In which I recount my work week

Lazy Saturdays! Worked on a design, changed it up from a very boring shape-driven design to something tongue-in-cheek funny. Not a winner type of design but it totally cracked me up. Can't post it here yet; must wait til Tuesday.

The last week was very busy for me. I was asked to project manage a press conference and I had great fun doing it. In my old work world I project managed long-term, somewhat largish projects. At my current work I project manage nothing but myself. I consider myself quite easy to manage. I rarely talk back to myself. My new boss gives me things that are outside of my assigned duties and that makes me happy because at least I'm doing something besides managing myself. This project wasn't really project management, it was really a coordination effort but they call it project management and who am I to quibble with their institutional lexicon?

I digress. I had 5 days to coordinate this thing. Luckily I saw every email so I could coordinate as things changed or made suggestions on how things should go or should not go. There was total cooperation at every turn so it made it easy as pie. My phone was ringing off the hook, my email groaning at the volume of mail. I thrive on things changing every 5 mins so this was right up my alley.

Thursdays press conference went without a hitch which is the mark of a successful event. We had good press coverage, fabulous technology coordination, great attendance in the audience and we didn't really need the plainclothes officers (we had 2). I sort of cracked up that the officers were in plainclothes but each of them had those ear piece things with the clear cord running into their suits - not very incognito if you ask me.

Friday was catching up with all the things I didn't do during the coordination week. Hahaha, to give you an indication of my normal volume of work I finished all of that with time to spare. But if the boss asks, I was sweating bullets trying to catch up (Ha).

Outside of work I saw my son, he drove into town Thursday, he came to my work to visit me with his friends and invited me and his dad to dinner: he was going to cook. We arrived at 9:20 (yes, it was a late dinner); about a dozen 20-something guys, a couple of girls and us. I don't know that some of his friends knew we were coming. We walked in and those that didn't know us looked at us funny. We're 30-35 years older than them and we're PARENTS. hahahaha. I think those that were smoking blunts in the backyard did a (slow) double-take.

The son cooked mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, pan-fried steaks and a green salad for about 15 people. Everything was yummy. We ate around 10:15....rather I ate at that time as I got served first (good son!). It was fun seeing the kids we knew; most of them we've known since they were in grade school and now they are all 23 or so. Most have jobs, most have graduated from college and most are just now embarking on a real life. I don't think any of them live with their parents anymore. Probably for the best, parents don't want to know everything their young adult children decide to do.

Got home around quarter after 11 and straight to bed since I get up at 5:30. <----another mark of a parental-type.

Yep, a full week, a fun week. So I deserve this lazy, somewhat warm Saturday (and yes, I read some of my book, "The Tigers Wife" and even took a nap earlier. Wheeeee. Perfect Saturday.

Satisfaction

Argh, it's morning. Slept like a log, still feel like a log. Must wake up. The last few days at work have been jammed-packed with things to do and I had fun. I'd love to be that busy all the time! Maybe that's why I've slept so good over the past couple of nights.

Busy, satisfied and feel like I'm contributing. Hooray.

Isn't it nice to feel satisfied with something? Yet, not feeling satisfied creates a need for me to do something better or more interesting so there is that aspect of the push/pull of whatever you're doing.

Speaking of doing...I'm way behind on a couple of projects and MUST get it together so I don't add to the pile of not done yet. My plans for this weekend is go not design for hours but to get some of those projects done.

I'm all happy that my chickens took 5th place in the Not Owls contest at Spoonflower. Check out the design here: Click for chickens Not too bad out of 226 designs eh? I'm fairly satisfied with that! And that bit where I'm not - means I'll try harder next time.

I'm working on a version of this right now.  There are major issues with this version but the idea is there.  I may change the background to white or a lighter color.  I kind of like it. 

 

The last storm

In southern California we don't really have huge storms. Today we had a good one with thunder and lightning. It was pouring sheets of rain. The sky was gray all day, it was prety in a wintery kind of way. Early evening there was a nice break and I got this shot. It made me happy.

