It's Fall, Ya'll!

It's Fall, ya'll!

Or, as Lisa likes to say with glee, "We're in the "er" months!"

Indeed we are - and just like Lis, it's my favorite time of year. I'm ready to switch over my outdoor summer wreath and doormat, get a few mums, and maybe even a pumpkin or five.

Bring on the cooler weather, the falling leaves, and flocks of migrating birds.

Yeah, that's going to be a while - we're under a heat advisory (again) with indexes in the 100s and high humidity. Even at 5:00 this morning when I took Pepper out, it was warm and muggy and missing the usual refreshing early morning coolness.

I started off Fall with a birthday celebration with local family. With help from their mama, Ian, Mila, and Lukie went through their childhood artwork and made me a collage.

It is really cool and Pepper is in there as well as five horses that are scattered about. What a great idea and way to keep and display childhood artwork!

(That was actually Sunday, August 30 but I'm counting it in the "er" months. You know, "Auguster", right?)

Then I got a little injury that looks far worse than it really is. I'd had an early morning physical therapy session and afterward decided to drop by and visit someone who lived close by the physical therapy facility.

Their pup was very excited to see me, jumped up, lost its balance, and grabbed my arm as it slid down and backward to the ground.

The owner felt terrible but honestly, the dog was not trying to harm me; it was greeting me and simply lost its balance. In its defense, I bruise and bleed very easily, and the injury isn't as bad as it looks.

I've had some fabric problems in the sewing room, too. Block printing is a hand done process, and part of its charm are the little errors that you can find occasionally.

Well... I have a piece that has more than a few little errors. And it was whoever was responsible for adding the black dye who made them.

Aside from the initial black outlining, there is no black color on this part of the fabric.

Here's how it should look.

Another spot, this time a camel, that the printer missed.

And how it should look.

Another missed elephant.

and how it should look.

I'd already gotten a lot of work done on the trade shirt before I discovered those mistakes.

The good thing is that the errors are hard to find and that errors are a normal and accepted part of using block printed fabrics. 

I will go ahead and finish the shirt, but I will also put a note on its tag about some of the missing color and let the buyer decide if they like it or if they want to look at a different block print shirt. (One person I've already told about the errors said, "Whoa! That is so cool!" Go figure.) 

Of course, the very next block print I opened had an issue on the selvage edge. 

That's an easy work around, but still smarting from the elephant/camel block print, I did a careful inspection of the piece.

A pulled thread, a noticeable issue on the wrong side of the fabric.

But on the right side, it's not very visible and is another easy work around for me.

So, hot weather, an overly exuberant pupper, and issues with block prints...

How are your "er" months starting off?

Stay 'tooned!

"Wahoo!! .... Nothin' "

Sometimes you feel like Yukon Cornelius.

You walk into an antique or thrift shop full of hope and anticipation.

You wander around, looking for HSOs

and you find them

but they just aren't the HSOs you want or need.

You find real horse-life items

and cool vintage horse-related games.

Bookends

and salt and pepper shakers

and vintage trophies from real horse shows.

Framed prints

and more framed prints (someone liked paints and pintos!)

and old metal clocks.

Rubbery horses,

cheap plastic knock off horses,

and giant horses for giant dolls.

A few things are tempting

and make you second guess your decision to leave them behind. (They look like Mortens Studios, they feel like Mortens Studio, but are they Mortens Studio?)

And when you do find something you are interested in, the seller's price is often more than the piece is worth and so you leave it behind.

"Wahoo!! ... Nothin' " indeed.

This time. 

But Yukon Cornelius kept looking and he did eventually find what he was looking for.

I'll keep looking, too.

Stay 'tooned!

The Shelving Conundrum

Getting new horses settled on shelves is fun. But sometimes you get one too many new pieces and then you end up having to rearrange several shelves to make room.

I hit that point with my BreyerFest and Second Chance Sale horses.

Oseberg, Aquavit, and my Scandi Surprise are currently grouped together next to my Semi Rearing Stallions. 

I had a good coupon and decided to finally buy the 75th Anniversary Traditional Family.

