Taking the Plunge!

I've finished the school year!!!!!!!  And QUIT!!!  To craft full time!!!!  In the words of Keanu Reeves....."Whoa."

So, in case you've only recently begun reading my blog... here is how it all started- with SewEcological.

Twas a blanket much like this one....

How did SewEcological begin? This is cautionary tale with a happy ending...sometimes, what you do in your free time is what you become! :)

I've always made all my Christmas gifts. One year it was an amateur attempt at bath salts and soaps, another it was a delectable gift basket of designer cookies, candles another. But in 2009 and 2010, I rediscovered my neglected sewing machine.

One of the gifts I made was for myself- I cut up all my mother's old sweaters (which were far too small for me), and made a keepsake blanket out of them. This was the impetus behind my upcycling- a simple blanket. I liked it so much that most of my closest friends received blankets made out of cashmere sweaters I rescued from the local thrift store. Everyone else got gloves made from the remnants of the sweaters.

Those same friends (thank you Kirsten and Rex!) told me to sell these things! They told me all about etsy. So I researched the site, found out that I had a nice little niche, and got to work. Sales were hit and miss for a year or so...and I started a second shop as a fun hobby on the side. Rotifera.etsy.com was the second shop, and it focused on hair accessories, which I didn't feel "fit" in this shop. Probably due to the fact that I finally figured out how to take a decent photo, it seemed that both shops took off at around the same time, in late 2011.

So much so, that I recently made a very scary decision- I resigned from the teaching profession! As of July 2012, I've traded in teaching high school chemistry and biology for full time independent designing.

I adore working for myself, and am so excited to have taken the plunge into making Etsy and designing my full time work. I hope to begin working craft shows this fall- so I'll keep this story up to date with my appearances!!! :)

♥Rose
--Pisces, free spirit, geek at heart, mother of two, and general quack-a-doodle.

Over a Year Later......

So......

I return to my blog.  It has been sitting neglected for over a year.  It seems that once I opened Rotifera , time began to run away with me.  I've been VERY successful!!!!!!

Successful enough to resign from teaching.

The two shops are rocking and rolling:
SewEcological --- over 400 sales, and 100% positive feedback.  Full of fun upcycled creations and handknits!

Upcycled Infinity Scarf

Handknit Alpaca Cowl

And Rotifera.... Rotifera REALLY took off last year, with almost 1200 sales, and 100% positive feedback.

Art Deco Rose Accessory

Lacy Button Snap Clips

And.........just for fun, I opened a Paper goods shop last September with my friend Cris... The boxes I started stamping really took off, and we've had 176 sales with 100% positive feedback so far!!!!

Handstamped Kraft Jewelry Boxes

So, all in all--- a BUSY year.  A successful year.  I resigned from teaching effective June 10th, and will be going to Etsy and the craft show circuit full time this year, beginning in July.  I have a Europe trip coming up in the middle of June, and then I'm FULL STEAM AHEAD into entrepreneurship. 

That means more blogging, more sales, and more fun!!!!!!  I'm so excited, I can hardly stand it.

See you sooooooooon!!!!!!
♥Rose

Working my tail off... Back to work tomorrow

I've got to go back to teaching tomorrow, and while I do love my job, I love crafting just a bit more.  I was so worried that creating for my Etsy store would take the joy away from making all these wonderful things, but the feedback I've gotten just adds fuel to the fire.  I've been pushing myself to come up with new designs today, and I pulled out a few stops...

It's really amazing what we can create with the things we have at home.  Upcycling.   I once read that upcycling is "turning useless crap into even more useless crap."  I have to disagree.  All of these items were upcycled from tossed sweaters- cashmere, merino, wool.  Those natural fibers are never worthless.  So, I've been upcycling my butt off all week.  Do any of these look like useless crap?  I hope not.

100% Cashmere Scarf with Ruffle

Wool Cowl with Vintage buttons

Silk Fingerless Gloves

Cashmere Opera Length Fingerless Gloves

I've finished alot more, but I'm waiting for my dearest hubby to get home and take some decent pictures.  I hate taking pics alone.  No fun at all! 

So, what inspires you to create?  I just love natural fibers.  I love color.  I love creating something out of something else. 

What do you love to do?  Share!

Working with Cashmere...and a purse fail.

Good news and bad news.  Let's get the bad news over first.  My orange purse that I dreamed would be perfection, luscious, amazing, superfantabulous, extraordinary? 

None of those adjectives seem to fit the bill.  I'd go with....blech.  The beaded embellishment of my vision looked ridiculous on it.  The construction was mediocre to say the best of it.  I blame the super thick wool, the lack of handbag construction experience, my cruddy old cheap sewing machine.  Whatever.  Here is the vision....  A long rectangular bag with a half moon flap, lined with vintage linen, and embellished with the most beautiful beaded dangly thing I thrifted..  this thing:

The dangly thing-y doesn't really go with the shotty craftmanship of the bag.  I don't know if there is any saving of this orange monstrosity...  give me a fricken' idea already.  I'm fresh out. 

Pointy edges, too short of a flap.  Blah.

Extra thick felted sweater + older cheap machine = crappy construction detail.  Blah.

But on an up note...

The cashmere creativity train has pulled into the station.  With two of the lovliest color of cashmere I have found to date, I made four things:

Cashmere Cowl with coordinating thrifted cotten lining

Cashmere Fingerless gloves in progress...

Cashmere Scarf of gorgeousness...

You want to touch it, don't you...

