Sunday, February 24, 2013

I'm Baaaaack!

Yeah. I had a busy winter. Between school, holidays, and a production of Cabaret, I lost track of a lot.
One thing I decided was to not go back to school. It'd take too long at the rate I was going. Not that I didn't do well (I aced Textiles) or didn't like it (who doesn't love to learn new stuff?), but I simply can't afford to go full time and, since I was starting over with a new degree, going one class at a time would get me done in about 20 years. Please. I got sh*it ta do.
I also put myself on self-imposed semi-retirement from the stage. If I'm going to do this other thing (I'll get to that soon) I need to take time away from performing. Cabaret was particularly physically demanding as well. I would have a dance rehearsal one night and then spend the next day in bed from the pain and fatigue of the Fibro. It's fortunate that I don't have a day job because a lot of cast mates got sick, but I managed to not get sick at all. I think a lot of that is due to my being able to rest during the day.
But now I'm getting restless. I'm anxious to get started on the Next Big Thing.

Tequila Diamonds.
I've done a lot of prep work, mostly R&D and some massive soul-searching trying to figure out how I want to move forward. What is my purpose? My Mission Statement? One thing I know is that I want to take one thing, and make something totally unexpected from that thing. That's really the underlying philosophy to Tequila Diamonds. Making the ordinary extraordinary.
I've narrowed it down to a few items (comparatively few, I should clarify). I have the fabric line, I used some of those images and made some items on Zazzle (jewelry, stuff like that). I even sold a Happy Harriet tee-shirt!
Anyway, I've set up a few goals. I've taken pix of some things I've already made. I'm going to set up the etsy site in March. My hope is to use the money from those items to fund my new fashion line made from my fabric designs.
I've sketched and colored, manipulated fabric and practiced my stitching. I'm going to be working as a stitcher on the next production going up at Bloomington Civic Theatre (where I just did Cabaret), which will provide more of a learning environment than going to school. It'll also pay a little bit, so I can put that toward supplies.

So, yeah, not a lot of quilting going on. I'm still pecking away at the hand sewn quilt I've been working on for my great-niece, but no new quilting projects have been started or even thought about for the moment. If the quilting was why you were reading, I'm afraid the future posts will be disappointing. However, if exploring creative outlets and starting a creative business is something you're interested in, stay on dah boat!