Bonspiel Creation

Uh Oh, A Stitch has Gone Awry

Mon, 21 May 2012 15:15:00 +0000

I got an email last night telling me that my etsy shop had been closed down. It was because I was late paying my etsy fees, a bill that had mounted up to almost 300 dollars. I won't argue that I was late with the fees, but it seemed odd to me that they would just close down my shop without an email warning telling me they were going to. I'm pretty sure most legitimate handmade shops on Etsy wouldn't want the unprofessional-ity of a dead link into their shop, even for five minutes, and all it would take is a warning email for us to make things right.

In the frequently asked questions section of etsy regarding bill paying, there is no mention that they will take this action. In fact one other time, last spring, when I was late with the bill (seems to be a spring tradition) they sent me a nice obviously written by an individual email saying they'd hate to have to shut my shop down, so could I please pay my fees, and I answered saying I could pay a chunk and then the rest in a week, and they said okay they knew how tough it could be managing things sometimes...it actually brought a tear to my eye that Etsy was so human and understanding.

But that was last year.

So anyone looking for my shop last night would have come across the "a stitch has come awry" page, a page which I'm sure has infuriated many an etsy seller run afoul of policy, and even a few that have done nothing wrong (that they can think of).

It gave me a chance to imagine a life without an etsy shop. It was bleak and scary, but also freeing and had a definite "f* you" element. I pay a lot of money to Etsy and have been getting diminishing returns for years now.

In any case, I paid the outstanding fees and my shop is back up. I hope you were not inconvenienced.

My Wonderful Neighbourhood

Sun, 20 May 2012 00:05:00 +0000

I'm in love with my new neighbourhood, the Rockland borough of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. I'm just a few tranquil mansioned blocks from the Government House grounds and Craigdarroch Castle. The road behind my house is called Carberry Garden. The speed limit is 30 km/hr (about 20 mph). My house, and many of the neighbouring houses, were built in the late 1800's. Although they look posh from the outside a lot of them have been divided into apartments so there are a lot of students strolling about making the place look even prettier. Here is a bench at Government House, surrounded by golden boxwood. The other picture is of a row of bay tree standards in half barrels, the kind you can put in your soup! People only seem to go to this free, open-to-the-public garden on their wedding day, but it's even nicer than Beacon Hill park, if smaller. As I was exploring it I kept finding myself wandering into the gardeners' areas with their locked bins and sheds. I even rescued a discarded pansy from the compost pile, and it's recuperating nicely in my window box.

I would love to be a gardener there...and live in one of their beautifully kept up stables/outbuildings. I'll put up more pictures of the spectacular garry oak meadow soon.

Wrangling an Over-Designed Bag to make it Cost Efficient

Fri, 18 May 2012 17:20:00 +0000

I have a designing issue that crops up a lot, namely that I over-engineer and make things more difficult to assemble than they could be. It's absurd, because one of the things I love best about good design is its effortlessness. To paraphrase Dolly Parton, "it takes a lot of designing to make it look this simple."

The deer canvas-and-leather bowling bag style tote is a perfect example. I wanted the bag to have a silhouette like a charming slice of bread, roundy at the top, tucky inny below and roundy-squareish at the bottom. I decided on an interior center divider to pull the sides of the bag in and give it that special shape I was after. But what hell I went through with bias tape, sewing through six layers of heavy canvas, meeting points that are impossible to sew up to as there is just too much going on. I had to do lots of hand finishing. In addition, I opted for a curved leather gusset that goes up the sides of the bag and has to fit perfectly when sewn in....and leather does stretch so that was really tricky too. But when it was all done it did look exactly like I wanted it to.

However....since I can't really charge 450 dollars for one canvas and leather bag, and I was really attached to the appearance of the bag, and also there is a fair bit of demand for the bag, I figured I could simplify the design and construction and keep it just as cute....and make it a viable product (I also have shops interested in carrying it wholesale, but even with the streamlining I don't think I will be able to wholesale it).

I made the prototype of the streamlined model yesterday, and it looks almost identical from the outside, but it was somewhat easier and faster to make and I think with a few more tweaks I will be able to churn these puppies out at the rate of three, maybe even four a day, putting them more in line with what I have been charging all along. Here are the bag with interior divider and the new simpler bag:

Fun with Leather Squares

Tue, 15 May 2012 15:30:00 +0000

After a few years of working with recycled leather, I accumulated a beautiful rainbow of colors of small bits. So I made a bunch of little patchwork clutches. They were really fun to do, and I won't be making more until I have another big bin full of scrap to work with (so another couple of years). Get 'em while they're hot!

