Maneki Neko Con could have been better, sale-wise. We're not sure if there were fewer people there, or if they were off doing more than hanging around the building atrium, or what. Friday night sales were better than I expected, but Saturday only equalled Friday because of one last sale (of an item that really needed to find a new home, so that's another plus).
Numerically I think we sold more test tubes than tails, but I'd say tails were the must successful type of thing. We also sold two potion bottles with lots more looking. So we got proof of concept for potion bottles and test tubes (especially since I didn't have any holders for the test tubes, was just selling the tubes).
They're working on moving Maneki Neko Con to a hotel next year (the one we spent Friday night at, as it happens), I'm thinking we'll probably give at least one more go.
One of our Klingon customers (they had a fan table) suggested that we'd do well at TeslaCon (Madison, WI), and one of the local costumers agreed. But not this year, as its between now and Windycon, and only a couple weeks after surgery. Xap was investigating their website with an eye toward next year.
Setup was, once again, made of flail. We had a triangular space, and all the new gridwall to play with. We really really need to sit down and draw up some layout ideas. Packing up was fast, we were out in about an hour, thanks in part to help from Pen, and the logistics crew who took all the gridwall out on their big cart and pushed the Things and the Grinch. Yay for Pen, and Taz and his Logistics crew!
Working on the Windycon book. The goal is to get it done except for final proofreading by the end of this weekend, as I have surgery a week from tomorrow.
Which meant that I did Maneki Neko Con on days 2 and 3 of icky protein shake starvation diet. Ron and Xap did most of the customer interaction, because low blood sugar is not good for my attitude. And I succeeded in staying nice for the customers.
But I digressed. The Windycon book is being the Windycon book. Tuesday night I realized I was pretty much at page count, with about 10 pages of material to add. Ron suggested I e-mail the chair and co-chair. After sleeping on it, I did. The solutions were, in retrospect, fairly obvious, and mostly carried out last night (change to a couple more space-saving fonts, do additional compressional things, blah blah blah). Apparently I just needed someone else to make the suggestions to me this time around.
Need to get our registration in for Boar's Head, which is the next event I expect we'll be at.
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Monday, September 16, 2013
Keeping Busy, Mostly
The cartridge pouch is done, except for two things. The first is punching the hole in the tab which holds it closed, a 2-minute job, max. The other is slightly more complex. The pattern calls for the side pieces being double layered, but when I cut it out, I only cut out one of each side piece, and assembled it that way. All the photos of originals show doubled side pieces, so the plan is to cut new ones, trim as necessary to get a good fit, and glue them in.
After my previous post I did more searching, and found another source for reproduction black buckles. And, it turns out, they specify their 7/8" buckles as for cartridge pouches. So my gut was right that 3/4" buckles looked small. Waiting for those to come in.
At MuseCon I was working on some very small reproduction (cap) pouches, which I thought I'd misplaced, along with the parts for a smaller belt-only pistol cartridge pouch. Saturday I found them, on the sewing machine table, trying to hide behind a box flap. I feel so S-M-R-T smart.
I decided to order more tails for Maneki Neko Con, including some less expensive ones (fox and raccoon). Those should be delivered today. They probably won't arrive until about the time we get home anyway, but I warned Robin so that he can keep the box out of easy dog access range, on the chance it arrives earlier than expected.
Saturday I tagged all the other tails and the potion bottles, and have notes to update inventory. Pippin was very good, only sniffing a lot, but that doesn't mean I trust him.
Saturday morning Ron, Robin, and Marmaduke re-packed the trailer, with all the new gridwall and accessories, as well as everything that usually lives in Thing2, which had been in the basement since we used Thing2 at MuseCon.
Tagging bottles and tails Saturday was by way of taking a break from working on the computer - Friday night was the main content deadline for the Windycon program book, and I was trying to get a good chunk of it done this weekend. I didn't get as much accomplished as I'd hoped to, but probably as much as I is/was reasonable to expect.
After my previous post I did more searching, and found another source for reproduction black buckles. And, it turns out, they specify their 7/8" buckles as for cartridge pouches. So my gut was right that 3/4" buckles looked small. Waiting for those to come in.
At MuseCon I was working on some very small reproduction (cap) pouches, which I thought I'd misplaced, along with the parts for a smaller belt-only pistol cartridge pouch. Saturday I found them, on the sewing machine table, trying to hide behind a box flap. I feel so S-M-R-T smart.
I decided to order more tails for Maneki Neko Con, including some less expensive ones (fox and raccoon). Those should be delivered today. They probably won't arrive until about the time we get home anyway, but I warned Robin so that he can keep the box out of easy dog access range, on the chance it arrives earlier than expected.
Saturday I tagged all the other tails and the potion bottles, and have notes to update inventory. Pippin was very good, only sniffing a lot, but that doesn't mean I trust him.
Saturday morning Ron, Robin, and Marmaduke re-packed the trailer, with all the new gridwall and accessories, as well as everything that usually lives in Thing2, which had been in the basement since we used Thing2 at MuseCon.
Tagging bottles and tails Saturday was by way of taking a break from working on the computer - Friday night was the main content deadline for the Windycon program book, and I was trying to get a good chunk of it done this weekend. I didn't get as much accomplished as I'd hoped to, but probably as much as I is/was reasonable to expect.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Progress, but Not Quite Planned
I had been sorta-kinda planning on working on more potion vial (test tube) carriers and/or a bandolier this weekend, as well as a way to put the little cobalt blue bottles on a belt.
Didn't quite happen. The grommets and grommet sets I ordered hadn't arrived (not entirely surprisingly), so I didn't get as far as poking at the bandolier. I was going to pick up drill bits Friday evening for the bottle project, but on-line shopping meant that I Ron picked them up for me, and for various reasons we didn't get to doing anything with them Saturday morning.
Saturday afternoon we went to a friend's, where she and Ron worked on the MuseCon website, and I worked on a cartridge pouch.Sunday I worked on the cartridge pouch some more, and Ron had fun with stained glass.
Yesterday Ron had picked up the rest of the narrow gridwall we'd ordered, which had come in to the supplier much earlier than I expected (not that I'm complaining, I thought they wouldn't be in until after Maneki Neko Con). Now we have a recycling wheelie bin full of tall cardboard boxes, and front entry full of of tables and gridwall.
And yesterday the self-centering punches I ordered (and ordered and ordered) last week had arrived. The small set starts at 1/4" and goes up to 1" in diameter. The set with the big red handle goes from 1-1/8" up to 1-1/2".
The small set is in a plastic case with nubs to hold things in place. The big set is in foam in a cardboard box. A larger-than-expected box, but the handle is bigger than expected, too. I need to find a case of some kind for it, hopefully a little smaller than the box it came in. Or the same size would be ok, if I could also work in the small set. We'll see.
Worked on the cartridge pouch yesterday, at this point there's one side of one side piece to sew on (which you can't really see here), and the tab to hold the outer flap shut.
I hadn't quite realized how much work there is in one of these, as Ron had done all the marking, stitching holes, and assembly on the ones we'd made previously. That would be why we charge $90 for them.
I tried to order more of the black buckles (which hold the shoulder strap) that you can kind of see on the bottom of the cartridge pouch yesterday. They're replicas of ones from the Civil War, an are nice, but the supplier is out of them either again or still.
The pattern calls for 3/4" buckles, and the ones I used on this pouch were 7/8", as I'd decided the 1/8" was Plenty Close Enough, Thanks. I can get non-replica black roller buckles in 1" from one of my more usual suppliers, and I suspect the only significant difference is the weight of the tongue. I was looking at pictures yesterday, and I think I can
justify, at least to myself, going to 1" buckles. In fact, 3/4" looks like it would be on the small side. I just haven't quite convinced myself to do it. Maybe I'll exercise my Google-Fu one more time before I decide.
If nothing else, it would distract me from the fact that I've been fasting since 8:30-ish this morning, until after an ultrasound at 4:15 this afternoon. Yes, I know, that's not really a very long time, but OTOH, low blood sugar makes me cranky. And I have a Windycon meeting tonight. Yes, Ron is making sure I get fed between the ultrasound and the meeting. He doesn't want me arrested for murder . . .
Didn't quite happen. The grommets and grommet sets I ordered hadn't arrived (not entirely surprisingly), so I didn't get as far as poking at the bandolier. I was going to pick up drill bits Friday evening for the bottle project, but on-line shopping meant that I Ron picked them up for me, and for various reasons we didn't get to doing anything with them Saturday morning.
Saturday afternoon we went to a friend's, where she and Ron worked on the MuseCon website, and I worked on a cartridge pouch.Sunday I worked on the cartridge pouch some more, and Ron had fun with stained glass.
Yesterday Ron had picked up the rest of the narrow gridwall we'd ordered, which had come in to the supplier much earlier than I expected (not that I'm complaining, I thought they wouldn't be in until after Maneki Neko Con). Now we have a recycling wheelie bin full of tall cardboard boxes, and front entry full of of tables and gridwall.
And yesterday the self-centering punches I ordered (and ordered and ordered) last week had arrived. The small set starts at 1/4" and goes up to 1" in diameter. The set with the big red handle goes from 1-1/8" up to 1-1/2".
The small set is in a plastic case with nubs to hold things in place. The big set is in foam in a cardboard box. A larger-than-expected box, but the handle is bigger than expected, too. I need to find a case of some kind for it, hopefully a little smaller than the box it came in. Or the same size would be ok, if I could also work in the small set. We'll see.
Worked on the cartridge pouch yesterday, at this point there's one side of one side piece to sew on (which you can't really see here), and the tab to hold the outer flap shut.
I tried to order more of the black buckles (which hold the shoulder strap) that you can kind of see on the bottom of the cartridge pouch yesterday. They're replicas of ones from the Civil War, an are nice, but the supplier is out of them either again or still.
