Rush, Rush, Rush

New Owl purses

2012 Calendar all wrapped up

Can you see the new reindeer ? I made him a scarf

New and improved felted wine bottle holders or champagne if you are so inclined.

The sewing machine hasn't been getting much rest lately.

How did Christmas get here so quick ? In between the sewing and the shopping there's been little time for much else. It's been super busy but very productive. I'm already making plans for 2012 with a new website and catalog in the works but don't worry I'll be getting some help so I can focus on more new things. Expect some notebooks as I got a book binding machine for Christmas. I've managed to punch some holes but will need to watch a couple of videos before trying to put a coil in. Things that I have learned from this busy time, is make batches of stuff at the same time much more time efficient and even though I started before October preparing for the holiday season it wasn't early enough ! Renegade London made a considerable dent to the inventory (no complaints here) but there aren't really too many shortcuts to the making of most of the toys and because the fabrics are constantly changing you have to allow for the fact that sometimes it won't react as you predicted or your sewing machine decides it won't accept any of your threads even though it did it before. Tags make lots you can never have too many. I know that I made at least 144 sewn items this year probably more because that's how many tags I ordered. That doesn't include any paper goods so I'm going to aim to double that number next year.  I found some new years resolutions from 2009 and one of my resolutions this year should be to revisit the goals more than once a year. I eventually get round to things on my list but sometimes it takes more than 12 months. The checklist book still seems to be keeping things on track so I'll keep using it. I always put "to be more organised/tidy" but I recently found a great quote "Creative minds are rarely tidy" and I will hold onto that. It doesn't discount dishes, vacuuming and laundry but you can't have everything. Thank you for reading and accompanying me on this journey and onwards to 2012.

Being productive is hard Part Deux

So I should have mentioned in the last post that I bought myself a little to do book and I wrote each thing that I needed to get done and checked it off as I went along. There are still an overwhelming number of things to be checked but if anything it serves as a reminder to get going when my attention span wanes or I get sidetracked by Grey's Anatomy. I had never watched an episode so I'm now catching up on Netflix. In the long run I have saved time because I didn't watch it on TV with ads !

So the pillow is done. Two more to go.

The window display went up on Wednesday. This was after some frantic hot glue gunning of the deer head when I realized I'd stuck the picture hooks on the bottom of the frame.  It took 5 hours  to get this up. The middle where the doors meet was my major nemesis. I'd put something up only to realize it couldn't be seen. There's a lot of fishing wire going on, the backdrop was some fabric I bought in Ikea a while back. I'd been planning on making some curtains but I had an aha moment where I thought ooh they look like snowballs..

 

Daytime shot of The Seed Window.

View from the inside. I'm lucky to have a big table which I managed to fill.

Things have been pretty busy since the display so there's been less time to procrastinate and more doing. Glad to report the completion of the 2012 Calendar and a new improved wine bottle holder. I did some market research with people from work and it got the thumbs up so hopefully it'll be a hit. I also inputted almost a year's worth of receipts. thanks to memo book I'd identified the fact that it would soon be tax time and I would have to do it anyway and it got done and was quite satisfying. So on that upbeat note I will go and finish off an owl.