If you're looking for Happier Times

Fri, 11 May 2012 17:05:00 +0000

This bag, which I made in March, created a mini-fury when Etsy posted it on their facebook page. I called it 'optimism in a bag' and it seemed to strike a chord with many people. I could have sold a dozen of them that day, but alas, I only made the one. It was a magical moment when ice pink leather, camel colored wool, and an uplifting thought came together. I just wanted to put this picture of it up so if you're still thinking about it, don't lose hope, I do want to make more...it just requires the exact right weight and stiffness of leather, which is hard to find.

If it's more the "happier times ahead" that you like, not necessarily on the bag, rest assured that I am going to make more, smaller, products with the phrase on or in them.

Funnily enough (dark, sorrowful laugh) I came up with the phrase and made the screen to print it in around 2009, in the depths of the recession. Then I was too disheartened to print it on anything for three years! However, I do think it's now time to create a happier future, and a lot of you agree.

Optimizing images for google image search, duh!

Fri, 11 May 2012 16:35:00 +0000

Every so often I pull my head out of the sand and notice that when I google "handmade recycled leather bag" or similar term, none of my bags ever ever show up in google image search. But I didn't really think about what I could do about it, just sort of blamed etsy and figured it was something about the way they upload images*. Then last night, like a bolt out of the blue, as so often happens with realizations, I remembered that back when I built the first Bonspiel web site I spent a lot of time tagging my images. There's a thing called "alt text" that shows up if the image won't load, and it's a great way to get your images searchable. Also, I process such huge amounts of pictures of my products that long ago I stopped naming them "blue purse inside" or whatever, and just left them numbered as they came out of my camera...and it's the name of the picture that google picks up when it's searching images.

Seriously, when I remembered those two things, a choir of angels started singing, and cash registers started ringing. I've been wallowing about in the diminishing world of etsy and etsy shoppers, feeling (and for all intents and purposes, being) invisible to the greater shopping world. I know that when I am looking for something I go for google images first. So: happy hours of optimization lay ahead, and soon I will be discovered by the rest of the world. Takeover is imminent!

So, here's a link that i found helpful for optimizing pictures.

*Actually, it is Etsy's fault. They rename your images "fullxfull_03219849337824.jpg" or whatever, so they can't be searched at all. Just one more reason why it's important to have your own website if you're serious about being found.

Buy today and tomorrow and save 30%

Thu, 10 May 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Today and tomorrow only, you have a chance to grab one of my new designs at 30% off. I'm putting them on sale to draw attention to an issue that is threatening to undermine my and other handcrafting artists' online livelihood. Etsy, the Great Suckling Mother of all online craft selling venues, has been very good to us for years, but their recent flagrant promotion of a reseller as their 'featured seller', and subsequent denial that there is a problem in the face of clear evidence has shown us all that they intend to give resellers the same credibility on their site as the authentically handmade-by-the-seller goods. It seems like as long as the photos are pretty and *somebody* made the item with their hands, it will be allowed on etsy. This is seriously damaging etsy's reputation as a site where you can freely shop in confidence that your purchases will be genuinely handmade. I wouldn't have as much of a problem with resellers being on the site if they were clearly identified as such, but Etsy continues to market them as handmade.

So over 4000 etsy sellers have closed their etsy shops today in solidarity and protest, me included. Tomorrow we will re-open our shops. I'll put everything in my etsy shop on sale tomorrow at 30% off as well, so whether you care about the politics of online handmade selling or not, there are deals to be had!

In other news, I am working on a new print pattern--a basket weave inspired by my picnic basket (which, sadly, has never been on a picnic--it holds my glue gun amongst other work-related items). It looked like it would be pretty simple to draw but my brain refused to understand it for the first fifteen or so minutes. The discomfort of my two sides of my brain battling when I start drawing pretty much anything is so extreme that I often give up, telling myself I CAN'T DRAW. But this time I pushed through and eventually the left hemisphere conceded to the right and I got a pretty nice drawing...here's a picture of it mid-process.

This post is not about rude geishas

Thu, 03 May 2012 15:00:00 +0000

There are now four sweet bags in my new web shop to look at! You'll be able to check out some new design folding wallets today or tomorrow too. Once I have twenty or so items listed I will have some kind of promotional contest or giveaway. I'm thinking "buy one, get one free for a friend" or something like that...