The pattern calls for 3/4" buckles, and the ones I used on this pouch were 7/8", as I'd decided the 1/8" was Plenty Close Enough, Thanks. I can get non-replica black roller buckles in 1" from one of my more usual suppliers, and I suspect the only significant difference is the weight of the tongue. I was looking at pictures yesterday, and I think I can
justify, at least to myself, going to 1" buckles. In fact, 3/4" looks like it would be on the small side. I just haven't quite convinced myself to do it. Maybe I'll exercise my Google-Fu one more time before I decide.
If nothing else, it would distract me from the fact that I've been fasting since 8:30-ish this morning, until after an ultrasound at 4:15 this afternoon. Yes, I know, that's not really a very long time, but OTOH, low blood sugar makes me cranky. And I have a Windycon meeting tonight. Yes, Ron is making sure I get fed between the ultrasound and the meeting. He doesn't want me arrested for murder . . .
Friday, September 6, 2013
Potion Vials
I have made another new thing - a prototype holder for potion vials (aka test tubes):
Unlike the potion bottles, this prototype has/had some issues.
It started out with just the upper strap, and the bottom shelf was supposed to be a pocket. Unfortunately, I made the pocket too shallow, and it flops open. Also, if the back flexes at all, the tubes can go right on past the shelf, and they have no lip to catch on the upper loop.
The last loop on the left of the lower strap is not in line with the rest of that strap. Not sure what happened there.
The loops are snug enough that the whole lower pocket/shelf idea is probably unnecessary, and I'll probably just go with two sets of loops. I like the look of the wider upper one, I'll probably go with that. And the corners will probably end up rounded off. Not sure if I want to stick with rivets for the belt loops, or go with sewing.
Crunching the numbers, a piece like this for holding 5 vials would probably be $15. The test tubes, with nice black rubber stoppers, would be $1 each, either for the colored ones or for clear ones. Smaller tubes (not shown) would be $0.75, again with stoppers.
I used the slightly frosted translucent tubes for test-fitting, as they were kind of an "oops" purchase - I meant to get the transparent ones, but they weren't worth the cost/bother of sending back. Debating if I want to knock some off the price for those, which would come with the plastic stoppers shown for the larger sizes. I'm thinking $0.80 for the larger size, and $0.60 for the smaller, which I don't have stoppers for.
The next new project is a holder for small potion bottles - I have some very pretty small cobalt blue glass bottles with screw caps (root root root . . . yes, I do have a picture):
These are 2-ounce bottles, about an inch and a half in diameter. (The larger clear glass square bottles I did over the weekend are 7 ounce and the spherical and cylindrical ones are 8.5 ounce).
I think for the little cobalt blue bottles will have one strap, a bottom socket, and either a belt loop or a belt clip - I'm inclined toward the belt clip just for something different.
Robin and I have been consulting on how to do a bottom socket, probably stopping at a woodworking store on the way home tonight as part of that project. Ron also offered input.
Getting out the test tubes stimulated Robin's creativity, he was coming up with a design for a pouch to hold his share of the test tube stash. I think I understand what he's planning, but this morning I asked him to cut the parts out of paper. Not that his drawings aren't clear, but I'd just be more comfortable seeing a mock-up. Contra-wise, he'd probably have similar issues visualizing from one of my drawings: your own drawings are always easier to understand that someone else's.
Yesterday I tried for the third time to order a large set of self-centering punches, as the place I ordered from Wednesday night does not actually have them in stock, and I wouldn't get them for 4-6 weeks. I'm not entirely confident in this place, as I still don't have an e-mail confirmation/tracking number, over 24 hours after my phone order. I'll be calling them this afternoon to see what's up. If this place fails I'll probably suck it up and pay more than I want to/what the punches were going for a few months ago.
OTOH, I do have the invoice for the grommets and grommet sets I ordered yesterday from one of my usual suppliers. Those are for possible use in a bandolier project. More natter about that later, I think I've gone on long enough at this point.
Unlike the potion bottles, this prototype has/had some issues.
It started out with just the upper strap, and the bottom shelf was supposed to be a pocket. Unfortunately, I made the pocket too shallow, and it flops open. Also, if the back flexes at all, the tubes can go right on past the shelf, and they have no lip to catch on the upper loop.
The last loop on the left of the lower strap is not in line with the rest of that strap. Not sure what happened there.
The loops are snug enough that the whole lower pocket/shelf idea is probably unnecessary, and I'll probably just go with two sets of loops. I like the look of the wider upper one, I'll probably go with that. And the corners will probably end up rounded off. Not sure if I want to stick with rivets for the belt loops, or go with sewing.
Crunching the numbers, a piece like this for holding 5 vials would probably be $15. The test tubes, with nice black rubber stoppers, would be $1 each, either for the colored ones or for clear ones. Smaller tubes (not shown) would be $0.75, again with stoppers.
I used the slightly frosted translucent tubes for test-fitting, as they were kind of an "oops" purchase - I meant to get the transparent ones, but they weren't worth the cost/bother of sending back. Debating if I want to knock some off the price for those, which would come with the plastic stoppers shown for the larger sizes. I'm thinking $0.80 for the larger size, and $0.60 for the smaller, which I don't have stoppers for.
The next new project is a holder for small potion bottles - I have some very pretty small cobalt blue glass bottles with screw caps (root root root . . . yes, I do have a picture):
I think for the little cobalt blue bottles will have one strap, a bottom socket, and either a belt loop or a belt clip - I'm inclined toward the belt clip just for something different.
Robin and I have been consulting on how to do a bottom socket, probably stopping at a woodworking store on the way home tonight as part of that project. Ron also offered input.
Getting out the test tubes stimulated Robin's creativity, he was coming up with a design for a pouch to hold his share of the test tube stash. I think I understand what he's planning, but this morning I asked him to cut the parts out of paper. Not that his drawings aren't clear, but I'd just be more comfortable seeing a mock-up. Contra-wise, he'd probably have similar issues visualizing from one of my drawings: your own drawings are always easier to understand that someone else's.
Yesterday I tried for the third time to order a large set of self-centering punches, as the place I ordered from Wednesday night does not actually have them in stock, and I wouldn't get them for 4-6 weeks. I'm not entirely confident in this place, as I still don't have an e-mail confirmation/tracking number, over 24 hours after my phone order. I'll be calling them this afternoon to see what's up. If this place fails I'll probably suck it up and pay more than I want to/what the punches were going for a few months ago.
OTOH, I do have the invoice for the grommets and grommet sets I ordered yesterday from one of my usual suppliers. Those are for possible use in a bandolier project. More natter about that later, I think I've gone on long enough at this point.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
More Bottles
I made another seven potion bottles yesterday: All three shapes in golden brown, and spheres and cylinders in red brown and chocolate brown. I've got three more bottles, one of each shape left, I'm thinking of doing them with embossed straps around the bodies.
This set of bottles went fairly quickly, even though laying out the parts is a little fussy. If they sell well I need to make templates for the various parts, which would speed up layout.
The bottles don't stand up nicely, because of the lump created where all the straps come together on the bottom. I may switch to attaching each strap separately to a bottom piece, so they'll sit better on a table. This set I'll probably display hanging, so their slightly drunken-looking leaning doesn't detract, since they are made to wear on a belt.
Interestingly, although the square bottle is the shortest of the lot, that fourth side/strap means that its also the most expensive. Looks like prices will be $15 for the spherical bottle, $16 for the cylinder, and $17 for the square.
Did some shopping today: replacing a couple of undersized end punches that I've been grumbling about for several years, blades for my rotary cutter (rusted after Saturday night's shower), self-centering punches so I can make backing discs for conchos, a new on-off switch for the sewing machine, and some other odds and ends.
I've been mulling over how to do cartridge loops or whatever for test tubes, but haven't decided on anything yet. They don't have an upper lip, so whatever I do has to have a provision to keep them from falling/being pushed all the way through. I've also had ideas for a cartridge box type arrangement, which would be a larger/more expensive option. Machine-sewing would be nice, or rivets.
This set of bottles went fairly quickly, even though laying out the parts is a little fussy. If they sell well I need to make templates for the various parts, which would speed up layout.
The bottles don't stand up nicely, because of the lump created where all the straps come together on the bottom. I may switch to attaching each strap separately to a bottom piece, so they'll sit better on a table. This set I'll probably display hanging, so their slightly drunken-looking leaning doesn't detract, since they are made to wear on a belt.
Interestingly, although the square bottle is the shortest of the lot, that fourth side/strap means that its also the most expensive. Looks like prices will be $15 for the spherical bottle, $16 for the cylinder, and $17 for the square.
Did some shopping today: replacing a couple of undersized end punches that I've been grumbling about for several years, blades for my rotary cutter (rusted after Saturday night's shower), self-centering punches so I can make backing discs for conchos, a new on-off switch for the sewing machine, and some other odds and ends.
I've been mulling over how to do cartridge loops or whatever for test tubes, but haven't decided on anything yet. They don't have an upper lip, so whatever I do has to have a provision to keep them from falling/being pushed all the way through. I've also had ideas for a cartridge box type arrangement, which would be a larger/more expensive option. Machine-sewing would be nice, or rivets.
Monday, September 2, 2013
New Things Made!
Saturday morning, with much help from Robin, I got the dining room cleaned! In the process, I made a bigger mess out of it, which spilled out into the kitchen. Mid-way through the process I had to get moral support from Ron, who pointed out that making a bigger mess is normal for cleaning up in here.
Slightly surprised that my missing square hasn't shown up yet. The new one was less than $5, so I wouldn't have bothered taking it back even if the old one had greeted us at the door. Maybe its waiting to see if the new one rusts after being poured on last night - I forgot to shut the dining room window when I was done working for the night, and the storm last night was blowing right in. OTOH, the new square is painted, so so I don't expect it to be an issue (and I dried it off).
Sunday morning I put a bunch of tools and hardware away that I'd piled up while cleaning. That wasn't too big a job, and didn't take too long.
Then I started rooting through the big bag of straps. First I pulled some that are the right width for belt loops, and too short for binding for belt satchels, etc. Those are set aside for use next time I need to make a batch of belt loops.