Camera 360 which I like better than Instagram

The storm has passed and we should get back to the 70's and 80's and let spring really begin!  Hooray for those last storms of the season!  I hope your weather was whatever makes you happy! 

Textile design: hobby, business, and is it worth it to you?

Value is such a slippery thing. Recently I've seen a couple of posts regarding value and success in terms of turning your hobbies into money-making ventures. I pondered and thought I'd put what I think down on paper.

Melissa Averinos of Yummygoods.com writes a thoughtful post in her blog and it's worth a read. Read her blog post here For me it's eye-opening in a good and bad way. I'm totally lucky to have had some successes and realize it's a long road to designing self-sufficently.

How do you judge whether you're good enough to be successful in your artistic ventures?

I design at Spoonflower.com I've had a moderate amount of success; I count that success in a couple of different ways. Here are my many measurements. Your milage may vary.

Sales: Nothing beats a sale to let you know someone out there can see a use for your design and clicks on the Purchase button. They don't have to buy but they chose that particular design to come live in their home. I love the idea that my design is out there in the world.

Comments: Comments from people who are not designers and comments from those who are; the timbre of the comments is important and what they don't say is important. Other than sales, this is an important feedback tool.

Favorites: Like it enough to be inspired by it or marked so maybe if the right project comes along this design was good enough for someone to mark as a fave.

Contests: I've entered a lot of contests. I count it as a success if I'm in the top 20%. I'd probably stop entering if I consistantly fell below that percentage. It's a great feedback tool too.

Personal satisfaction. I get huge satisfaction from creating, and creating something that others like is pretty nice validation. It makes me happy to create.

I'm extremely lucky that I won a Connecting Threads design contest. My collection of fabrics will debut in about August. I'm excited and impatient to hold that fabric in my hands. I expect when I get my samples I'll be estatic. I'm already so happy I regularly do a hop, skip and a jump for no discernable reason...but I know the reason. bwhahahahaha. It's ok if strangers think I'm a bit of a nutcase.

Now does any of that mean I can quit my day job? Nope, unfortunately it doesn't. Do I dream of that? Yes. What I'd really love is to have my day job be designing - whether for textiles, cards, websites; whatever allows me to create something. I'd still do my designing at night; to give more freeform designs a chance to live outside of my brain (where sometimes designs cook for a long time!). Can you hear those ideas simmering?

All of these things are valuable to me, they're all measurements of success. Add them all up and the internal value of creating is priceless. The external value is a huge bonus on top of the internal value. I'm happy creating, I've got extra happiness when I get money so I can exchange that for goods and services. Win. All of it is worth it to me.

If only all day jobs gave you tasks that always made you fulfilled. Each person doing that which gives them the optimal satisfaction. Now that's a big dream. Dream on!

Holiday!

Living in California we celebrate a holiday that only a few states celebrate. Tomorrow we celebrate Cesar Chavez day.

And that means I get a day off. Not every business celebrates it but government offices do so it's a light day in terms of traffic, etc.

I'm going to be spending the day designing and my original plan was to send my tablet off to be fixed but duh, the post office will be closed.

I'm already feeling like I'm having a Calgon Take Me Away moment...relaxation all day and then 2 additional days off! Hooray!

I feel free.

Thrifty

I have to send my Android Transformer 101 away to be fixed. The screen will not turn on. bah! I bought a box and was going to buy some bubble wrap.

Do you know how much bubble wrap costs? OMG, it was 20.00 for a box. Far more bubble wrap than I need to wrap a 10 inch tablet. So I'm walking around the party store to figure out what I can buy that won't cost me 20.00. Nothing. Those foam peanuts are 10.00 and I don't need that many peanuts either.

I spied a cart where one of the workers had been unpacking something and there were a bunch of plastic bags stuffed into a larger plastic bag.

A light bulb moment. I could use that discarded plastic as stuffing in the box and it wouldn't cost me a cent.

The clerk didn't bat an eyelash when I asked if I could have it. He said, "Absolutely you can have it...one man's trash is another man's treasure."

Well, I couldn't call it a treasure but he did save me 20.00 so he was the treasure really.

