Getting all dressed up

These cold grey days of winter seem unending and I've got cabin fever bad. Twice I've taken the kids to a playground despite the wind and freezing temperatures until I got too chilled, but the kids loved the chance to be out. The baby was practically frozen but still cried all the way back to the car.
Some signs of spring though...crocus shoots are poking up through the semi-frozen soil. I've got a new bluebird design. My cabbage and onion seedlings on the widowsill are putting out lots of green leaves. And quietly behind the scenes I've been getting my main website all dressed up in new finery for spring. I'm hoping to be ready to lauch by next week and really looking forward to a fresh new look.

Now, we need some slightly warmer days without rain so we can head back to the playground!

New Item!

Can't believe I didn't think of offering this sooner myself...but hey, my best ideas always come from other people! This time it was a customer request for a plain (unpainted) pocket diaper. Well, why not? I've been getting a lot of custom requests lately, but I really cannot do those easily when it involves painting just one of something. (It is difficult and wasteful for me to properly mix tiny quantities of my special paints). This one, however, I could do, so I went ahead and made a new listing for these pocket diapers under my "fishnoodles" name. There are still all the great style and color choice options, and they'll be made with my patterns, for the great fit so many folks love.

Spotlight on wahspirations

If you have a Hyena Cart store, you know Michelle of Elemental Muse, also known as *snowflake*. She seems to be online virtually 24/7 on the seller's forums, always helpful and polite and knowledgable for those of us who *ahem* occasionally need a teensy bit of computer help. This is of course a great marketing strategy for her own website design and hosting business, in that she has great trust and credibility. I especially enjoyed bowsing her design portfolio of the various websites she has done for many well-known Hyena Carts. Michelle has a blog called wahspirations, dedicated to inspiring work-at-home businesspeople. It's full of upbeat business advice and is worth checking out.

Want to see my studio?

Here are some pics I took recently:



I feel really fortunate to have such a nice space all to myself! Even though it's just a room off the basement playroom, "finished" in lovely 70s era dark fakewood paneling and a tile over cement floor, with a hodgepodge of castoff tables and other furniture, it's so much better than where I used to work. At our last house, I sewed in an unfinished, unheated basement room next to the washer and dryer. I wore my coat down there in winter but had to stop when my fingers would get numb.
Now I actually have a space I can call a studio. I have my own desk and computer that I don't have to share, a sewing machine table with a cut-out for my machine so I can work on a big flat surface, a dedicated cutting table covered in giant self-healing mats, and a organizing/snap press table. See the lovely sunlight coming in? I even have a window with a view!

Just stocked something cool...

...in my Etsy store!

Why am I so excited about these? Because they were inches away from becoming a "wadder," yet I saved the project. What's a wadder? A sewing project that goes so disatrously wrong, there's nothing left to do but wad it up and stuff it in the trash. I sketched these semi-geometric bunnies, painted the outline and the facial features onto my favority dotty fabric, and was ready to finish them by putting contrast fabric in the ears. I had all these little ear shapes cut and I was placing them on the bunnies...and the lovely vision in my head was looking crummy in real life. I wasn't sure why and started trying all sorts of different fabrics from my stash for the ears. My hubby walked over amid my fabric snipping frenzy and said, "the fabric makes the ears look top heavy". Of course! He figured out what was wrong in seconds by looking with fresh eyes. I couldn't give up so I put my dear little bunnies away overnight.
Fortunately, the ol' subconscious came through for me: why not paint some little motifs in the ears instead? Voila...now I really like them. Problem solved, project saved. I know that's a lot of angst for a couple of little rabbits, but that's how it goes sometimes when trying to make something original.

Spotlight on The Felted Sheep

The blogging project continues after a period of delay...I want to tell you about Kelsey up in Alaska, yet I am not a yarn person; I don't dye wool, spin, knit, crochet (despite my grandmother's attempt to teach me) and I don't even know what a "roving" is. Kelsey is a Hyena Cart & Etsy WAHM who can do these amazing things and she offers her hand-dyed wool and multi-fiber rovings and yarn for your crafting pleasures. What I can say for sure is that she's got some exciting colorways:

It takes some skill to use orange and green, or rose and caramel, or green and blue effectively together. This kind of adventurous spirit inspires me.

So Pretty!

It's so great when people send me photos of their babies to add to the gallery. Just wanted to share one I got last week.

These two baby girls look so lovely and feminine in their new dove and blossom diapers on a silky bedspread. I am pretty much a tomboy myself, and even though I have two girls myself, I find it much easier to come up with boyish and gender neutral designs. I challenged myself to do something more girly and that's why this photos was especially pleasing to me.