Subtitled: Oh for the love of Cod and Little Fishes, Yet Still Another Busy Weekend, Again
We've getting things ticked off of the to-do list.
Ron's spent a week or more working on updating inventory and the Point of Sale software. That doesn't sound like much, but it has been a big job, as it has included doing price increases.
He's re-run the cost computations on almost everything, which not only means putting in new maximum expected costs, but also figuring out my spreadsheets, as well as finding and correcting all the errors that have crept in over the years. He'd do a group of items, which meant questions for me about what parts were, or how much for hardware or this or that thing, and then we'd look at the new costs and determine new prices. Well, mostly Ron figured out new prices. I'm pretty much clueless at this point.
Ron also updated the Point of Sale (PoS) software inventory, making sure that matched what we determined we actually have, and putting in all the new prices. Lots of new prices. And updating all the pouch numbers to be 4 digits, since we've shot past #1000.
Upload to software, error-check, repeat a time or two.
And we still need to add all the new merchandise.
As part of the re-pricing process, we need to put new price tags on things (mostly pouches). That's a lot of price tags. I've been hand-writing them, but that's a lot of work when we're re-doing everything.
We looked at labels to run through the printer. Then on Saturday morning we looked at label printers. I decided to stick with Brother, since we've been happy with the ones at Ron's office and the hand-held we have. Then we refined that to look at label printers that would talk to the Mac, and could deal with output from a spreadsheet or database. Then we went to Staples to actually look at the printer we had in mind. And discovered that they only had a display model, none in stock. Call other stores, no joy. Call other non-Staples stores (while "test-sitting" in one of their display office chairs), still no joy.
Finally success at CDW . . . which isn't open on Saturday. But Ron works right down the road, so I ordered and he'll pick it up today, which is good enough. I also got several rolls of continuous label tape, to print on. And while we were at Staples, I got some more tags, both because we probably need them, and because slightly bigger will make it easier with the printed labels.
Back-tracking to Thursday evening, I did the corners on a bunch of soft-ish pouches, so Robin could do up the sides. Which he did several of on Friday.
Friday morning I ordered a whole stack of shirts and vests with our logo embroidered on them. We got shirts for Ron, Xap, and me, in various styles. Ron got a "diamond brocade" fabric vest, and we got several plain vests for strong young backs to wear. We got enough things to get the setup fee for the embroidery waived, so I'll probably order myself a couple long-sleeve denim shirts later. And lab coats and chef's jackets were calling to us, too, but the price tag was high enough as it was.
Friday evening I sewed up the last of the tails. Yay, job done.
Saturday afternoon I got all the binding on the satchels, belt satchels, and little tabbed pouches, and did some work on Pouch #1000. Now they belt pouch-ish things just need some hardware put on the flaps, and the satchels need their shoulder straps.
While I was sewing, Ron was working on the belt portion of inventory, and then he cut and assembled a bunch of belts.
Saturday after dinner I cut out a bunch of small drawstring bags. 25 of them, as it turned out. That seems like a lot, but they go together easily.
Yesterday I finished Pouch #1000, which I need to get Ron to take good pictures of. And while assisting Xap with putting together the MuseCon grid, Ron and I worked on lacing soft-ish pouches. Ron's hand is getting better, he was able to work on pouch flaps.
We've been molding sockets for small glass bottles, and two test-runs for larger plastic bottles. There were some bugs in the plan for larger bottles, but they have been addressed.
After dinner last night I poked at possible layouts for ACen. But I think this post is long enough, I'll natter about that, and hopefully include pictures, in another post.
Monday, May 5, 2014
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Sales Tax Fun
When we went into business in 1995 (almost 20 years ago, eep!), I decided that I was going to get all our bureaucratic ducks in a row in terms of registering as a business with the IRS, state, etc.
In the mid-2000s, Wisconsin started requiring organizers of things like SCA events to collect forms from vendors listing vendor names, addresses, registration numbers, etc. In late 2008 I discovered Illinois has a similar program, and there's a form for vendors to pay their sales taxes for that event within XYZ formula time period that the organizer can/should provide. Department of Revenue (DoR) agents can also collect taxes at an event. More details here at the IL DoR web page about the program. Doing a quick search on the DoR website, the program has been in operation since at least 2005.
Most of the SCA events and conventions I've done in Illinois since then do not seem to be aware of the requirements, or have only done the reporting-to-DoR part and not the distribution-of-forms part, or otherwise haven't mentioned it. Nor have I ever seen a DoR agent at any such event.
With the smaller events, that hasn't been a surprise.
I was somewhat surprised when there was no mention of it by ACen, other than the standard boilerplate that exhibitors are responsible for local/state/federal taxes, fees, laws, etc. I thought that ACen might be big enough to be worth DoR's attention and time.
Well, it seems I was right. Yesterday morning I found e-mail from ACen saying that the DoR had "reached out" to ACen, with a PDF of the form for reporting/paying sales taxes for an event attached. In the afternoon there was a follow-up e-mail, mentioning the exhibit hall staff has been getting a lot of questions.
I bet they have.
Yeah, I think I was right 20 years ago. Doing the paperwork and making the payments is less stressful than the "Surprise tax forms/payment!" situation some people are presumably facing now.
(As a registered business we may use the special event form, or wait for our regular filing).
In the mid-2000s, Wisconsin started requiring organizers of things like SCA events to collect forms from vendors listing vendor names, addresses, registration numbers, etc. In late 2008 I discovered Illinois has a similar program, and there's a form for vendors to pay their sales taxes for that event within XYZ formula time period that the organizer can/should provide. Department of Revenue (DoR) agents can also collect taxes at an event. More details here at the IL DoR web page about the program. Doing a quick search on the DoR website, the program has been in operation since at least 2005.
Most of the SCA events and conventions I've done in Illinois since then do not seem to be aware of the requirements, or have only done the reporting-to-DoR part and not the distribution-of-forms part, or otherwise haven't mentioned it. Nor have I ever seen a DoR agent at any such event.
With the smaller events, that hasn't been a surprise.
I was somewhat surprised when there was no mention of it by ACen, other than the standard boilerplate that exhibitors are responsible for local/state/federal taxes, fees, laws, etc. I thought that ACen might be big enough to be worth DoR's attention and time.
Well, it seems I was right. Yesterday morning I found e-mail from ACen saying that the DoR had "reached out" to ACen, with a PDF of the form for reporting/paying sales taxes for an event attached. In the afternoon there was a follow-up e-mail, mentioning the exhibit hall staff has been getting a lot of questions.
I bet they have.
Yeah, I think I was right 20 years ago. Doing the paperwork and making the payments is less stressful than the "Surprise tax forms/payment!" situation some people are presumably facing now.
(As a registered business we may use the special event form, or wait for our regular filing).
Monday, April 28, 2014
As Expected, the Weekend Was . . .
Yes, this busy-weekend thing is getting predictable.
I previewed the weekend on Thursday by stabbing my left index finger with my lacing fid (a tool for opening up holes/slots, not for stabbing holes in your finger).
I had some use-it-or-lose-it comp time to deal with, so I took Friday off. I started sewing swivels onto tails, and got 5 out of 10 done before stabbing my right index finger. I forget if I did that with the point or the eye of the needle. I decided to be done sewing for the day after that tail was done. I also decided not to do any hand-sewing on Saturday, to let my fingers heal. I did a little on Sunday, but decided that my right index finger, which also has some other light damage, was still insufficiently healed to make sewing a good idea.
On Wednesday or Thursday I made a to-do list, with which things I thought Ron could do (yes, his hand is still bothering him) noted. That's been much more effective than occasionally mentioning things we need to do. It also made me think about which things I usually do, but Ron is just as capable as I am of doing.
Saturday morning we went to Leather Factory for a punch for putting a row of 4 small round holes in something. I wanted it to use with the purple suede lace (which arrived Friday), as the suede lace is a lot thicker than the smooth lace I usually use. A couple other hole punches followed us home, as well as . . . more leather. Oops.
Saturday Ron worked on figuring out what to do with small bottles. Here's the finished prototype, using one of Robin's (emptied) model cement bottles, which is the same size as the cobalt blue ones I'd bought.
It looks better in person, and not in a fairly tight close-up - it's a small bottle, 2 oz. The straps are 1/2" wide. The bottom is molded. The trick was final assembly, since the neck on these bottles is too short to sew a collar around like the other bottles, and you can't really set a rivet against the bottle. The solution is a flat washer/collar, and use of snaps.
It came out so well that I ordered more bottles, more cobalt blue, amber (beer bottle brown, really), and clear. Stupid amounts of bottles, but it wasn't that much more expensive to get a dozen than a half-dozen of each color (plus an extra cobalt, since I only ordered 5 initially, and I was in a multiples-of-six mindset). I don't expect to get them all done by ACen, but we can get some done.
Which means that we need more leather to mold the bottom cups. So I ordered that last night. And today I ordered more swivels for tails (down to 2, after I sew the second half of the batch in progress), and dees to go on the backs of pouches so they can be used as sporrans (down to 2 or 3 pairs). Plus a half-inch end punch for making bottle parts and on other narrow straps (Ron faked the bottle prototype with a 3/4" punch).
Yesterday and Saturday we worked on a batch of 8 more hard pouches, and 5 soft-ish pouches. Now they're all ready to lace/sew up. I screwed up, and fixed, two of them. One soft-ish pouch I punched the holes on the front way too far down, so now it has a shield-shaped piece of leather on the front hiding the wrong holes and also putting the latch in the right place. And somehow I got the latch on the flap for one of the hard pouches off-center. That one couldn't be completely fixed, but I think I have it compensated for well enough.
One of the hard pouches is nominally Pouch #1000. The "real" pouch #1000 is probably already done and packed in Max, but this one will get the official title. In honor of that, I'm doing something special to/with it that I've been thinking of for a while. Pictures when we finish.
We didn't actually cross many things off the to-do list as completely done, but we made progress on a bunch - tails, getting all the pouches I've cut out ready to lace, the little bottles, and poking at inventory and working on price increase-related things. I'm satisfied.
Today we've been looking at/for more Otter Necessities shirts and vests and things, so we can all be logo-ized by ACen.
I laced up one of the fuscia (which I've been calling Barbie-purple) pouches last night, using the purple lace on the flap:
It was declared a success.
There were purple fuzzies from the suede lace everywhere. And the suede lace is a lot more bulky, as mentioned above. It definitely needed the larger holes. I used smooth black lace on the bottom and up the sides, I wouldn't want to use the suede for those. The suede lace wasn't too bad to work with, other than the fuzzies and making my fingers purple. But the cheap leather I backed the thin fuscia leather up with is really stiff, so the pouch was a pain to do because of that.
And black dye over purple dye on my fingers made it look like they were bruised. Soap and water fixed that, though.
I previewed the weekend on Thursday by stabbing my left index finger with my lacing fid (a tool for opening up holes/slots, not for stabbing holes in your finger).
I had some use-it-or-lose-it comp time to deal with, so I took Friday off. I started sewing swivels onto tails, and got 5 out of 10 done before stabbing my right index finger. I forget if I did that with the point or the eye of the needle. I decided to be done sewing for the day after that tail was done. I also decided not to do any hand-sewing on Saturday, to let my fingers heal. I did a little on Sunday, but decided that my right index finger, which also has some other light damage, was still insufficiently healed to make sewing a good idea.
On Wednesday or Thursday I made a to-do list, with which things I thought Ron could do (yes, his hand is still bothering him) noted. That's been much more effective than occasionally mentioning things we need to do. It also made me think about which things I usually do, but Ron is just as capable as I am of doing.