I feel very thrifty and smug with my multi-purposing ways.

Hooray for DIY people!

Reports made

Having your credit info stolen is a big pain in the butt. Spent the morning at the police station, the bank and trying to do it all without being too late to work.

No help for it as my bank doesn't open until 9 a.m. Totally bankers hours. The police station visit was a breeze, the woman behind the glass took my info, Zeroxed it and told me the report would be ready in 7 to 10 days. The bank didn't turn me down this time...since they already turned me down to do a fraud report on Saturday I took a different route. I told her I wanted to dispute the charge because it wasn't my charge. I told her the story, including how I knew it was older than 60 days but my rationale was if someone embezzled money from them 6 months ago but they only found out on Sat. would they only go after that person for the last 60 days of theft? And since this was an airline ticket it should be easy to find out exactly who sat in that seat. It probably helped that I had a police report number.

She agreed and I filled out the fraud reports. She notarized it and off I went to work.

I am crossing all my body parts that I get my money back...if and when I do I'll be so happy I could do a happy dance. Wish me luck that the agencies that should help me works hard to get my money back into my account!

Hooray! A free drink!

Psych! Oh never mind...I got a birthday postcard from Starbucks giving me a free drink for my birthday. But it came today and my birthday was Feb. 8th and it says I need to use it by Feb 15th.

Now that's one way to save some money...send it out after the birthday!

It's been a day of disappointments. Yesterday I found an airline charge I didn't make. Unfortunately it's an old charge and my bank only deals with charges in the last 60 days. No, I didn't notice the charge at the time...during a 3 wk period I'd bought a Kindle and a android tablet AND returned the Kindle and had to recharge the Kindle (because I upgraded to the new version that came out a week after I purchased my Kindle) so I assume I didn't notice because my account was going up and down.

I don't get paper statements and my bank requires that I log in to see my statement. Which I don't do and may be the death of me that as long as my balance is in the green I'm not looking at them. I've decided to go back to paper because at least with paper it's in my hands and I always tear open that envelope. I don't really care at this moment that having them print my statement costs money. Having a passive statement cost ME money.

I have to file a police report and am disputing the charge with the airline but I have no idea if they'll do anything about it. There is added complexity since that VISA has been cancelled due to a different fraudulent charge that I DID catch. In that case my bank froze my account because someone charged 2 $90.00 transactions at Walmart and that's how I found out...I couldn't use my card to make a 30.00 purchase at the craft store.

I don't know why my bank didn't call me to verify an airline ticket. It's larger than $90.00 and way off my normal patterns for my card. They've called me before when I purchased a computer. I was happy they called me. Now I'm unhappy that they didn't call me on this charge.

So Monday I have to go to the police dept and file a report. Grrrrr. But it will be worth it if I can get my money back. Cross your fingers.

I'm just thinking I could really go for a drink right now...and not just a coffee drink.

Onward!

Well, I was a bust in that Spoonflower - Textile Design Center - Urban Sighting contest...didn't make the finalist list. Onward! But if you want to read/view my post about making the contest entry read it here.

I'm bowing out of a number of contests so I can focus on doing designs that I want to do as opposed to fitting things to a theme that is chosen by someone else: I'll be putting together a portfolio of coordinates to send out.

My focus is always on usable fabric, it's something I have to watch out for that I don't just do a graphic that works as a single view but something that works as a single view AND as something that flows on a yard of fabric.

I love my repeat on those trees, I love the diagonal and the vertical feel of the design. A reminder:

I'm going to change the color scheme and get rid of the photographic bark and use my own fill for that so it should have a different look to it and I'm also going to lighten it up quite a bit. The underlying design will not have a nature within an urban message to it...it will be more of a woodland message.

I'm happy that I'm changing it up! Onward!

Urban Sightings Design Contest Entry

The urban contest asks that we choose a photo or two (provided by the Textile Design group) to use as a base for a urban renewal with this as the guiding prompt: "This exhibition is to celebrate the art that can be found in everyday surroundings and the daily transition of the neighborhood landscape during this large construction project."

