I have a fabulous assistant. Let me tell you about her.

Kate, on the right, in 2003.

I first met Kate in 2003.  We were both doing Pastimes’ Robin Hood Faire for the first time, and Kate was probably about 15 years old.  I didn’t get to know her very well during that show, in part because she was incredibly shy. It wasn’t until that winter, when she confessed her love for Fight Club and Chuck Palahniuk during a break in a stage combat workshop that we all got a peek at the very cool kid lurking beneath the quiet surface.

Back in those days, the Pastimes shows didn’t have an actual costume designer.  Costumes tended to be pulled at the last minute, and while this worked well enough, it was a process that was less than ideal.

Kate in her Eowyn dress, taking a Norman guard to task.

In 2004, I joined the staff as their costume designer, and that year’s Robin Hood Faire was the first one I had a hand in.  It was also when I first became aware that Kate was also a budding seamstress. She brought to me a dress based on Lord of the Rings‘ Eowyn, and asked if it would work for her character in the show, and I gave it my approval.

After this, I have to admit, my timeline gets a little blurry.  We became good friends, and the Pastimes shows got larger and more ambitious. I started Storied Threads, and found myself, and my time, pulled in more and more directions. And Kate became my assistant costume designer for the Salem Pirate Faire. She took on a lot of alterations and construction jobs, and started pulling costumes and doing fittings when I couldn’t make a rehearsal.

Redemption Wall's wedding dress

In 2008, when she created an intentionally wonderfully awful wedding dress out of a $10 ’80s vintage dress, a handful of dingy lace curtains, and a ton of pink ribbon, I knew we were a match made in heaven.

It wasn’t long after this that I started hiring Kate to make some of the more basic Storied Threads stock.  Pirate sashes. Hester hats and Alan a Dale hats. She started coming down to the studio when we were both free, and rooting around in the scrap fabric bin finding the pieces that would work together that I’d forgotten all about. And by now, she’s a full-on member of Storied Threads, taking on not only stock but some of the commissioned pieces. Every time she comes to the studio she learns to make something new, and I send her home with a giant duffell bag full of fabric, patterns, and trim.  She’s become my preferred co-worker in the booth at shows as well — it’s wonderful to have somebody there who can talk to the customers about how things work and what we can make just about as well as I can, and who understands the pieces we sell as well as I do.

Kate and I (and Beatrix, of course) at CTRF in spring 2011

Storied Threads has grown.  And while I’m still (on paper, at least) a one-woman show, it’s become more than one person can handle.  If it weren’t for Kate, I’m pretty sure my head would explode, and brains can be a bear to get out of fabric without staining.

Sometimes, I worry that I don’t express to her well enough how valuable she is to me, as a friend, and as a part of this budding business. So, I’m taking the opportunity now to write this blog post, because nothing says thank you more than embarrassing amounts of public praise.

It’s not “spending”. It’s “investing”.

The concept of investment is one I sometimes have trouble wrapping my brain around.  Every time I buy something, or every time I’m not in the studio physically making something, I start to stress out.  Luckily, I have sensible people around me (specifically Mike, my husband and idea-man, and Kate, my assistant and back-up brain) to remind me that these things are investments in my company, and things that (when planned well) will help to create a better Storied Threads.

Purchasing Idris, my new embroidery machine, is the large and obvious investment I’ve made this year. But there was no question on that one — we sat down, did a bunch of math, forecasted what my year might be like, and at the end even I couldn’t argue that it wasn’t a smart purchase. But other things are less obvious, and learning to take advantage of all my resources and view them properly has been something of a learning curve for me.

Idris, stitching out an awesome custom messenger bag.

 

For instance, on Saturday, I had a one-on-one lesson scheduled at Able Sewing Machine, where I had purchased my new MB-4.  That morning, I mentioned to Mike that I was reluctant to lose the studio time. After all, I’d had the machine for 3 weeks already, what would I get out of a lesson, when I could be making something? He reminded me that it was impossible to know all about the machine yet, and that an investment of my time in a lesson was no less an investment. And it turns out, he was right — I went to the lesson, and learned some really valuable tricks that have made me even more time-efficient when it comes to embroidery. I spent one hour, and who knows how much time those tricks will save me?