Saturday morning we went to Leather Factory for a punch for putting a row of 4 small round holes in something. I wanted it to use with the purple suede lace (which arrived Friday), as the suede lace is a lot thicker than the smooth lace I usually use. A couple other hole punches followed us home, as well as . . . more leather. Oops.
Saturday Ron worked on figuring out what to do with small bottles. Here's the finished prototype, using one of Robin's (emptied) model cement bottles, which is the same size as the cobalt blue ones I'd bought.
It looks better in person, and not in a fairly tight close-up - it's a small bottle, 2 oz. The straps are 1/2" wide. The bottom is molded. The trick was final assembly, since the neck on these bottles is too short to sew a collar around like the other bottles, and you can't really set a rivet against the bottle. The solution is a flat washer/collar, and use of snaps.
It came out so well that I ordered more bottles, more cobalt blue, amber (beer bottle brown, really), and clear. Stupid amounts of bottles, but it wasn't that much more expensive to get a dozen than a half-dozen of each color (plus an extra cobalt, since I only ordered 5 initially, and I was in a multiples-of-six mindset). I don't expect to get them all done by ACen, but we can get some done.
Which means that we need more leather to mold the bottom cups. So I ordered that last night. And today I ordered more swivels for tails (down to 2, after I sew the second half of the batch in progress), and dees to go on the backs of pouches so they can be used as sporrans (down to 2 or 3 pairs). Plus a half-inch end punch for making bottle parts and on other narrow straps (Ron faked the bottle prototype with a 3/4" punch).
Yesterday and Saturday we worked on a batch of 8 more hard pouches, and 5 soft-ish pouches. Now they're all ready to lace/sew up. I screwed up, and fixed, two of them. One soft-ish pouch I punched the holes on the front way too far down, so now it has a shield-shaped piece of leather on the front hiding the wrong holes and also putting the latch in the right place. And somehow I got the latch on the flap for one of the hard pouches off-center. That one couldn't be completely fixed, but I think I have it compensated for well enough.
One of the hard pouches is nominally Pouch #1000. The "real" pouch #1000 is probably already done and packed in Max, but this one will get the official title. In honor of that, I'm doing something special to/with it that I've been thinking of for a while. Pictures when we finish.
We didn't actually cross many things off the to-do list as completely done, but we made progress on a bunch - tails, getting all the pouches I've cut out ready to lace, the little bottles, and poking at inventory and working on price increase-related things. I'm satisfied.
Today we've been looking at/for more Otter Necessities shirts and vests and things, so we can all be logo-ized by ACen.
I laced up one of the fuscia (which I've been calling Barbie-purple) pouches last night, using the purple lace on the flap:
There were purple fuzzies from the suede lace everywhere. And the suede lace is a lot more bulky, as mentioned above. It definitely needed the larger holes. I used smooth black lace on the bottom and up the sides, I wouldn't want to use the suede for those. The suede lace wasn't too bad to work with, other than the fuzzies and making my fingers purple. But the cheap leather I backed the thin fuscia leather up with is really stiff, so the pouch was a pain to do because of that.
And black dye over purple dye on my fingers made it look like they were bruised. Soap and water fixed that, though.
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
More Progress than Expected
After dinner last night, Ron went upstairs to work on business cards, and I sat down at the big sewing machine to sew the backs onto some satchels and pouches.
I started with the two satchels, then moved on to the belt satchels. I did all six of those, and Ron was still going, so I kept going on the little tabbed pouches. And got through all those, too.
By the time I finished, I was getting tired, so I decided not to start putting bindings on the flaps.
I forgot a step-and-a-bit yesterday. After putting the binding on the flaps, then we install the flap part of the closures, and put the shoulder strap on the satchels. So these 18 things are getting closer to being finished.
In addition, I finished lacing up a softish pouch, and have another mostly done.
I started with the two satchels, then moved on to the belt satchels. I did all six of those, and Ron was still going, so I kept going on the little tabbed pouches. And got through all those, too.
By the time I finished, I was getting tired, so I decided not to start putting bindings on the flaps.
I forgot a step-and-a-bit yesterday. After putting the binding on the flaps, then we install the flap part of the closures, and put the shoulder strap on the satchels. So these 18 things are getting closer to being finished.
In addition, I finished lacing up a softish pouch, and have another mostly done.
Monday, April 21, 2014
Guess How the Weekend Was . . .
What was the weekend like? Busy, of course.
I checked with Ron and Xap, and since nothing had changed since our decision to try to get into Anime Midwest, I accepted. Which meant spending a significant chunk of change that I was originally earmarked for a new press, so we really need to do well at ACen so we can pay ourselves back and get the press.
I probably should remove Geek.Kon from the sidebar. I haven't heard back from them, and there are a number of other vendors listed on the website, so the inference is that we weren't accepted. I would have appreciated e-mail saying that, but non-answer=no was kind of implied somewhere that I don't have handy to quote.
The leather I ordered for belt loops arrived last week, and Saturday morning, while Ron was off schlepping things, I reduced it to little pieces. I forgot to get a "before" picture, but it was in two pieces, totalling about 12 square feet - so two pieces about 2' by 3'. It was reduced down to this:
Across the top we have wrong-size belt loops (27 pairs plus an extra), belt loops (42 pairs), large sporran straps (17), and a double-height stack of small sporran straps (40).
In the middle is a pile of not-scrap - pieces that I saved for molding the sockets for small bottles, and a couple pieces that will be cut down into reinforcements for soft pouch bottoms. And I stole one piece for a soft-ish pouch front. The bottom is the actual scrap. Pretty efficient I'd say.
Why do I have two types of belt loops? Because I screwed up. Belt loops are supposed to be 1-1/8" x 5-1/2", but in the process of cutting strips, I cut some only 1" wide. 1" is too narrow for lacing onto a pouch, but fortunately I can use them for pouches where they're riveted/machine-sewn on. And I've already used about half of them.
The sporran straps hold a pair of small dees on the back of a pouch, on either side of the belt loops, so you can use the pouch as a sporran. They're kind of tied in with the belt loops with rivets, too. I've gone through a bunch of the small ones already, and had some large ones, which I use fewer of anyway, which is why there's such a difference in how many I made.
I'd done all that so I'd have belt loops and the straps for belt satchels and little soft tabbed pouches, which I was planning to start work on. But I diverted into cutting out more pouch parts - I cut out backs for the hard pouch fronts we had molded, and a few more soft-ish pouches, mostly from red and blue. I know I just cut a bunch of red and black soft-ish pouches out last week, but this time I was cutting backs for hard pouches out of the red, and one for a soft-ish pouch style I need more of overall and didn't cut from red last week.
I did get to sewing. I worked on the 6 belt satchels and 10 little tabbed pouches I'd cut out a week or so ago, plus 2 leather satchels I've had for quite a while. The process for all those is:
I did most of the sewing yesterday. I got everything up through pinning the front/gussets to the backs. At which point I was asking myself what idiot decided it was a good idea to work on 18 things at once.
Oh, right, that was me. That was late afternoon, at which point I decided to be done with anything that required brains, and just worked on lacing pouches together.
But now that I'm well on my way on those, they'll be easier to finish off in smaller bits of time.
Meanwhile, Ron cleaned out the beehives, and started printing our new business card coasters. Robin dyed hard pouch fronts and a couple soft-ish pouch fronts, and then Ron waxed the hard pouch fronts.
At some point Friday or Saturday I got the three Barbie-purple pouches ready to lace. I was going to start lacing one of them last night, but they really wanted purple lace. I couldn't find any smooth lace at a price I was willing to pay, but I did find some suede lace that's supposed to be sturdy, in "royal purple". I ordered a roll of that and royal blue to try.
No, More New Things!
Except that yesterday while I was working on satchels, etc., I thought that for anime cons, what would be a good idea to make would be the kind of briefcase-ish bag that seems to be, at least in anime, the default for Japanese students of high school-ish age.
Fortunately, a while back our Etsy shop was favorited by a seller on Etsy who has patterns for just that sort of thing, and you can use his patterns to make things for sale. So I got a briefcase pattern, and another pattern for a belt bag that I'd looked at before and that Ron liked, too. I don't expect to have any for ACen, but now Anime Midwest is a possibility.
Event Schedule
You may notice that Anime Midwest is back on the schedule in the sidebar. I checked my e-mail Saturday morning and discovered that e-mail saying "We have more space this year, and your space has now been approved". I'm not sure if that means they expanded their dealer space, or if by being not-accepted previously we'd actually been wait-listed.I checked with Ron and Xap, and since nothing had changed since our decision to try to get into Anime Midwest, I accepted. Which meant spending a significant chunk of change that I was originally earmarked for a new press, so we really need to do well at ACen so we can pay ourselves back and get the press.
I probably should remove Geek.Kon from the sidebar. I haven't heard back from them, and there are a number of other vendors listed on the website, so the inference is that we weren't accepted. I would have appreciated e-mail saying that, but non-answer=no was kind of implied somewhere that I don't have handy to quote.
Making All the Things
Last week Wednesday (home with an upset tummy) I did finish sewing up the last of the bottles in the afternoon. In the morning I actually worked on the computer, installing a new set of fonts I bought a while back, updating my list of fonts, and doing some MuseCon publications.The leather I ordered for belt loops arrived last week, and Saturday morning, while Ron was off schlepping things, I reduced it to little pieces. I forgot to get a "before" picture, but it was in two pieces, totalling about 12 square feet - so two pieces about 2' by 3'. It was reduced down to this:
Across the top we have wrong-size belt loops (27 pairs plus an extra), belt loops (42 pairs), large sporran straps (17), and a double-height stack of small sporran straps (40).
In the middle is a pile of not-scrap - pieces that I saved for molding the sockets for small bottles, and a couple pieces that will be cut down into reinforcements for soft pouch bottoms. And I stole one piece for a soft-ish pouch front. The bottom is the actual scrap. Pretty efficient I'd say.
Why do I have two types of belt loops? Because I screwed up. Belt loops are supposed to be 1-1/8" x 5-1/2", but in the process of cutting strips, I cut some only 1" wide. 1" is too narrow for lacing onto a pouch, but fortunately I can use them for pouches where they're riveted/machine-sewn on. And I've already used about half of them.
The sporran straps hold a pair of small dees on the back of a pouch, on either side of the belt loops, so you can use the pouch as a sporran. They're kind of tied in with the belt loops with rivets, too. I've gone through a bunch of the small ones already, and had some large ones, which I use fewer of anyway, which is why there's such a difference in how many I made.
I'd done all that so I'd have belt loops and the straps for belt satchels and little soft tabbed pouches, which I was planning to start work on. But I diverted into cutting out more pouch parts - I cut out backs for the hard pouch fronts we had molded, and a few more soft-ish pouches, mostly from red and blue. I know I just cut a bunch of red and black soft-ish pouches out last week, but this time I was cutting backs for hard pouches out of the red, and one for a soft-ish pouch style I need more of overall and didn't cut from red last week.
I did get to sewing. I worked on the 6 belt satchels and 10 little tabbed pouches I'd cut out a week or so ago, plus 2 leather satchels I've had for quite a while. The process for all those is:
- Mark locations for latches, belt loops, etc.
- Put on front parts of closures
- Sew on belt loops (with rivets and sporran loops as appropriate)
- Hem pockets
- Pin fronts and gussets together (I say "pin", but I actually use binder clips)
- Sew fronts and gussets together (trim as necessary afterwards)
- Hem front/gusset sets
- Sew dee holders on satchels
- Pin gussets to backs
- Sew gussets to backs
- Sew binding to flaps (two passes of sewing, for nice rolled binding).