And this, the crowning achievement of an old Daniel Bishop Cashmere Sweater.  Possibly the thickest I've ever seen...  Cabled and ribbed?  This scarf is 6X thicker than any cashmere object I've ever touched.  And like a cloud.  Soft as butter...  I don't know if I can sell it, other than it is not really my color...

OMG!! 72" of luxury right there.

And one more pair of cashmere fingerless gloves, in a classic combo of linen color and tiny cables....

So, as artists, whether we are knitters, sewers, upcyclers, whatever... We take the good with the bad, right?  And sometimes the bad is very, very bad.  But the good can be very, very soft. 

Off to work!  I have a pile of cashmere and wool that needs work.

And- everyone give a shout out to Rex; he found me some lovely pieces that could become my very first design involving wool suiting... Any ideas?

The Sunday Six

So, here I sit, with my 11 stitches, with nothing much to do the day after Christmas...

I'm enjoying the blogosphere... Join me for some sewing, knitting, and crafting inspiration that I've discovered myself looking at everyday with my coffee.  I'm looking today for ideas on what to spend my Jo-Ann's Fabric and Barnes and Noble Gift Cards on.

1.   I wanted to give a shout out to my beautiful and crafty cousin Dawn, who has started her very own craft blog- A Few Good Yarns. She is a knitter/crocheter, and has a great eye for classy and fun designs.  I can't wait until she posts about her crocheted baby hats with interchangeable flowers.  Stop over there sometime, and give her a holler.  She's good people. (Except for the cooking of Lima Beans, which I can never agree with.  If there is an maligned green food that deserves its reputation, this one is it.)

2.  My go-to place for tutorials for one of a kind items and excellent photography of her seedlings...A Lemon Squeezy Home. This is one of her outstanding tutorials that I've been meaning to make for weeks now...

3.  Over at ISLY (I Still Love You), I found wonderful upcycled lovlieness, and even bought commercial rights from her to make her braided jersey necklaces for my Etsy store.  (I know, I know- where are the necklaces, then?... I've been a bit obsessed with wool upcycling right now.)

She has recently made cashmere mittens.  Such a lovely shade of orange!

4.  Over at Wardrobe Refashion, you'll find a group of contributors who'd pledged not to buy any new clothes, only refashion what they had or what they had purchased at thrift stores.  Some creative ideas over there, although the site is closed to further contributors now.  I hope they change their minds!

5.  For those of you who've been living under a rock, or are not knitters- Stephanie Pearl McPhee aka "The Yarn Harlot" is one of the best knitting/crafting bloggers; no wait- best blogger out there.  Read what she has to say.  She is freakin' hilarious.  Go, laugh.

6.  And, last but never least- I am Momma, Hear me Roar.  She does everything from embellishing old shoes to give them new life, to designing clothing.  I love her designs, most recently her upcycled T-shirt hat for toddlers has made it onto the to-do list.  My seedlings would look so adorable in these. 

So, go waste some time.  Surf the interweb/net/blag/ whatever.  Drop me a line to let me know what I'm missing.  Drop me a line to let me know what you'd like to see next week.  Just drop me a line.  Even a :) will work.  :p

I've run out of energy...

I know I have no right to complain as a teacher; I do get my summers and an entire week off in addition to this Thursday and Friday, but I am whooped.

Those 160 kids/day thing wears me right out.  I'm going to attempt some scarf manufacturing tonight, and I will post results tomorrow if I'm successful, but the outlook is grim.

And to top it all off- I'm out of coffee creamer.  Damn.

The process....

So I have this process of designing these one of a kind items, and it never really is the same...  But the basic steps go something like this.

*Mommy note:  This is by no means a continual process.  I'm constantly interrupted by the needs of the household (rugh.) and the needs of my kiddos and hubby.  Interruptions add time and frustration to the need for design inspiration.  But alas, we do what we do. 

1.  Hunt for objects that are natural fibers.  Find.  Buy.  Buy more.  Buy more.

2.  Organize said natural fibers by color.  (I'm currently using an old bookshelves and repurposed shelving in my laundry room.)  Could be more organized, but you aren't reporting to Martha Stewart, right?

These colors are at the top of my to- do list. 

Vintage sheets!!!!!!!!!

3.  Stare at items.  Fondle items.  Decide if items should be felted.  Put items back onto shelf until inspiration strikes.


4.  Once inspiration strikes, remove item(s) from shelf, felt in the washer, and proceed to de fuzz .  Whilst de-fuzzing, which anyone who has ever felted knows- takes FOREVER..., I stare at item some more, and decide what it wants to become.  Whatever that is, it needs to be chopped up.

5.  Chop, slice, chop.

6.  Decide that the original idea I had will not work with said sliced pieces.  Stare at item.  Fondle item.

7.  Make a command decision.  Back out of decision.  Man's plain armwarmers?  Those sold quickly.  Embellish these brown ribbed wrist warmers with beautiful felted flowers or embroider, or better yet; a lace flower with a button?  That would be really cute...  This goes on for an hour or so.  Then I embellish or not. 

I end up with something like this-

Kept plain.  They were already sooo darn cute!

or this

Angora and Wool with a lace flower.

or this

The Cowl that would become a purse embellished with Vintage fabric and wool rosettes.

 

 

 

 

Sometimes my inspiration pile gets unruly... But I just pick what I like when I look down...

Declan has a little pink soldier "watching over mommy's pink sweater thingie"

And I always have extra scraps to inspire me further into the patchwork/embellishment abyss...

So there it is.  Organically created by a possibly insane person, who has trouble focusing if I know I won't be tested, who doesn't like to ever do the same thing twice, and who loves, loves, loves what I'm doing.

What inspires you?  How do you get that inspiration out there?