I also need to keep reminding myself that Kate is an awesome assistant who can make lots of stuff. I’ve got a board in my studio to which I stick all of my commission and custom orders, so that I don’t forget anybody, and I was COMPLETELY stressing out about it — there were so many of them! I was going over the list with Kate, and mentioned that one of them was a Mordred Vest, a garment that Kate has made for stock before. And she said, “You know…I could do that one.” And it was like lightning struck my brain. Why wasn’t I giving commissions to Kate that she was perfectly capable of? Why wasn’t I being smarter about sharing the work load? I also had a couple of hat commissions, and Kate already makes a good 75% of the hats for Storied Threads, so why wasn’t she making those?  As a result of this conversation, my commission board has been reduced to half what it was, as I passed along those pieces to her, allowing me to focus on the real custom orders, and the pieces that require a serger. Because Kate doesn’t have a serger. Yet.

So, yeah. Learning to use all of my resources. Learning to view things as investments. These are my lessons for 2012, and the result will be a bigger and better Storied Threads.

Banners and Patches and Cons, oh my!

Papal Seal Banner

A lot of what we do at Storied Threads is obvious. We do clothing, and it’s all over the website. We do patches, and there are tons of them up at Etsy.  But we also do a lot of work on a commission basis, sometimes things that we’ve never made before just because somebody asks us to. So when Paul Stickney, playing Cardinal Claudio at the Florida Renaissance Festival, asked me to make a couple of banners to hang in his stage area, it was a great chance to stretch my sewing muscles.

The banners he asked for will hang vertically from the cross beams, and the picture here doesn’t do them justice. They’re seven feet long, and bear a shield embroidered with the Papal Seal at the bottom.  I laid this one out on my too-short cutting table to take the picture, and the last two feet are hanging off the back end — it just doesn’t fit. Hopefully I’ll soon have pictures of them in action at the Festival!

Bran Falling at Winterfell

We’ve also been working hard to get a bunch of new patches made, and I’m REALLY happy with the results!  I got six new patches run this weekend, and will be debuting them on Etsy and Facebook over the course of the week.  Today’s new patch is this one, of Bran falling at Winterfell, from George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series.

Two or so weeks ago, up in the studio, this image just sort of popped into my head, along with the quote from Jaime Lannister.  I knew immediately that it was completely morbid….and yet, my brain insisted that it be made, and you creative types out there know how it is when something gets into your brain like that. The only way to get it out is to give it what it wants — life. So, with the help my my awesome husband (who drew me the tower), I got it digitized and stitched, and am quite happy with the results.

Speaking of my awesome husband — I feel so lucky that he helps me as much as he does with this business. Not only does he draw stuff for me when I hand him a scrap of paper with a terrible sketch that I had to label so he’d know what it was, but he even gladly donates his own time to help me figure stuff out when I need a second opinion.  This weekend, for instance, he went with me to Templecon, in Rhode Island, to check it out as a potential vending opportunity for 2013.  I know I want to do at least one con next year, and there are three that are local enough to me to be serious contenders — Templecon, Arisia, and Boskone. I made this plan too late to check out Arisia, and don’t think I’m going to make it to Boskone, so Templecon is the only one I’ll get to see in person this year. It will have to serve as both a scouting mission for that con specifically, and also as a template for cons in general, for me to get a feel for what vending the others might be like in terms of set-up and such. We didn’t spend too long there, a few hours at most, but we got to walk through all of the various vendor areas, see what they were like, talk to a couple of vendor friends who were there to get their thoughts on the show, and on the way home it was incredibly helpful to have Mike to bounce thoughts off of, and get his opinions in return. I’m still not sure what my plan will be for next year — there are so many factors to consider — but it was really helpful to see one of our local cons in action, and to think about how I might do there, and how different factors (location of my booth, what stock I focus on, etc) would affect my potential sales.

Need some Valentine’s Day inspiration?

Can you believe January is already done? The winter is flying by, and guess what? Valentine’s Day is coming up fast!

