In the Workroom Recap : Week 302

Hey guys!

We're two weeks away from Locke Street Festival and three away from Supercrawl so there are a lot of little batches of things that need to be whipped up! Carefully, of course.

I finished working on a little batch of Owlings but not before filling a few orders for the Summer Owl Sale (that is now all finished.) Thank you so much for all of you that picked up a new Owl Mama this month! It's hard to believe Summer is already almost over and we're getting ready for Needlings six year anniversary at the end of September! Six years!





These are a few of my favourite colourways, in fact (good taste, guys!) - I need to remember to make a few more of these for the upcoming shows! It's funny how it comes in waves what colours tend to be popular - right now, things are looking pretty bright and pink - which I am totally ok with!

After all outstanding orders were all wrapped up and mailed off - I did a little display shopping - furry carpets and yarn for pompoms - and got my chalkboard contact paper in the mail! I have lots of vague plans for my display for One of a Kind Show later this year but piece by piece it'll come together officially - hopefully with lots of time to spare before the show and after testing a few display pieces at my outdoor shows in September!


The plan for the chalkboard is to make a new sign for Needlings and new little accent signs for the display. Here's the tester I made from a cute little mirror I picked up a few of a while back! Yep, it's a chalkboard!




And it works! Magical! I have some more plans for these in the future but left it for now and got to doing up a bunch more pompoms for the tent and Needlings goodies to fill it with of course!




Pretty excited to have finished these little guys up this week - on to kitties next!

I rewarded myself at the end of the week with visiting my dear friends, Lisa and Jen, at FanExpo on Friday!



This is my first year attending without vending and although I missed having the full exhibitor crazy four day experience a bit, it was fun to actually enjoy it for one day without the stress of getting ready for it! I think I made the right choice being that my year is already pretty busy with it being my first year of doing the One of a Kind Show Spring and Holiday shows in addition to the usual Needlings work. I need to make sure my hands stick around for awhile afterall.



Spent some time selling moustaches with Nerdbiskit then braved these crazy crowds just to get out of the convention centre! Fun!

Well, back to sewing! I'll see you all next week!

In the Workroom Recap : Week 301

I'm late again! If it makes you feel any better, I totally completely forgot about it instead of the usual, "oh, I need to do my recap tonight - in the morning - this afternoon - this evening - tonight - in the morning," thinking about it. Makes me feel better anyway!

I started off the week finishing up that batch of Little Robots!





They will be stock for next month's shows and in the meantime you can find them in the shop and at a few various shops perhaps in and around your place of residence. 

After a bunch of supply restocking and display shopping, including more yarn for pom poms and fancy fluffy carpets for One of a Kind, I got to work on a batch of Little Owlings!



I think one of the things that keeps me going when making a bunch of something I've made bunches of before is putting together new colourways and combinations everytime. I make a lot of the same popular ones and my favourites everytime but I always end up throwing in a new one or two. That sort of sounds like "oo, shiny," of me but I guess that's sort of accurate. Colours!!!

I finished handsewing and embroidering the faces and took a little break to try out another one of those doll display options I mentioned last week. I think I'm going to go with the doll stands and I haven't decided on the packaging yet. I like the plastic packaging but I would rather go with a more eco-friendly option so I'm looking at lots of kraft paper boxes and washi tape instead! It's all very exciting stuff...



So that's it for the week! I'm a little further ahead on the owls and have some larger owl orders to fill but I'm hoping to have these little guys all finished up this week and more pompoms made for the old craft show display!

See you for the next one!

In the Workroom Recap : Week 300

300 weeks! Confetti!

Actually, besides running the 50% off all Owl Mama sale in the Needlings etsy shop, it was a pretty standard week for Needlings! Locke Street Festival and Supercrawl are now a month away so there are lots of things to stock up on in addition to the regular restocks. One month! Less than that for Locke Street really!  This is the first year in three years that I won't be doing FanExpo at the end of August so at least I have a little bit less to worry about that most years at this time but with One of a Kind Holiday Show coming up at the end of the year - there will continue to be lots to do in the coming months that's for sure!

I'm still working on display elements for the full tent display where all my Needlings will be set up with knit by The Nature of Mary Jane (AKA my mom!) so I did some painting of more display elements.



I love the lining of this little vintage case! I thought a few of my vintage suitcases would work well with my big display trunk so they'll be added to the mix in some way! They'll have some little dolls or knits or some such thing in them - I'll figure it out!

The weather was also pretty amazing so I did some robot sewing on the balcony! So nice!



This stack is coming along and should be finished up some time this week!  



Sewing through the night as usual!

I also got my packaging samples that I tried out on my new little dolls!



I think the size will work but I still have one or two more ideas to look in to before I make my final commitment...Serious stuff, guys!

A few non-workroom things that happened this week:

- Visited Nerdbiskit at Art Crawl on James N in Hamilton

I haven't been able to do the monthly art crawls this year so it was nice to live through Lisa a bit and it was fun to see lots of familiar local faces!

- Potter painting and friend birthday celebrations.

The next day we had planned to go paint some pottery for Tandy's birthday so I drew her up a little gift beforehand and then we all painted one little tea mug for Tandy to keep. Fun stuff!




-Small world photo proof.