I did most of the sewing yesterday. I got everything up through pinning the front/gussets to the backs. At which point I was asking myself what idiot decided it was a good idea to work on 18 things at once.
Oh, right, that was me. That was late afternoon, at which point I decided to be done with anything that required brains, and just worked on lacing pouches together.
But now that I'm well on my way on those, they'll be easier to finish off in smaller bits of time.
Meanwhile, Ron cleaned out the beehives, and started printing our new business card coasters. Robin dyed hard pouch fronts and a couple soft-ish pouch fronts, and then Ron waxed the hard pouch fronts.
At some point Friday or Saturday I got the three Barbie-purple pouches ready to lace. I was going to start lacing one of them last night, but they really wanted purple lace. I couldn't find any smooth lace at a price I was willing to pay, but I did find some suede lace that's supposed to be sturdy, in "royal purple". I ordered a roll of that and royal blue to try.
Enough Things!
Last night I decided that I need to stop cutting out pouches, unless/until I get caught up before ACen. The only exception is small drawstring bags, which I've been planning to make (and go fast), and if I decide to cut out a back for one hard pouch front that got molded last night (because it was already cut) - I have a red back cut out, it depends if I want two red and black, or decide to do some other color.No, More New Things!
Except that yesterday while I was working on satchels, etc., I thought that for anime cons, what would be a good idea to make would be the kind of briefcase-ish bag that seems to be, at least in anime, the default for Japanese students of high school-ish age.
Fortunately, a while back our Etsy shop was favorited by a seller on Etsy who has patterns for just that sort of thing, and you can use his patterns to make things for sale. So I got a briefcase pattern, and another pattern for a belt bag that I'd looked at before and that Ron liked, too. I don't expect to have any for ACen, but now Anime Midwest is a possibility.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Yet Another Busy Weekend Report
Another busy weekend. But this report isn't late - I was driving all over the lower Rock River floodplain on Monday and Tuesday. More natter about that on my personal blog.
Saturday Ron marked and put stitching holes in the neck collars on potion bottles, and I worked on sewing them up. Once I got started it went fairly quickly. I got over half of them done before we left for the MuseCon meeting and a friend's party after that.
At the party I did work on lacing pouches while chatting. And Ron decided to make a holster for a teacup and saucer for (Steampunk) Tea Duelling . . . you'll have to Google it yourself - it is G-rated, just odd.
Sunday we went to Crate & Barrel and Ron looked and looked (and looked) at teacups and saucers. Finding nice rounded teacups (as opposed to squared-off mugs) was a complete pain in the backside. This plain one was a nice shape, affordable, and too big. These were pretty, and a nice shape, but way too expensive. We finally got a couple of these, with matching saucers. More than we were hoping to spend, but they're a nice size and look nice.
Ron's still trying to decide the best way to make the holster. Probably molded. Its going to be a pricey set, as I've decided it needs to be lined, and got some nice leather that can be molded to line it with. But steampunk fans seem to be willing to pay for good stuff.
Sunday I worked on some more bottles, and in the afternoon worked on the red and red & black pouches I'd cut out last Monday. There were a lot of them. Nine, to be precise. But I got all of them ready to lace. And then I convinced myself that I didn't really need to take all nine with me to Moline. Which was good, because we worked late, then went to dinner, and weren't in a hurry to get back to our motel, and by then I was ready to be a vegetable, so I didn't get any lacing done at all Monday night. But I did some yesterday morning, and finished one pouch and did belt loops and other bits on a couple more last night.
The same day last week I was looking for, and ordered, leather for belt loops, I got the new Weaver Leather catalog, which includes leather that's a bit heavier than I usually use for belt loops (but still reasonable), for about half the price of the leather I'd ordered (from another supplier). D'oh! The belt loop leather arrived yesterday, will probably cut that down today, since I'm home with an upset tummy.
Which brings me, via the new catalog, not the upset tummy, to the upcoming price increase. Leather prices are going up. I did the price increase in 2012 figuring the cost for the leather I use for black belts at $8.00 square foot, which I thought then would give me some breathing space, and now that leather is up to $8.56. And when I was at Tandy/Leather Factory yesterday, the manager said their prices are going up - the garment/upholstery scrap has gone from $7/pound to $5.mumble/half-pound. Ouch.
I was thinking of increasing prices after ACen. The new plan, I think, is to go ahead and put the new prices on all the new stuff, and either work on re-pricing at ACen, or do it after, and if somebody notices and asks, tell them what's up - prices have to go up to cover our costs, get this before it goes to the price on that. Maybe we can even move some older inventory to new homes that way.
Yesterday we were contacted by Indy PopCon, a new pop culture convention in Indianapolis. It's their first year, hoping for 10,000 people. I think that may be optimistic (although they're on the ginormicon model, so that attendance goal may not be completely irrational). But they're only two weeks after ACen. And Ron may have to go to WisCon the intervening weekend to work the MuseCon party, because of reasons that have happened to other people. Robin has pronounced it a bad idea, at least for this year (as in, next year we could plan for it), but I have asked Ron and Xap's opinions. I suspect we'll pass.
Saturday Ron marked and put stitching holes in the neck collars on potion bottles, and I worked on sewing them up. Once I got started it went fairly quickly. I got over half of them done before we left for the MuseCon meeting and a friend's party after that.
At the party I did work on lacing pouches while chatting. And Ron decided to make a holster for a teacup and saucer for (Steampunk) Tea Duelling . . . you'll have to Google it yourself - it is G-rated, just odd.
Sunday we went to Crate & Barrel and Ron looked and looked (and looked) at teacups and saucers. Finding nice rounded teacups (as opposed to squared-off mugs) was a complete pain in the backside. This plain one was a nice shape, affordable, and too big. These were pretty, and a nice shape, but way too expensive. We finally got a couple of these, with matching saucers. More than we were hoping to spend, but they're a nice size and look nice.
Ron's still trying to decide the best way to make the holster. Probably molded. Its going to be a pricey set, as I've decided it needs to be lined, and got some nice leather that can be molded to line it with. But steampunk fans seem to be willing to pay for good stuff.
Sunday I worked on some more bottles, and in the afternoon worked on the red and red & black pouches I'd cut out last Monday. There were a lot of them. Nine, to be precise. But I got all of them ready to lace. And then I convinced myself that I didn't really need to take all nine with me to Moline. Which was good, because we worked late, then went to dinner, and weren't in a hurry to get back to our motel, and by then I was ready to be a vegetable, so I didn't get any lacing done at all Monday night. But I did some yesterday morning, and finished one pouch and did belt loops and other bits on a couple more last night.
The same day last week I was looking for, and ordered, leather for belt loops, I got the new Weaver Leather catalog, which includes leather that's a bit heavier than I usually use for belt loops (but still reasonable), for about half the price of the leather I'd ordered (from another supplier). D'oh! The belt loop leather arrived yesterday, will probably cut that down today, since I'm home with an upset tummy.
Which brings me, via the new catalog, not the upset tummy, to the upcoming price increase. Leather prices are going up. I did the price increase in 2012 figuring the cost for the leather I use for black belts at $8.00 square foot, which I thought then would give me some breathing space, and now that leather is up to $8.56. And when I was at Tandy/Leather Factory yesterday, the manager said their prices are going up - the garment/upholstery scrap has gone from $7/pound to $5.mumble/half-pound. Ouch.
I was thinking of increasing prices after ACen. The new plan, I think, is to go ahead and put the new prices on all the new stuff, and either work on re-pricing at ACen, or do it after, and if somebody notices and asks, tell them what's up - prices have to go up to cover our costs, get this before it goes to the price on that. Maybe we can even move some older inventory to new homes that way.
Yesterday we were contacted by Indy PopCon, a new pop culture convention in Indianapolis. It's their first year, hoping for 10,000 people. I think that may be optimistic (although they're on the ginormicon model, so that attendance goal may not be completely irrational). But they're only two weeks after ACen. And Ron may have to go to WisCon the intervening weekend to work the MuseCon party, because of reasons that have happened to other people. Robin has pronounced it a bad idea, at least for this year (as in, next year we could plan for it), but I have asked Ron and Xap's opinions. I suspect we'll pass.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Late Weekend Report: It was Busy
The problem with being slow about blogging is that the days start to run into each other.
Saturday and Sunday we worked on a batch of hard pouches. We got a couple strips cut for bandoliers, and I meant to do more, but got distracted from cutting out other pieces by figuring out what else we needed for the hard pouches and other things, and didn't get any farther on bandoliers. But at this point I've finished two, am about 3/4 of the way done with a third, and the other 4 are ready to lace up.
Sunday morning Xap came over and we did inventory. We did all the pouches and most of the other things, but I didn't have the tenacity to sort knitting needles and count each one, or knitting notions, or to go through the conchos. Yes, I'm weak.
Last week I stopped at an Office Whatsit and picked up some DIY self-stick business card magnets. We already had a package of perforated sheets of business cards, which I used to make labels to stick on the magnets, and labeled the ammo cans as to contents (generally - yarn, knitting needles & notions, tools, etc.). Now we don't have to open every single one to find things.
Ron's been working on his perl script to automate getting inventory into and out of the point of sale software.
I thought the small-but-really-annoying crack in my fingertip was getting better, but it got worse again over the weekend. Tuesday morning I picked up some butterfly suture/bandages, and they seem to be working better - smaller and less annoying than band-aids, so I'm wearing them more, and keeping the crack pulled shut, encouraging it to heal. At a doctor's appointment yesterday, a sympathetic nurse also handed me a package of steri-strips.
Ron's thumb/wrist problems took him to the doctor yesterday (separate appointment, and doctor, than mine, which was a surgery follow-up), where it was pronounced probably arthritis. Do this and that, and see if it helps, and don't wear the thumb brace, it'll probably make things worse.
Had a sinus headache Sunday night/Monday morning, so I stayed home Monday. I . . . kind of got out of control. I was thinking we need more colored pouches (need the final post-inventory inventory list from Ron to be certain), so I started looking through our colored leather, and amassed a good-sized pile. Some of it was definietely too soft for anything but sewn belt satchels, etc., like these:
Some was iffy, and some was definitely firm enough for "soft" laced pouches like this one:
I decided to start with the garment/upholstery weight. I ended up with 10 "belt satchels" (the second-smallest size in the picture above), and 10 little tabbed soft pouches (the red and black ones):
The dark pieces on top are inside pockets for the small tabbed pouches, which are cut out of an ugly dark grey. And yes, that is metallic hot pink sticking out of the stack. Yes, I intentionally bought it. Because somebody will like it. There's also some slightly metallic copper, dark teal, a slightly metallic bronze, some red, and one white piece.
Then I moved on to the "iffy" leather. I decided that was probably enough sewn colored pouches, so I decided to double it up with more of the ugly grey (which was super-cheap), and some other extremely cheap stuff. I ended up with a 8 pouches like the white fake-snake one above, and a dozen little square soft pouches:
Barbie purple (which looks more pink in this picture), a nice purple, red, black, and Elrond.
I hadn't intended cut out that many, but there was an oops with layout on the purple, and the sensible way to fix it was just cut more parts than to throw away the oops part. Then I decided to combine some of the red with black, because red and black always go good together, and when I cut out black pouches, I cut a strip the width I need, and cut however many parts I can out of it, which is more efficient than just cutting one or a few out at a time. So I ended up with extra. Then Ron got home and suggested combining black with purple. So there you have it.
