CollectIn Texas Gal: Fiber Arts Studio

Showing posts with label Fiber Arts Studio. Show all posts

3/21/20

Sorry Ya'll...SFAS is CLOSED😕for the time being!
~I will be following the 'Texas Declarations for Staying Safe'..staying🏡, washing hands, tryyyying not touching my face 🤔, and all the rest.
~Sorry no 'Take Out'~Drive Thru~Delivery' of Yarn🐑, Bags👜, Shawls👘, Woven Runners, etc.
~BUT, these days you may need a Microwave Bowl Cozie....call me...325-277-9940...curb side pickup.😷🙂

Now that the Official Closed Announcement has been made on Facebook, I will be getting busy making more Bowl Cozies. I always have an assembly line stack ready to sew.

Who knew they would become a best seller in my shop...not me...I started making them out of necessity...tired of grabbing a T-towel or too small potholder to take a HOT bowl/dish out of the microwave.

Speaking of Home Studio...it has expanded...again! Partly due to the 'Do The Fivers' and mostly because times have changed so much for 'Brick & Mortar' shops...especially for Artisans.

Keeping 9 to 5 daily shop hours for shoppers that don't necessarily shop 'Specialty Shops' has shop keepers like me making decisions to fit the 'Times'. For me that means 'Shop Weekend Hours' and more 'Home Studio' time.

I'm good with the 'Stay Home' 'Work From Home declarations! I love my Sewing Machine, Ridgid Heddle and Floor Looms, Fabric and Yarn Stashes, Ashford Traveler Spinning Wheel and baskets of Wool Fibers. I will have no problem with Staying Home.
Signing Off as...OverDoSue Working From Home!

PS...Want a perspective on how COVID-19 affects society now and in the future history books?
Here's Wendy's Sign of the Times....Popular Trending COVID-19

3/15/20

March Breaks...Planned and Un-Planned

On February 26th I decided to take a 'Winter Break' from opening my Shop. It was a good move as traffic at The Chicken Farm was slow...typical for the winter months. As you can see by my announcement on Facebook...I was busy 'Overdoing' at my Home Studio.

True to my word and plan I was back on First Saturday, March 7th. It was a windy day...true to March, but it was warm and the traffic/crowd/shoppers turned out in numbers that made the day worth being there. There was however, the looming/impending feeling of what could be one of the last days of being part of a large crowd. Sure enough the following week Texas joined the nation in announcing a State Emergency due to COVID-19.

Guess I'll be taking a 'Spring Break'!!!

2/3/20

Side Hustle Jobs and Mondays

     Falling behind or getting head. Two places of which I am well versed, and should probably be a better title for this post since I'm already behind my rule of putting up a blog post on the 1st day of the month.
     Time for a blogging rule change....not written/typed in stone...subject to getting ahead and for sure falling behind. It does have to do with Side Hustle Jobs and Mondays.
      I've retired more times than I can count. Officially on all Senior Citizen forms and other declarations of work status the Retired box is checked. There is no box for 'Side Hustle Job', and that is probably a good thing as I would have a hard time describing what I do as a Side Hustler. I will defer to 'Google'.
      A couple of things Google says about 'Side Hustle Jobs' that might surprise you. One, it is an expression first used in 1950 and became popular during and after the last recession when traditional jobs disappeared and enterprising people had to make ends meet.
      Two, how many jobs are considered 'Side Hustle Job's' today. Here are a few: Sell items on Ebay or Craigslist, recyle used smartphones, drive for Uber of Lyft, rent your spare room on Airbnb, manage a social media small business, etc. etc. etc..
      Can you just imagine this list in a 1950 setting! My truck driver Dad would have said, "What's an Uber"? If we would have had a spare room, my Mom already had it filled with a relative that needed more than an airy bed and breakfast.

So, back to 2020 and the Side Hustle list. Well sorta! Not a single mention of a former Chicken Farm turned into an Art Center/Community. Leave it to me to fall back to the 1960 era to find my perfect Side Hustle job as a Fiber Arts Studio Artist and Office/Media Assistant at the Gallery and Art Center Complex.

Now about Mondays! It's my day off from hustling on the side, and the one day I have time to...hopefully...blog. Oh, yeah, I'm off on Sunday, too. Another day I could blog, but am instigating another new rule...spend more time with family, take day trips, shoot more photos with my NEW...not recycled...SMARTphone. Like this one from yesterday...February 2nd...on a day trip to the Hill Country.

Notice it does not have thing a to do with the Super Bowl!

10/7/19

Back To Blog and Back To Quilts

I'm not even going to go there...there being the lack of attention this blog has had from it's 'Over Done Doer' also known as CollectInTexas Gal alias OverDoSue. With that out of the way....