If you’re looking for a fun, unusual, and affordable gift for your sweetie this year, why not take a trip over to my Etsy shop and check out my ever-expanding line of embroidered patches? Order yours by Friday, February 3 for guaranteed delivery by Valentine’s Day, and please add VALENTINE in the note section of your order to let me know this is a gift purchase.

Ah, but now you’re wondering exactly what you should buy for that special someone. There are so many options!

For an appropriately themed gift, we offer the Victorian Love Potion label patch, which mimics a period sepia tone and is great for anyone into the steampunk scene. For romantically inclined gamers, we have the Legend of Zelda heart container patch (we’ll leave it to you to fill that last container with your love for your significant other).

 

 

 

For fantasy fans, particularly loyal followers of George R.R. Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire” series, why not buy a bouquet of House patches? You can buy a set of three, six, or all nine at discounted prices! Also choose from individual House patches and the “Dark Wings, Dark Words” patch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whovians, you have as many choices as the Doctor has had regenerations! Of course there is Storied Threads’ original Doctor Who Awareness Ribbon patch, our best-selling design in 2011, which tells the world that both your hearts belong to everyone’s favorite time-traveler.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since it’s also an election year, you could voice your choice with the new Vote Saxon patch; or broadcast your Doctor Who appreciation with the more subtle Seal of Rassilon or Time Lord Seal patches.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A lot of people think that the “Twilight” saga embodies modern romance. I’m not one of them, and if you’re not either, the Sparkly Vampire Hunter geek merit badge design is for you! This is a variant on our classic Vampire Hunter geek merit badge featuring sparkly silver blood – great for Team Jacob boosters or people who just hate “Twlight.”

 

 

 

Celebrate one of the great love affairs in sci-fi, between Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, with the I Want To Believe patch, which claimed the top spot for sales in January!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, don’t forget your four-legged friends need love too, and you can show it with one of our embroidered pet bandanas. Choose from the dog or cat skull-and-crossbones designs or the Rescue design, for those special shelter animals.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Space improvements

Because my husband is awesome, what he gave me for Christmas this year was a studio. I mean, yes, I already HAD a studio — but he helped me make it better, in so many ways.

I wish I had a series of before pictures for you, so you could see the fabric shoved willy-nilly in shelving units all over the space, or how the window was blocked by the rack where my stock was hanging. Or the poor use of floor space, with a large desk for the TV and DVD player to sit on, and a papasan chair that was doing nothing but serving as a place for me to chuck stuff rather than put it away. But I don’t, so you’ll just have to admire these lovely after pictures with me instead.

Organized fabric!

For starters, we took all the bookcases and shelves, and moved them into one area, henceforth to be devoted to nothing but fabric storage. We hauled all the fabric out of its former home, and I went through it piece by piece. Some of it got tossed, when it was something I knew I’d never use — too synthetic, or too small, or too ugly and it went into one of the many, many garbage bags we filled up in this process.

And the fabric that got kept, got sorted and organized. Cottons on one shelf (or, rather, three shelves), linen on another, flannel on another, etc.  All neatly folded so I can see exactly what I have to work with at any given time.

And faux fur on a bottom shelf all of its own, so as to minimize its ability to shed on all the other fabric. That stuff gets everywhere!

 

Look! There's a WINDOW there!

Once the fabric was sorted, we needed a new home for the stock as it gets built for shows.  With a wall now clear, Mike picked up some hardware and some tools and built me a FABULOUS garment rack right on the wall.  There’s space to hang long bits that used to get hung on closet doors all over the studio, and two shorter spaces for jackets and skirts and the like.  And underneath the window we excavated is a bookcase that was previously going to waste, in which I’ve stored hats, pirate sashes, and other things that don’t go on hangers.

I don’t have pictures of all the space improvements, but the papasan chair is gone, the embroidery stuff is all centralized, and my thread selection is now mounted on the wall right by my right hand, so I can see all my colors and choose one without even getting up. The space feels bigger and brighter and more efficient in so many ways.

There is one more improvement that has been made to Storied Threads in the last week, and that is my new, sexy embroidery machine! Ta da!

