravel some more yarns today too, I wasn't expecting to sell so many so quickly.

For those who are interested next week is the first farmer's market here in DeKalb, so come out and join the fun. Its at the corner of 4th and Grove.

Also next weekend we are having a garage/craft supply fair in which many fine goods will be for sale for excellent prices. We have high quality acrylic and watercolor paints, an excellent wooden easel, yarns, ceramics, beads and much much more. So stop on by 916 Grove St., DeKalb, IL on the 6th and 7th of June. We will probably be there till 5pm.

Trucking along

So I've gotten the go-ahead from ReNew DeKalb about my farmers market stall and I can't hardly contain myself. I went to the salvation army on thursday and bought some display baskets and table clothes for my stall and this really cool wine rack I'm going to hang yarn off of. I already have 3 folding tables so I am getting pretty well set for my display. I feel really happy that this is going forward, but pretty nervous too. I hope all goes well.

Tonight I went for the first time to the DeKalb stitch & bitch and I had a blast. I gave Carolyn her yarn (which she digs) and had a good time discussing knitting with our guest who was telling us about her fleece and sheep. We also talked about a lot of random stuff including some of us who had memorable incidents with ticks. Yes we are classy thank-you-very-much.

I'm putting out a call for anyone who buys my yarn to send me pictures of what they make with it. I'll post them in the blog, it'll be fun. I'm so curious to see what others make of my hard-won fibers I love so well.

A note about philosophy-
This project is really so important to me. I think reusing and recycling has an big impact so I've chosen for the time being to make it my profession in a way. I think it will be so satisfying to see what comes out of rescuing this yarn. I think commercial sweaters are often boring and misshapen and the consequence of this is a very good product essentially going in the garbage. I get all my sweaters from the salvation army and they have a very high turnover of clothing in the store here because of the volume of donated clothing. A lot of what can't be sold gets thrown away. They make no distinctions in fiber quality or condition. This is where I come in and pick and choose what to rescue. There are somethings I look for such as silk and cashmere which I almost always take but there are some more ephemeral qualities I take into consideration when I select a future yarn such as if I personally like the color or the feel of the yarn.

Of course this all ties back into the name I chose for my shop; defaceReconstruct. I sat down with the idea that raw materials make objects which are themselves raw materials for other things in almost infinite ways and that often times we need to take things apart in order to create. This dichotomy is a large part of what goes into my art and life. So I sat down with this idea and a thesaurus and tried almost every imaginable combination of words till I got the current ones. They just sounded right, almost like when you find the resonance pitch of a room and the tone echos and sings in way that no other tone does. So there.

Things I need to get done
- go on a picking trip I have to get more sweaters my stash is running low.
- Build my kiln
- make labels for & photograph new yarn for sale
- return ill-bought skirt to Target
- Send in booth application for Yarn Con (yay!)
- Think about buying some advertising
- Work on ceramics
- Sign up for dancing classes
- Write hat pattern

Whew! I should get started!

-

I made a flikr today!

Today I joined flikr. My username is, of course, defaceReconstruct. I'm hoping it will be a good way to promote myself and my work, plus its neat. I'm so behind on all the internet crazes these days. I joined a couple of groups already on flikr and they seem cool. One is focused on recycled crafts which is right up my alley with my recycled yarns. I also joined a ceramics group which led me to a cool vessel contest called the Art in the Round Contest. Its only $25 to enter and that entitles you to submit 3 pieces. The grand prize is $3000. It would be the best thing in the whole world if I would win, but I'm not confident that I could AT ALL. But it might get me some exposure as its run entirely on the internet and judged by internets peoples.

In other news I'm still waiting to hear back from ReNew DeKalb if I get my farmers market stall or not. It makes me a little nervous as my recycled yarn is just in a little bit of grey area as to whether or not they will consider it enough of a craft to let me sell it. I do quite a lot of processing on the yarn to get it from sweater to skein so I am of the opinion that it is indeed a craft and does take some skill. I really hope they let me sell it.

I need to start building my kiln soon and work on some ceramics so I can have some more to sell in June. I hope the kiln won't destroy all greenware as I would like to not have to find a way to purchase an electric kiln. That would pretty well suck. $$$$$$ I'm going to be optimistic and make a bunch of draped slab work (quick and dirty) to test in it. I can't imagine it will take more than a day to set up, but I don't know for sure.

