The etsy site is up!

I finally got my poop in a group long enough to publish a few items in my etsy store. www.etsy.com/tequiladiamonds is now open for business! I didn't post any pix here because I want you to go to the store!

I'm going to confess, I'm super nervous about it. Whenever you do something creative, you worry about what other people are going to think of it. If you don't, you need to talk to a doctor about that. However, I got over that hurdle and I'm continuing to add to my inventory of things I can make and put into the shop. Home business is underway!

Today happens to be beautiful and sunny, so I'm going to take full advantage of that and go outside. It was snowing a bit this morning, and I was starting to feel pretty sorry for myself that I hadn't seen the sun in a while. I'm going to go fix that situation. Have an amazing day, and don't stand in your own way!

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!

On the road again...

I could really wait a few days to get on the road again...

But we're supposed to go up to one of my husband's customers lake property with the RV and camp out while he does some work on their A/C. This was sort of a last minute thing I wasn't really prepared for. I was all set for that trip to the Oshkosh Air Show last weekend, but I'm not quite ready to take off a second weekend in a row. I've made so much progress downstairs and I don't want to lose momentum. It literally took me years to get this far, I don't want to fall back now.

On the other hand, I have my medication, so perhaps I don't have to worry about losing momentum while I'm gone. Hmmm... I guess that'll be my experiment. I didn't lose any even though we were gone last weekend. Wow. That's pretty cool. I have focus! Holy crap! Who knew?

I went through some more pictures taken from magazines (2006) and tossed what I didn't like any more. Some of it was still really me, though. I only have one grocery bag of recycling out of it, and, frankly, I could pack it down a bit and make room for more. 

I've added to the bin of fabric I'm going to sell on etsy. I have some lovely fabric, but I've had it for a while and still haven't done anything with it. I had such plans for it. But I really want to make clothes out of my own fabric designs now. For some things I'll have to buy other fabric. For example, wool, leather, suede. Trims. Denim. Although Spoonflower does have cotton twill, which is denim, basically. It's just that theirs is solid white. And I did order a swatch book of the different fabrics they carry so I can see how heavy it is. It's supposed to be suitable for upholstery, so it should work for jeans. That was one of my rewards for doing all the cleaning. That and a color chart that shows how the various colors look printed on the fabric. Since my Harriet Pink was absolutely not the right color, I can look at the chart and use the Pantone color that is closest to the look for which I was going.

I found some forest green silk I had purchased when I lived in New York. It's gorgeous, but when I hold it up to my skin, I look like I was out partying for an entire month. Which is odd. That's "supposed to be" one of my "Autumn" colors. Yeah, that Color Me Beautiful stuff is so out of date any more. It's so.... 80s. So Last Century. Technically, according to my Autumn coloring, I'm never to wear fuchsia, but I do, and I love it, so, meh. 

I have another storage bin ready for charity. I got rid of some of my crafting supplies that I don't use. Rubber stamps, mostly. I kept a few of my favorites, but I don't really make cards or collage art (though collage art does inspire quite a lot of my design work). It's not as painful as I kept imagining it would be. I mean, I would really go into a panicky despair whenever I thought of getting rid of some of that stuff. But I'm filling up the truck repeatedly to go to charity and keeping the things that really speak to me. I've even gotten rid of some things to which I had, for whatever reason, thought I had some special sentimental connection. Man, I held on to some weird shit. No lie. I kept the wood we took up when we replaced the flooring in the front of the house because I was sure I could make something with it. Yeeeah-no. 

So, for this weekend, I'll take along my Grandma's Flower Garden pieces to keep going on that. The baby shower is in three weeks. I won't be anywhere near done by then, but I can take along pictures of what I've done thus far and show my niece. 

That's another thing; it used to be that if I discovered I couldn't finish a project that I had started in time for whatever deadline, I'd quit. I'd just scrap the whole project and turn it into a UFO (Un-Finished Object). This is, presumably, something that happens quite a lot with creative people, because they came up with that term for it. On the one hand, it's nice to know I'm not the only one. On the other, what does that say about artists? I mean, people actually organize UFO parties, where they can exchange their unfinished projects for someone else's they think they might like to complete or use for parts. There's a whole UFO culture out there that doesn't go out to look at the night sky, but stays indoors and hunkers down with someone else's incomplete art. Like an adopted child or something. I find that both weird and refreshing. It's creepy to me, in a way. But I like creepy things, so I guess that's alright.

Well, time to get ready for this weekend. Gotta hit the credit union, the grocery store, the showers. Have a fantastic weekend and may you find the motivation to get done that which you have been avoiding.