Busy busy busy!!!! But very brightly coloured.

As the title suggests, I've been a bit busy.

I've listed my first seven items on Etsy, which I'm really proud of. People are even looking at them! I've started with the tried and true beaded jewellery because I've been selling that on and off for years. Etsy is a real find because before two house moves ago I lived near a little gallery that was quite happy to take my stuff on a sale or return basis. Ten years later I'm trying to get back into living off what I love to do and I moved half across the country to get married two years ago and I know no-one! Thank the gods for Facebook!

I've also been hauling myself around charity shops and collected up a load of old tops to dye, then brought them home and spent several nights shibori-ing them. And dyeing my hands and the sink some interesting colours!

My most major triumph right now is that I've dropped a night a week from my (nocturnal) day job!!!!! Tah dah!!! The overall plan is to give that up entirely and craft for a living and I need the flexibility, so I've signed up with a company that makes and sells beautiful cards and stuff to tide me over. My 'sponsor' also sells organic skin care so I'll be doing that too. I'll have to get my hands back to human colour so I can get on with the party planning!

When you're dying anything,you have to make very sure you're using the right dye with the right fibre. Basically, acid dye for protein fibres - off animals, and fibre-reactive dyes (Procion is my favourite and loads of people use it) for fibres that started off growing in the ground (cellulose based, basically).

You also have to be extremely careful not to breathe in powdered dyes. Your lungs will not like it at all - the stuff is covered in warnings and you don't want to wake up in hospital having lost the ability to breathe, right? I found a supply of dust masks at a great price and stocked up. It's best to get the dye powder mixed up as quickly as possible and yourself out of any risk of sneezing in it. Then get the lids back on everything and you're fine. When I'm doing tie dye activities with the kids, Dylon make some great little kits that have the dye already in squeezy bottles so you can leave the kids happily elastic banding the damp fabrics (you have to love mess to make it as a crafter) while you add the water and shake. It's a good, cheap way to experiment yourself, too, especially if you don't get how colours blend together. Boring as it is, I'll do a post on how to put together a colour wheel soon. The basics are important.

If you do try the kits, KEEP THE SQUEEZY BOTTLES.

So there I was for a week, beautifying 30 pieces of clothing that had already outlived their usefulness for a previous owner.

I don't usually use detergent on clothes, opting instead for wash balls, but you really must start off by giving the clothes a really good wash. If you don't, left over grease - ancient food stains, toiletries, fingerprints, even someone elses fabric conditioner, can act as a resist when you dye. If you like interesting results, go for it, if you want to plan how things turn out - wash it well first!

Since I was doing a batch of cotton and cotton mixes, the dye needs alkiline solution to bond with the fibre. There are many versions of what you need to use, but I stick with good old washing soda because it's cheap and easy. I have read that some have bleaching agents in to boost them up but I haven't come across that myself. The problem being that you lovingly dye your items and the soda cleans it all back out for you! Spend your money on good dye and go cheap as possible with your soda!

You're supposed to soak the clothes for at least twenty minutes but I tend to leave it about an hour to make sure the solution of soda has got into all the seams and any resistant bits. I do that before I tie, but I'm going to try tying before I soak next time - I have got extremely sore hands!

There are a lot of different ways to fold and bunch and tie the clothes up, so I'll do another post on the details of that and the dye mixes, which are also pretty complicated.

Once you've got your clothes all bunched and arranged, be brave with your colours! You need to get as much dye as you can into the cracks - hence the squeezy bottles, so take your time. I use plastic carrier bags to put each piece in. I put the garment in before I put the dye on. Arrange the bag so you've got a surface to work on and then fold it up once you've finished and put it in a bucket. A word to the wise - check your plastic bag hasn't got any holes in it or you'll dye your feet while you're moving the piece!

Pile up your dyed and wrapped garments in your buckets and put them somewhere warm where they can't get knocked over and kids and animals can't investigate. I put them near our drier in the conservatory because even my daughter stays away from that corner for fear of someone calling out 'while you're there can you empty the drier, please honey?'.

The next bit is important - leave it alone for at least 24 hours. I go for 48. It makes all the difference to the finished result if the dye has time to soak right in.

When you take the dyed items out of the bags, rinse more than you think you need to, then rinse a bit more, then back in the washing machine, with detergent. Then air dry.

I'm painting on the things I'm working on right now so I'll be steam setting the dye. I'll post some pictures when I'm done. You're supposed to set the dyed items but between you and me, I don't think you always need to - you learn with experience. Some fibres grab onto the dye and don't let go, others need some persuading. Older fibres, that are a bit fluffier, seem to dye better. My hands, my feet, and the ugly plastic sink we're getting rid of as soon as we can find an old one (we're very green, you know) dye like a charm!

You should see my house!!!!

Well things are going along swimmingly here with my plans to take over the world by beautifying it just a bit. The plan for this week is every crafter's cross to bear - my house is disappearing under my stash!
I have several boxes of paper supplies in various states of chaos cluttering up the front room, along with all my mailing supplies, except for quite a lot of pre-deployed cardboard which it is part of my mission to re-use as my packaging!

Then there's various knitting and crochet prototypes and a fair amount of yarn. And six beautiful vintage saris and elastic, binding and thread to make them into new garments. Somewhere in the middle of that is my bag of needles etc, which is always lovely and neat, several sets of knit pro loveliness and a couple of pencil cases and makeup bags keep it how it should be.

I am thinking of fitting my scissors with beepers though. It's usually the kids who walk off with pens and scissors and everyone knows that purloining my dressmaking shears is absolutely out of bounds, but I just found my little embroidery scissors by the telly in the bedroom so my husband must have nicked those! For what purpose, we can only imagine.