Then I pulled out straps to make "Potion Bottles". Sorting, measuring, note-taking, measuring, note-taking, measuring, note-taking, splitting leather down, going out to Menard's to replace my square, measuring, cutting, measuring, later, I had the first one made. At first I thought I'd gotten the spacing on one thing wrong, but once I finished it, we decided I'd gotten it right. Then I made two more:
I did them with black leather because, as Ron pointed out, black sells.
I did get the length of one piece wrong - the collars that go around the neck of the bottle. The length I originally meant to cut it would have been too short to sew it up easily, but on the first bottle I mis-cut it long, and went with it from there on. I also meant to have the seam on the collar on the spherical bottle back by the belt loop like the others, but that's minor.
The new-ish press makes setting rivets very easy (not that it was difficult before), and much quieter.
Next up, doing some more bottles. I'm going to do a set in one or more shades of brown, then I'm thinking of having Ron emboss and dye/antique the straps for another pass. Not sure about doing the collars. I'll probably do the belt loops, too, as that just means doing a bit more of a long strap.
Slightly surprised that my missing square hasn't shown up yet. The new one was less than $5, so I wouldn't have bothered taking it back even if the old one had greeted us at the door. Maybe its waiting to see if the new one rusts after being poured on last night - I forgot to shut the dining room window when I was done working for the night, and the storm last night was blowing right in. OTOH, the new square is painted, so so I don't expect it to be an issue (and I dried it off).
Friday, August 30, 2013
Shopping!
Toshiba is nice, and gives Ron both Friday and Monday off for Labor day. This morning I realized that this means he could go down to Specialty Store Services in DesPlaines and get the additional gridwall we've been discussing since ACen. They don't necessarily have the best prices, but we don't have to pay shipping, which would probably be extra-expensive since it would be to a residential address. I didn't sit down and run the numbers exactly last time I was shopping for gridwall, but I'm pretty sure the price differential will wash out with shipping from the cheaper suppliers.
I opened up the bank account to confirm that we could afford to buy gridwall today, blinked a couple times, and told Ron that it would be no problem. As the result of negotiations between the State and the unions, I'd gotten a couple deposits that will cover it.
We went through the on-line catalog, and decided on another four 2' x 6' sections of gridwall, a dozen 1' x 5' sections (1' x 6' doesn't seem to be available), a couple waterfall hooks, some corner shelves, scanner hooks, and acrylic brochure displays. We usually run out of gridwall before we run out of the 2' wide shelves we use, so we didn't order any more.
That brings us up to 12 pieces of 2' x 6' gridwall, for a total of 24 linear feet if we stretched it out (to display belts we use quarter-circle hangrails). With the added 1' wide gridwall, I'm wondering if we can reduce the number of tables we use.
The plan is that the 1' gridwall will stick out from the main 2' gridwall walls, like so:
___|___|___|___
Then, the hooks go on the 1' sections, and are long enough that they can hold a belt pouch through both loops. We got "scanner hooks", which have a secondary hook, in the hope that they'll keep the pouches from rotating too much. We'll probably need more hooks than we got today, but we're not sure which type will work best, and hooks are small enough to ship economically.
The corner shelves are triangular sections of gridwall that hook into the corner formed by two pieces of 2' gridwall.
The brochure displays are for MuseCon flyers. Because we're like that. Now I need to make some 2014 flyers before Maneki Neko Con.
Unfortunately, we couldn't get all the 1' gridwall we planned on, only three sections. More should be available some time next month. It would be really nice if we could get it by Maneki Neko Con, so we can give everything a good test-run before the bigger events next year (Military History Fest, ACen), but if it doesn't it doesn't.
This morning was cool enough that I was thinking maybe I could get in and start working on the dining room in the mornings this weekend. I'm feeling the bug to get things made, with an event coming up. Unfortunately, nobody can clean that room for me, at most Ron or Robin can move stuff around as I direct. We'll see if it actually happens or not.
In other shopping news, I just remembered, the 300 yards of cotton twill tape I ordered for tails arrived a couple days ago. Each roll (100 yard roll each of black, off-white, and white) is about 3/4" thick by maybe 9" in diameter. They won't sit on the shelf where I've been keeping the few yards I got from the local fabric store rolled up on an old lace spool, but they won't be a problem to store. I had no idea how big they'd be, and was a little worried.
I opened up the bank account to confirm that we could afford to buy gridwall today, blinked a couple times, and told Ron that it would be no problem. As the result of negotiations between the State and the unions, I'd gotten a couple deposits that will cover it.
We went through the on-line catalog, and decided on another four 2' x 6' sections of gridwall, a dozen 1' x 5' sections (1' x 6' doesn't seem to be available), a couple waterfall hooks, some corner shelves, scanner hooks, and acrylic brochure displays. We usually run out of gridwall before we run out of the 2' wide shelves we use, so we didn't order any more.
That brings us up to 12 pieces of 2' x 6' gridwall, for a total of 24 linear feet if we stretched it out (to display belts we use quarter-circle hangrails). With the added 1' wide gridwall, I'm wondering if we can reduce the number of tables we use.
The plan is that the 1' gridwall will stick out from the main 2' gridwall walls, like so:
___|___|___|___
Then, the hooks go on the 1' sections, and are long enough that they can hold a belt pouch through both loops. We got "scanner hooks", which have a secondary hook, in the hope that they'll keep the pouches from rotating too much. We'll probably need more hooks than we got today, but we're not sure which type will work best, and hooks are small enough to ship economically.
The corner shelves are triangular sections of gridwall that hook into the corner formed by two pieces of 2' gridwall.
The brochure displays are for MuseCon flyers. Because we're like that. Now I need to make some 2014 flyers before Maneki Neko Con.
Unfortunately, we couldn't get all the 1' gridwall we planned on, only three sections. More should be available some time next month. It would be really nice if we could get it by Maneki Neko Con, so we can give everything a good test-run before the bigger events next year (Military History Fest, ACen), but if it doesn't it doesn't.
This morning was cool enough that I was thinking maybe I could get in and start working on the dining room in the mornings this weekend. I'm feeling the bug to get things made, with an event coming up. Unfortunately, nobody can clean that room for me, at most Ron or Robin can move stuff around as I direct. We'll see if it actually happens or not.
In other shopping news, I just remembered, the 300 yards of cotton twill tape I ordered for tails arrived a couple days ago. Each roll (100 yard roll each of black, off-white, and white) is about 3/4" thick by maybe 9" in diameter. They won't sit on the shelf where I've been keeping the few yards I got from the local fabric store rolled up on an old lace spool, but they won't be a problem to store. I had no idea how big they'd be, and was a little worried.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Schedule and I am Opinionated
Fox Hunt, an SCA event, is coming up on September 7th. Its at Plowman's Park in Big Rock, which is a nice site and not too far away. We'd probably do well at it. But my calendar looks like an ink explosion (although removing Robin's class schedule from it helps), particularly the weeks bracketing Fox Hunt. So we're not going. Ron says I'm not a wimp.
Got the Windycon progress report uploaded to the printer Sunday night, once the backup sucking CPU cycles finished. There was some communications flail in some related issues, but I think it should be going out Real Soon Now. Which, carp carp carp, reminds me that I never sent the text to the webmaster to make a web page version. Done. And the first/main deadline for program book content is careening at us (13 Sept.).
Its going to be warm enough this weekend that I don't forsee getting the dining room clean. I will, however, be starting the ACen exhibitor registration process on Sunday. Two spaces! Which will cost more than one space this year (but not double - time-tiered pricing), but less than we grossed this year. I think it'll be worth it. I hope. No, I think. We waffled, but I have capital-D Decided.
But on to the real point of my post today, which I can't seem to reduce down to one pithy bit.
This morning I was looking at a fairly well known crafty/creativity blog, where the blogger posted pictures of a Disney-character-themed steampunk outfit, including a belt pouch she'd made and antiqued. In part by toasting it in the oven.
I did not, quite, scream out loud. I did leave what I hope was a polite non-critical comment as to why this is not a good method for something like a belt pouch (toasting=brittle leather), and suggested that there are many sources out there for other techniques. (If you suspect you know which blog, mine comment is in the first 40, and is my Blogger ID, which is what I post under here).
Now, the blogger in question has experienced a lot of the crap that well-known female bloggers are wont to get, as well as personal issues, so I didn't want to be harsh in my comment, and didn't want to leave a trackback to here, which is why there's no link, as her work isn't really what I apparently want to vent about. Her commentariat seems to be very much of the rah-rah-everything-ish-great variety, which makes it just a little more challenging to not sound like a trollish jerk.
The blogger is, IIRC, in her 20s, maybe early 30s. I suspect that this is relevant. She and I may be technically of the same generation, but I think she's enough younger than me to really not have experienced the pre-Google world.
Now, the blogger in question is pretty new to leatherworking. She's also very skilled at some arts/crafts. She does some things that are amazing. She may have applied the technique of aging a piece be toasting it in the oven from some other field. But I have this niggling suspicion that she got the idea from the web.
The web has many wonderful wonderful things on it. It also has deep festering sewers of stupidity. There certainly have been many many books printed that are festering sewers of stupidity, but OTOH, art/craft technique books, especially the leatherworking ones, are usually decent. Publishers of leatherworking books have often been tools/materials suppliers, and an unhappy customer is a lost customer, and lost business.
The internet is wide-open wild wild west territory. Any opinionated goob can put up a blog focused on leatherworking, and if their work looks decent and they write with some basic skill, there's no editor to do the whole editorial input thing like you (HOPEFULLY) get in a book.
And the internet seems to be taking over the instructional market in a big way. I've bought a lot electronic knitting patterns than paper ones in the last year. We've started buying leatherworking books as PDFs that we own as paper copies - Tandy has created the Leathercraft Library with scanned copies of a lot of their books.
But those PDFs cost money, and the other thing that seems to have grown with the rise of internet craft instruction is the drive for freeeeeee information (which is another rant for another day).
The problem is compounded in leatherworking when people ignore books that are older - a lot of the basic leatherworking books we use are 20+ years old. Yeah, they look dated, but the techniques are solid. Hand-stitching, for example, has been done pretty much the same way for centuries, substituting metal needles for boar bristles, and adding in the convenience of pre-waxed thread.