Oh, wait, it ended up being 13 small square soft pouches, for reasons that aren't really important and happened after I counted.
Robin started lacing for me Monday. He's done belt loops before, and looking at the piles of parts, he decided I needed help. All the pouches that I've got ready now have belt loops, and two-piece soft pouches have their bottom seams done. And last night he learned how to do the side seams on soft pouches (which is the same as lacing a belt loop on, except doing the corner seams). Last night Ron also fixed a hard pouch that I'd messed up. Fortunately, it was fixable.
Monday I ordered latches (and rivets). Unfortunately, all the antique nickel latches I wanted were back-ordered. Drat, I wanted to put some on the colored pouches. I'll use what I have, then default to antique brass.
Last night and this morning I was considering the piles of cut-out pouches, the number of belt loops I have cut out, and the fact that I've already gone through the scrap pile for anything I could make belt loops out of. Leather prices have gone up, and I couldn't bring myself to cut down the leather I like for belt loops, at least not until I've gotten bigger things out of it. Did some poking around and found single shoulders, which at 5-7 square feet sound good-sized, but are not really big enough to use efficiently for most things we make (decided after buying previously). They will, however, be just fine for belt loops.
I also ordered a grab-bag lot of garment/upholstery leather, at pretty much a Stupidly Cheap price. I'm not expecting any great and wonderful, but it should be just fine for making drawstring bags (ie: dice bags). We're down to only 1 or 2 of the smallest ($5, IIRC) size of those again, and I definitely want to make more for ACen.
Yes, I know, that's approaching rapidly, and I have a lot of things on the to-do list. Fortunately, Ron's sore thumb shouldn't be a problem when it comes to machine-sewing drawstring bags, and I can probably get him to work on the other machine-sewn pouches, too, even if he isn't up to lacing.
In other ACen news, the vendor map is up (right-click on the image and open the PDF to zoom in and scroll, IIRC the ctrl-scroll-wheel the website recommends is a pain). The list of vendors and their locations is here. We're right next to Blonde Swan. This could be good, especially for attracting steampunk customers. This could also be a problem, we dropped a not-insignificant amount of money with Blonde Swan last year . . .
Saturday and Sunday we worked on a batch of hard pouches. We got a couple strips cut for bandoliers, and I meant to do more, but got distracted from cutting out other pieces by figuring out what else we needed for the hard pouches and other things, and didn't get any farther on bandoliers. But at this point I've finished two, am about 3/4 of the way done with a third, and the other 4 are ready to lace up.
Sunday morning Xap came over and we did inventory. We did all the pouches and most of the other things, but I didn't have the tenacity to sort knitting needles and count each one, or knitting notions, or to go through the conchos. Yes, I'm weak.
Last week I stopped at an Office Whatsit and picked up some DIY self-stick business card magnets. We already had a package of perforated sheets of business cards, which I used to make labels to stick on the magnets, and labeled the ammo cans as to contents (generally - yarn, knitting needles & notions, tools, etc.). Now we don't have to open every single one to find things.
Ron's been working on his perl script to automate getting inventory into and out of the point of sale software.
I thought the small-but-really-annoying crack in my fingertip was getting better, but it got worse again over the weekend. Tuesday morning I picked up some butterfly suture/bandages, and they seem to be working better - smaller and less annoying than band-aids, so I'm wearing them more, and keeping the crack pulled shut, encouraging it to heal. At a doctor's appointment yesterday, a sympathetic nurse also handed me a package of steri-strips.
Ron's thumb/wrist problems took him to the doctor yesterday (separate appointment, and doctor, than mine, which was a surgery follow-up), where it was pronounced probably arthritis. Do this and that, and see if it helps, and don't wear the thumb brace, it'll probably make things worse.
Had a sinus headache Sunday night/Monday morning, so I stayed home Monday. I . . . kind of got out of control. I was thinking we need more colored pouches (need the final post-inventory inventory list from Ron to be certain), so I started looking through our colored leather, and amassed a good-sized pile. Some of it was definietely too soft for anything but sewn belt satchels, etc., like these:
Some was iffy, and some was definitely firm enough for "soft" laced pouches like this one:
I decided to start with the garment/upholstery weight. I ended up with 10 "belt satchels" (the second-smallest size in the picture above), and 10 little tabbed soft pouches (the red and black ones):
The dark pieces on top are inside pockets for the small tabbed pouches, which are cut out of an ugly dark grey. And yes, that is metallic hot pink sticking out of the stack. Yes, I intentionally bought it. Because somebody will like it. There's also some slightly metallic copper, dark teal, a slightly metallic bronze, some red, and one white piece.
Then I moved on to the "iffy" leather. I decided that was probably enough sewn colored pouches, so I decided to double it up with more of the ugly grey (which was super-cheap), and some other extremely cheap stuff. I ended up with a 8 pouches like the white fake-snake one above, and a dozen little square soft pouches:
Barbie purple (which looks more pink in this picture), a nice purple, red, black, and Elrond.
I hadn't intended cut out that many, but there was an oops with layout on the purple, and the sensible way to fix it was just cut more parts than to throw away the oops part. Then I decided to combine some of the red with black, because red and black always go good together, and when I cut out black pouches, I cut a strip the width I need, and cut however many parts I can out of it, which is more efficient than just cutting one or a few out at a time. So I ended up with extra. Then Ron got home and suggested combining black with purple. So there you have it.
Oh, wait, it ended up being 13 small square soft pouches, for reasons that aren't really important and happened after I counted.
Robin started lacing for me Monday. He's done belt loops before, and looking at the piles of parts, he decided I needed help. All the pouches that I've got ready now have belt loops, and two-piece soft pouches have their bottom seams done. And last night he learned how to do the side seams on soft pouches (which is the same as lacing a belt loop on, except doing the corner seams). Last night Ron also fixed a hard pouch that I'd messed up. Fortunately, it was fixable.
Monday I ordered latches (and rivets). Unfortunately, all the antique nickel latches I wanted were back-ordered. Drat, I wanted to put some on the colored pouches. I'll use what I have, then default to antique brass.
Last night and this morning I was considering the piles of cut-out pouches, the number of belt loops I have cut out, and the fact that I've already gone through the scrap pile for anything I could make belt loops out of. Leather prices have gone up, and I couldn't bring myself to cut down the leather I like for belt loops, at least not until I've gotten bigger things out of it. Did some poking around and found single shoulders, which at 5-7 square feet sound good-sized, but are not really big enough to use efficiently for most things we make (decided after buying previously). They will, however, be just fine for belt loops.
I also ordered a grab-bag lot of garment/upholstery leather, at pretty much a Stupidly Cheap price. I'm not expecting any great and wonderful, but it should be just fine for making drawstring bags (ie: dice bags). We're down to only 1 or 2 of the smallest ($5, IIRC) size of those again, and I definitely want to make more for ACen.
Yes, I know, that's approaching rapidly, and I have a lot of things on the to-do list. Fortunately, Ron's sore thumb shouldn't be a problem when it comes to machine-sewing drawstring bags, and I can probably get him to work on the other machine-sewn pouches, too, even if he isn't up to lacing.
In other ACen news, the vendor map is up (right-click on the image and open the PDF to zoom in and scroll, IIRC the ctrl-scroll-wheel the website recommends is a pain). The list of vendors and their locations is here. We're right next to Blonde Swan. This could be good, especially for attracting steampunk customers. This could also be a problem, we dropped a not-insignificant amount of money with Blonde Swan last year . . .
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Not Quite Not Quite as Planned
I didn't work on hanging pouches last night, I worked on soft pouches instead.
I decided to wait on the hanging pouches until I got the last flap laced (which is much easier to do before the flap is sewn onto the back, which I was going to do at lunch today. But when I was packing my bag this morning I packed one of the hanging pouches that had the cutting fail and will have the front and back hand-sewn together. Oops.
Not a big deal, since we have a meeting tonight, so I probably won't have time to work on the pouches much anyway. I'll do the flap tomorrow, probably get the flaps (machine) sewn onto the backs tomorrow night, and possibly get the fronts and backs glued together. I doubt we'll get as far as trimming, though.
The black lace I ordered week before last arrived last night. That's not bad for this company, sometimes they actually have to make (cut) the lace before they can send it, I've had it take as long as a month between ordering and receiving.
I forgot to mention yesterday that both Ron and I are on the injured list:
Mine is minor, but annoyingly painful at times: ever had a dry skin crack in a fingertip, off the corner of a fingernail? Yeah, one of those. Middle finger on my right hand, toward my index finger. Hopefully bandaids and antibiotic ointments will get it to heal reasonably quickly, but based on past experience I suspect it's going to annoy me for a while.
Ron's managed to do something to his right thumb. I suspected using the pliers-type hole punch on the bottle parts (similar issues is why I went to using a punches), but he says no, he uses his palm/finger muscles for that more than his thumb. He got a brace yesterday morning, hopefully a couple/few days of rest will take care of whatever. My left thumb sympathizes, it gets sore in about the same places, but since I'm right-handed its easier to be careful with.
I decided to wait on the hanging pouches until I got the last flap laced (which is much easier to do before the flap is sewn onto the back, which I was going to do at lunch today. But when I was packing my bag this morning I packed one of the hanging pouches that had the cutting fail and will have the front and back hand-sewn together. Oops.
Not a big deal, since we have a meeting tonight, so I probably won't have time to work on the pouches much anyway. I'll do the flap tomorrow, probably get the flaps (machine) sewn onto the backs tomorrow night, and possibly get the fronts and backs glued together. I doubt we'll get as far as trimming, though.
The black lace I ordered week before last arrived last night. That's not bad for this company, sometimes they actually have to make (cut) the lace before they can send it, I've had it take as long as a month between ordering and receiving.
I forgot to mention yesterday that both Ron and I are on the injured list:
Mine is minor, but annoyingly painful at times: ever had a dry skin crack in a fingertip, off the corner of a fingernail? Yeah, one of those. Middle finger on my right hand, toward my index finger. Hopefully bandaids and antibiotic ointments will get it to heal reasonably quickly, but based on past experience I suspect it's going to annoy me for a while.
Ron's managed to do something to his right thumb. I suspected using the pliers-type hole punch on the bottle parts (similar issues is why I went to using a punches), but he says no, he uses his palm/finger muscles for that more than his thumb. He got a brace yesterday morning, hopefully a couple/few days of rest will take care of whatever. My left thumb sympathizes, it gets sore in about the same places, but since I'm right-handed its easier to be careful with.
Monday, March 31, 2014
Another Busy Weekend
That was another busy weekend, with lots accomplished.
Friday night I got another 3 or 4 little square soft pouches ready to lace.
Saturday morning we temporarily misplaced our marbles, and went to Ikea for a bench for the not-yet-purchased proof press. It was busy. Fortunately, we knew what we wanted and where in the warehouse it was, so Ron dropped me off at the door, I commando-shopped, and he met me at the loading area.
While Ron put the bench together after lunch (preceded by a stop at the grocery store), I messed around with bottles - I figured out the dimensions for the parts for some triangular bottles I got ages ago, and modified the design for the square, spherical, and cylindrical bottles so the straps come down and are independently riveted to a bottom piece, instead of all 3 or 4 being attached together with one rivet. Yes, it uses more rivets, but they'll sit better this way. Drew the new parts in CAD, cut out the parts, assembled, did a test-fit, then adjusted the designs slightly, re-printed, covered the new patterns in clear contact paper, and cut them out.
