drilling

Running a bit late this morning! Stayed up late working last night and then overslept by 15 minutes this morning, better than yesterday where I forgot to set the alarm I suppose. I was totally indecisive getting the milk and papers and baked goods this morning and strangely I think everyone must have overslept this morning because everywhere I went was running a tad late.
I finally finished a batch of the two coloured leather granny purses last night. They have been sitting on my work trestle table taunting me, I can see them from my seat on the couch, but they are underway and in store today. Getting the drill out yesterday to hang the sign was good as I have a pile of drilling jobs that need doing and I had developed that kind of procrastination/tool fear that I get sometimes. It's not that I am 'fearful' of the tool just that it sits there mocking my procrastination and so I grow to hate it and avoid it. Yeah, OK, it's just an excuse for procrastination. You know what I am talking about! The five minute job that blows out in your mind to a huge production which, of course, when you finally get around to doing it only actually takes 2 1/2 minutes. Well I have a whole pile of those lying around here.
So Saturday shop news.... the Cottage has a new sign, there are Heico cockatoo lamps in store, a couple of new glove colours, new leather purses that I have nowhere to display, Ann's tea cosies have arrived and new pianola shades in in all 5 sizes have been delivered.
I've taken the bunting down outside which is sort of strange after so many years. It's not that more won't go back up but the shiny new sign just dictated a bit of a spruce. I was planning to paint the sections above when the windows were replaced but have never actually got around to it. I hate painting (a realisation that occurs 5 minutes after I start painting) and deep down would love to just pay someone else to do it. Which means if you drive by tomorrow you'll probably find me up the ladder doing it. Stupid me. Really I should be out the back drill in hand.
Time to vacuum and mop!

gilded lily

It's up!
Ray the Gilder dropped off the sign yesterday so there has been a flurry of glueing, tacking, drilling, measuring and, as of late this afternoon, it was hung.
It's strange for the Cottage to finally have a proper sign. We've had the chalk sign on the door and the slate in the window but this is the real McCoy, it's so grown up and proper. And very beautiful. I feel like the Cottage isn't quite good enough for its sign!
Ray has done some of the most wonderful gold leaf signage around town, there is a great little interview with him over at Mr Blanc (I am loving Mr Blanc's blokeville blog, I do love a good 'bloke'!). Once you get your eye in you'll be able to spot Ray's work as you gad about Melbourne and further a field. It really is very beautiful which is why we had it done on a framed glass panel so that we can carry it with us where ever we may go- not saying that we are going anywhere!
Library Girl dropped in on Wednesday and teased as that we should be an 'emporium'. We want an emporium and a tea room! Dell and I have been joking about the Cottage Industry tea room for ages now, what we will cook, the decor, the preserves, the ginger beer..... of course it is all dependent on me winning PowerBall.... there is also the jokes about the country cottage totally decorated with Welsh blankets.....

cocka-one, cocka-two, cocka-three....

I am nursing a splitter of a headache, one of those that makes you feel nauseated and crappy.
Damn.
It's been a bit of a bitza of a day, a few hours at the studio, back at the shop, out in the car.
As the computer screen is making my eyes hurt I might sign off for the evening.
Just wanted to let you know the cockatoo lights have arrived and we've got some new cute little ceramic critters in store as well.
Night.

cosy

Two days in the studio. A hard slog. I think it is just getting my head around working at the machine, cutting patterns and trying to match checks in the fabric. It was slow going but I get a couple of dresses completed, apart from buttons and sadly only in one size. Sampling is always slow and then as painful as production is at least there is the joy that making multiples takes only a smidge longer than making one.
Today will be bill paying, typing on the computer and glove dyeing. Hopefully.
A package arrived from up country yesterday, Ann has been busy crocheting and we have a whole garden of flowering tea cosies in the shop now. They are a joy to behold. Makes you think Spring is on the way....
Jethro has ramped up his 'glove hunting' and brought/caught me 10 pairs last night. He used to restrict himself to samples and seconds nut now he is fetching stock. It's cute, annoying, amazing, obsessive, proud  and I should think myself lucky it isn't mice. I think it is because he has scared all the mice away that he does it. Every morning I have to collect them off the bed and pick them up from through the house, a glove trail. He brought me two pairs straight after the earthquake last week, a short and a long, obviously he wasn't sure which ones I would need in an emergency.
Time to turn the dye copper on and whip up a batch of porridge (not in the copper) to keep me going through the day. And definitely another bucket of tea.