There's several leatherworking books on the market currently that I haven't bought because there's no new techniques in them, and all the example projects make me say "ewww" ("fashionable" is not a big word in my vocabulary, guilty guilty guilty). OTOH, I have some books from, IIRC, the 1920s and earlier that include chemical recipes that make me cringe. So no, old does not automatically mean good, either. But if you substitute in modern dyes and finishes, the basic techniques are valid.
I guess my point is that you have to be review internet sources with a more critical mind, because the author may be talking out of their hat, or neglecting to tell you that X is great in Y situation, but has A and B as site effects, because there's no editor to question them. And remember that the internet doesn't hold all the world's knowledge. Those (old) books of techniques? Still useful. They didn't suddenly go out of date just because they aren't on-line.
Got the Windycon progress report uploaded to the printer Sunday night, once the backup sucking CPU cycles finished. There was some communications flail in some related issues, but I think it should be going out Real Soon Now. Which, carp carp carp, reminds me that I never sent the text to the webmaster to make a web page version. Done. And the first/main deadline for program book content is careening at us (13 Sept.).
Its going to be warm enough this weekend that I don't forsee getting the dining room clean. I will, however, be starting the ACen exhibitor registration process on Sunday. Two spaces! Which will cost more than one space this year (but not double - time-tiered pricing), but less than we grossed this year. I think it'll be worth it. I hope. No, I think. We waffled, but I have capital-D Decided.
But on to the real point of my post today, which I can't seem to reduce down to one pithy bit.
This morning I was looking at a fairly well known crafty/creativity blog, where the blogger posted pictures of a Disney-character-themed steampunk outfit, including a belt pouch she'd made and antiqued. In part by toasting it in the oven.
I did not, quite, scream out loud. I did leave what I hope was a polite non-critical comment as to why this is not a good method for something like a belt pouch (toasting=brittle leather), and suggested that there are many sources out there for other techniques. (If you suspect you know which blog, mine comment is in the first 40, and is my Blogger ID, which is what I post under here).
Now, the blogger in question has experienced a lot of the crap that well-known female bloggers are wont to get, as well as personal issues, so I didn't want to be harsh in my comment, and didn't want to leave a trackback to here, which is why there's no link, as her work isn't really what I apparently want to vent about. Her commentariat seems to be very much of the rah-rah-everything-ish-great variety, which makes it just a little more challenging to not sound like a trollish jerk.
The blogger is, IIRC, in her 20s, maybe early 30s. I suspect that this is relevant. She and I may be technically of the same generation, but I think she's enough younger than me to really not have experienced the pre-Google world.
Now, the blogger in question is pretty new to leatherworking. She's also very skilled at some arts/crafts. She does some things that are amazing. She may have applied the technique of aging a piece be toasting it in the oven from some other field. But I have this niggling suspicion that she got the idea from the web.
The web has many wonderful wonderful things on it. It also has deep festering sewers of stupidity. There certainly have been many many books printed that are festering sewers of stupidity, but OTOH, art/craft technique books, especially the leatherworking ones, are usually decent. Publishers of leatherworking books have often been tools/materials suppliers, and an unhappy customer is a lost customer, and lost business.
The internet is wide-open wild wild west territory. Any opinionated goob can put up a blog focused on leatherworking, and if their work looks decent and they write with some basic skill, there's no editor to do the whole editorial input thing like you (HOPEFULLY) get in a book.
And the internet seems to be taking over the instructional market in a big way. I've bought a lot electronic knitting patterns than paper ones in the last year. We've started buying leatherworking books as PDFs that we own as paper copies - Tandy has created the Leathercraft Library with scanned copies of a lot of their books.
But those PDFs cost money, and the other thing that seems to have grown with the rise of internet craft instruction is the drive for freeeeeee information (which is another rant for another day).
The problem is compounded in leatherworking when people ignore books that are older - a lot of the basic leatherworking books we use are 20+ years old. Yeah, they look dated, but the techniques are solid. Hand-stitching, for example, has been done pretty much the same way for centuries, substituting metal needles for boar bristles, and adding in the convenience of pre-waxed thread.
There's several leatherworking books on the market currently that I haven't bought because there's no new techniques in them, and all the example projects make me say "ewww" ("fashionable" is not a big word in my vocabulary, guilty guilty guilty). OTOH, I have some books from, IIRC, the 1920s and earlier that include chemical recipes that make me cringe. So no, old does not automatically mean good, either. But if you substitute in modern dyes and finishes, the basic techniques are valid.
I guess my point is that you have to be review internet sources with a more critical mind, because the author may be talking out of their hat, or neglecting to tell you that X is great in Y situation, but has A and B as site effects, because there's no editor to question them. And remember that the internet doesn't hold all the world's knowledge. Those (old) books of techniques? Still useful. They didn't suddenly go out of date just because they aren't on-line.
Monday, August 26, 2013
More Tails
I still haven't cleaned the work room. Saturday was sucked up by MuseCon and Windycon business, and yesterday was too warm.
Home today because of having the truck in the shop. I've been alternating between working on knitting
and sewing swivels on tails. I've gotten 8 out of a dozen tails done.
And had both dogs snuggling at different times. Between the tails and
the dogs I'm covered in fur. Pippin has been very good about the tails -
he's sniffed, and he has to at least turn and look every time I open
the bin, but hasn't done any more than that.
Today is supposed to be hotter than yesterday, so cleaning is not going to get done today, either.
(if you read my personal blog, I did indeed copy and paste a good chunk of this post from it)
Monday, August 19, 2013
Monday Again?
Still haven't cleaned the work/dining room.
Got the new bins for the Thing, but still have not re-packed the Thing.
Ordered a dozen more tails, which brought us up to two dozen needing swivels. Saturday I sewed swivels onto a half-dozen, sent one home with Wash, and yesterday I did another half-dozen. This is progress - I'm working on something! And I think I'm getting faster at sewing swivels onto tails.
Thinking of ordering another batch of tails. The most recent batch were all pale, we could use some more darker ones.
Windycon publications work is ramping up. Saturday and/or Sunday I'll be creating a progress report, and then in a couple-three weeks is the first program book deadline.
In scheduling considerations, I've pretty much decided that we'll be doing Boar's Head in December, and not a brand-shiny-new anime con that's being held in Lisle. They're on consecutive weekends, so doing both would be too much. The convention recently had some identity issues that I'm concerned would hurt their projected attendance, and is pricey. Boar's Head, OTOH, is usually good, and we haven't done an SCA event in a while. So we'll stick with the known quantity.
Got the new bins for the Thing, but still have not re-packed the Thing.
Ordered a dozen more tails, which brought us up to two dozen needing swivels. Saturday I sewed swivels onto a half-dozen, sent one home with Wash, and yesterday I did another half-dozen. This is progress - I'm working on something! And I think I'm getting faster at sewing swivels onto tails.
Thinking of ordering another batch of tails. The most recent batch were all pale, we could use some more darker ones.
Windycon publications work is ramping up. Saturday and/or Sunday I'll be creating a progress report, and then in a couple-three weeks is the first program book deadline.
In scheduling considerations, I've pretty much decided that we'll be doing Boar's Head in December, and not a brand-shiny-new anime con that's being held in Lisle. They're on consecutive weekends, so doing both would be too much. The convention recently had some identity issues that I'm concerned would hurt their projected attendance, and is pricey. Boar's Head, OTOH, is usually good, and we haven't done an SCA event in a while. So we'll stick with the known quantity.
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
MuseCon Report
I survived MuseCon. I didn't kill anybody. Yes, that was an accomplishment.
I did get signage done. I got signage printed. Then I got some more things printed. And then some more things printed. The week or two before MuseCon I always end up making multiple trips to Kinko's. Fortunately, there's an office on a not-unreasonable route between home and work.
One mistake I did make was making and printing errata sheets for the book on Tuesday. Silly person. Friday morning I was making new ones. Note to self, don't try that again - MuseCon has a printer/copier, make the sheets up, and bring the PDF for Registration to run off.
One thing I did right was to give Registration a thumb drive with PDFs of all the documents I thought they might want to print, so they wouldn't have to chase me down. I'm not sure if they used any besides the correction sheet and the one-sheet schedule grid, but they had access to them.
And I actually got leatherworking done! I started a pair of mittens Friday night, but realized that if I was going to be running leather sewing as an Open Build (drop-in workshop), I should probably be actually mucking about with leather so people could see that I was the person to talk to about it. I'd brought the percussion cap pouches I'd started back in, what, February? I finished the sewing on two and have a third at least tacked together (all had already had belt loops sewn on).
We'd emptied out one of the Things and packed most of our stuff in it - kits and tools for leather sewing (2 sizes of key fobs, book covers, belt pouches), leatherwork for youth (mystery braid bracelets and pre-punched coin pouch kits), Ron's leather tooling class, which meant slabs of granite and *all* of his tooling tools, and paints, miniatures, etc. for Robin's painting wargaming miniatures Open Build. Plus some personal stuff. We still ended up with a suitcase and ukuleles not in the Thing, but it made getting in and out a lot easier. I think we'll be doing that again next year.
Not sure if I'm doing leather sewing again next year. If so, I'll definitely be dropping, re-designing, or doing some pre-assembly on the belt pouch, as doing the belt loop then the gusset makes it take too much time. I had two students who didn't get to finish. One is GT offspring, and had all the hole marking done on the gusset, so I sent him home with an awl, needles, and thread to finish on his own. The other had done some lacing, so he decided he'd take his pouch home and lace the gusset on.
Next year I am going to do a costuming class - Japanese-style costuming. I'm calling it costuming so I can tell any authenticity fascists to stuff it. My plan at this point is to do a scheduled session on Friday talking about the various garments and basic layout and construction, and then do an Open Build for doll clothes version of the garb we wear (and get compliments on) to events.