I'm getting ready to print my latest new screen, a diamond sort of wallpaper-y looking design. I'm going to do a shoulder bag. I'm nervous and do have urges to stick a Mean Cat on it. Old habits die hard.

I had this other idea, to do cutout circles after I've printed the pattern and use other colored leather for the circles...could get pretty psychedelic.

Don't have any pictures to accompany this blog entry but I know you like pictures so here's a random one from my file "cute and weird". Enjoy! --ellen

Stop Putting a Bird on It.

Tue, 01 May 2012 03:30:00 +0000

I'm going to launch a new line of bags and purses, available exclusively on this here website. I have only just started making the new screen designs and have sewed up a little pile of the first new clutches, but it is too dark now to take decent pictures of them (it's evening on the last day of April). Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to put the first representatives of this exciting new direction up on the site here. I'll be adding a web shop. My Etsy shop will remain on this site and will direct you to my etsy shop when you click on things in there.

There are a few reasons why I'm doing this. First of all, I'm really tired of making stuff with cute animals on it. I think about design in many more dimensions than what I have been doing and I feel like I'm in a bit of a rut with it. I've gotten lazy (well, the Ellen version of lazy, where I produce stuff in order to avoid challenging myself). And in fact I wouldn't really carry a bag with a squirrel on it myself so why am I still making them? (although I will always love the mean kitty on small wallets or coin purses and won't stop making them). So I'm getting back to basics in surface decoration by making a fresh blank silkscreen and painting directly on it with a chinese brush, using resist (which will become the places the ink doesn't go in the finished screenprint). Making gestural marks with a brush is just about as far from burning a piece of clipart as I can get, in terms of creating a print image.

This is the first screen. I made little leaf shapes, they came out of the brush naturally. The red stuff is silkscreen resist, which when dry will not let the ink through.

The other reason I'm changing things up (opening a web shop on this site and selling exclusive items here) is that (in case you live under a rock), the online craft world has been turned upside down by recent occurrences at Etsy.com. They chose a reseller of Balinese reclaimed boatwood furniture as their featured seller about a week ago, then denied she was a reseller even though there is plenty of proof online (see Regretsy.com for details). I was shocked that they didn't admit it, but my worst fears are now confirmed: Etsy has put their bottom line before their mission statement and are now allowing resellers (as long as they use the official etsyspeak to describe their operations as "collectives".) Resellers have been populating the site increasingly in the last few years and it's very frustrating for us legitimate hand-makers who have to explain to shoppers that we really do make our products ourselves and are not importing stuff. Also, since resellers don't spend time making things, they can list hundreds of items thereby increasing their web presence in searches etc. The featured furniture seller had over 200 items in her etsy shop, and had perfectly manicured, pristine hands too! Resellers can often sell their items for a lot less than artisans, and move a lot of merchandise, thereby contributing many $$s to Etsy's bottom line. Etsy has asked users to flag shops that seem to be resellers, and we do, like crazy, but many of the shops are still open. Now I know why for sure. So I've been ruminating on the future of Etsy, and my future as an online seller/artisan. Etsy's fast losing credibility as a quality site where you can find handmade things sold by the person who made them...we don't need another ebay or Anthropologie and I can't imagine how Etsy will distinguish itself in the future.

So I spent a lot of time reading the etsy forums and other sites where people can speak more freely about what is going on on Etsy, and contemplating the whole mess...Surprisingly (or maybe not), one thing that's coming up over and over for me is that I love the handmadeyness of my stuff and want to celebrate that aspect of it more than I have been. Especially when I am using recycled leather coats, there can be some pretty awesome little details, like the pockets and tailoring details from the jackets that pop up in interesting ways on the bags, that make each item I make unique. There's a beautiful patina on some of the pre-loved leather, and a lot of it is of incredible quality. Some of the jackets I butcher were very expensive originally, and were barely worn. They are so out of style they will never come back in, but the leather itself can be so amazing. And if I pay more attention to the qualities of the materials, instead of just slapping yet another bird on, I will find my sense of wonder and purpose again in my little crafty world.

Win a 25 dollar Fluevog Shoes gift card!

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 17:05:00 +0000

A little while ago Fluevog shoes had a call for entries for little handmade products to put in their vending machine in their new store in Calgary. I thought my teeny coin purses would be a perfect fit. I"ve always wanted to have a vending machine myself. I blogged about it all gushy about Fluevog and how it was meant to be. Well, short story short, they rejected me. But they did it sweetly, with a 25 dollar gift card and vague intimations that they might want my product in the future.