checking out

So there I was in the studio yesterday, trying out some toiles of basic blocks, thinking about how we are so short on wintery clothes and how I need to get my shit together. My brain just doesn't like the idea of production at the moment, like the good 'craft athlete' that I am I really need to push through that maker's pain barrier. And I need to find some way to clone myself and work on a dozen projects at once. Or I suppose I could get out of bed earlier.... hmmm, maybe not that.
I'm off to get some more pattern kraft as the end of my roll is so tight it springs up and curls when I am trying to draft patterns. It is both annoying and amusing. I might tinker with the new dress pattern before I grade it and then find time this week to make a few. Along with all the other things waiting to be done.

My new Lisa B 'patch' socks seem to match the studio happenings exactly. A bit of an orange/blue/grey theme happening although the 'blue' in the dress is much more electric-y purple than denim-y indigo. 

OK I'm going now. 

Things to do. 

interuptus

A dreadful night's sleep, sleepus interuptus indeed. My best wishes going out to all my parenting friends and their little fiends who wake every 1/2 hour. I have no excuse except for some seriously weird noises in the night and they weren't issuing from me, somewhere out in Fitzroy strange things were a-foot. Just call me the walking zombie this morning.
Instead of cleaning yesterday I walked into the city, bought a pair of jeans, lost my Myki virginity and wasted most of my Sunday. The house looks even worse, only half the washing got done, no vacuuming and I managed to knock a box over last night on the way to bed and it's contents are now spilt across the floor. The walls are closing in! Sadly whilst the new clothes airer is brilliant (it's on wheels) I don't actually have any room for it and rather than making things better it is cramping what little space I have. Time for a total overhaul, totally.
Now though I really need to get to the studio and to find no distractions  and actually spend the week working hard on stock. Those blanket quilts sadly won't make themselves you know. So please, no distractions this week, no having to be somewhere else, at some annoying time, if I must have appointments then please don't make them a waste of time. Let me have one day of dyeing when everything goes smoothly and I can build up a nice backlog of stock and the kitchen ends up containing a few less boxes of gloves. That I remember to put out all the recycling on Garbage Eve. Not much to ask for really.
OK, now I really must bust a move and get out of the house and to the studio.
Wish me luck and a fair wind.

sign of our shop

I was so hoping to unveil our new shop sign this weekend, sadly Ray the Gilder made a boo-boo with the gold border and he has taken the sign off to re-work the edge so there has been a bit of a delay. Excitement has got the better of me though and I just had to post a photo of his work!
Mr Cruickshank did the typography, it's on glass so once it's been hung in the window you'll still be able to see through it. It's framed in an Edwardian frame and that was what held us up for so long getting the sign made, I couldn't find a suitable old frame, I hunted high and low and then, of course, one day just stumbled across one. It's only taken 4 1/4 years to organise. We did have the green door with the chalk writing for years and I think it has alway quite amused us watching the befuddled look on people's faces trying to work out the name of the shop since the glass door was installed.
So to go with our love of all things traditional 'skillz-mad' our sign has been hand painted on glass and gilded in real gold. A dying art in these days of computer cut vinyl lettering, a skill once learnt as an apprentice and at trade school (yes, TAFE training, don't get me started on the what is happening here in Victoria... foolish and shortsighted).
So soon we will have our shop sign up. It might cause a rash of renovation or perhaps just a spruce up. We may even finally get around to having out invoice books printed rather than sticker-ed they way we having been doing them for the last 4 1/4 years. I am amused that we have done this all arse-about, most shops these days do their branding before they get their product together! I've also never quite got my decisions made about uniform typefaces etc, I just can never decide ('oh that's nice, hmmm not quite what I was thinking of.....') so things just get changed every now and then. I think Mr Cruickshank has been deeply horrified by my airy-fairy indecision!
So hopefully this time next week our sign will be well and truly hung.
Shop day for me today. Another week lost to the well of good intentions. How do I lose so many days?
Please drop in and have a look at our lovely Trunk and Orderly cases (I know a small boy who has been given a blue lunch case for his car collection), they make great craft storage boxes we have discovered. There are lots of gloves out, a mountain of Welsh blanket cushions and we are started to run low on some sizes in the Slade sweaters and cardis so don't leave buying one for too much longer or you may be disappointed.
Take care, have a warm and cosy weekend!