My first sale on my etsy shop finally left me feedback. It was good of course with a nice comment that gave me the warm and fuzzies. I'm hoping that if I keep at it I will get more sales. I'm still trying to think of it as a backup to my local business so I don't get too discouraged if I don't end up selling all that much.

Workin'

Today I met with Kristin whom I met a couple of months ago when I decided to go to the knitting group on Fridays at the Yarn Exchange. She's a very inspiring girl who runs the blog craftleftovers. The subject of today's meeting was an interview she wanted to do with me about my etsy store and the recycling of sweaters. I was pretty nervous that I would be nervous and awkward, but I feel pretty comfortable with Kristin and it was easy for us to gab about things. It was easy for me to answer her questions because I have spent so much time lately thinking about what I'm doing and why and figuring out logistics and making plans. Its pretty tiring really but I get by.

Kristin is coming by tomorrow to take some pictures of me and my pottery so I think I'll dress up and bit and ham for the camera.

It was funny, she was going to record our conversation so she could take some quotes but she ended up not turning it on. I almost think this was a good thing considering how much I digress about things. I don't like recording moments, like photographing events or videotaping them. I like the fuzzy logic of memory, sifting through what I remember and what others remember and constructing my own stories out of bits of the past. But I'm famously digressing again.

I really can't be happier with Kristin answering my questions today and being so kind and friendly about giving me advice about my etsy shop and sharing her experiences. It is honestly one of the most helpful and kind things that has happened in the whole experience of my business. It definitely gave me warm fuzzies.

After I came home from talking with Kristin I went outside and took more photos of my yarn and prints and took some preliminary photos of my ceramics. I need to take some notes and think about what angles I missed and what might make them look best. The late afternoon sunshine in the back yard is glorious this time of year with all the flowers in bloom. It makes me remember why I like being here. The yarn and print photos are pretty fab though. I think the print ones are especially fantastic. I made a little spiral photo holder with some florist wire and planted it in a little bare patch of ground that was surrounded by very short ground cover with little white flowers and there was a single tulip and the rock bench in the background. Goodness those picture don't even look real.

See what I mean? Photographs are so weird for me. They always seem like something that just happens, not like something I have created. Sometimes I look at them and think, I composed that? I made that image exist? It feels strange. But this was very productive. Then I spent forever and a day uploading the rest of the pictures on to my listing for my store. I sure hope they sell some things!

Wow

I just read http://elleabd.blogspot.com/2008/05/on-double-standards-and-women-paying.html blog post and I am sickened and saddend by the treatment of the women in the article. SO fucking sad.

Yay!

I had a great time at the Eco Fair on Tuesday and made a tidy $50 or so. A friend came over afterward and we had a good time chilling out and eating Eli's delicious food.

Today I sold my first thing on my Etsy shop! I'm hoping it will start taking off soon, but I'm not relying on it. I think it will mostly be a supplement to fairs to help build my local customer base. I'm trying to get a booth at the DeKalb farmers market(they're craft friendly) and trying to get myself signed up for some art fair booths to sell my yarn and arts. This week is the last week of school and there is a LOT to do! I have soooo much ceramics to work on its not even funny, but I hope I can sell some of these things once they're finished. I have a couple of commissioned cups almost done for a friend and I want to make more because they are cool.

Here's a sample of the stuff in my Etsy store. BUY SOME!!!

Moving forward

I've been taking a ceramics class at the community college this semester and its really been encouraging me to do more art. My dad has said he will help me build a kiln in their backyard and everything!! I'm hoping to finish these cups I have been working on soon so I can sell them. I have a commission waiting in the the wings here.

In other news I have been buying up sweaters from the salvation army and thrift stores and making them into skeins to sell. I had an abortive attempt earlier today at the Ars Nova Eco Art Fair but we got rained out. I still made 20 bucks or so in the few hours I was there which was awesome and makes me look forward to our rain date of the 29th.

Yes you heard it, you too can come check out he action there will be free music and food and a grand 'ol time. Its on the lawn in front of the Jack Ahrends Art building on the Northern Illinois University Campus. Its right off of College Ave. The hours are 9am-5pm. It WILL be fun!

I just opened an etsy shop

I recently opened an etsy shop to try to sell some of the handmade goodies I have lying around. I just love making things. Having other people want these things is what might just make it all work. So check it out. www.defacereconstruct.etsy.com