what i've wrought

Well, it may seem as though I have been in a hole.

This story starts on June 19.

I was sitting in my room in Brooklyn.  It was Rachel's birthday (26 - the old lady) and I still had not figured out what to give her.  Sitting in front of my sewing machine inspiration struck.

 I stitched her up a firefly medallion.  Like most children we caught fireflies and stuffed them into glass jars.  I guess it was significant because I never did this except when I was at her house.  It was very idyllic.  I knew she would be moving to Portland and that they don't have fireflies out west and thought she needed one to carry with her.

 The chain I crocheted and then stitched over with my machine.

Fast-forward to after her departure and to the thought I'm going to make some more necklaces.

 That is exactly what I did.  The base was machine stitched using free-motion embroidery.  For this set I  used grey silk for the top and bottom and cotton batting in the guts.

 Trimmed them out.

 The edges are stitched with a blanket stitch.  In this I learned the value of hand stretches and that mine are not as strong as they used to be.

 The first five finished.

Then I hopped into the car and drove to Laura and Eric's Ceremony in Ohio.  She looked so beautiful - as usual but just perfect.  He was so handsome and they were so happy!  What a good couple.  That was just a ton of fun.  

In our various conversations that weekend I mentioned to Despina what I had been working on and she invited me to come set up a display in her booth at Renegade.  That was August 25th and Renegade was September 8.

I quickly got stitching.

 My next set were taking off of the initial necklace I made for Rachel and were fireflies in jars.

 These were linen on front and cotton on back.

 There were ten in this set.

 After the regularity of the jars I started experimenting with shape in the lily set.

 I had to throw a few hearts in there to remember the love.  I never used to be much of heart person but Lexi is responsible for that influence.  Boy am I grateful for it.

 I decided not to do any additional embellishment on these guys and let the pattern give it the extra touch.

 Golden chains.

I continued on a few more sets - playing with pattern and the addition of lace along the way.

 Realizing it would be a good idea to have a business card I carved out a stamp and went to town.

 For the details I turned to my hand-dandy make your own stamp set.  They are stamped on an old index card alphabet divider set and index cards.

Pup time out: all the while I couldn't have done any of it without this lady to take breaks with and run around the back yard.

 For my display I pulled one of the old leather "grip" suitcases I have had forever occupying the top of my wardrobe.  I found a set of four of these in the trash heap on a side road in Savannah.  They are pretty old and one of them went to World War II with the owner's father.

 It turned out to be quite perfect and all I did was stitch a fresh white napkin over the dark brown interior fabric and make a linen case to cover the bottom section.

 Voila!  

 The booth was jammin!  Des makes awesome chalkboards and this was her third year at the show.  She had a few people come up to her and tell her that they bought them in past shows from her and love them.  One lady had brought one for son and came back to buy one for her new daughter.

 There were plenty of people to view my wares.

 And it ended up being a beautiful weekend.  In the booth were were joined by two of Des' besties and it was a very entertaining and fun weekend.

All in all - my favorite part of the experience would have to be:

discovering the Chicago Diner with my brother Sam!!!  He came down for Saturday evening and stayed with me at Des' place.  [That Lady know's how to take care of a girl - the morning smoothie was fantastic!]  It was his first time taking the train down to the city and I was very proud of him for finally taking the plunge after living in Grayslake for a year now.  We went to the Diner for supper and I was so excited - I could eat almost everything on the menu (it's all vegan so no wondering what has dairy and doesn't) and it was so delicious.  Sam even enjoyed his BLT burger and we devoured our dessert - the likes of which I have not eaten since I stopped eating dairy two years ago.  It even had "whipped creme"!

Back to the story.

But seriously, it was such a high when I finally did get my first sale.  To know that that person may be walking around this earth with a piece of my work around her neck is pretty fantastic.

All in all, I did not have as many sales I had envisioned/hoped for in my head.  I suppose folks were just not ready for the cloth jewelry but I will be back working at it and continue to develop my own work.  It was really good to get reactions and gauge responses as people approached my work, touched it and reacted negatively/positively/puzzled.  I also was really grateful to have a deadline to work toward and have no regrets about the experience (except maybe that I didn't order a milkshake at the Diner because apparently they are FAMOUS for them).  

You may notice I have added the WROUGHT button on the header.  It links to my Etsy shop and I intend to craft away a keep adding more here and there.

Now, to figure out how to use my serger...