Bleargh. Argh. Sickly Otter.

Stayed home with a head cold yesterday, with Robin. 

Mostly worked on design stuff - posters and flyers for the Capricon Cafe, and new banner designs for Otter Necessities.  I'll post the current designs at the end.

Today was the typical Saturday running-about. Ran out to Tandy/Leather Factory. I only meant to get a look at/for brown pre-waxed thread, but several tools and a pretty bright yellow whole upholstery hide followed us home. I think it wants to be pouches, etc. with black trim. First probably a satchel and a belt satchel, and at the same time I should cut the same things out of the bright blue hide I got a while back.

This afternoon I poked around looking for black artificial sinew. I'm generally content with waxing my linen thread (except when I'm feeling lazy), but Ron likes the artificial sinew, so we'll get him what he likes. None at Tandy/LF, but I found several suppliers on-line. I was waffling which to buy from, when I noticed that Noc Bay Trading Company, which has mostly Native American stuff, is in Escanaba, MI. My dad grew up in (and I've spent lots of time in) Gladstone, which is the next town up the bay, so I decided that made them "local" and ordered a spool. 

Less successful has been my hunt for colored smooth lace. A little while back I checked to see if my supplier, Marcellus-Oriva Leather Co. had yellow lace. No, and they didn't have the red, green, or blue I'd bought from there before, either. Today I was looking for other suppliers of colored lace and noticed that M-O's website is defunct. Oh no! Hoping they just gave up on it and didn't go out of business, but worried. I can probably find another decent source of black and brown lace, but not much luck on not-suede colors. 

Ok, back to banners. First I did a vertical banner (2' x 4'). It's my favorite of the ones I did yesterday:

Then Ron asked if I was going to do a new horizontal one. Our existing banner is still good, but apparently I'd thought of a new one to match the horizontal. So I did that (4' x 2'). Much futzing around later, I think this is decent:

Then I did a square, 2' x 2', for times we might not have room for one of the bigger ones. 

Then, for the heck of it, I did a 2' x 1' horizontal. Because one place I'm looking at on-line only charges $3.75/square foot, and coming up with designs doesn't cost me anything unless I actually buy a banner.

It occured to me today, that if places don't want to do anything smaller than 2' x 4' I can just do the square and a couple small ones on one panel, cut and hem myself. And Ron pointed out that if I put the small ones on right I can have a double-sided small banner. He is S-M-R-T smart.

And now dinner is beeping that it's done, so time to go.