Looking at hiring a cleaning service at home, because the house is *still* a mess from ACen prep. and I'm sick and tired of it, but I'm not getting much done about it. Cleaning Fairies (as in magical beings that clean house when you're not looking) don't put crap away, but would help. And we actually got *raises* at the day job. No, the state is still broke, but the unions bludgeoned the state into giving us something for cost of living. Together with some other changes in what goes into and comes out of my paycheck, I'm pretty sure I'm going to hire Cleaning Fairies. But not for my workroom, because I don't want to scare them to death, and much of the time I wouldn't them messing about in there anyway.
On that vein, my plan for this coming weekend is some housecleaning. Because even if we do hire Cleaning Fairies, e have to put our own carp away, and oh great Flying Spaghetti Monster, my workroom is a complete disaster, and unusable as is. And I think I'm finally ready to get back to work. And maybe we can actually record sales/inventory from ACen, because no, we haven't done that yet, ad way too overdue. Yes, I am embarrassed to admit that.
Provided I don't just sleep all weekend. I'm not up to this staying-up-late-at-convention thing any more. Gronk, I am a dinosaur, gronk gronk. I was thinking about going home early and taking a nap, but at some point a repair person should, hopefully, be coming out to fix the front windshield on the Kia (stone chipped/cracked yesterday AM).
Must remember to stop at the Container Store this afternoon and get two new smaller vaguely milk-crate-like bins to replace a large one currently in use in one of the Things - it's too easy to over-pack, and then the sides bow out, and the other bins don't stack on top of it nicely. Ron has declared that It Will Be Replaced, and since we're re-packing tonight, now's the time to do it.
Monday, July 22, 2013
Odds and Ends and Pictures
Sent off our vendor information for Maneki Neko Con 2, which is the anime convention run by the Anime club at Prairie State University, in Chicago Heights. We did well enough last year that we'll do it again. We'll be there Friday afternoon/evening and Saturday. Vendors can also set up on Thursday for faculty/staff/students/general public, but that would mean another day off, and I think my August-September may be busy enough as is.
This means I really should get back to making leather stuff. Real soon now. Yeah, I should.
Stopped at Rockler yesterday. Robin successfully resisted anything, Ron had a minor fail. coming home with several blanks and some pencil kits. I got a new mechanical pencil out of it - the wood is stabilized spalted tamarind. "Stabilized" means its been soaked, via pressure (probably vacumn) in a resin. Spalted wood has been discolored by fungi, which also weakens it, but it can be pretty, and stabilizing it fixes the weakness issues. Here's the new pencil (bottom), along with my purpleheart pen (top):
Started signage for MuseCon, got all the room signs done, I thought, on Saturday, then went back on Sunday and added "MuseCon" and the MuseCon logo to them (which wasn't too big a job). Still need to make a few more signs, will probably start on that again tomorrow - I've finally accepted that I don't really accomplish things Monday night, so not planning to do things on Mondays means less frustration with myself.
If you go back and look at older posts, you may notice pictures have vanished. I went through and sorted almost 200 pictures from Picasa into folders, which warning messages say breaks links to them. I can live with that. I can re-link (if I can remember what a picture was), on request.
On the personal/posting pictures side of things, I have been knitting.
Friday night I did the last couple rows of ribbing and cast off the socks I was working on. Lorna's Laces Solemate, color is "Flames". The Lorna's Laces website is, btw, craptastic, featuring an excess of stupid flash tricks, so I can't just link to the description of that yarn. Grumble. Knit toe-up, with gussets and a short-row heel.
Friday I also started a pair of mittens, using the assorted mini skeins of blues and purples I got at the fiber fest recently, and some fingering-weight sheep's-white Blue-Faced Leicester yarn I got to go with it. The yarn is from a Wool2Dye4, who sells white yarn for dyers, usually in bundles of 10 skeins. However, they have the "Secret Stash", where they sell odd and ends from shipments/mill runs. I got two 438-yard skeins (plenty for a pair of socks from each skein( of their BFL 4-socking for $17.40 (plus shipping), which is not bad at all, as sock yarn goes.
The wave pattern on the right is the back of the hand, the more simple geometric on the left is the palm (which is one color repeat shorter in the picture). The last repeat of the waves is a verigated blue. The top wave is dark purple, the two medium purples are different shades. I need to darn in ends again, before the number gets too large - that's the problem with switching colors, more ends to darn in.
The wave pattern is a pain. Here's the chart I've madet for the mittens:
It takes seven vertical repeats before it starts at the same spot again. You can see it better from my chart, the white spaces form the same wave pattern as the color. The palm side pattern is much simpler, I only charted out the mitten tip and a little past to be sure I understood the repeat (and because I had space on the paper to go past the tip).
The kinda dirty and wrinkled spot is a muddy pawprint. Pippin came in with damp paws last night, decided Ron needed to play with him, and levitated onto Ron's chest, with a paw on my pattern.
Haven't quite decided what I'm going to do for the thumb, either pattern, color, or type of gusset. I'll decide when I get there, and start knitting the thumb. I'm working top-down, so when I get to the point where the thumb joins I take a break from the body, knit the thumb, then join it and keep going. I like top-down mittens because I can make the pattern come out nice at the top, without ending up with a mitten that's too long or too short. Charts done for knitting cuff-up work just fine for top-down, you just turn them over (or not, and just flip it in your head), and work increases instead of decreases and vice-versa.
This means I really should get back to making leather stuff. Real soon now. Yeah, I should.
Stopped at Rockler yesterday. Robin successfully resisted anything, Ron had a minor fail. coming home with several blanks and some pencil kits. I got a new mechanical pencil out of it - the wood is stabilized spalted tamarind. "Stabilized" means its been soaked, via pressure (probably vacumn) in a resin. Spalted wood has been discolored by fungi, which also weakens it, but it can be pretty, and stabilizing it fixes the weakness issues. Here's the new pencil (bottom), along with my purpleheart pen (top):
Started signage for MuseCon, got all the room signs done, I thought, on Saturday, then went back on Sunday and added "MuseCon" and the MuseCon logo to them (which wasn't too big a job). Still need to make a few more signs, will probably start on that again tomorrow - I've finally accepted that I don't really accomplish things Monday night, so not planning to do things on Mondays means less frustration with myself.
If you go back and look at older posts, you may notice pictures have vanished. I went through and sorted almost 200 pictures from Picasa into folders, which warning messages say breaks links to them. I can live with that. I can re-link (if I can remember what a picture was), on request.
On the personal/posting pictures side of things, I have been knitting.
Friday night I did the last couple rows of ribbing and cast off the socks I was working on. Lorna's Laces Solemate, color is "Flames". The Lorna's Laces website is, btw, craptastic, featuring an excess of stupid flash tricks, so I can't just link to the description of that yarn. Grumble. Knit toe-up, with gussets and a short-row heel.
Friday I also started a pair of mittens, using the assorted mini skeins of blues and purples I got at the fiber fest recently, and some fingering-weight sheep's-white Blue-Faced Leicester yarn I got to go with it. The yarn is from a Wool2Dye4, who sells white yarn for dyers, usually in bundles of 10 skeins. However, they have the "Secret Stash", where they sell odd and ends from shipments/mill runs. I got two 438-yard skeins (plenty for a pair of socks from each skein( of their BFL 4-socking for $17.40 (plus shipping), which is not bad at all, as sock yarn goes.
The wave pattern on the right is the back of the hand, the more simple geometric on the left is the palm (which is one color repeat shorter in the picture). The last repeat of the waves is a verigated blue. The top wave is dark purple, the two medium purples are different shades. I need to darn in ends again, before the number gets too large - that's the problem with switching colors, more ends to darn in.
The wave pattern is a pain. Here's the chart I've madet for the mittens:
It takes seven vertical repeats before it starts at the same spot again. You can see it better from my chart, the white spaces form the same wave pattern as the color. The palm side pattern is much simpler, I only charted out the mitten tip and a little past to be sure I understood the repeat (and because I had space on the paper to go past the tip).
The kinda dirty and wrinkled spot is a muddy pawprint. Pippin came in with damp paws last night, decided Ron needed to play with him, and levitated onto Ron's chest, with a paw on my pattern.
Haven't quite decided what I'm going to do for the thumb, either pattern, color, or type of gusset. I'll decide when I get there, and start knitting the thumb. I'm working top-down, so when I get to the point where the thumb joins I take a break from the body, knit the thumb, then join it and keep going. I like top-down mittens because I can make the pattern come out nice at the top, without ending up with a mitten that's too long or too short. Charts done for knitting cuff-up work just fine for top-down, you just turn them over (or not, and just flip it in your head), and work increases instead of decreases and vice-versa.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Graphic Design Accomplishments
Silly me, yesterday I said that I haven't done anything Otter Necessities-ish lately, even though I include graphic design stuff under the big heading of Otter-ish.
Last week I finished the Program Book Death March, and finished the book Thursday night. Almost a week early, yay me! OTOH, the person I've worked with for the last few years at the printer (CL Graphics, in Crystal Lake, IL - shameless plug) retired at the end of June, so I'm working with new (to-me) people, and we're also changing binding method, so I wanted plenty of lead time in case there were issues.
Ron's uploaded the book to the MuseCon web page, at the moment its the first link in the top of the page "A Few More Updates" box: www.musecon.org
The second link is for pre-ordering shirts, the deadline for that is Sunday night. (This message brought to you by Shameless Plugs-R-Us).
Last year we had 52 interior pages, which was more than optimal for saddle stitch (fold & staple) binding, but they made it work. This year I was pretty sure we were going to go over that on page count, so I also loosened up the layout a little, mostly in terms of line spacing. And then we added a whole 'nother room of programming, the blinkie guys added a couple/few new blinkies, and with one thing and another we're up to 64 interior pages.
So, the plan is for a spiral binding - a metal or plastic coil that looks like a stretched spring. Although the printer called yesterday, to ask if they could test-run a copy on a (new?) machine they were going to fire up last night, which might be able to saddle stitch the book. They also suggested slightly lighter paper as an option for saddle-stitching. I said they could go ahead and run a test copy, but budget-wise we're expecting to pay for a more expensive binding.