I love fluevog shoes, but unless I have a brilliant insight that totally changes my business, I can't imagine being able to afford a pair even with the discount, in the next two or three years. So I'm giving away the card to you! You can use it in any Fluevog shoe store and also online on their website!

All you have to do to get in this contest is write something on my facebook wall about why my stuff should be in their vending machine. Or just generally console/praise me. Remember, this is the death of a lifelong dream of mine, so copious dramatic words are welcome.

two for one teeny coin purse sale

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 21:55:00 +0000

I have lots of teeny leather coin purses in my etsy shop right now so I'm doing a two-for-one sale on them. You just need to pop over and like my facebook page to get the coupon code for the discount. You have to jump through some hoops, yes, but you will save 18 dollars and get one coin purse to keep and one to give to a friend.

For some reason this green unicorn purse has gotten fifteen hearts today. So perhaps I'm tapping into a teeny unicorn coin purse zeitgeist.

wool bucket bag

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 01:20:00 +0000

Fluevog and Bonspiel, Together at Last

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 15:25:00 +0000

Together at last, possibly! John Fluevog, maker of fine shoes, has put out a call for items to sell in the new vending machine in their Flueseum in Calgary. Since I've always wanted to have my little leather purses in a vending machine, I made a pitch via email last night. I was chuffed to get a reply within five minutes, from a real person, with perfect spelling and grammar. Talk about customer service! I'm mailing them a sample today so they can check the quality.

Now that I think of it, Fluevog is a company that has always resonated with me. Back in the early '80's when they were a fledgling with a shop on Granville Street in Vancouver, my sister came back to our little island town sporting a pair of the kickest-ass black pointy booties with skull buckles. They were ridiculous and rad all at once, and she wore them into the ground.

Their early ad campaigns played with concepts of angels and devils, their graphics were juicy and sophisticated, and although I couldn't ever afford their shoes myself (being a starving art student) I often drooled over them. I am generally a skeptical consumer but Fluevog is one of the companies I think is pretty cool.

It seems only fitting that we come together at last. And yes, I"m done sucking up....for now.

Goddam Martha Stewart! And you can win a thing!

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 17:45:00 +0000

She's such a good businesswoman. Even though something about her company rubs me the wrong way, (the waspy smugness perhaps? Or the corporatization of folk-skills of domesticity?) I paused at her book, " The Martha Rules--10 Essentials for Achieving Success as you Start, Build, or Manage a Business" in the thrift shop. It's a slim hardcover with the grande dame herself smiling on the cover, which made me almost put it back. But I've been lost in the forest of small business low-season anxiety for a while now and so I cracked it open to see if anything resonated. I got enough of a whiff of wisdom to spend the four bucks and bring it home (along with Dave Eggars' "What is the What", but that's another story...)

Well, half an hour into the book, Martha kicked my ass. You may be pleased to know that it was while deep in the chapter about loving, honoring and respecting your customers I had a revelation. Turns out I have been treating my endeavor more from an artist's point of view than a businessperson. Which is fine if I don't want to make a living or "grow" (in the parlance of our times) my business. But I do, I really do. And what has been missing is my connection with my customers. Am I really making things that you guys want enough to lay out your hard earned money? Or am I making whatever the hell I want as an artist and then crossing my fingers that others will appreciate it too? God damn you Martha Stewart. And thank you.

So what to do with this new information? For starters, I'm going to test drive some new, low-priced do-it-yourself kits and see if they have appeal for you, my customers. Maybe you're as creative as I am, and want to put something of yourself into a little project. I DON'T KNOW. But I aim to find out. Yesterday I started with the concept and by the end of the day had designed, sourced materials for, created, packaged, photographed and listed this Glasses Case Kit in my Etsy shop. Productivity is not one of my shortcomings!

It comes with written instructions but I will also have photographic steps on this blog with an opportunity for people to ask any questions they may have about the construction of the kit. So let me know what you think in the comments and I will pick a winner and give away either a kit or a completed glasses case, your choice.

Autumn is coming...

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 18:47:00 +0000

I know it's a bit painful to hear if you live on Canada's west coast, but autumn is coming. Even though we're caught in a perpetually damp cool spring situation this year while the rest of the continent is experiencing a record heat wave, I am starting to think about fall designs. I guess thirteen or so years of participating in the fashion design industry (albiet on the very fringe, no pun intended) has trained my brain to think a little bit ahead. Although I still can't wrap my mind around a "cruise line" in February.

