Thursday, December 22, 2011

Some More Progress

Monday at lunch I finished up the miniature Lace Mania pouch.


That's one of the small rotary latches on it. The pocket watch it's intended to hold is 2-1/4" wide and 3-1/4" tall, which should give you and idea of the size - small and disgustingly cute.


It went off in the post today. The customer was very pleased with it based on this picture, and although I was worried about it being wide enough, experiments with my iPod and iPhone indicate that it will be ok. Ron thinks I should make some more, and I'm thinking the same.


The chestnut-red leather thing its leaning on is the cartridge pouch that Ron finished up. All that's left is for me to cut the shoulder strap for it. I'll try to get a picture of it soon. Still not sure what I'm cutting out for Ron next.


Last night I was poking at my shipping label/receipt template. I've been using an InDesign document, but I recently figured out how to make a fill-in-able PDF, so I've converted it to that form, we'll see if it works the way I want next time I have an order going out FedEx. USPS generates a page that prints as-is, FedEx generates just the label image that I paste into my label/receipt. I actually prefer the FedEx method, because the lower half of the USPS-generated page is unnecessary instructions, so I end up printing the receipt on another piece of paper.


On the missing tool front, I ordered replacements for the stitch wheel, edger, head knife, and I went ahead and did get a stitch groover. I also succumbed to ooh-shiny-itis and got a skiving knife (skiving is shaving down the thickness of leather). I can skive with a head knife, and I have a skiving knife that needs sharpening, but as I said: ooh-shiny.


The new tools arrived Tuesday, and today I took the skiving knife back - the edge of the blade was not the straight line it was supposed to be. I'm not blaming the people at the local store, it's a quality control thing farther up the line. And they had no problem exchanging it for me.


The missing tools haven't shown back up yet, I expect they're waiting until I actually use the new tools. 


Monday I got in leather that I'd ordered. Two were for making molded pouch fronts, they're pretty much what I expected, maybe a bit nicer. The other, a black, is meh. I won't bother returning it, but I won't be buying it again, either, unless it turns into a swan when I start working with it. It's a little stiff, which is ok, but it also feels like it's going to be hard to cut. And the finish is glossier than I prefer. 



Robin has been working on cleaning up and rearranging parts of the basement; so hopefully this weekend he and Ron can build me a cart for merchandise boxes, get the rest of them in, and I can do inventory. 



My goal tonight is to list the small purses on Etsy, maybe a couple more pouches, maybe start getting belts up on ArtFire. 


I've also been thinking about the design for a small pouch for a class for MuseCon. When I make pouches I mark the stitching holes on the body only, then punch through the glued-together body and gusset together. It would be simpler for a class to have pattern pieces marked with the stitch hole locations and let the students punch each piece separately, rather than having to glue together and deal with the resulting pieces that don't lay flat politely. My first attempt at a pattern made that way wasn't wildly successful, but I've got a couple ideas on what to change. 


I'd like to poke at pattern creation/modification again tonight, but besides work on Etsy and possibly ArtFire I have some more bookwork to do, recording the latest sales and purchases. Boring, but I've been keeping up with it better than some years, which makes me much saner come tax time, which is careening closer by the minute.

No comments:

Post a Comment