HELLO OCTOBER!!!

These are what's left of last years 'Plaid Pumpkins' and crocheted trivets. There was a whole pumpkin patch of ones that sold...I don't know why these didn't. I'm not sure how they survived to be my only October display. I take that back...they are the only because I've been too involved in having a last ditch effort to 'Clear the Quilt Closets'.

Notice I said 'Closets'. Not only several closets, but more than one rack and many walls. It gets down to how many quilts can one person really use, need, collect, or give away to family. Everyone is saturated. Besides, for all the years of making and collecting quilts, I've had it in the back of my mind they were an investment. So, the time has come to cash them in!

Do you know how many people have asked "What's a Lay-A-Way"?

Isn't that a hoot?

After explaining to mostly Millenials and Generation XYZ or whatever they are know as now, and how in just a few weeks 'Winter is Coming'...they get that cause they too watched Game of Thrones...the quilts are selling out right and being 'Laid-A-Way'! I just love it when a plan WORKS!

I may have 'OverDone' my Facebook Quilt Show Blitz, but what they hey...It seems to have worked! I basically have no shame....I even pulled in and played the Santa Card...HoHoHo!!!

And On It Goes!!!!

1/14/19

Dorothy The Weaving Wizzard

In case you have forgotten or didn't know, Dorothy is my LeClerc Table Loom. She was so named by her maker in Canada and is made of maple wood...of course. She has been my go to weaving gal since August of last year, and together we have been fairly productive. Mainly making strips from scrap yarn and fabric...like this one.

So, what do I do with a six yard strip?

Cut it up...of course!

Naturally, I stabilize the weaving before cutting with a zigzag stitch on the waste strips between each section. This six yard strip yielded 10 sections. What's next?

A Bird Bag!

One done and nine to go.

Speaking of Birds...Meet Sparrow!

My Old/New to me LeClerec Floor Loom! She too was made in Canada, of maple and named Nilus. She came to Texas sometime in the late 1950's or early 1960's, and made her way to Studio #14 from first owner, several second and third owners and finally to my artist friend Beverly. This maple beauty was stored in several different barns, and finally moved to a garage of my longtime friend and artist Beverly. Beverly is a painter, not a weaver and offered the loom to me.

I have spent the last week cleaning and refurbishing the beautiful maple wood, removing years of corrosion on the metal parts and putting it back together to make ready for warping and weaving. This week I will finish warping and hopefully begin my first weaving of a rag rug.

I renamed her 'Sparrow' for the symbolism of a sparrow's diligence as a weaver of nests and for their spirit of joy in being productive.

Neat, huh...I'm a weaver, a nest builder and find joy in being productive.

1/4/19

Clutter Dance and Being A Pirouette Purger

I dance around the subject of 'Clutter' about this time every year. I guess it's a New Year thingy...out with the old and in with the new.

Somehow, that doesn't work with a 'Clutter-A-Holic' who really likes the stuff collected over the past year which has been added to stuff from...let's just say...several years before that didn't make the New Year 'De-Cluttering Dance'.

In my defense, I did quite a nice pirouette in a collection of beads and junk jewelry which I bragged about in this post the day before the New Year. I have to say, "It was Bead-A-Rama liberating."

That was in my Home Studio, and I'm sure there are several other areas that need a pirouette purging.

It's much harder to pirouette purge at my Shop Studio. You see, much of the clutter there was originally Clutter Danced out of my Home Studio. It absolutely cannot go back! So, when it came to rearranging to make space for a new loom and all it's necessary clutter, I did what any trained Pirouette Purger would do....raised The Bar. That'd be called a ladder plie', and yes, I have one that allows me to reach my 10 ft. ceiling without doing a Swan Lake Dive off the top rung.

The good thing about being a Pirouette Purger...comfortable shoes!

1/1/19

New Year 'Change-O-Lutions' Not 'Res-O-Lutions

Starting a New Year off with something that represents the first month of the year has become a common theme here on this blog. Or so previous years indicate as I looked back at January 1st posts.

I've been a full year blogger since 2010, so that amounts to 9 years of January 1st posts...counting this one. I won't review all of them, but I do have a favorite or two.

Like THIS one from 2010 where I pictured myself back in 1951 via a calendar collection from that year. I was 4 years old, and the pictures were taken by my Mother with her Kodak.

Another favorite post HERE from 2016. It was about making New Years resolutions...or Not! Did you know that the #1 resolution for most people over the years has been to lose weight? Here's what Erma Bombeck had to say about losing weight...

In two decades I've lost a total of 789 pounds.

I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.

For the New Year 2019...I'm doing Change-O-Lutions...not Res-O-Lutions!
#1...Sue's Fiber Arts Studio...name change.
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