Autumn is my favorite time of year to design for. Or, if you're the Grammar Police, "for which to design". Tweedy, textured fabrics, earthy colors, wool and leather are very appealing after a canvas-and-light-silk summer break. Boots come back (although they have still not gone away this summer on the West Coast). Corduroy jackets are always fun to make. Generally autumn feels to me like a return to some seriousness, but in a playful way.

I had a dream in early June about a really cool tea-stained looking bag made out of a wool blanket with leather trim in a peculiar shade of purply-brown. In the dream it was on some sort of rough bench, and the scene was the Old West. The hardware on the bag was muted and aged brass, and this bag has been on my mind ever since. But it is definitely not a summer item. I finally get to make it. I went out and found an authentic, amazing Hudson's bay blanket at the thrift shop (the kind with the green, red and yellow stripes). I'm going to experiment with dying it with tea-colored dye. I even figured out how to age bright yellow brass hardware to a mellow patina overnight.

If you want to know how, here's what to do: strip off the protective laquer finish first (I used furniture stripper) and then suspend the hardware buckle or whatever over an inch of ammonia in the bottom of a jar, with the lid screwed on tight, overnight. In the morning remove the hardware, buff a little with very fine steel wool, and voila--old crappy looking buckle, perfect for your Old West, Medieval, or Ye Olde Whenever project.

Some other new fall items that I will be producing over the next two or three months are teeny coin purses, just the right size for cards, coins and a little cash, and I'm bringing back the English Riding Hoodie as I have had some requests. I'm thinking of making it in this great flat black stretch crepe I found. Super Victorian looking. Here's the teeny coin purse

here's an earlier version of the English Riding Hoodie.

Bill Cunningham: New York

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 13:40:00 +0000

Bill Cunningham. The guy has an amazing smile.

Last night I went and saw the Bill Cunningham documentary with Rik and Julie at cinecenta. It was fascinating. Bill is 80 plus years old and still working, apparently every waking hour of his days, for the New York Times, shooting street fashion and in the evenings, socialites at charity events. He is definitely living an austere life, with no kitchen in his apartment but dozens of filing cabinets full of negatives,(he still uses film cameras). He’s surrounded by the hoi polloi of new york city (he is invited to every event), but will not accept even a glass of water, as he feels he is only free to do exactly as he wants if he’s not under any obligation (he has also torn up paycheques—“money is the cheapest thing....freedom, that’s the most valuable”(to paraphrase). Just when I started thinking he was kind of crazy, or at least seriously driven and possibly deeply unhappy, he is shown radiating joy and vitality in levels exceeding most people a quarter his age. He does so so often throughout the film that it’s undeniable that his choices work well for him.

In his daily uniform of 16 dollar street-sweeper bluepolycotton jacket he rides his bike, helmetless, (and except for one incident)gracefully and assuredly through the streets of new york at all hours of the day and night, dismounting and locking the bike in order to photograph anybody who catches his eye. His outlook is egalitarian in that his only concern is whether the clothing is interesting---the cut, the line, the color---not the brand, cost, or prestige of the person wearing it. He’s not a photographer in that he is not concerned with the composition or quality of the photograph, only in what it reveals. Various highly respected figures in the fashion world pay their respects to his unwavering eye and unique sensibility.

None of the people interviewed who are in his life (work colleagues and longtime neighbours) seem to know anything about his personal life. This introduces an element of intrigue that intensifies until, in the climactic scene of the film the documentarist asks Bill two questions, assuring him that he is not obligated to answer if he’s not comfortable. The way Bill responds to the questions makes sudden sense of everything about him. It’s a fascinating study of the result of creating a very unusual life from a set of deeply and unwaveringly held convictions that manage one big fundamental contradiction.

Some of the scenes took place in the lavish apartments and artists’ studios of the Carnegie center. I remember a couple of years ago there was a thing about how the last artists there were being evicted; most of them were over 80 and had lived theresince the 1940’s. The incredible richness of these backdrops, contrasting with Bill’s austere work and living environment, adds to the poignancy of this portrait of an artist nearing the end of his life. Five thumbs up!

Haircut!