My quandry is showing viewers what I am trying to convey: Here is my description for the urban contest: "Each new day brings renewal.  The texture of peeling paint gives character to the background shadows.  Growing trees leaf out and incorporate the old with the new. Merging urban renewal with new life, new changing scenery. 

Shadows - peeling paint
Leaves - yarn from the bike. "

In trying to convey what the prompt means to me I come up with this design that says what I want it to say...but I don't think it translates in such a small format for viewing purposes.  Judges (I assume) will view the initial round using a FQ view and I'm hoping to convince SF to use a larger view for more detailed viewing.  The design will translate in fabric form as the trees are actually about 6 inches tall. 

3 repeats is almost impossible to show the detail to show which recognizable elements I used for the Urban contest.  See the next graphic for detail. 

This shows the detail of the peeling paint as the tree shadows.  I really wanted the peeling paint to look like bark so it incorporates the living trees with the ever-changing urban changes using paint as a way to renew. The leaves use the yarn from the bike photo and because of it being very small it's difficult to see even in this single view. Check out the giant detail in the next image. 

The mottled leaves are mottled using the yarn that is wrapped around the bike frame.  It you scroll thru the bunches of leaves you can see the yarn better in some places than others.

The leaf detail

The contest is so open-ended that there is a huge array of designs.  As I put this together I wondered if the focus would be on urban,  nature,  redevelopment,  art, quilting,  etc.  I choose to focus on how an urban setting can perfectly merge with a natural park setting.  You can choose to see this design as dawn or dusk, in winter or summer, as sun-lit or shadow-focused.  

Good luck to all who entered!  

Motorola Razr Maxx out of stock

How many times in 10 days can you buy Verizon phone?  Well, I can do it 3 times.

Called Verizon to find out if the phone was in stock and available. The CSR said yes. Cool. Went to the store to buy. Cool.  I'll get it in 2 days. Cool.

Not cool when 5 days later I didn't have it. Called Verizon they said they had 15,000 in warehouses in my state. Cool. Cancelled my store order, ordered directly from Verizon who said they'd pay for overnight shipping and I'd get it in 2 days before 3 p.m. (I ordered late in the evening). Got billed for it as the store still had my money I originally paid.  Cool.

Oddly the next day I got an email saying my (original order which was cancelled) was being delivered to the store on Friday.

Friday 2:57 p.m. 2 days later. No phone. Not cool. Called Verizon who said it had not shipped. That they were on backorder and my order would not ship til the 16th.  NOOOOOOO, not cool.  That the phone had been on backorder since before my order on March 1st. and they'd never updated their list to show it was not available but on backorder.

Verizon called the store where my original order was delivered earlier that day and they agreed to hold it for me. Verizon cancelled my order with them and I'd go to the store to repurchase the phone for the 3rd time.

Finally at 5:30 I got my phone.  I was totally happy to get it (and it's a fabulous phone) but I can't actually believe that the entire customer service and indirect stores had no electronic word that the phones were on backorder when the inventory showed 15,000 in the 4 California warehouses.  Hmmmm, think maybe they're creating buzz to show how well that phone is selling?  It certainly crossed my mind.

So now I'm updating everything (there has got to be a better way to transfer apps/passwords between old and new phones!).  Right now I'm so enamored with my phone that I could do a little happy dance.

Hooray for Toile Top 10 winners!

Always nice to come in the Top 10 for the weekly Spoonflower design contest.  My toile came in at 9th place and here is a detail of the printed fabric on Kona cotton.

A detail of my toile

To see the whole design click here.  There you can see it in a full repeat and read about the buildings and elements I put into the design.  And you can buy it too! 

Robots are fun, quirky things to draw.  There were so many ways I could have taken this.  I wanted to go steampunk but ended up doing something quite a bit different.  Here is it:

A cheery group of bots!

To see the actual fabric at my storefront go here to Spoonflower.

Irked

I'm irked over the price of gas; I just paid 67.00 for 14 gallons of gas.  gulp.