Saturday we started signage. We're "Nurturing Our Muses" this year, so I've been going with a gardening-ish theme, which none of the artwork I've been using for signage really fits. So, I went through my Dover book of flower, fruit, and vegetable seed packet images. and found a bunch that I liked and weren't going to be too hard to take the words off of. IIRC Ron had that done by lunchtime.
So far I've gotten signs made for Registration, Hospitality Suite, a list of optional supplies for the book-making class, and gotten all three days worth of signs made for the Lakeshore Ballroom. I do one 11"x17" sign per day for the programming rooms, and then just one sign each for Hospitality Suite and Reg.
In past years I've picked fonts that are similar to what was used on the original artwork, but the seed packets all use either a pretty basic serif or sans-serif font, so I've picked one similar display-size sans font and am using that on all of them. So instead I've been changing the color of the text to coordinate with the background images. Because I'm crazy that way...
And tonight I'm going to put together a book of old family photos for a relative's major-milestone birthday. The original plan was a scrapbook page (yes, that is the sound of me rolling my eyes), but on a quick pass through the not-really-old photos, I found 3 dozen strong candidates. Plus there's a couple more of the really old pictures of people I don't know who they were, but they have the Ohman family face that I want to include, as well as some fairly recent ones. So I'll still do a page for the scrapbook, but also a book of photos. Which I need to have done and in Michigan by Saturday. Procrastination FTW. I'm pretty sure the relation in question doesn't read this, so I'm safe nattering about it.
So, I have been busy with more than just knitting and fussing about Ron and Elrond.
Last week I finished the Program Book Death March, and finished the book Thursday night. Almost a week early, yay me! OTOH, the person I've worked with for the last few years at the printer (CL Graphics, in Crystal Lake, IL - shameless plug) retired at the end of June, so I'm working with new (to-me) people, and we're also changing binding method, so I wanted plenty of lead time in case there were issues.
Ron's uploaded the book to the MuseCon web page, at the moment its the first link in the top of the page "A Few More Updates" box: www.musecon.org
The second link is for pre-ordering shirts, the deadline for that is Sunday night. (This message brought to you by Shameless Plugs-R-Us).
Last year we had 52 interior pages, which was more than optimal for saddle stitch (fold & staple) binding, but they made it work. This year I was pretty sure we were going to go over that on page count, so I also loosened up the layout a little, mostly in terms of line spacing. And then we added a whole 'nother room of programming, the blinkie guys added a couple/few new blinkies, and with one thing and another we're up to 64 interior pages.
So, the plan is for a spiral binding - a metal or plastic coil that looks like a stretched spring. Although the printer called yesterday, to ask if they could test-run a copy on a (new?) machine they were going to fire up last night, which might be able to saddle stitch the book. They also suggested slightly lighter paper as an option for saddle-stitching. I said they could go ahead and run a test copy, but budget-wise we're expecting to pay for a more expensive binding.
Saturday we started signage. We're "Nurturing Our Muses" this year, so I've been going with a gardening-ish theme, which none of the artwork I've been using for signage really fits. So, I went through my Dover book of flower, fruit, and vegetable seed packet images. and found a bunch that I liked and weren't going to be too hard to take the words off of. IIRC Ron had that done by lunchtime.
So far I've gotten signs made for Registration, Hospitality Suite, a list of optional supplies for the book-making class, and gotten all three days worth of signs made for the Lakeshore Ballroom. I do one 11"x17" sign per day for the programming rooms, and then just one sign each for Hospitality Suite and Reg.
In past years I've picked fonts that are similar to what was used on the original artwork, but the seed packets all use either a pretty basic serif or sans-serif font, so I've picked one similar display-size sans font and am using that on all of them. So instead I've been changing the color of the text to coordinate with the background images. Because I'm crazy that way...
And tonight I'm going to put together a book of old family photos for a relative's major-milestone birthday. The original plan was a scrapbook page (yes, that is the sound of me rolling my eyes), but on a quick pass through the not-really-old photos, I found 3 dozen strong candidates. Plus there's a couple more of the really old pictures of people I don't know who they were, but they have the Ohman family face that I want to include, as well as some fairly recent ones. So I'll still do a page for the scrapbook, but also a book of photos. Which I need to have done and in Michigan by Saturday. Procrastination FTW. I'm pretty sure the relation in question doesn't read this, so I'm safe nattering about it.
So, I have been busy with more than just knitting and fussing about Ron and Elrond.
Monday, July 15, 2013
Pictures, Primarily Personal
Picasa Web Albums and WordPress no longer talk to each other, so I'm going to inflict pictures of recent knitting projects on this blog. Still nothing particularly business-ish to report, but at least I'm working on something again - for a while after the ACen prep binge I couldn't seem to work on anything.
Here's Elrond being opressed by a pair of cabled gloves I finished a little over a week ago:
I haven't blocked the gloves, which get pulled in by the cabling, so here's one on my hand (although the gloves are too small for me):
Here's a blurry shot of the palm side of the cuff. These are the "Kingdom" gloves from Knitty.com:
The cuffs are knit back and forth, including a hem facing. Then clever short rows turn the stitching 90 degrees to go around the hand.
And here's Elrond being opressed by the Christmas stocking I finished before the gloves:
These pictures were taken one morning last week when it was nice and cool, so he's not looking oppressed because knitwear is too warm, just the overwhelming cruelty of being a model.
Here's Elrond being opressed by a pair of cabled gloves I finished a little over a week ago:
I haven't blocked the gloves, which get pulled in by the cabling, so here's one on my hand (although the gloves are too small for me):
Here's a blurry shot of the palm side of the cuff. These are the "Kingdom" gloves from Knitty.com:
And here's Elrond being opressed by the Christmas stocking I finished before the gloves:
These pictures were taken one morning last week when it was nice and cool, so he's not looking oppressed because knitwear is too warm, just the overwhelming cruelty of being a model.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Eventful Personal Life
Yeah, I fell off the blog again.
The rundown on all that's been going on lately is on my personal blog, which this is a link to, so all you have to do is clicky if you want all the not-too-gruesome details.
Still haven't done any leatherwork. Not sure when our next event will be, depends on Ron's progress and what happens with scheduling my turn, once I do all the preliminary hoo-ha, which was put on hold because of Insurance Issues.
Ron made (and sold) a couple more pens. I made a second bottle stopper, pretty boring. It came out nothing like I wanted, because of what is most likely tool control issues, but it isn't bad.
Robin's been making cylindrical wooden obelisks. We'd both been having problems with the key chuck walking out of the lathe when doing things that don't use the tailstock, so we got a new key chuck (the style found on a drill), that's been threaded for a drawbar, which keeps it from walking out of the lathe. If all the words sound like English, but you have no clue what I just said, it can be summed up as: we got a not-particularly-expensive but more useful version of A Thing that should make turning small things easier.
The MuseCon program book is almost done. I have to put in icons, the numbers for all the scheduled programming (I know what the numbers are, have to put in the text boxes in the right spots and fill in the numbers), and put in filler art. Which is good, as I'd like to get the book to the printer Thursday night/Friday morning.
MuseCon t-shirt design delivered to OffWorld Designs. Need to see if they have an update on suggested shirt color, etc.
The rundown on all that's been going on lately is on my personal blog, which this is a link to, so all you have to do is clicky if you want all the not-too-gruesome details.
Still haven't done any leatherwork. Not sure when our next event will be, depends on Ron's progress and what happens with scheduling my turn, once I do all the preliminary hoo-ha, which was put on hold because of Insurance Issues.
Ron made (and sold) a couple more pens. I made a second bottle stopper, pretty boring. It came out nothing like I wanted, because of what is most likely tool control issues, but it isn't bad.
Robin's been making cylindrical wooden obelisks. We'd both been having problems with the key chuck walking out of the lathe when doing things that don't use the tailstock, so we got a new key chuck (the style found on a drill), that's been threaded for a drawbar, which keeps it from walking out of the lathe. If all the words sound like English, but you have no clue what I just said, it can be summed up as: we got a not-particularly-expensive but more useful version of A Thing that should make turning small things easier.
The MuseCon program book is almost done. I have to put in icons, the numbers for all the scheduled programming (I know what the numbers are, have to put in the text boxes in the right spots and fill in the numbers), and put in filler art. Which is good, as I'd like to get the book to the printer Thursday night/Friday morning.
MuseCon t-shirt design delivered to OffWorld Designs. Need to see if they have an update on suggested shirt color, etc.
Monday, June 24, 2013
A Mostly-Personal Post
I started to do this post over on my personal blog, but got fed up with trying to get Picasa/Google web albums and WordPress to play nicely, gave up, and am posting here, because this is a picture-heavy post.
Saturday morning we went to the Midwest Fiber & Folk Art Fair at the Lake County Fairgrounds. It was a nice show, but not very large. OTOH, Xap says it was smaller than last year. The weather was warm and sticky so Ron and I didn't peruse the outdoor things - a farmer's market and the fiber animals. We met Xap, Wash, and Lizzie there.
I kinda failed not to spend too much, but Ron encouraged me. I got a (knit) shawl kit in 5 graduated colors of a teal-ish blue-ish yarn, and a loom plus accessories.
Fortunately, its a very small loom, a Hokett mini tapestry loom kit, from the Weaver's Loft.
We have above a picture of the loom, two wooden needles, a little-bitty tapestry fork, and a slightly larger tapestry fork, all neatly displayed on the bag for the kit. The kit consists of the loom, one needle, tiny fork, and the bag, 1-sheet instruction for the loom, a booklet of basic tapestry weaving information, plus a baggie of yarn odds and ends. The loom didn't come warped, I did that at lunch.
To give you and idea of size, the website lists the loom as being 8" x 7", and the tiny fork as 1" x 2". I figured the tiny fork would be too small for my hand, so I got the bigger tapestry fork/pickup stick, and a second needle to do a second color with. I'd originally picked a loom that was a nice orangey color, like the tiny fork and one needle, but the bars weren't parallel. Le sigh.