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 15:53:00 +0000

I cut off about a foot of straggly, dyed hair last week and I love it. With long hair I was trying for a classic femininity and allure. I had an idea that I would wear it up in sophisticated ways, but I almost never bothered. I'm more of a brat at heart so my short hair reflects that side of me and I think my image is more in line with my personality now. Oh, and my glasses are the same ones on this case:

I did the haircut myself, I know an amazing stylist but she charges what she is worth (therefore beyond my means at this time). I have one of those razor comb things so I just went for it, and I wasn't even drunk!

My Salvador Dali shirt was made by my buddy Duane--get your own at his etsy shop. Then come over and I'll give you a haircut and then we can be twins.

How is the Canada Post Lockout affecting You?

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 13:53:00 +0000

"canada post hates me"

Today I am almost as excited as a tot on christmas morning, for today is the day that the Canadian government will hopefully legislate the Postal workers back to work. (no word yet, at 7:15 am pacific time.) I stupidly did not consider the consequences of the postal service shutting down on my mail-order business and now I'm mired in the middle of it. My Etsy sales ground slowly down through the start of June when the workers started fomenting, and have come to a standstill but for a few intrepid souls who purchased little items last week. (They are willing to wait until the mail starts moving again to receive their stuff--thank you so much guys).

I guess I did kind of start imagining the impact that the inability to ship would have on my business but it seemed so outlandish, so absurd that I abandoned the line of thinking. The mail is, to me anyway, an essential service; so it was like imagining that suddenly I had no money, not even to buy milk, and no prospect of any coming in. Which is also sort of coming to pass. Actually, no, I'm being overly dramatic, but I'm a couple of thousand dollars short and rent day is looming and I'm afraid!

I know it's not just all about me, but it's affecting me so profoundly that I don't care about the politics of it and what it means for unions, the public sector, the Conservative government's use of their powers, or the corporation of Canada post. In fact if I had to take sides I think I would join the "cry me a river" side against the unions for the first time in my life. Yes, I have read quite a lot about the issues that would be on the table if there were any negotiations happening. I bet if the postal service were de-unionized there would be no shortage of new job applicants willing to work under the current conditions, and for less money too. The economic and social climate has changed in such a way as to make unions look increasingly anachronistic, in my view.

I heard on the radio the other day that a beekeeper had a hundred or so queen bees in the mail enroute to him to populate orphaned hives. Unfortunately the queens are stuck in a mail sorting facility with nobody who could do anything about it willing or able to help, and they are all dead as of today. And without queens all the orphaned bees will die as well. This will cost the beekeeper thousands of dollars in lost honey revenue, and it makes me really sad to imagine those queens, each in her little vial, languishing in a box somewhere, and those poor motherless hives too. THINK OF THE BEES, people! And get back to work.

I resorted to pleading on facebook for my friends to come support me at the market yesterday. To those who did, Thank you so much! I had a really good day with solid revenue and I am proportionately less anxious now. The sun is shining, the seagulls are screaming and making their monkey noises, and parliament is convening. I remain optimistic.

Also quite self absorbed, I know, but anxiety will do that to a person. So now I want to know, how is the postal strike affecting you, if at all? If you are a bee I particularly want to hear from you.

--ellen

Open for Business

Sat, 07 May 2011 03:44:00 +0000

This is the flyer I will be handing out when I start doing my local street market (I'll be in Centennial Square on Sunday May 15, 10 am!). Yes, after enough renovating to have my own reality tv show, I'm opening my narrow brown door to you-all local Victorians and visitors too. (That sounds kind of dirty, but I'm just trying to be hospitable).

So you can browse the stuff online, either here or in my Etsy store, and let me know if you want me to put something aside for you to examine in person.

Just ignore the kitchen when you come up, because I haven't even started on fixing it up yet!

I just realized I didn't put the actual street address on the flyer, but you can get that info when you make your appointment--slight whiff of mystery and intrigue there. Or is it barbecued duck?

After Pictures of the Loft

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 19:20:00 +0000

Here are a few "after" pictures of my Chinatown loft...I think I must have spent about 40 hours cleaning, sanding, filling, priming and painting. I had some help from Nicole and Denny. Nicole attacked the bannister with fierce zeal. It's not in the pictures though 'cause the whole back of the loft has yet to be fixed up completely. Denny brought many tools and an invaluable tall step ladder, and contributed his time to wall prep and helping me move, along with his son Jute (see on stepladder flexing guns). I really appreciate all the help, guys!

There's still a lot to do but the main space is pretty well complete. It's going to be sweet!