In my hall there are three bin bag sized bags full of new and used fabric for making my signature bags with. The kitchen and dining area holds a knitting machine, a sewing machine, a spinning wheel and three bin bags of fleece, and a fair few bags of cleaned and carded rolags. Somewhere in all this, my family are nestled. I'm sure they are!

Organisation is the plan this week! I've got a whole bunch of books and dvds on ebay and amazon to ease the strain but I need to get the rest of it in line. I'll start the easy way with the boxes I've got but I've got this plan to make a bunch of special bags to organise the rest..........

Oh, and I forgot to mention the jewellery supplies and the 15 finished bits of beautifulness ready to go on Etsy. And the catalogue for the card company that I intend to sign up with to fill out my portfolio.
At some point I will post about techniques, design and marketing, really I will, but I think I'd better tidy up first before I have family mutiny on my hands. Or move house!!!!

Did I mention the dye supplies that just arrived?????


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Too busy!!!!!!

The trouble with a craft blog is that you're so busy doing your crafts you spend loads of time thinking about things to blog while you're...I don't know....kneeling on your kitchen floor sorting out your stash whilst deflecting your cat with one hand (gently of course so she thinks it's a cool new game). So despite not having a clear and cogent plan of what I'm supposed to be writing, I thought I'd just ramble and see where it took me!

This week I have had a big row with my accountant and decided that I would go back to doing my own books when I've paid him. I seem to have spent a year paying him money to annoy me, then reminding him that I do have high overheads thank you very much, then telling him how to do his job, then paying for the privelege!

I had a brlliant conversation with someone from Businesslink last week though. They found a fellow crafter to talk me through my marketing plan who has a mind that works like mine. We spent an hour tripping over each other on the phone, she reinforced some of the ideas I already had and gave me a bunch of new ones. She's fab.

I found a card company that does direct sales that I plan to sign up with so I can ditch a night at a time of my (nocturnal) 'day job' by placing myself at fairs and stuff and making a few quid. And I joined WiRE - Women in Rural Business who look fab and will set me up with networking, ideas and support.

I've spent the rest of the week sketching and buying suplies - my house is an alladin's cave of shiny paper and fabric! I caused a lot of 'tutting' in my favourite fabric shop when the till spat out my sale and had to go back to the start - I let a few people clutching single items go ahead of me before we got stuck in again but none of them said thanks! And I bought six old saris off ebay, along with loads of bias binding and stuff, and six second hand curtains from charity shops - part of my ethos being upcycling beautiful old fabric into bags and things.

All in all, I've got through a whole week without making an awful lot except for a card for my husband made from old magazine collage (looks like a ransom demand but he lurves it) thanking him for his endless support and putting up with the mess, and a birthday card for my neice with so much glitter on I thought it would never dry, and I've crocheted a couple of little beady knot bags - one for my daughter to stop her ball of wool escaping after she was taught to knit by the utterly fab Sarah from Three Bags Wool - I learnt to knit at a very young age from a picture book and I didn't know left from right so I knit inside out and back to front, exctly how the pictures looked, and I thought I'd be doing Iz a disservice if I taught her my way! Thanks to Sarah! And I'm knitting a shrug by designing it as I go along - I'm basically doing a cabled sleeve, then I'll knit a strip to join it to the other sleeve and knit the other sleeve top down. Then I'll do my current obsession, thread a big load of beads onto some yarm and do a lot of shiny free form crochet edging - wish me luck!

And when I finish work at 3 am it'll be back on ebay to list a loads of books and dvds. I thought it was only fair that I should make a few quid out of the general clutter in the house since I'm currently obscuring most of the floor with my crafty stuff!

Oh, and did I mention my sketching? After having four kids I think I need to design the perfect nappy changing/day out bag - glam, gorgeous, loads of pockets and easy to keep clean and comfortable to carry. So the first thing I do is buy yards of cutesy brightly coloured canvas. I'm just a sucker for colours! I'm also doing mummy bags for when, like the two 've still got at home, they get a bit older and you need a day out bag that you can find things in under the tissues, snacks, computer games, wallet, makeup, compass, penknife, hand sanitizer, map, stuff everyone else asked you take care of...did I mention tissues? without injuring yourself or looking rubbish. And that's where the saris and the bin bags full of notions come in.

I'm looking for the name of a clippy thing that you can fasten your purse onto a d-ring attached to your bag but I can't find out what they're called. If I could find out what they're called I could buy a load of them but when you google "clippy thing you can fasten your purse onto a d-ring attached to your bag with" you don't get much of any use. It's a highly entertaining way to waste half a precious hour though. If any kind person knows what they're called I would forever be in your debt ;oD XXXX

Career change....again!

I've been self-employed for years as an Astrologer, a Life Coach and nominally an artist although I haven't done a lot of art lately because I've been swamped by getting married and all that entails, moving halfway up the country and looking after my husband, who's disabled and my two kids who have asperger syndrome. As an aspie myself, so not really giving a hoot about what one is 'supposed' to do, I'm getting ants in my pants about earning a living and I've started to change things around.
I've started making jewellery again, which is going on Etsy soon and I spin and dye my own yarn - when I've run out of people to give things to that will go on too. I've set up this blog to showcase my own stuff and to pass on some hints about what I do. When I originally set up ten years ago I was swimming against the tide. I made pieces and convinced a local art gallery to sell them for me and then all of a sudden the market was swamped by cheap stuff made in sweatshops. My other mission in life is to fight the good fight for ethical, beautiful, things that do no harm in any way - there's a long way to go there.
I'm already in my forties, but when I grow up I want to move to somewhere wild and have my own herd of alpacas. I will stay in touch with my friends by having a mini-festival on my own land every summer - ten tents and the local pub bands for a week, maybe and I'll put everyone up instead of the current state of affairs where I email everyone in the middle of the night and post on facebook!