I also just decided I'm cutting my latte drinking habit down.  I'm fat and it's all because I drink so much whole milk all day long.  Let's see if I can cut it in half so I can cut that in half later. I'm irked that I can't seem to drink 2% so I must cold turkey it.

My hibiscus is not cut down and I don't dare try to cut it down myself.  The last time I trimmed a small tree I broke my nose.  I'm not doing that again. See? You can teach an old dog a new trick.  I'm irked that the branches block the laundry room door.

I'm irked because my new phone that I ordered Thurs is not here.  The Verizon people told me it would come the next day or maybe Sat.  Not here and it's Sunday.

I should take a chill pill.

I got a new job...and turned it down and how I might console myself

Yep, I turned it down.  The new job would have been fun to do but the fit of it just wasn't right.  I know people will think I'm crazy for turning it down but if I thought I wasn't going to be happy I'd be crazy to take it.

I'm emotional over it...but really I think it's the kick in the butt that I needed.  I'll get over the emotion of it eventually.

A new job, a new company would help me get over it for sure. LOL.  So I'm looking even tho I still have a job.

It's raining cats and dogs outside and it feels like winter.  Something that is normal normally but this winter has been so mild that it's odd to have really cold weather with rain and wind.  It's cozy warm in the house and I'm thankful for that.

Which leads me to this, something that I can sink my hands into to help console myself: 2 big bags of raw, dyed wool and 1 large piece of wool batt.  My friend Rosanna sent all of that to me as a gift. The batt is large enough to make a number of purses by just cutting it and felting the sides together and then wet felting it.  The bags of wool aren't carded (is that the right word?) as all the fibers are every which way so I think I need to get some brushes and brush them into roving. 

I so want to make something but I need a warmer day so I can go outside and do it there.  I don't acutally have a place where I can get water all over the floor which I think I'm going to need to do.  All that wool is so beautiful that I've just been staring at it for the last couple of weeks.  I do need a keychain and I thought about making a quick freeform keychain but I've been sort of afraid to dive in.  I think tonight I'm just going to dive in.

I also have some lace that Rosanna sent me, but the light is terrible so I thought I'd save that for another day.  Ok, off to play with some wool. Wish me luck!  And oh btw, thank you Rosanna! xo

Plants blooming...or not

I live in southern California where the weather is fab.  Winter was mild...oh wait, we're still in winter technically aren't we?  Mostly our winter this year has been 2 weeks of sunshiny 70 or 80 degrees, 2 days of coolish 50 or 60 degrees punctuated on occasion with rain.  Not too shabby.
Last year my office moved to a location that has a beautiful large patio.  It's got some fab plants and one that I found that is totally glorious in springtime. Especially en masse.

Here is what is budding right now.   Ok, so Blogger will not let me post the photos.  Grrrr.
I'll try later, until now it's a mystery plant with it's mystery blossoms.

Hooray! Look!  The stalks emerging.

The blooms in full bloom (taken last year)

More detail

The benefit of all these flowers is the beauty that they give to the cement patio and better, how they draw hummingbirds to them.  There are usually a dozen or more feeding on the blossoms all the time.  They're gorgeous and they are the thing that helps me stay sane at work.

This afternoon I went out and also spied this sweet daffodil.  Yesterday I thought it was a weed, today a single blossom and more on the way.

Spring in February?

I hope you enjoy flowers wherever you are!

Spoonflower Ditsy Sea Creatures or Bust

Sea creatures in a ditsy print. This one gave me loads of trouble - what to draw? Fish aren't my favorite for some reason and I wanted a very textured watery look...which is sort of weird if you think about it, water isn't really all that textured unless you do foam which I did not want to dom  For the last 10 days or so this is how my process unfolded:

Hmmmm, sea creatures: I'll draw and watercolor fish! Perfect medium for fishes right? Well, it's fine if you can actually draw good fishes. My fish just didn't come out the way I saw them in my brain. I drew all kinds of fish - blech. Back to the computer instead of paper, paint and scanning.

I used an older design to jump from. I knew I wanted something not vector looking (I'm up against vector royalty ya know, some of these artists can whip out some fantastic drawings with humor and fab technique) and something with a lot of texture and depth. After 10 or so versions I came up with this.