Here's everything being tucked into the bag:
They also had little shuttles, but we have lumber at home, and a certain young man who'd like to earn some money, so I'll get him to make me a couple narrow shuttles and another needle or two. And find out if Wash wants any, since he also got one of the loom kits.
There wasn't a lot of yarn in the baggie I got with it, so I also picked up a bundle of mini-skeins from another vendor, mostly in blues:
I warped the loom and started weaving with the odds and ends that came with the kit at the show. We were going from the show to Xap's for the Cheshire Moon house concert in the evening, so I needed more yarn for when I finished weaving the stuff I got with it, right?
Lest you think I was crazy, by the time I left Xap's after the concert, I'd pretty much filled the loom. Today at lunch I wove in all the ends of good yarn, pulled out some shiny plastic muppet-fur yarn and other bits, and finished the first piece off. Had a little trouble keeping the selvedges even, but got bag into the groove:
Now, the problem is that one part of my brain looked at the bundle of mini-skeins, and said:
"That's 400 yards total. That's enough for a pair of socks. Or mittens."
"I bought it to weave with."
"Mittens"
"Weaving"
"Definitely mittens. Pretty multicolored mittens."
"Weaving!"
"Mittens. Robin rearranged bins yesterday, go pull out that nice leftover weaving yarn."
"Weaving"
"Mittens."
"Fine, just FINE. Grumble grumble grumble." (gives up, proceeds to dig in bins).
"Mittens." (Smugly).
So, here's what I'll be weaving with next, Harrisville Shetland and Highland (one is fingering-ish one is worsted-ish), left from overshot projects on the floor loom:
The Cheshire Moon concert Saturday night was a lot of fun. I think it was about 20 people, in Xap's yard. Plus a bunch of mosquitoes. Fortunately, Xap had laid in a supply of bug spray.
Hey, here's a bit that's more Otter Necessities-related!
Yesterday I spent most of the day working on the MuseCon program book.
Ron sliced and diced the spreadsheet of programming information, and turned it into XML files, which I then brought into InDesign, using either amazing or fantastic magic to get it to auto-format...
...kinda.
It came in indented, with extra cruft.
Fix an error, re-try, poke, re-try, poke some more, re-try.
I finally realized that (expletive) InDesign was (expletive) processing indenting in the XML that it should be ignoring. Color me vexed. Cue Ron ranting, then invoking the power of regular expressions to edit the XML to get rid of problem bits that shouldn't have been problem bits if (expletive) Adobe would (expletive) handle file formatting as any rational (expletive) programmer would (expletive) expect.
Did I mention that this was really annoying?
Eventually I got the text imported, and I think it did save time, and many mouse-clickies, in the long run. I think the blinkies section is pretty much done, and Open Programming (drop in stuff, mobile stuff, etc.) is mostly done, barring some minor edits and adding icons.
Tonight I should probably start the main formatting work on the main Programming section.
Saturday morning we went to the Midwest Fiber & Folk Art Fair at the Lake County Fairgrounds. It was a nice show, but not very large. OTOH, Xap says it was smaller than last year. The weather was warm and sticky so Ron and I didn't peruse the outdoor things - a farmer's market and the fiber animals. We met Xap, Wash, and Lizzie there.
I kinda failed not to spend too much, but Ron encouraged me. I got a (knit) shawl kit in 5 graduated colors of a teal-ish blue-ish yarn, and a loom plus accessories.
Fortunately, its a very small loom, a Hokett mini tapestry loom kit, from the Weaver's Loft.
To give you and idea of size, the website lists the loom as being 8" x 7", and the tiny fork as 1" x 2". I figured the tiny fork would be too small for my hand, so I got the bigger tapestry fork/pickup stick, and a second needle to do a second color with. I'd originally picked a loom that was a nice orangey color, like the tiny fork and one needle, but the bars weren't parallel. Le sigh.
Here's everything being tucked into the bag:
They also had little shuttles, but we have lumber at home, and a certain young man who'd like to earn some money, so I'll get him to make me a couple narrow shuttles and another needle or two. And find out if Wash wants any, since he also got one of the loom kits.
There wasn't a lot of yarn in the baggie I got with it, so I also picked up a bundle of mini-skeins from another vendor, mostly in blues:
There's 10 skeins, each 40 yards. Starting at about 1:00 we have two blue with brown, one blue with red, two purple, one lavendar, one grey, one dark brown, and two pale blue:
Lest you think I was crazy, by the time I left Xap's after the concert, I'd pretty much filled the loom. Today at lunch I wove in all the ends of good yarn, pulled out some shiny plastic muppet-fur yarn and other bits, and finished the first piece off. Had a little trouble keeping the selvedges even, but got bag into the groove:
"That's 400 yards total. That's enough for a pair of socks. Or mittens."
"I bought it to weave with."
"Mittens"
"Weaving"
"Definitely mittens. Pretty multicolored mittens."
"Weaving!"
"Mittens. Robin rearranged bins yesterday, go pull out that nice leftover weaving yarn."
"Weaving"
"Mittens."
"Fine, just FINE. Grumble grumble grumble." (gives up, proceeds to dig in bins).
"Mittens." (Smugly).
So, here's what I'll be weaving with next, Harrisville Shetland and Highland (one is fingering-ish one is worsted-ish), left from overshot projects on the floor loom:
The (over-exposed) white ball is 2-ply wool warp yarn, off the stupid-big cone of it I got. I don't like cotton carpet warp for tapestry weaving, its too damn slippery. The wool warp should hold onto the weft yarns better.
The Cheshire Moon concert Saturday night was a lot of fun. I think it was about 20 people, in Xap's yard. Plus a bunch of mosquitoes. Fortunately, Xap had laid in a supply of bug spray.
Hey, here's a bit that's more Otter Necessities-related!
Yesterday I spent most of the day working on the MuseCon program book.
Ron sliced and diced the spreadsheet of programming information, and turned it into XML files, which I then brought into InDesign, using either amazing or fantastic magic to get it to auto-format...
...kinda.
It came in indented, with extra cruft.
Fix an error, re-try, poke, re-try, poke some more, re-try.
I finally realized that (expletive) InDesign was (expletive) processing indenting in the XML that it should be ignoring. Color me vexed. Cue Ron ranting, then invoking the power of regular expressions to edit the XML to get rid of problem bits that shouldn't have been problem bits if (expletive) Adobe would (expletive) handle file formatting as any rational (expletive) programmer would (expletive) expect.
Did I mention that this was really annoying?
Eventually I got the text imported, and I think it did save time, and many mouse-clickies, in the long run. I think the blinkies section is pretty much done, and Open Programming (drop in stuff, mobile stuff, etc.) is mostly done, barring some minor edits and adding icons.
Tonight I should probably start the main formatting work on the main Programming section.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Woodturning
There's not a lot going on the leatherworking front. We got a little burned out ramping up for ACen.
Working on the MuseCon program book is progressing in fits and starts. Saturday morning I gave myself a crash course in XML, via O'Reilly's "XML in a Nutshell" and "XML Pocket Reference", in order to try to figure out how to use XML to get data from Excel into InDesign. Mostly successful, but I won't be able to do everything I was hoping with it. I also left a cranky review at ora.com regarding the pretty much useless example code you can download for "XML and InDesign".
Robin has done substantial work cleaning up the workshop side of the basement. Much stuff was hauled out to the curb this week, and the space is actually usable again. He also did most (all?) of the work building a bench for the lathe. Which we got have a bed extension on order for, so Ron doesn't have to shorten wand blanks.
Robin has turned several wooden pegs to hold pouches shut for me, and we've agreed on a price, based on me purchasing the wood. In further news, he has a commission to build a small table, and another from me to build a footstool. Work is progressing on those. He may have to re-cut one of the pieces for the footstool, after Ron diagnosed an issue with the router table (user error), but I've OK'd the use of whatever lumber we've got in the basement that will work, so it won't be held up for another trip to Owl. It'll be covered by leather, anyway.
When we were at Owl Sunday morning getting lumber for the table and footstool, Ron got more turning blanks, pen- and wand-lengths. Then we went to Woodcraft, and he gave in and got the hardware and tools needed to make pens. Don't ask about the small bandsaw, I don't want to talk about it. I got a piece of osage orange, and a piece of canarywood, and a book on turning miniature birdhouse ornaments. Robin was particularly taken with a couple Halloween-themed ornaments.
Ron's made two pens so far, the first is from cocobolo. He sees all the flaws, I can identify them, but don't think they're too bad. Ron had co-workers asking how much he'd charge when they saw it yesterday:
Last night he made one for me, from purpleheart. Its my understanding it will get more purple with exposure to light. I think it may already starting to, um, purple up since this picture was taken last night:
Saturday afternoon I tried turning my first bottle stopper. The method Robin and I used to try to chuck it failed, with only minor excitement. Modifying the method worked better, and I let Ron finish it.
Sunday night (or was it Monday?) Robin tried making a bottle stopper (out of ash left over from cutting the furniture legs). It isn't quite finished yet (last I saw he was done sanding, and was considering paint), AFAIK, but is recognizably a pumpkin wearing a top hat. Showoff.
Yesterday I tried again. I'm not sure if failure was due to materials, user error/inexperience, bad luck, or some combination. I don't know what the wood is, other than bird's-eye-something from a grab bag of stopper blanks. From the list of woods in the Wikipedia article on bird's eye figure, and looking at pictures of each type of wood, My WAG is black walnut, or a dark piece of maple:
Ron has declared this failure non-terminal. We'll cut the dowel off flush, then re-drill for the metal mandrel that should be delivered by the time I get home (I figured if Robin could do a stopper without it, I could. Lots of work painting small delicate miniatures may have meant that he was better at turning with a light touch than I was).
Don't know who's going to get to the lathe first tonight. :)
Working on the MuseCon program book is progressing in fits and starts. Saturday morning I gave myself a crash course in XML, via O'Reilly's "XML in a Nutshell" and "XML Pocket Reference", in order to try to figure out how to use XML to get data from Excel into InDesign. Mostly successful, but I won't be able to do everything I was hoping with it. I also left a cranky review at ora.com regarding the pretty much useless example code you can download for "XML and InDesign".