Coming up with patterns is tedious. Really tedious. After that Ron and I went into production mode. I cut and marked pieces, Ron punched holes and cut points on strap ends (with an end punch), and punched out 1-1/2" circles with the biggest self-centering punch, I put rivets in place, and Ron set rivets. I think we got the parts cut and assembled for a dozen spherical bottles in the same time I did coming up with the parts for two triangular bottles and modifying/making the new designs for one each of the sphere/square/cylinder. Or maybe faster.
After that we went out to Emmett's Brewing Co. in Palatine and had drinks and snacks.
Sunday morning we repeated the process for a dozen of the cylindrical bottles, and put snaps in everything from both days. So now one of the Max's drawers is fairly full of bottles that need their leather collars hand-stitched and trimmed. That will finish them off. Of each dozen we did 8 black, and then 4 browns (2 golden, 2 red-brown). It seems like an awful lot of bottles, and a lot of black ones, but we think they'll go well at ACen, and we usually sell more black of whatever than brown whatever.
Then we worked on hanging pouches. We knocked the corners off of edges of the backs, dyed the edges, and then used the new cordless Dremel tool to round off/burnish the edges. I started while Ron cut leather and thinned it for belt loop-ish tabs, then Robin cut tabs out with a die on the big press. Mark and punch holes in the belt-loop-ish tabs and the places where they go on the backs, attach studs (which hold the parts together, then I went out to the machine and sewed them together, and sewed the flaps onto some. We did the edging and put tabs on 8 hanging pouch backs, and flaps on three of those.
Then we did some more shopping, looking for an easier way to trim hard pouches, after gluing the fronts and backs together. We looked at Ace Hardware, then went to Menard's. We narrowed it down to oscillating saws, like this one from Dremel, or this little Dremel scroll saw, which packs down into a carrying case and can clamp onto a workbench. We decided we'd have more control with the scroll saw. The oscillating saws are big and chunky, even to Ron, and there's not a lot in the way of guards near the blades.
Got it home, Ron tried it with some scraps while I glued hanging hard pouches together, then turned me loose, after warning me the saw pulled to the left. I did a couple little test cuts, then had at it.
Not the best idea. Results were not good. Let me clarify - the cuts were fine, not any rougher than a knife cut, but control was the problem. The saw did indeed pull left, probably exacerbated by me trying to cut to fast. Ron did better than I did, and probably will be taking over sawing pouches. We should have practiced more. One of the pouches was salvageable, and will be laced. The other two were cut too close to the body of the pouch for lacing, but they can be hand-stitched. I got all three ready for stitching/lacing (marking and punching holes, marking and setting latch locations), which included fussing around with the cleaning up and burnishing the cut edges (hello again, Mr. Cordless Dremel) on the two that will be hand-stitched.
Got the lacing about 2/3 of the way around the pouch that wasn't a complete cutting fail. Fortunately, lacing hides a number of sins, and cleaning up the edges on the stitched pouches helped them a lot, too. I think all three will be fine.
I found a flap for another hanging pouch that I'd missed when sewing yesterday, and finished lacing two more flaps today (which I'd started last night by doing some fussy bits on), so maybe Ron can try the saw again tonight.
So, the total for the weekend was:
A shorter set of bullet-points than last weekend, but we weren't any less busy.
Friday night I got another 3 or 4 little square soft pouches ready to lace.
Saturday morning we temporarily misplaced our marbles, and went to Ikea for a bench for the not-yet-purchased proof press. It was busy. Fortunately, we knew what we wanted and where in the warehouse it was, so Ron dropped me off at the door, I commando-shopped, and he met me at the loading area.
While Ron put the bench together after lunch (preceded by a stop at the grocery store), I messed around with bottles - I figured out the dimensions for the parts for some triangular bottles I got ages ago, and modified the design for the square, spherical, and cylindrical bottles so the straps come down and are independently riveted to a bottom piece, instead of all 3 or 4 being attached together with one rivet. Yes, it uses more rivets, but they'll sit better this way. Drew the new parts in CAD, cut out the parts, assembled, did a test-fit, then adjusted the designs slightly, re-printed, covered the new patterns in clear contact paper, and cut them out.
Coming up with patterns is tedious. Really tedious. After that Ron and I went into production mode. I cut and marked pieces, Ron punched holes and cut points on strap ends (with an end punch), and punched out 1-1/2" circles with the biggest self-centering punch, I put rivets in place, and Ron set rivets. I think we got the parts cut and assembled for a dozen spherical bottles in the same time I did coming up with the parts for two triangular bottles and modifying/making the new designs for one each of the sphere/square/cylinder. Or maybe faster.
After that we went out to Emmett's Brewing Co. in Palatine and had drinks and snacks.
Sunday morning we repeated the process for a dozen of the cylindrical bottles, and put snaps in everything from both days. So now one of the Max's drawers is fairly full of bottles that need their leather collars hand-stitched and trimmed. That will finish them off. Of each dozen we did 8 black, and then 4 browns (2 golden, 2 red-brown). It seems like an awful lot of bottles, and a lot of black ones, but we think they'll go well at ACen, and we usually sell more black of whatever than brown whatever.
Then we worked on hanging pouches. We knocked the corners off of edges of the backs, dyed the edges, and then used the new cordless Dremel tool to round off/burnish the edges. I started while Ron cut leather and thinned it for belt loop-ish tabs, then Robin cut tabs out with a die on the big press. Mark and punch holes in the belt-loop-ish tabs and the places where they go on the backs, attach studs (which hold the parts together, then I went out to the machine and sewed them together, and sewed the flaps onto some. We did the edging and put tabs on 8 hanging pouch backs, and flaps on three of those.
Then we did some more shopping, looking for an easier way to trim hard pouches, after gluing the fronts and backs together. We looked at Ace Hardware, then went to Menard's. We narrowed it down to oscillating saws, like this one from Dremel, or this little Dremel scroll saw, which packs down into a carrying case and can clamp onto a workbench. We decided we'd have more control with the scroll saw. The oscillating saws are big and chunky, even to Ron, and there's not a lot in the way of guards near the blades.
Got it home, Ron tried it with some scraps while I glued hanging hard pouches together, then turned me loose, after warning me the saw pulled to the left. I did a couple little test cuts, then had at it.
Not the best idea. Results were not good. Let me clarify - the cuts were fine, not any rougher than a knife cut, but control was the problem. The saw did indeed pull left, probably exacerbated by me trying to cut to fast. Ron did better than I did, and probably will be taking over sawing pouches. We should have practiced more. One of the pouches was salvageable, and will be laced. The other two were cut too close to the body of the pouch for lacing, but they can be hand-stitched. I got all three ready for stitching/lacing (marking and punching holes, marking and setting latch locations), which included fussing around with the cleaning up and burnishing the cut edges (hello again, Mr. Cordless Dremel) on the two that will be hand-stitched.
Got the lacing about 2/3 of the way around the pouch that wasn't a complete cutting fail. Fortunately, lacing hides a number of sins, and cleaning up the edges on the stitched pouches helped them a lot, too. I think all three will be fine.
I found a flap for another hanging pouch that I'd missed when sewing yesterday, and finished lacing two more flaps today (which I'd started last night by doing some fussy bits on), so maybe Ron can try the saw again tonight.
So, the total for the weekend was:
- Bottle wraps re-designed
- 29 bottles mostly-done, necks to be stitched up over several evenings soonish
- Cordless Dremel bought last weekend used for an extended period, definitely approved
- Dremel scroll saw bought, tested, operator skill found deficient, but tool should work
- 8 hard hanging pouches worked on
- 3 or 4 soft pouches ready to lace
- Bits of lacing done in odds and ends of time
A shorter set of bullet-points than last weekend, but we weren't any less busy.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Extended Weekend Wrap-Up
By the time I finished blogging yesterday (posting here and a long one to the personal blog), I had a very sore lower back. Partly just from lots of working on lots of things over the weekend, but mostly because when I was sorting through the scrap pile, and to a lesser extent working on belt loops and straps for bottles, I spent a lot of time sitting in a chair, and reaching down to the floor. Bad idea. My body may not like sitting on the floor, but it would have been less bad than what I did. Getting chilled while sitting at the computer, and the thermostat rolling back to the "nobody home" setting probably didn't help. A hot shower and Alleve seem to have mostly taken care of it.
Things we accomplished over the 3-day weekend:
Things not accomplished:
More things to do and/or get (by ACen):
Things we accomplished over the 3-day weekend:
- Scrap pile sorted
- One sub-pile reduced to belt loops
- Another sub-pile prepped for wrapping around bottles, and other uses
- Belt loops and bottle, etc. scraps put away neatly/compactly
- Rest of the scrap sorted into two categories and contained
- Several drawers neatened up
- Latch supply inventoried, nothing needed at the moment
- Determined we have Stupid Amounts of copper rivets (which we don't use much any more)
- Supply of belt tabs for hanging pouches assessed (insufficient)
- Some of the hanging pouch flaps laced
- A bunch of soft pouches ready to lace
- Some soft pouches sent off with Xap to get some of the lacing done
- Sewing machine power switch replaced
- Cool little LED light bar and power switch added to sewing machine
- iPad bracket put on shelves
- Multi-meter located, and then put away in its case after use
- Cordless rechargeable Dremel tool bought, tested, and approved
- Corded Dremel tool hiding place located
- Rubber cement and thinner obtained (supply of rubber cement was getting grim, and what we had was rather thick/sticky)
- Hanging pouch ordered at Reenactor Fest completed, in transit
- Started lacing the bottom seams and belt loops on soft pouches
- Worked on updating the visual catalog of letterpress blocks - all images imported, still need final arranging on pages and labels (back was starting to kvetch)
- Have a pile of pouches to lace tonight at motel in Springfield
- Bitched about overnight trip to Springfield
- Sent a bunch of my knitting stuff up to live with the rest of the knitting stash, allowing . ..
- Unearthed the tool bag that lives near the couch, so I could . . .
- Put pouches being worked on in it.
- Kitchen cupboard re-organization initiated
Things not accomplished:
- Didn't get the business tax returns finished off
- Didn't get as far as I'd hoped on the rest of the hanging pouches
- Didn't get anything done with the hard pouch fronts molded last week
- Didn't get any more hard pouch fronts cut out or molded
More things to do and/or get (by ACen):
- Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, er, making pouches
- (Funky-) Colored (ie: not black/brown) soft pouches
- Potion bottles
- Bandolier(s)
- Another map case
- Finish valise?
- More tails
- Machine-sewn pouches/satchels
- Inventory of not-belts - notes on inventory done at Reenactor Fest have been lost (except for belts and possibly hardware)
- Quite probably other things I'm forgetting
Monday, March 24, 2014
Plans? What are These "Plans" of Which You Speak?
Yes, still more not-according-to-plan yesterday.
In the morning Ron and Robin replaced the power switch on the big sewing machine, and installed the cool little LED light bar I'd gotten, which turned out to be a bigger job than expected (the light bar has a magnet, but I'd forgetten about routing the cord). Fortunately, Ron found one of the two multi-meters that were hiding, so a trip to get yet another one was averted (multi-meter needed to ensure that the correct bits were connected between the switch and machine motor). While they were doing that I got some more little half-soft pouches ready to lace.
After that I went through the big pile of straps for putting on/around bottles, split them down, sorted them by color and size, coiled them up in a bunch of zippy bags, packed them in a Rubbermaid container (without a top), stuck a label in the container for future ease of identification, and put it up out of the way on a shelf. Its probably more of some of the size straps than I need, but it made sense to split it all down, as it was to a thickness I use for other things, like holding dees on the back of pouches for use as sporrans. And it cleaned up the dining room some more.