I was also pretty excited to get a little photo from a Plush Team member, Diane Koss who took a vacation in Lunenburg and came across one of my Owl Mamas in the window of Dots and Loops on their second birthday! So exciting! I love when the world gets small like that!



Such a cute store!

So that's it for the week! Back to work!

Don't forget this is still a thing!


See you all next week!

In the Workroom Recap : Week 299

Well I did it, I made it through 299 weeks and we're on to week 300!!! 300 x 7 is 2100 days of Needlings! Sure I took a few days off here and there but lets just say easily 2000 days of sewing. I'm a lunatic! Just kidding - what a wonderful 300 weeks it has been for me and Needlings. 

I want to thank all of you for reading, purchasing, commenting, glancing, checking in, visiting, etc.! I really honestly could not have imagined I would be doing this 300 weeks after I started it and I definitely couldn't imagine that anyone would CARE! But you do! And it amazes me every single day! sapsapsapsap (Really really really thank you so much, I love every single one of you!)



So in honour of 300 weeks - I'm doing a very rare sale! All regular priced $30 Owl Mamas are half off in the 'ol etsy shop! So if you've been wanting one for awhile - now's as good a time as any! (well, better really what with the whole half off thing happening)  
This will go on for the week (or maaaaayyyybe a little more depending) but will go away and won't be back until at least maybe 600 weeks so now's your chance! 

Now back to the workroom recap!

I started off the week with another new mini doll then finished off with some work on a big batch of robots!







And still going!

I did take a few breaks out of the workroom this week to go for tea at the Vintage Tea Garden Tea Room in Hamilton AND to visit the most amazing field of sunflowers in the country not too far away. 



These hats and boa were on the wall so of course, being the ridiculous people that we are, decided to help ourselves to them for a few minutes!

Also took a little visit to new shop, Prouse Pottery and Soap on Ottawa Street in Hamilton owned by friends Nick and Jen! It looks great and I recommend everyone go check it out!



Then a little Callie time!



Before a little more robot sewing and then a visit to sunflower heaven! So beautiful I didn't want to leave!





Happy 300 weeks to me! I'll see you at the end of it!

In the Workroom Recap : Week 298

Hey guys! Can you believe I'm two weeks away from 300 weeks of Needlings? I can't believe it!

I wish I would have kept track of more things like amount of bags of stuffing used (well, I guess I could go back and look at the receipts) or how many eye sparkles I've sewn. Short answer guess is a whole lot! Way more than 300 probably.

Anyway, this week was about making and working behind the scenes on packaging for my little mini dolls that I plan on having a bunch of for One of a Kind Christmas Show in Toronto in December. I'm excited to try a few different things for packaging so the samples have been ordered and hopefully I'll have a few months to test some things before December pops up on me.

First I finished this little lady!




And this one!



A few more to go and I'll get them all named and up in the shop! I'm having fun using up some little fur bits for these girls before I get back to some big dolls. I also have a big pile of almost-robots that have been waiting to turn in to robots so they might pop up soon too!

I let my workspace get a little messier in the meantime but dolled up a bit for a planned sewing hang out with Lisa of Nerdbiskit but after a day of not feeling too great, we took the night off to drink some raspberry lemonade and chat instead.

                         

Lisa also 'shopped this magical thing to officially "doll" me up:



It cracks me up. Both horribly creepy and funny at the same time!

Since we're on the topic of me and all - I also recently came across this illustration that an artist from Vienna did of me! Such a cool thing to randomly come across!
                              

I love that she used a photo of me in my "work uniform" as inspiration! It also makes me miss my turquoise hair a little bit!

Well, that's it for the week! Here's a picture of Gus on my display trunk begging for cuddles for good measure.



See you next week!

In the Workroom Recap : Week 297

Hey guys! It was a busy week around here topped off with a big ol' crazy storm but everything is dried up and power is in so all is well here now! 

I started the week off by heading to Creative Bug in Beamsville to drop off a custom doll before coming back to the studio to clean everything up to get ready for The Spectator photoshoot! I drew up a little illustrated version of the doll first of course.




So cute!
And clean!



Gussy loves it of course!


So on Thursday, Natalie from the Spectator and a photographer came over to take a little awkward sewing photo of me in my workspace and a little video of myself describing who I am and what I do for an article about local Etsy artists. I really need to work on getting better at describing what I do on video. Practice makes perfect I guess! 

Here's Natalie taking a little video of my workspace to overlay with my little voice over:


I'm excited to see the article when it comes out sometime in the future!
And pretty happy to have had an excuse to up my workroom organization game a little bit.



Then I got to work on some mini art dolls! I've been thinking about making more of these little ones for awhile now and since making the little custom one last week I figure now is as good a time as any to start stocking up for One of a Kind in December! Not to mention Locke Street Festival and Supercrawl here in Hamilton in September.



This is one of my favourite fabrics ever that I picked up in Wholly Craft in Columbus many years ago and I plan on using it on a couple more dolls at least!


I've decided not everyone needs glasses...

But some do!



And that's it for the week! I hope to finish up a few more in the coming weeks, including this planned pink one of course.

This week also marked a year since little Callie the pup came in to my life on the side of the road in Caledonia! I'm so happy to have found her. She's a needy little suck and I never thought of myself as a dog person (cats!) but she's really the sweetest and we're lucky to have her!



I can't believe a year has passed - they go by so quickly! 

Well, see you next week, friends!