Greeting cards and sergers

My order from Blush Publishing has arrived, yay! You can now buy the full set of four cards in my Etsy shop for $12 or get them individually for $3.50. I'm working on more designs for this card line now.

I've been pretty pleased with how these cards have been selling on Etsy, and the Blush people tell me that they've been selling well elsewhere as well, yay! Right now the cards have some distributors in the U.K., U.S., Canada, and Japan. If you or anyone you know might be interested in selling or distributing these cards, please do contact let Blush Publishing know.



Did some more serging yesterday, plus did some THREADING of the serger. I was almost out of the sample serger thread and was paranoid about running out (and having re-thread from scratch), so went to Fabricland and bought four serger-sized thread spools.

I tried the trick of tying the old thread to the new thread and pulling it through, but I screwed up and two of the threads broke because I had forgotten to loosen the thread tension before re-threading, and also started from the leftmost of the four threads instead of the rightmost...it matters because of the way the threads interact inside the machine.

Yikes. My worst nightmare come true! Ok, maybe not the WORST, but the worst of my serger nightmares. But I took out the manual again, looked at the macro photos I'd taken yesterday, opened up the machine and started looking inside.



It took me an hour, but I managed to re-thread my serger, woohoo! The toughest part was figuring out what bit in the diagrams matched the real-life bits in my serger innards, and then trying to make the thread go where it was supposed to. Each of the four threads follows a different path inside the machine, and some paths are pretty awkward -- I had to use tweezers and a special serger threading needle.

BUT I'm much more familiar with the process now, and feel pretty confident that I could re-thread the entire machine again if I needed to. I might even purposely go through the process regularly, just to make sure I don't forget.



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Technonerdboys, A Curse As Dark As Gold, and virtual walks

Above: techie pic of the day. I took this photo during a gaming session at Mark Thompson's house. Anyone else out there familiar with the (now ancient) Macintosh Portable?



Speaking of technonerdboys...check out the photo of my friend Walter above (Walter photo taken by Phil Mills), printed out by Walter's gaming pals and posted up on the gaming room wall beside the photo of famed German board game designer, Reiner Knizia. Heh. For those of you that missed my post, Walter dressed up as Urban Tapestry's Seventies Guy in our concert at FilKONtario.

My friend Craig and I checked out Cluck, Grunt and Low last night, a new-ish restaurant in the neighbourhood that specializes in slow-cooked food. I had a pulled chicken sandwich and collard greens:



The pulled chicken was ok but not great. Loved the biscuits and gravy, though:



I got hooked on biscuits and gravy because of my visit to Atlanta. Craig and I also really enjoyed the Wild Turkey ice cream (Wild Turkey as in the booze, not the fowl).



I've been stepping up my reading lately, and not just the instruction book to my new serger, either! Recent read: A Curse As Dark As Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce, a recommendation by The Flying Dragon. Anyone who likes Shannon Hale's books is sure to enjoy this retelling of Rumplestilskin. I LOVED this book.

Also stepping my outdoor exercise. I LOVE THIS WEATHER! Even when it rains, I love to go walking -- it's such a relief not to have icy sidewalks.

Virtual Walk Update

So I've walked over 50 km (about 31 miles) on my Virtual Con Walk, so far.



Crossed over the James N. Allan Skyway Bridge across Burlington Bay yesterday (photo below is from this Wikipedia entry).



Now I'm on the way to visit my friends Erin and Rand in Buffalo before heading to Columbus!



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Illustration Friday: Wrinkles

I created the illustration above for Illustration Friday. This week's topic: "Wrinkles." I was inspired by the Stan Rogers song, Lies. What an incredibly talented songwriter, and what a shame he is no longer with us. I remembering crying when I first heard this song, and this was years ago.

Sometime in my thirties, I remember looking in the mirror and finding my first wrinkle. I tried not to care, but I was horrified. I was getting OLD! I couldn't believe it; I knew the aging process was inevitable, but the person in the mirror didn't look at all like the person I felt inside me.