Then I went out with Ron and Robin to get coffee beans, and when we stopped at Crate and Barrel for canisters for the coffee, and that quick stop went off the rails, with further not-as-planned when we got home to put new stuff away, pack old things, and re-organized kitchen cupboards (last quarter of linked blog post). Oops. Then it was time to make dinner.
While dinner cooked, and after, I got the pouch that was ordered last month ready to lace. Actually, lacing around the body is the last step, and not necessarily the biggest one. I'll finish that up today, and it can go out tomorrow, or even today, since the US mail doesn't come until 3-4-ish - taking today off as a sanity work-on-things day. If I ever quit blogging and go back upstairs to get a shower.
I like my new cordless Dremel tool. And I found the old one yesterday, it showed up when I went looking for it because I thought I needed a bigger collet (which I didn't), and Ace Hardware was closed, so I couldn't just run out and get one. The cordless one is chunkier, but my hands are large enough that it isn't a problem.
In the morning Ron and Robin replaced the power switch on the big sewing machine, and installed the cool little LED light bar I'd gotten, which turned out to be a bigger job than expected (the light bar has a magnet, but I'd forgetten about routing the cord). Fortunately, Ron found one of the two multi-meters that were hiding, so a trip to get yet another one was averted (multi-meter needed to ensure that the correct bits were connected between the switch and machine motor). While they were doing that I got some more little half-soft pouches ready to lace.
After that I went through the big pile of straps for putting on/around bottles, split them down, sorted them by color and size, coiled them up in a bunch of zippy bags, packed them in a Rubbermaid container (without a top), stuck a label in the container for future ease of identification, and put it up out of the way on a shelf. Its probably more of some of the size straps than I need, but it made sense to split it all down, as it was to a thickness I use for other things, like holding dees on the back of pouches for use as sporrans. And it cleaned up the dining room some more.
Then I went out with Ron and Robin to get coffee beans, and when we stopped at Crate and Barrel for canisters for the coffee, and that quick stop went off the rails, with further not-as-planned when we got home to put new stuff away, pack old things, and re-organized kitchen cupboards (last quarter of linked blog post). Oops. Then it was time to make dinner.
While dinner cooked, and after, I got the pouch that was ordered last month ready to lace. Actually, lacing around the body is the last step, and not necessarily the biggest one. I'll finish that up today, and it can go out tomorrow, or even today, since the US mail doesn't come until 3-4-ish - taking today off as a sanity work-on-things day. If I ever quit blogging and go back upstairs to get a shower.
I like my new cordless Dremel tool. And I found the old one yesterday, it showed up when I went looking for it because I thought I needed a bigger collet (which I didn't), and Ace Hardware was closed, so I couldn't just run out and get one. The cordless one is chunkier, but my hands are large enough that it isn't a problem.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Working, Not Quite as Planned
Things have not quite gone as planned yesterday and today.
Last night after dinner we went to Target to get Robin new headphones and a new CD player. Except Target had almost nothing in the way of CD players, so Robin got an MP3-Player-Player instead. But when we got home I worked on pouches. I got the medium vertical soft pouches ready to lace (actually did that while dinner was cooking), and got most of the flaps for the hanging pouches ready to lace.
This morning it was back to Target to return the MP3-Player-Player, because it was broken out of the box. On the way there, we realized that Robin's iPod had also died. Convenient timing, actually, since the new iPods use a different connector than the older ones. On the way to the vet's to get heartworm pills, we got a flat tire, so there was a delay there while Ron and Robin changed the tire. Then we got to kill about an hour and a half (mostly at GFS) while the tire was repaired (warranty at Discount Tire FTW, and they do the final tightening by hand, with a torque wrench, so you can actually get lug nuts off). Then to Berland's House of Tools to look for possible benches for the new press (struck out), and at a cordless Dremel tool that was on sale (which followed us home, particularly since our corded Dremel is hiding). Then to Best Buy for a new iPod, iPod player/sound dock, and a couple other odds and ends. Then lunch, because by then we were getting hungry, and finally back home.
So much for a quick couple errands this morning. Oddly enough, the Dremel-in-hiding did not jump out and show itself as soon as we opened the new one.
This afternoon I started by sorting the scrap pile: Straps for belt loops, straps for bottles, other straps, and all other scrap.
After that, I decided to process the belt loop to-be pile, so it wouldn't try to masquerade as general scrap again (I found a bunch of chunks that I think were just such a pile previously).
Here's the pile:
The stack on/in the Rubbermaid container is about to be split down to the right thickness. The smaller pile to the upper right is already thin enough.
Here's the end result:
They take up much less space - that's the same Rubbermaid container that the straps were piled on/in.
Putting the belt loops away and determining how many of the pieces we had for hanging pouch belt loop tabs led to sorting and re-organizing the drawer in the tool cabinet where I keep them.
That led to checking to see how the latch supply was, and cleaning up part of that drawer.
Things went downhill from there. I ended up sorting and re-organizing all three of the drawers in that set of tool drawers (upper right black unit) Which was useful, but sorting rivets is pretty high on the list of boring things to do. OTOH, I now know that we're in pretty good shape for latches, I can find things in the drawers, and the burrs (washers) for all the copper and brass rivets aren't mixed into the rivets. These are all good things, even if it wasn't how I planned to spend the afternoon.
Currently waiting for calzones for dinner.
Last night after dinner we went to Target to get Robin new headphones and a new CD player. Except Target had almost nothing in the way of CD players, so Robin got an MP3-Player-Player instead. But when we got home I worked on pouches. I got the medium vertical soft pouches ready to lace (actually did that while dinner was cooking), and got most of the flaps for the hanging pouches ready to lace.
This morning it was back to Target to return the MP3-Player-Player, because it was broken out of the box. On the way there, we realized that Robin's iPod had also died. Convenient timing, actually, since the new iPods use a different connector than the older ones. On the way to the vet's to get heartworm pills, we got a flat tire, so there was a delay there while Ron and Robin changed the tire. Then we got to kill about an hour and a half (mostly at GFS) while the tire was repaired (warranty at Discount Tire FTW, and they do the final tightening by hand, with a torque wrench, so you can actually get lug nuts off). Then to Berland's House of Tools to look for possible benches for the new press (struck out), and at a cordless Dremel tool that was on sale (which followed us home, particularly since our corded Dremel is hiding). Then to Best Buy for a new iPod, iPod player/sound dock, and a couple other odds and ends. Then lunch, because by then we were getting hungry, and finally back home.
So much for a quick couple errands this morning. Oddly enough, the Dremel-in-hiding did not jump out and show itself as soon as we opened the new one.
This afternoon I started by sorting the scrap pile: Straps for belt loops, straps for bottles, other straps, and all other scrap.
After that, I decided to process the belt loop to-be pile, so it wouldn't try to masquerade as general scrap again (I found a bunch of chunks that I think were just such a pile previously).
Here's the pile:
The stack on/in the Rubbermaid container is about to be split down to the right thickness. The smaller pile to the upper right is already thin enough.
Here's the end result:
They take up much less space - that's the same Rubbermaid container that the straps were piled on/in.
Putting the belt loops away and determining how many of the pieces we had for hanging pouch belt loop tabs led to sorting and re-organizing the drawer in the tool cabinet where I keep them.
That led to checking to see how the latch supply was, and cleaning up part of that drawer.
Things went downhill from there. I ended up sorting and re-organizing all three of the drawers in that set of tool drawers (upper right black unit) Which was useful, but sorting rivets is pretty high on the list of boring things to do. OTOH, I now know that we're in pretty good shape for latches, I can find things in the drawers, and the burrs (washers) for all the copper and brass rivets aren't mixed into the rivets. These are all good things, even if it wasn't how I planned to spend the afternoon.
Currently waiting for calzones for dinner.
Friday, March 21, 2014
Still Working
Monday night was pretty much a loss, as Mondays tend to be. Tuesday night we were going to mold another batch of pouch fronts, but the batch on the molds weren't quite dry.
The leather I'd ordered Monday arrived Tuesday, and was the wrong weight, and way undersized for the price I paid (I prefer to pay for leather by the square foot, not per piece, since cows are not uniform in size). OTOH, one of the advantages of being a regular customer somewhere is that the problem was fixed without fuss, and in a generous manner.
Wednesday night Ron made a belt to deliver at the regular Wednesday night thing, and we got the pouches molded. And then Elrond promptly stepped on one of them with a muddy paw while playing with Pippin (a damp rag took care of it the mud).
Last night I worked on soft pouches while watching "Castle". I got three of the small square ones ready to lace, and two of the medium vertical ones almost there - they probably need about another 10 minutes work.
This morning I paid the sales tax bills, and got a couple flaps for hanging shield pouches ready to lace. And then at lunch I got the lacing done. I was going to copy Otter's tax returns (I refuse to pay several/many tens of dollars for the version of TurboTax that will fill in mostly-zeroes for me), but found some bits that need to be filled in. Most of it I could have done by hand, but I'd rather send legible copies.
The plan for tonight is to finish off the little bit of prep work on the soft pouches from last night, then get lacing holes in the rest of the flaps for hanging pouches, as well as put latches on them.
The plan for the rest of the weekend is to work on hanging pouches and bottles. There's actually a method to that plan - I think I can reduce the size of the scrap pile in front of the sewing machine by going through it for the straps to put on bottles, or at least consolidate/re-locate it. That will make it easier for Ron to replace the power switch on the sewing machine, so I can sew the flaps onto the hard pouches, after the flaps are laced.
Heard back on the footprint of the proof press we're starting to save for, looks like it will fit on the smaller (and less expensive) kitchen workbench we were looking at.
Ordered black lace yesterday, and found another source for colored lace. Still need to order latches. I haven't checked what the stock on hand is like, but I think "need more" is a safe assumption. I just need to check which I'm most in need of.
The leather I'd ordered Monday arrived Tuesday, and was the wrong weight, and way undersized for the price I paid (I prefer to pay for leather by the square foot, not per piece, since cows are not uniform in size). OTOH, one of the advantages of being a regular customer somewhere is that the problem was fixed without fuss, and in a generous manner.
Wednesday night Ron made a belt to deliver at the regular Wednesday night thing, and we got the pouches molded. And then Elrond promptly stepped on one of them with a muddy paw while playing with Pippin (a damp rag took care of it the mud).
Last night I worked on soft pouches while watching "Castle". I got three of the small square ones ready to lace, and two of the medium vertical ones almost there - they probably need about another 10 minutes work.
This morning I paid the sales tax bills, and got a couple flaps for hanging shield pouches ready to lace. And then at lunch I got the lacing done. I was going to copy Otter's tax returns (I refuse to pay several/many tens of dollars for the version of TurboTax that will fill in mostly-zeroes for me), but found some bits that need to be filled in. Most of it I could have done by hand, but I'd rather send legible copies.
The plan for tonight is to finish off the little bit of prep work on the soft pouches from last night, then get lacing holes in the rest of the flaps for hanging pouches, as well as put latches on them.
The plan for the rest of the weekend is to work on hanging pouches and bottles. There's actually a method to that plan - I think I can reduce the size of the scrap pile in front of the sewing machine by going through it for the straps to put on bottles, or at least consolidate/re-locate it. That will make it easier for Ron to replace the power switch on the sewing machine, so I can sew the flaps onto the hard pouches, after the flaps are laced.