The whole design is here Click so you can see all the design. It just wasn't right, not bold enough although I like it.  It needs more, scales maybe?  That got tossed at the last minute. 

I ended up doing this.  Kelp with textured teeny fishes. Like the little fishes in tide pools.  Still sea creatures!  I used a salted watercolor for my background (see!  I did use some watercolor) and drew the kelp and fishes as my foreground.  I liked it...texture and fun colors and totally ditsy.  Nothing lines up, it's pretty random - so yay! 

The image above is a detail of my "Kelp! Help!" design for the Sea Creatures contest at Spoonflower. To see the whole detail click here.  My only worry is that the fish are less prominent than the kelp and I can only hope voters look carefully.

btw, if you want to vote go here to do so.  Click and check out the very random order.  Once you choose a design click on it and a green border will come up highlighting your choice.  Go thru ALL the pages and at the end you can cast your votes.  In all fairness there are tons of cute designs, vote for whatever suits your fancy!

Changing gears slightly...yesterday was my birthday and I didn't get the landscaped yard I've been wishing for...when is the birthday fairy going to send a landscaper and a gardening man to come fix it up and maintain it?  Am I too old to be wishing for gardening fairies?   I don't think so but those fairies either are sleeping on the job or I'm delusional for thinking there are garden fairies out there.  Maybe I need to appeal to garden gnomes? Something to think about!

The woes of a middle-aged body

Yesterday I went shopping with a friend. A friend who doesn't like shopping. We were out for about 5 hours. Do you know what is wrong with shopping for 5 hours? It means you can't find anything to buy.

I bought a pair of cute Ked Duckies. I rarely wear tennis shoes but I broke my toe a couple of weeks ago and that's about all I can wear without pain. I bought a 3.00 traveler coffee cup and a 3.00 leopard scarf (for an interview and the leopard print is an inside joke with one of the interviewers).

What I couldn't find was clothes. It's not like I'm hugely large; I wear a size 4 pant. I wear a size medium top in womens. But all of the clothes were either too tight and loved to cling to unsightly curves in the wrong places or were so flowing hippy dippy that I'd need a dunk in patchouli oil to complete that look.

For work I like a tailored look, I couldn't find a blouse to wear under a suit to save my life. Years ago I wore suits almost every day. I no longer have to wear suits but if an interview comes up I need to be ready.

The weather here has been quite warm for winter and spring is coming soon. Ok, let's go for casual. For casual I still like clean lines. I'm short so flowy has to be at least in proportion. I detest batwings and alot of the flowy stuff has batwings. It's enough that I worry about my arms having batwings (not yet, but I'm old enough to worry about them).

Rack after rack was the same stuff in whatever store we went into. My friend was looking for business clothes and she didn't find anything either.

The saving grace is I didn't spend much money. The downside was I also didn't get any danged designing done. The upside was I spent an afternoon with my girlfriend. We did laugh alot while we passed silver sequined thigh-high boots with 6 inch heels, leopard plastic shiny pants and plunging neckline blouses fit for Rachel Welch.

Maybe it's just asking too much for a middle-aged woman to want to have the appearance of a waist yet not look like a hoochie business woman or a flippy-dippy hippie.

Art Deco entry

The most recent Spoonflower contest is Art Deco.

This is my entry.

This version is without details and much smaller than the real design, to see the details go here to the image at Spoonflower. The Golden Age of Art Deco

It's always hard for me not to be too literal when coming up with an entry for a theme. I like Art Nouveau better for it's curves so Deco was a big struggle. Plus, the entries couldn't have more than 4 colors and no gradients. Deco is filled with gradients. For 10 days I kept coming up with ideas that fell really short of what I considered Deco. I threw in the towel once or twice but that challenge kept niggling at me. I always feel like I need to be able to come up with something!

I finally finished up the design above on Tues. Not totally satisfied that it will be seen by voters as a usable winning fabric but I am satisfied that I did a Deco design. And that is worth a lot to me. Hooray for coming up with something!