I still feel a little like that when I look at myself in the mirror and see those tiny wrinkles (which will inevitably grow into bigger wrinkles over time, I know). I can't say I love them, but I've gotten used to them, like unwelcome house guests whom I know will never leave. We've made peace with each other, and they've even brought me a certain sense of freedom.

Discovering Dr. Who

Many thanks to Reid, who is lending us Dr. Who episodes. I never watched the old Dr. Who, but got interested in the new Dr. Who series because Allison and Jodi have been enjoying it. Plus I like Christopher Eccleston. A shame he was only in the first season.

However, I have to say I'm really impressed by the second season so far. Almost makes me want to go back and watch some of the classic Dr. Who series. Anyway, I'm going to be watching the "Blink" episode next, which Jeff wants to watch with me because he's heard it's supposed to be pretty scary. *gulp*





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Cockroach love, letterpress cards, and poison ivy

Yesterday I found a shortcut into Sunnybrook Park, which is 147 acre wooded area in North York. It's scenic and relaxing, with a river and picnic areas and trails through the forest.

And poison ivy! I've made a note to wear long pants if I plan to explore the more heavily wooded areas. I walked about 5.5 km (over 3 miles) yesterday. I took my lunch with me in a backpack, along with some bottled water; the whole walk took just over an hour.

Sunnybrook Park is a maze of trails. I'm embarrassed that I haven't been doing more walking (and running) in the park, considering it's just a 15-20 minute walk away. The area connects a number of smaller parks as well as hooking up with the Sunnybrook Stables and Edward Gardens.



I've been gradually adding some new items to my Etsy shop, for those interested. One is the charming porcelain spoon rest / dish above, which is titled "Cockroach Love."

The piece (measures about 4" across) is made of porcelain clay, thrown on a wheel and trimmed by my friend Luisa. After it was shaped, Luisa gave it to me so I could hand-paint it. Then I gave it back to her so she could fire it in a kiln, glaze it, then fire it once more. We sent the piece back and forth via our husbands, who meet weekly for gaming. :-)



I'm also offering my new Letterpress cards for sale on Etsy! You can buy them individually or as a set (or mix and match). I only have about six of each available at present; I need to order more.

Each of these letterpress cards has one of my designs. The cards themselves are printed by a couple in North Wales (who found me via my Flickr pics), and they've commissioned eight more of my illustrations for the card line.

Each card is hand fed into a Victorian printing press where the inked image and handset type is pressed deep into the cream-colored paper. The cards were launched at the Spring Fair in Birmingham and apparently got a great response, yay! They're now being sold in places in Canada, U.S., Japan and the UK.

You can find out more about my card line on the Blush publishing site.



Above and below: I've added some more vampire creatures to my Menagerie in Etsy.





And mini pin-back buttons!



I've put some of these on one of my backpacks. :-)



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Will Write For Chocolate

Virtual Filk Con Walk update

I've created my own ConWalk map, if you're curious. I decided to create my own instead of using Brooke's because I wanted mine to start in Toronto, plus I'd like to plot a route using roads.

I'm recording my route as I go along (to give me flexibility in making detours when I feel like it), and I think I'm going to stick to the smaller roads rather than the highways. I've reached my first filk convention already, FilKONtario, and am now heading off for Columbus, OH! I'll be recording my route in the map below.


View Larger Map

Zooming in on where I am right now:



I set my starting point as my P.O. Box address.

If you're confused about all this, please read my first post on the topic. And thanks again to Brooke for the inspiration!

Babylon Five Virgin update

SPOILER WARNING: The blog posts below focuses on my reports while watching Babylon Five for the first time. An LJ feed is also available. If you haven't seen B5 yet and don't want spoilers, please DO NOT click the links below.

I've been gradually updating my B5 Virgin blog with episode reports; Jeff and I recently finished the second season of the show, and we're both hooked!



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