Lots of Work & A Small Celebration

With mirth and laughter

let old wrinkles come.  

~ William Shakespeare

Sorry I haven't been posting - last week was insane - I was working a convention all day long every day and then trying to finish up a work project in the evenings...  :(

The work project extended into my weekend and ate up the majority of my non-chore related time.  :(

We did squeeze in one fun event.  On Saturday evening we took our friends to a fondue restaurant to celebrate the mom's birthday.  

They had never tried fondue before, and, as you can see from the state of the cheese pot below...  

...it was a big hit!  :)

Posting might continue to be sporadic this week - although I'll try to get up at least one gratuitous kitten photo - but I am alive and (weakly) kicking...  ;)

I hope you all had wonderful sewing weekends and are ready for the start of a new week!  :)

An Exposition

The best ideas come as jokes.  

Make your thinking as funny as possible.

~ David Ogilvy

All this week at work, I'm "manning" (or wo-manning) a booth at an Exposition on military simulation and training devices.  

If I set up a small display stand next to my exhibit and stock it with some "How Much Fabric?" Reference card sets, do you think I'll pick up any sales?   ;)

I hope everyone is having a good week and that your feet don't hurt as much as mine do right now!  

Gratuitous Kitten Picture

Size does matter.

~ Godzilla (1998)

The Christmas village is helpless in the face of...  

CATZILLA!!!!

Thanks to my husband for the photo.  :)

Happiness X 2

Gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.  

~ G. K. Chesterton

Every year, this class brings amazing people into my life.

For this, I am truly thankful.  :)

Ragtime

It is never right to play ragtime fast.

~ Scott Joplin

Well, here are the first set of rag rugs - I have to admit that I'm not ecstatic with how they came out.  The width of each rug still wanders (wider for a little bit, then narrower for a little bit...)  And I just wove the full amount of recycled t-shirt yarn that I had of each color - so some rugs are a little bit longer than seems appropriate and pleasing to me...  

I started with my rug - here it is:  

I didn't take a picture of it spread out, but you can tell that it isn't a nice consistent width from one end to the other...  :(

Here is one with three stripes of pink:  

A red, white and black rug:  

Navy blue, light blue and beige:  

The last one on the loom - green, blue and brown:  

The only slightly positive thing I can say is that I do think my weaving improved the more rugs I made - this last one is the straightest yet (and I like the length):  

So, hopefully I'll keep getting better and the last seven will be even better...  And hopefully the recipients of the first four rugs will remember that it's the thought that counts and think of these rugs as special in a unique, quirky way...  ;)

The Holiday Frenzy

As we struggle with shopping lists and invitations, 

compounded by December's bad weather, 

it is good to be reminded that there are people in our lives 

who are worth this aggravation, 

and people to whom we are worth the same.  

~ Donald E. Westlake

No fun sewing or weaving for me over the weekend - I was knee-deep in php and html code, thankful that there wasn't a 2-year-old around, learning a whole lot of new "vocabulary"...  ;)

So, backing up a bit, I haven't been doing a good job of marketing The Original "How Much Fabric?" Reference Cards, but I was motivated by the looming holiday season to set up a couple of give-aways and offer our first ever discount.  But PayPal doesn't provide any easy way to offer a discount code - you know, because who would ever want to do anything like that, right?  It's so rare...  

Hence, the struggle with code...  I can report that I emerged bloodied, but semi-victorious!  ;)

You can find our first give-away at Tasia's website, Sewaholic (here).  We are offering two sets of cards - one to a US winner and one to an International winner.  

We are also part of a larger Thanksgiving give-away on Pattern Review (here) - you definitely want to check that one out because there will be 12 give-aways in total!  

Finally, in conjunction with these give-aways and the upcoming holidays, we are offering a discount on all of our card sets - this, in the face of strong opposition from PayPal!  Yes, just enter the code HOLLY (each time you add a set to your shopping cart - sorry, this is where the "semi" in "semi-victorious" comes in.  I could not find a work-around for that limitation) and you'll receive 15% off (here)!  

The card sets make the perfect small gift or stocking stuffer for your sewing friends - not to mention a really nice little treat for yourself!  And they pay for themselves quickly - because you don't overspend on fabric...  ;)

Okay, the promotion is over.  Now, back to your regularly scheduled content...  ;)

Tonight is our last ESL class of the semester and so I hope to have a picture or two for you tomorrow... 

Color Selections - Part 3

My two favorite colors of the rainbow are gold and leprechaun.  

~ Jarod Kintz

The last batch of color selections that I'm going to show you:  

Row #1 - ivory, apricot and light green

Row #2 - blue, grey and yellow

Row #3 - red, light yellow and dark brown

Now you've seen them all but two - one set I accidentally wove into a rug before I took a picture and the other isn't complete yet.  One person had her heart set on a particular color combination and only got two of the colors she wanted on color market day - so she is ordering the third color herself and it hasn't come in yet.  

Aren't all the combinations interesting?  I think they really show how diverse tastes can be...   

The color sets are different, but each person had the same look of satisfaction on her (or his) face when contemplating her (or his) set of colors.  :)