Heard back on the footprint of the proof press we're starting to save for, looks like it will fit on the smaller (and less expensive) kitchen workbench we were looking at.
Ordered black lace yesterday, and found another source for colored lace. Still need to order latches. I haven't checked what the stock on hand is like, but I think "need more" is a safe assumption. I just need to check which I'm most in need of.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
How to Measure a Belt
A drawing of how/where to measure a belt:
You measure from where the tongue crosses the outer bar of the buckle, to the comfortable hole. If you have a trophy/hook buckle, measure from the hook to the comfortable hole.
Pants size is not useful, as women's clothing sizes bear no relation to measurements, and men's clothing sizes aren't much better.
Monday, March 17, 2014
Working working working!
Finally back to Otter Necessities work this weekend.
Saturday I started out by cutting out backs for the hanging hard pouches I had fronts for - 8 in all, and an extra for a shield pouch, because oops. Plus a pile of vaguely-rectangular-ish blobs that are hard pouch fronts.
In the afternoon I cut out flaps for them (including the oops), from some nice thick pebbled soft black leather (this batch is all going to be black). Then while I had the soft leather out, I cut out a bunch of little square 1/2 soft pouches - 7 of those.
Meanwhile, Ron was working on taxes. He plowed through the business taxes, then after our lunch break (see below), he did our personal taxes. Yay, done! I assisted at a few points, but I don't think he cursed at the computer much more than I did.
I was working on cutting in the living room, so less yelling from room to room was required when Ron wanted my input or had questions. Before cutting, while excavating my cutting bench, I started loading up the new shelves. They're Elfa shelves, which use vertical standards mounted on a top hanging bar. We'd gotten a pair of stock standards, which didn't come down as far as optimal. So, at lunchtime we went to the Container Store and got a longer pair (and had them trim a couple inches off so that they'd still fit above the book case), and also got lunch.
In the afternoon Robin set up the airbrush outside, and dyed most of the pouch fronts and backs black - most, because 2 of the fronts were dyed and waxed in the past, and also because he ran out of dye. Marmaduke was over, so got an airbrushing lesson, rather in the vein of Tom Sawyer whitewashing the fence.
Yesterday morning we unloaded the shelves, disassembled, reassembled with the new standards, and re-loaded. The medium density fiberboard for the actual shelves were originally in the spare bedroom, cut down for the new use in the dining room:
Still space, and my plan is to work on all those clear glass bottles on the middle-ish shelf (where the blue bottles are) next weekend. But they're off the floor for now. I think some of the leatherworking books that currently live in our bedroom are going to come down to the new shelves. Patterns and templates are moving from their scattered piles to those white metal file-ish trays on top of the white bookshelf under the new shelves.
The white metal shelf on the bottom has a rim on all four sides, and its holding my stylus, pens, and other things I want regularly when working at the bench. Next shelf up has a bunch of small containers with hardware, tools, and other things that get used reasonably often and also go to events in the tool bag. And binder clips in the small cardboard box (and another bin that's out in the living room at the moment). Ron even found a spot to put my iPad holder. Now I qust need to figure out where to put my magnetic knife blocks, which I use to hold my round/head knife and small square when doing layout and cutting.
After rearranging the shelves we got distracted with getting Ron the paraphernalia for brewing copy for much of the morning, and there was a break for a MuseCon meeting. But I did manage to go through the stash of soft pouch parts I'd cut out in the past, and cut out some more. In all I ended up with 10 more 1/2 soft pouches in various colors, 4 medium sized horizontal soft pouches, and 2 vertical soft pouches. Plus a couple-few more partials.
After the MuseCon meeting Robin finished dyeing pouch parts, and Ron waxed the hard fronts, and some soft pouch parts I wanted lightly waxed (for color). In the late afternoon/evening I started marking all the soft pouch parts - belt loop locations, guide lines for the lacing holes, and latch locations, as well as trimming corners on flaps. I made it through all the 16 pouches that I'd found or cut out Sunday, but declared myself done before getting to the seven I cut out Saturday. It helped that a bunch of parts had been marked previously. And I binder-clipped pairs of pieces together. Here's the pile of all the soft pouch parts - that's 23 in all:
A surprisingly small pile, actually.
Add in the parts for 9 "hanging" hard pouches, and molding 4 more fronts last night, that's, um, 36 pouches worked on. Oh, wait. On Saturday I'd cut out more than just the 4 fronts we molded last night. I think another 4-6? So, 40-ish pouches in all? Call it Stupid Amounts and leave it at that.
And now that I've gotten over the getting-started hump, I should be better at working on things in the evenings.
This morning I ordered another half-cow of the leather we use for pouch fronts and hanging pouch backs (at least the black ones), since we're down to a piece big enough for one, maybe two things. This week I need to look at where we are for latches, we're going to be putting rather a dent in the supply, I'm pretty sure we're going to need more.
I think tonight I'll either work on the flaps for the hanging pouches, or see what I can do about belt loops and the belt loop-ish tabs for hanging pouches. For regular belt loops, that means pawing through the scrap pile for anything the right weight (or heavier, that can be split down) big enough to cut 1-1/8" x 5-1/2" pieces from, that isn't big enough for some other parts. I may also end up cutting some strips just for belt loops, because I've got a lot of pouches underway. Tabs for hanging pouches are bigger than I can usually get out of scrap, so we'll cut some strips, split down to the right thickness, and die-cut them.
Saturday I started out by cutting out backs for the hanging hard pouches I had fronts for - 8 in all, and an extra for a shield pouch, because oops. Plus a pile of vaguely-rectangular-ish blobs that are hard pouch fronts.
In the afternoon I cut out flaps for them (including the oops), from some nice thick pebbled soft black leather (this batch is all going to be black). Then while I had the soft leather out, I cut out a bunch of little square 1/2 soft pouches - 7 of those.
Meanwhile, Ron was working on taxes. He plowed through the business taxes, then after our lunch break (see below), he did our personal taxes. Yay, done! I assisted at a few points, but I don't think he cursed at the computer much more than I did.
I was working on cutting in the living room, so less yelling from room to room was required when Ron wanted my input or had questions. Before cutting, while excavating my cutting bench, I started loading up the new shelves. They're Elfa shelves, which use vertical standards mounted on a top hanging bar. We'd gotten a pair of stock standards, which didn't come down as far as optimal. So, at lunchtime we went to the Container Store and got a longer pair (and had them trim a couple inches off so that they'd still fit above the book case), and also got lunch.
In the afternoon Robin set up the airbrush outside, and dyed most of the pouch fronts and backs black - most, because 2 of the fronts were dyed and waxed in the past, and also because he ran out of dye. Marmaduke was over, so got an airbrushing lesson, rather in the vein of Tom Sawyer whitewashing the fence.
Yesterday morning we unloaded the shelves, disassembled, reassembled with the new standards, and re-loaded. The medium density fiberboard for the actual shelves were originally in the spare bedroom, cut down for the new use in the dining room:
Still space, and my plan is to work on all those clear glass bottles on the middle-ish shelf (where the blue bottles are) next weekend. But they're off the floor for now. I think some of the leatherworking books that currently live in our bedroom are going to come down to the new shelves. Patterns and templates are moving from their scattered piles to those white metal file-ish trays on top of the white bookshelf under the new shelves.
The white metal shelf on the bottom has a rim on all four sides, and its holding my stylus, pens, and other things I want regularly when working at the bench. Next shelf up has a bunch of small containers with hardware, tools, and other things that get used reasonably often and also go to events in the tool bag. And binder clips in the small cardboard box (and another bin that's out in the living room at the moment). Ron even found a spot to put my iPad holder. Now I qust need to figure out where to put my magnetic knife blocks, which I use to hold my round/head knife and small square when doing layout and cutting.
After rearranging the shelves we got distracted with getting Ron the paraphernalia for brewing copy for much of the morning, and there was a break for a MuseCon meeting. But I did manage to go through the stash of soft pouch parts I'd cut out in the past, and cut out some more. In all I ended up with 10 more 1/2 soft pouches in various colors, 4 medium sized horizontal soft pouches, and 2 vertical soft pouches. Plus a couple-few more partials.
After the MuseCon meeting Robin finished dyeing pouch parts, and Ron waxed the hard fronts, and some soft pouch parts I wanted lightly waxed (for color). In the late afternoon/evening I started marking all the soft pouch parts - belt loop locations, guide lines for the lacing holes, and latch locations, as well as trimming corners on flaps. I made it through all the 16 pouches that I'd found or cut out Sunday, but declared myself done before getting to the seven I cut out Saturday. It helped that a bunch of parts had been marked previously. And I binder-clipped pairs of pieces together. Here's the pile of all the soft pouch parts - that's 23 in all:
Add in the parts for 9 "hanging" hard pouches, and molding 4 more fronts last night, that's, um, 36 pouches worked on. Oh, wait. On Saturday I'd cut out more than just the 4 fronts we molded last night. I think another 4-6? So, 40-ish pouches in all? Call it Stupid Amounts and leave it at that.
And now that I've gotten over the getting-started hump, I should be better at working on things in the evenings.
This morning I ordered another half-cow of the leather we use for pouch fronts and hanging pouch backs (at least the black ones), since we're down to a piece big enough for one, maybe two things. This week I need to look at where we are for latches, we're going to be putting rather a dent in the supply, I'm pretty sure we're going to need more.
I think tonight I'll either work on the flaps for the hanging pouches, or see what I can do about belt loops and the belt loop-ish tabs for hanging pouches. For regular belt loops, that means pawing through the scrap pile for anything the right weight (or heavier, that can be split down) big enough to cut 1-1/8" x 5-1/2" pieces from, that isn't big enough for some other parts. I may also end up cutting some strips just for belt loops, because I've got a lot of pouches underway. Tabs for hanging pouches are bigger than I can usually get out of scrap, so we'll cut some strips, split down to the right thickness, and die-cut them.
Friday, March 14, 2014
Catching Up
This post is going to have a certain amount of personal natter rolled up into it, because that's how the cookie crumbles.
A week ago Ron and I abandoned Robin and went out to dinner by ourselves. After dinner we stopped at Ikea to look at things-to-put-a-proof-press-on options. We found a couple, which one we'll end up will depend on the actual footprint of the press (we have a PDF of the users' manual, which is very helpful in some regards, but not when it comes to that particular piece of information).
After Ikea, we went to The Container Store, for more small flat-files for storing blocks. The 10-drawer units were on sale, for about 3/4 the price of two 5-drawer units, so a white one followed us home, since The Container Store doesn't carry the 10-drawer units in orange (the other color choices were black and dark gray). Here it is in place. Yes, drawers have been swapped around, as its easier to shift drawers to keep types of things together than to shift a bunch of blocks from one drawer to the other:
Ron's cunning plan to make room for the proof press was to move a set of shelving out of the spare bedroom. I volunteered that the desk that I got in grade school could be evicted from our bedroom, and the shelves put in its place, and also that the closet on my side of the room could also be used to store optics equipment, rather than taking it to the storage locker. So bright and early Saturday morning Ron started poking at my side of the bedroom. And I mean early.
The end result was throwing out most of the contents of a 4.5 cubic foot moving box, re-packing the closet with things we'd actually want to keep, and packing the closet more sensibly, re-packing and consolidating my yarn stash, emptying out my old desk, re-packing the attic stair closet, and bringing the shelves into our room from the spare bedroom:
The new-to-this-room shelves are the ones in front of the windows. They're bigger than the desk, but re-organizing the stash and the attic-stair closet (the door in the corner to on the right) included moving a stack of bins of yarn stash into the closet. The other closet is behind the tall shelves on the left edge of the picture. And the room looks better in reality than the picture, which loses all the space between the bed and the shelves.
