New Bottle Prototypes

Below is a picture of the new bottle prototypes. From left to right are an cobalt blue apothecary bottle, a smoky blue genie and a vintage green ball bottle, a cobalt blue olive branch bottle, an aqua drop bottle, and a dark amber amphora. 

I got the apothecary bottles in clear and cobalt, the genie in smoky blue, balls in clear, vintage green, and red, the olive branch in cobalt, the amphora in dark amber, and the drops are an assortment of lime, red, fuchsia, orange, aqua, and amber.

Catching Up with ACTUAL PROGRESS

Looks like I last posted on the 6th. The 7th was devoted to a big plumbing project to fix the underlying cause of the plumbing panic on ACen setup day - see my personal blog if you want more natter about that.

Got some more doll clothing done, I'll see about putting some pictures in at the end.  

And finally, on the 13th I started cleaning the dining room, which is my workroom, and MY space. Most of the work was actually done on Sunday the 14th. Ron attacked the front entry and front entry closet, including putting up shelves that now hold a bunch of bins that were in the workroom. I worked on the actual room, with occasional help from Robin (during breaks in mowing the lawn). 

I have an ACTUAL FLOOR. Well, had. Then I went and got 10 dozen new bottles, which came in two big boxes. This time I ordered from a different source, who had colored bottles. Besides more spheres/balls and cylinder/apothecary bottles, I got some little ones they call "genie" bottles, tall cobalt blue ones with olive branches, and amphora-shaped ones.

Still have some old parts of projects to sort through, but I've gone through all the newer parts and figured out what I have in pieces, and made a list. Also went through inventory and figured out what we need in the way of pouches. I'll also do belts, when Ron gets a chance to help - that's easier with multiple people/devices/screens, for various reasons.

Saturday afternoon we figured out what we're doing with the amphora bottles - hanging from a loop that snaps onto each handle. And Ron determined that he could set snaps with pretty caps on both sides, so I had to order more caps Monday morning. 

Also ordered more long rivets, which we need the the bottle straps that also include belt loops. But we can work on cutting, marking, and punching while waiting for snaps and rivets.  I'd ordered snaps and short rivets on Friday.

Did some on-line browsing for Christmas ornament boxes for transporting bottles. Only one style of cardboard box listed at The Container Store. I know they had more last year, presumably they'll bring back more soon - will keep an eye open.

Genie, drop, and the big blue olive branch bottles will have a collar sewn around the neck, with a (snapped) belt loop riveted on. Going to do those in black only.

The ball and apothecary bottles are not quite the same as the older sphere and cylinder bottles, so we had to modify the patterns. Got the modification right for the ball on the first try, had to try a second time on the apothecary. However, attempt 1 turns out to be just right for Robin's Orangina bottles.

Got all the tails done, plus putting a swivel on one belonging to X2's friend, on Saturday and Sunday.

Sunday afternoon, before Ron and Xap discussed MuseCon Programming stuff, we went through the schedule, which I'd also looked at with Ron on Saturday.

Tentative plan is to do Boar's Head, Kollision Kon (early Jan., Rosemont), Military History Fest, investigate Kitsune Con and Stonefield Wild West Steampunk Weekend, Geek.Kon, and Ramen Con.

Somehow the depth adjustment on the red press we use for rivets and snaps got cross-threaded on its threaded rod and thoroughly munged up, so yesterday morning I ordered a new threaded rod and adjustment screw. Also ordered, for insurance, a new spring, set screws, and another cheap thing or two.

Sunday I finally got around to getting a new iPod. Yes, I can use my phone and/or iPad, but they have limited capacity, so I end up listening to the same few things over and over and over until I get around to synching a device again. With an iPod I can have a lot of different music. I also got a good set of speakers for the dining room. 

Took a sanity day today. Haven't done anything Otter-ish, other than submitting our application for Kollision Con. May putter around with leather this afternoon, or I may go take a nap. Because I can.

And now, some pictures of doll clothes and my nice clean dining room and front entry (before the big boxes of glassware came in last week):

Doll Clothes

No progress on the new press, because life, the universe, and everything.

No leatherworking done, either, and the workroom is still a disaster, and because life, the universe, and everything, and it probably won't get any better tomorrow.

OTOH, I have been working on new products - Japanese-style doll clothing.  Natter and some pictures on my personal blog recently.

Earlier this week I cut out some robes from a brocade remnant I bought for doll clothes, and satin left from sewing projects. I've been hand-hemming, because top-stitched machine-sewn hems (which I do on our garb) don't make me happy for doll clothes. But the little tiny stitcjphes that are almost invisible on cotton calico (quilter's cotton) show up a lot more on satin.

I deided to try facings, showing on the outsides of the garments, using satin ribbon, which meant going to the fabric store for ribbon (statins and brocades ravel if you even *think* of looking at them! which I can cope with for main pieces and collars, but not facings.  That went well, but then I wandered back and discovered calico on sale.  

These three resulted (dime for scale), for one outfit:

The zig-zags will be the outer robe, with the dark teal for the collar and also hakama (trousers, or a skirt). The light teal (it really is, our red blinds mess with lighting color) for an under-robe.

Then we were discussing "kawaii" (roughly cuteness, consult Wikipedia for an overview), and these resulted:

During the discussion Ron said the fateful words "Hello Kitty", at which point fate laughed at us:

Yeah, Hello Kitty fabric. Yes, the pink is a little paler than optimal, but it has *glitter* in it. Glitter won.  The polka-dot ribbon is for sashes. I have enough fabric for a set of doll and human-sized robes. I'm sorta-kinda trying to resist, but that's probably futile.

Haven't tried using the ribbon as facings yet, Ron's body likes to get us up in the wee hours of the morning every couple/few years for ER tris for pain meds for kidney stones, and today was one of those days, so this afternoon I took a nap instead of sewing (or attacking the workroom).