Robin has done substantial work cleaning up the workshop side of the basement. Much stuff was hauled out to the curb this week, and the space is actually usable again. He also did most (all?) of the work building a bench for the lathe. Which we got have a bed extension on order for, so Ron doesn't have to shorten wand blanks.
Robin has turned several wooden pegs to hold pouches shut for me, and we've agreed on a price, based on me purchasing the wood. In further news, he has a commission to build a small table, and another from me to build a footstool. Work is progressing on those. He may have to re-cut one of the pieces for the footstool, after Ron diagnosed an issue with the router table (user error), but I've OK'd the use of whatever lumber we've got in the basement that will work, so it won't be held up for another trip to Owl. It'll be covered by leather, anyway.
When we were at Owl Sunday morning getting lumber for the table and footstool, Ron got more turning blanks, pen- and wand-lengths. Then we went to Woodcraft, and he gave in and got the hardware and tools needed to make pens. Don't ask about the small bandsaw, I don't want to talk about it. I got a piece of osage orange, and a piece of canarywood, and a book on turning miniature birdhouse ornaments. Robin was particularly taken with a couple Halloween-themed ornaments.
Ron's made two pens so far, the first is from cocobolo. He sees all the flaws, I can identify them, but don't think they're too bad. Ron had co-workers asking how much he'd charge when they saw it yesterday:
Last night he made one for me, from purpleheart. Its my understanding it will get more purple with exposure to light. I think it may already starting to, um, purple up since this picture was taken last night:
Saturday afternoon I tried turning my first bottle stopper. The method Robin and I used to try to chuck it failed, with only minor excitement. Modifying the method worked better, and I let Ron finish it.
Sunday night (or was it Monday?) Robin tried making a bottle stopper (out of ash left over from cutting the furniture legs). It isn't quite finished yet (last I saw he was done sanding, and was considering paint), AFAIK, but is recognizably a pumpkin wearing a top hat. Showoff.
Yesterday I tried again. I'm not sure if failure was due to materials, user error/inexperience, bad luck, or some combination. I don't know what the wood is, other than bird's-eye-something from a grab bag of stopper blanks. From the list of woods in the Wikipedia article on bird's eye figure, and looking at pictures of each type of wood, My WAG is black walnut, or a dark piece of maple:
Ron has declared this failure non-terminal. We'll cut the dowel off flush, then re-drill for the metal mandrel that should be delivered by the time I get home (I figured if Robin could do a stopper without it, I could. Lots of work painting small delicate miniatures may have meant that he was better at turning with a light touch than I was).
Don't know who's going to get to the lathe first tonight. :)
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Woodworking and Lathes and Shopping
As I mentioned last time, last weekend we got lumber for a horn bow grip and for Robin to make pegs and things with, and that we have a Shopsmith and a dremel lathe.
A Shopsmith is an interesting beast, where one motor connects to and runs multiple power tools (one at a time). It does an OK job on everything, but not outstanding.
Buying lumber re-woke Ron's interest in woodturning, so last weekend we went to Rockler, a local woodworking store. We saw a couple smallish lathes, one of which was a discontinued floor model on sale.
Saturday morning we were back at Owl Hardwood Lumber, so Robin could figure out how much to charge for a small table similar to one he built in shop class in high school. That led to purchase of more exotic hardwood turning stock, in the form of "magic wand" blanks, for Ron to make.
Which led to a trip to Berland's House ofGrownup Toys Tools to look at lathes. At that point I figured we'd be buying next weekend which would be (1) after payday, and (2) 15% off Jet tool Father's Day sale.
Then we went back to Rockler. Where the floor model lathe was still on sale, for less than the sale price would be next weekend at a smaller (shorter length) lathe we were looking at at Berland's. We took it as a sign, and it followed us home.
We didn't get the stand for the lathe, so we had to go out and get a 2x12 to mount the lathe to and then set on a Workmate. Turns out that's a good setup for Ron (and Robin), as its taller than the stock lathe stand - so we may not bother with a lathe stand.
Today we went up to the Woodcraft store in Libertyville, where some inexpensive chunks of wood to practice on followed us home, as well as a package of bottle stopper blanks. Because that way I can sell people fancy stoppers for their potion bottles.
Robin and Ron are taking turns with the lathe. Robin's about to go try making something "real" now - a couple pegs for pouches, out of a pen blank. Once he gets a lesson on honing tools.
A Shopsmith is an interesting beast, where one motor connects to and runs multiple power tools (one at a time). It does an OK job on everything, but not outstanding.
Buying lumber re-woke Ron's interest in woodturning, so last weekend we went to Rockler, a local woodworking store. We saw a couple smallish lathes, one of which was a discontinued floor model on sale.
Saturday morning we were back at Owl Hardwood Lumber, so Robin could figure out how much to charge for a small table similar to one he built in shop class in high school. That led to purchase of more exotic hardwood turning stock, in the form of "magic wand" blanks, for Ron to make.
Which led to a trip to Berland's House of
Then we went back to Rockler. Where the floor model lathe was still on sale, for less than the sale price would be next weekend at a smaller (shorter length) lathe we were looking at at Berland's. We took it as a sign, and it followed us home.
We didn't get the stand for the lathe, so we had to go out and get a 2x12 to mount the lathe to and then set on a Workmate. Turns out that's a good setup for Ron (and Robin), as its taller than the stock lathe stand - so we may not bother with a lathe stand.
Today we went up to the Woodcraft store in Libertyville, where some inexpensive chunks of wood to practice on followed us home, as well as a package of bottle stopper blanks. Because that way I can sell people fancy stoppers for their potion bottles.
Robin and Ron are taking turns with the lathe. Robin's about to go try making something "real" now - a couple pegs for pouches, out of a pen blank. Once he gets a lesson on honing tools.
Monday, June 3, 2013
Test Tube Hijinks and Other Natter
Test Tube Hijinks
Our initial order of test tubes arrived Friday night. A big box. A rather big box. Big enough that when I summoned Robin to help unpack it (and get his portion of the order), he failed to ID it as the test tube order.Here's what was in the box that we ordered - 50 assorted color test tubes, rack, 25 clear test tubes in the same size, 25 smaller clear tubes, stoppers, and a couple other odds & ends. Not shown is Robin's batch of 25 assorted color test tubes:
This . . . not so much.
The pick sheet called for 5 bags of 5 tubes in assorted colors. What we have here is 5 rather large bags. Comparing them to the batch of 50 colored test tubes, and keeping in mind the numbers available for order, we estimate that each bag contains 250 test tubes. So instead of 25 we got 1250. Oops.
I called the company, they should be sending me a return shipping label. I was mildly surprised that they said to take the 25 tubes we wanted out of one of the bags, but OK.
Shopping
Saturday morning Robin and I checked the gemsbock horns, and decided that both sets could be made into bows. One set isn't doesn't have nice smooth curves and needs some trimming on the bases, but these will be display-only bows, so the wonky curves shouldn't be a problem. We also have a piece of wood, I'm guessing cherry, that Ron had started shaping for a grip.We went to Owl Hardwood Lumber in Des Plaines and got a piece of walnut for the second grip. We also picked up some basswood for blocks for test tube holders, and a somewhat snaggly piece of aromatic cedar to put in with yarn. It was about the size I wanted, and I don't care how it looks or knots, I just want it for the smell, so I'll take the ugly piece.
While we were there Robin was seduced by pen blanks (ie: cutoffs) in various exotic hardwoods. He got a hadful to make monoliths out of - terrain for miniatures games. Not sure if he's going to try to sell them, or keep them all for himself.
He's also going to make some fancy pegs for me, to hold pouches shut with. The piece of walnut we got needs to be cut down in width, and it sounds like Ron may also shorten it, so that'll be some more wood for him to play with, once he warms up on pine or basswood. Not sure if he's going to use the dremel lathe, or the full (-ish) sized lathe on the Shopsmith.
More Robin Endeavors
On the way home from Owl we stopped at Games Plus (and Mosaic Yarn Studio, oops), and I suggested to Robin that we should get him some business cards made and put them up on the bulletin board at Games Plus to try to get him more business painting miniatures for hire. One of the Games Plus owners encouraged him, and said they often have people looking for mercenary painters.Robin and Ron have been meaning to get pictures of some of Robin's better miniatures, so I pushed a little, and they did that Saturday afternoon, while I was a lazy slug.
Sunday, while Ron and Robin patched the hole in the wall that resulted from the sacrifice to the plumbing gods, I started a business card for Robin. Here's a low-ish resolution JPEG, saved for him to use as a signature in the Games Plus DakkaDakka forum.
Sunday afternoon/evening Ron helped him go through Saturday's photos, created a gallery, I proofread the captions, and we added an "Other Services" section to the Otter Necessities website menu bar. We put a link to his gallery under it, as well as a link to my bare-bones page-layout service page. Here's a direct link to Robin's gallery. Yes, this is a shameless plug. Finding a regular job is not going well for him, and he's gotten to be a pretty good painter. The dwarf on the card, for instance, is only about an inch tall. "Li'l Death" is only a half-inch tall.
Urg, Blech, Sinuses
Sunday afternoon I intended to start on a pouch we got an order for at ACen. Unfortunately, I ran out of my (OTC) antihistimines a while back, and hadn't bothered getting more, because I hadn't seemed to be missing them. Except that in the last day something has, apparently, started blooming or outgassing or something. I stopped at a CVS on the way to work, almost panicked because the pharmacy didn't open until 8:30, and the (expletive) drug dealers using the good stuff to make whatever mean you have to get the good stuff, even OTC, from the pharmacy after swearing and signing that you just want the drugs to deal with your allergies, dammit. Yes, I am a little cranky. But I did find some Claritin, yay.On the other hand, I'm not sure how well its working. I may stop again this evening and get something else to try tomorrow (the Claritin is 24-hour). I suspect I won't be starting the pouch tonight, either, between the usual Monday effect and the sinus ick I feel trying to start.
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