The PAS, PAM, and PAF shelves are all full, so I simply grouped the family together next to Vintage Club Zahra.

I have been wanting a Yan Wu and purchased him during the Second Chance Sale.

What a gorgeous model - Breyer knocked it out of the park with him, and my piece is flawless.

I'm not super happy with the way I have rearranged the shelves to accommodate these new models. I like to group by mold, and I'd like to get the PAM and the PAF together with other PAMs and PAFs. (The PAS is actually right next to the PAS conga.)

And, the shelves are DUSTY. Since they are white, they don't show the dirt like darker colored shelves would, but it's there. A lot of it.

Which isn't surprising. The last time I cleaned, culled, and rearranged shelves was nearly three years ago in January of 2024. My shelves desperately need a good dusting.

That's gonna be a challenge. The earliest I will be able to do them is in January after the holidays. But, depending on how much I sell at the Feast in October, I may need that January time to sew items for Kalamazoo in March. Which is why I've gone so long between dusting - the best dusting months have become sewing months. 

Another wrinkle is that I will need help with the top shelves. I've lost two inches in height over the past decade and I can no longer reach them.  

But, long time blog readers may remember that the last time I cleaned my shelves, I also had a nasty fall as I was getting off the ladder.

I'm not anxious to repeat that again.

But, needs must, as the saying goes, so I am going to have figure out a way to dust both the horses and their shelves. (And not have another fall.)

Wish me luck and stay 'tooned.

Taking the Shortcuts or the Long Way?

I finished two orders for the Nebraska Contingent this week.

A trade shirt, size 3XL, with a hand finished collar, pleated cuffs, 

and sleeve buttons. (I made the sleeve buttons, too.)

Another trade shirt, XL, again with a hand finished collar, pleated cuffs, and sleeve buttons.

I love how nice pleated sleeves look - so much nicer than gathered ones.

I'm really happy with how both trade shirts turned out,

and their new owners are, too. I'll pack them up and take them to the package store on Monday.

Now I am moving on to fill in size gaps in my trade shirts. I made a list of what I had and what I'd like to make for the Feast of the Hunters' Moon.

I have four to six shirts to make, and at the current rate of two a week, I won't finish until mid September. That will leave me only a month to make some bedgowns and petticoats, plus a bunch of blackened beeswax ornaments.

Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick!

Yeah, I'm starting to feel the stress.

In various 18th century sewing groups online, some sewists post frequently about how much they've sewn each week. I read what they have done and I can't help but wonder, how do they get so much done?  

Here's an example.

She even made a 100% hand stitched shirt! 

Another sewist wrote,

I've considered messaging some of these sewists who get so much done and asking for tips on producing clothing more quickly. Do they have other sewists working for them? Do they cut out their own patterns or does someone else do that? Etc.?

There are some shortcuts that I could take but those would affect the quality of my work. Shortcuts are often visible in the finished work, and I don't want someone looking at my clothing and seeing shortcuts; I want them to see that I took care with what I made.

Some shortcuts that I could take:

~ Not preplanning the look of the garment and placing pattern pieces so that things line up together. Look again at the in-progress maroon shirt. See the repeating block print pattern that extends down from the neck to the hem? I had to think ahead and place the pattern carefully to achieve that look.

~ Not ironing much, if at all, as the garment is constructed or when it is finished.

~ Not pinning seams together; instead, grasping the fabric between my fingers to hold it together as it is stitched.

~ Machine finishing the collars and cuffs rather than hand stitching them (which hides the finishing stitches.)

~ Gathering the sleeves at the cuffs and shoulders rather than pleating them.

I am not willing to do any of those things. Not yet, at least. I am getting some arthritis in my thumbs and some of the hand stitching has begun to hurt. My hand finishing days may be numbered. But they aren't yet.

My plan is to just keep on sewing as I already do and bring what I've gotten finished to events. I truly feel that I am giving my customers my very best work, so does it matter how many I can turn out in a week? I'm not going to sacrifice quality in order to up production.

Stay 'tooned!