Robin was planning to go to Games Plus and actually, y'know, play wargames with gaming miniatures, but when he was detailed with taking the desk out to the curb, he decided to appropriate it instead. In the process he cleaned his room, getting rid of an old dresser that was originally mine, and a small cabinet that started out as the base to a changing table. The dresser was passed on to a friend, the cabinet went out to the curb.
Here's the desk, in its new habitat under his loft. Yes, that's another piece of Metro-clone shelving. We've got a bunch of it in the house. Sorry about the weird flare, I think its from the Otter case on my phone, which includes a clear cover over the flash:
And look! OPEN FLOOR SPACE! In Robin's room! Will Cecils never wonder? Wonders never cease? Whatever! He has a FLOOR!
Mom or Chere, if you're reading this, yes, that is one of the very old orange couch cushions from the house in Stevensville...
That thing on the left side of the photo is the ladder to the loft. The picture of the desk was taken through the ladder.
Saturday afternoon while Ron was at the Capricon wrap-up meeting, I threw myself at taxes. I got the sales taxes done, but trying to get sanity in my summary page of sales records defeated me, and I didn't even try to attack purchases.
Ron managed to bring order out of that chaos Sunday morning, and has volunteered to work on doing the taxes this weekend while I work on the dining room and making pouches.
Yesterday Linotype (.com) sent me an offer I failed to resist. I got a new font, or the basics of it. $99 instead of $806 for 14 styles (7 weights, regular and italic of each). There's also extended and condensed members of the family, that weren't part of the deal. I can pick those up as onesies or in packages, too. At least this was a 24-hour sale. There have been a couple sales of the first X people get the font for really-good-price, one of which I would have bought, but I was too late.
Circling back to last Friday night, after stops at Office Whatsit (for tax software) and Ace hardware, we went to Menard's. We were looking for one thing, but I decided to look at something else, which Xap had pointed out to me the previous weekend.
Then I called Robin, to bring the truck, because it was following us home:
This is The Grinch's assistant (and Elrond, looking very odd due to foreshortening). As The Grinch's assistant, its name is, of course, Max.
The Grinch is full, and there's overflow in the Things, hence Max. Max is only 30" wide (without handle), The Grinch is something like 42" wide. I think Max is also shorter than The Grinch. Ron assures me that Max will fit into the trailer, although he's not certain how Max will be strapped in, and the handtruck will probably ride on top of the Things.
Robin asked how long Max was going to be hanging around the living room, I said at least until the yard isn't squishy, possibly until ACen . . . which is only 2 months away. Eeep! I figure I'll pack as much new merchandise as I can into Max, and Xap can re-pack Max with belts at ACen.
And now, I think, that really is everything.
TeslaCon
I did hear back from TeslaCon in a reasonable amount of time, and they do have our vendor application.Floodplain Managers' Conference Program Book
The floodplain managers' conference was Wednesday and Thursday. I got compliments on the book, and the co-worker who is on the board didn't hear any complaints.Rearranging the Bedrooms
Not surprisingly, Ron and I have been eyeballing larger printing presses. A couple weeks ago Ron found the proof press on this page, which is probably going to be our next press (and I'm eyeballing some of the bookbinding tools). Its large and heavy, but is something we can get up to the spare bedroom, and not have to worry about the floor, unlike some of the big-brother floor versions of our tabletop presses. But that means finding room in the spare bedroom, which Ron had some ideas about.A week ago Ron and I abandoned Robin and went out to dinner by ourselves. After dinner we stopped at Ikea to look at things-to-put-a-proof-press-on options. We found a couple, which one we'll end up will depend on the actual footprint of the press (we have a PDF of the users' manual, which is very helpful in some regards, but not when it comes to that particular piece of information).
After Ikea, we went to The Container Store, for more small flat-files for storing blocks. The 10-drawer units were on sale, for about 3/4 the price of two 5-drawer units, so a white one followed us home, since The Container Store doesn't carry the 10-drawer units in orange (the other color choices were black and dark gray). Here it is in place. Yes, drawers have been swapped around, as its easier to shift drawers to keep types of things together than to shift a bunch of blocks from one drawer to the other:
Ron's cunning plan to make room for the proof press was to move a set of shelving out of the spare bedroom. I volunteered that the desk that I got in grade school could be evicted from our bedroom, and the shelves put in its place, and also that the closet on my side of the room could also be used to store optics equipment, rather than taking it to the storage locker. So bright and early Saturday morning Ron started poking at my side of the bedroom. And I mean early.
The end result was throwing out most of the contents of a 4.5 cubic foot moving box, re-packing the closet with things we'd actually want to keep, and packing the closet more sensibly, re-packing and consolidating my yarn stash, emptying out my old desk, re-packing the attic stair closet, and bringing the shelves into our room from the spare bedroom:
Robin was planning to go to Games Plus and actually, y'know, play wargames with gaming miniatures, but when he was detailed with taking the desk out to the curb, he decided to appropriate it instead. In the process he cleaned his room, getting rid of an old dresser that was originally mine, and a small cabinet that started out as the base to a changing table. The dresser was passed on to a friend, the cabinet went out to the curb.
Here's the desk, in its new habitat under his loft. Yes, that's another piece of Metro-clone shelving. We've got a bunch of it in the house. Sorry about the weird flare, I think its from the Otter case on my phone, which includes a clear cover over the flash:
And look! OPEN FLOOR SPACE! In Robin's room! Will Cecils never wonder? Wonders never cease? Whatever! He has a FLOOR!
That thing on the left side of the photo is the ladder to the loft. The picture of the desk was taken through the ladder.
Death and Taxes
Saturday afternoon while Ron was at the Capricon wrap-up meeting, I threw myself at taxes. I got the sales taxes done, but trying to get sanity in my summary page of sales records defeated me, and I didn't even try to attack purchases. Ron managed to bring order out of that chaos Sunday morning, and has volunteered to work on doing the taxes this weekend while I work on the dining room and making pouches.
Graphic Design-Ish Stuff
I should have worked on the dining room and leatherworking on Sunday, but was entirely not-motivated. So after Ron resolved my spreadsheet disasters, we went upstairs, and I set type from the big red cabinet, while Ron updated the spreadsheet listing all the blocks we have, and printed proofs. We got four fonts proofed, one of which we already had a name for, and I've identified one of the unknowns.Yesterday Linotype (.com) sent me an offer I failed to resist. I got a new font, or the basics of it. $99 instead of $806 for 14 styles (7 weights, regular and italic of each). There's also extended and condensed members of the family, that weren't part of the deal. I can pick those up as onesies or in packages, too. At least this was a 24-hour sale. There have been a couple sales of the first X people get the font for really-good-price, one of which I would have bought, but I was too late.
Max
I knew there was something else!Circling back to last Friday night, after stops at Office Whatsit (for tax software) and Ace hardware, we went to Menard's. We were looking for one thing, but I decided to look at something else, which Xap had pointed out to me the previous weekend.
Then I called Robin, to bring the truck, because it was following us home:
This is The Grinch's assistant (and Elrond, looking very odd due to foreshortening). As The Grinch's assistant, its name is, of course, Max.
The Grinch is full, and there's overflow in the Things, hence Max. Max is only 30" wide (without handle), The Grinch is something like 42" wide. I think Max is also shorter than The Grinch. Ron assures me that Max will fit into the trailer, although he's not certain how Max will be strapped in, and the handtruck will probably ride on top of the Things.
Robin asked how long Max was going to be hanging around the living room, I said at least until the yard isn't squishy, possibly until ACen . . . which is only 2 months away. Eeep! I figure I'll pack as much new merchandise as I can into Max, and Xap can re-pack Max with belts at ACen.
And now, I think, that really is everything.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
TeslaCon, Program Book, and other Tangential Natter
TeslaCon - Ish
Nothing from TeslaCon, so this morning I went looking for a contact e-mail address to try to get confirmation that the vendor application was received. The options are . . . not encouraging: Facebook, and the Eventbrite "contact the organizer" form from the tickets section of the TeslaCon website. I used the on-line form, which once again did not echo to the e-mail address it required, sigh.Here's a hint to event organizers: Don't rely on web forms. Supply an e-mail address. Yes, that means you're going to get some spam. The most I've ever gotten from the e-mail contact on otternecessities.com is one or two in a single day. Most of the time I get one or two per week, if that. Enable spam filters, deal with it, and quit frustrating your attendees/vendors/panelists/whatevers.
The City of Lockport I forget if that's far south Cook Co. or actually into Will Co.) has a Summer Arts Series, this year the theme is "The Visionaries", aka Steampunk, and they're looking for vendors for the "Celebration Weekend". Unfortunately, the Celebration Weekend is July 25-27th. One week before MuseCon. Insert rantlet here. Woe. Found that by looking at the Steampunk Chicago website, which I found looking for contact information for TeslaCon.
Other Natter, Mostly Letterpress
I think it was Sunday that Ron got the hardware installed for the new Elfa shelving in the dining room. Now I need to get him or Robin to cut down the shelves, so I can attack the disaster area.On the letterpress front, we sorted some type last night - we'd gotten Ron some more Cloister Black, a couple/few weeks ago I got a set of figures to add to my 18-point Parsons and another set of 24-point Parsons figures, and finally a set of @ symbols in various sizes. I sorted out the 18-pt Parson and the @s, made labels, and updated my type spreadsheet, and Ron did the Cloister Black and put away new blocks, demonstrating that we need another set of the small flat-file drawers, we've filled the first two.
Ron's working on some MuseCon business cards for Xap, which he can finish now that we have the @s. We also need to work on printing Otter Necessities business card coasters, and printing proofs of the new type we got in the big red cabinet, which will help in identifying what they are.
Program Book
The Long Grim Slog of Doom wasn't too bad. I worked on it Friday night, and pretty much all Saturday. I got the last major piece (attendee list) by midday Saturday. Using the powers of intelligent importing from a spreadsheet, find-and-replace, and clever "paragraph" (clump of text) formatting rules that InDesign has, formatting the attendee list (12 pages or so) was fairly quick and painless. So by Saturday dinnertime I declared the book almost-but-not-quite-totally-done, and sent a PDF out for review.Not surprisingly, there were corrections to make. Most were easy/relatively minor: mis-spelled names, etc., but somehow a handful of speaker bios (about a paragraph each) had fallen out of the document. I remember formatting at least one (my boss!), so I have no clue what happened. Fitting those back in wasn't trivial, but it wasn't too hard. I finished making corrections by about 10 am, then ran away from home (ie: went with Ron and Robin to Cabela's, to get Robin a new pair of boots), and generally ignored the book for most of the day.
Sunday evening Ron and I went through the book one more time and poked at some word/line breaks, then I exported a press-quality PDF to send to the printer. I uploaded it Monday morning (somewhere in the last paragraph or two I'd sent off another PDF for review, IIRC), supplied web PDFs for on-line use, and then went off to work. The finished page count was 82 pages, plus front cover, which is my longest book yet, and done in the shortest time frame.
I didn't do as much re-writing and proofreading as I usually do, but the text that I got was more consistent than I usually get. I'm sure there's at least a couple typos that will LEAP off the page at me once I see a hard copy, but that's normal. Very little ranting at the computer. Yes, I'm willing to do this one again. The conference chair has asked for suggestions for next year, which I've been pondering.
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