Look at it! It has four needles, and a GIANT hoop (giant hoop not pictured here), and a little computer monitor! I can change the bobbin thread without having to remove the embroidery hoop! It’s super-fast, and super-awesome, and the quality of stitching is AMAZING.  I mean, just look at this side-by-side comparison:

Dunwich, on the left, was done on my original embroidery machine. And Caprica (coming soon to our Etsy store) was done on the new MB-4 yesterday. You can see that the stitching is tighter and denser, and the small letters at the top and bottom are simply clearer and more legible. It’s a pretty safe bet that anything with small typeface will be getting done on the new MB-4 from this point on!

Growing Pains

Storied Threads is growing and thriving, that’s a fact. It’s not yet a business that will pay all my bills, but it’s making steady progress in that direction, and that makes me a really happy girl.

However, their are down sides to all this awesome growth, too.

A growing business, for instance, demands more of my time. I currently spend four out of five weeknights after work, and all weekend in the studio, fulfilling commissions and making stock. And it never feels like enough time — I always worry that commissions are taking too long, and that my racks will be too empty at the next show. Trying to find a balance between day job / Storied Threads / family time is definitely taxing, and yet it’s something I need to do.

A growing business also has greater technology requirements.  I discovered this past holiday season that my embroidery machine felt insufficient. I was madly creating patches to fill orders, and yet it seemed as though every day I ended with more empty envelopes than I began, prompting me to start researching the possibilities of a second embroidery machine.  That sort of thing is not an inexpensive investment — and I had to really force myself to think of it as an investment, rather than simply, “Oh my gods, that’s a ton of money!”  In the end, after talking over all the pros (increased production, having a back-up machine when one goes in the shop) and cons (Oh my gods, that’s a ton of money!) with my husband and my Awesome Assistant Kate, I’ve decided that I will be making that purchase this year. It’s the right decision for Storied Threads. But it wasn’t an easy decision to make.

It becomes more and more clear to me every day that owning my own business isn’t an easy thing. And it’s certainly not for everybody — it’s a lot of work, it’s a lot of sacrifice, and it’s a lot of tough decisions and then hoping you made the right call. In fact, I saw this image on Facebook this morning, and it pretty much summed up what me and my company are going through right now.

But for all that — I’m loving what I’m doing. And I’m excited to share some of the improved Storied Threads with you all in the next week or two.

Euro Patches

A year ago (give or take) I had an idea for a new style of patches.  I had been seeing these Euro Stickers on cars all over the place, and thought it would be fun to do patches in that style — but for towns in H.P. Lovecraft‘s fictional Massachusetts.  I did up a design for Arkham, and ran some tests, and just wasn’t quite happy with it.  I didn’t have any actual fonts at that point, and was trying to digitize all these letters by hand — including the small ones at the top and bottom, and it just wasn’t coming out cleanly.  So, I set it aside.

Since then, I’ve picked up a few fonts for other patches, and while I was up in the studio this weekend, I came across one of the old test patches. I realized that now, with more tools at my disposal, I could give these another try, with probably better results.

Arkham Euro Patch

As before, I tried Arkham first.  It is, after all, probably the most well-known of Lovecraft’s locations.

And — success! I was quite happy with the result, and promptly scanned it in, posted it on Etsy, and linked it to my Facebook page to show off, along with the announcement that Innsmouth and Dunwich would follow shortly.

Raxacoricofallapatorius Euro Patch

In the thread of comments that followed, it was suggested that I should do a Euro Patch for Raxacoricofallapatorius, the home of the Slitheen in the Doctor Who universe.  I was so tickled by this idea, that I immediately set about creating one.

Now, of course, I’m thinking about the plethora of imaginary places that could be done into patches like this. WNTRFL for Winterfell? MRDR for Mordor? GLFRY for Gallifrey?

What other places or fandoms would you like to see made into Euro Patches?

Top 10 Countdown!

On behalf of my wife, who is busy with that “day job” thing, Happy New Year!

As part of our annual year-end wrap-up, we at the Storied Threads household are gathering together all our financial records to take to our awesome accountant. As part of this process, and to help her plan for 2012, I sifted through Veronica’s Etsy sales records for 2011 to see what her hottest-selling patches were.

As she’s mentioned in this blog before, the patch division of Storied Threads took off last year and is providing her with a nice, steady revenue stream, but it was a little shocking to see the growth of that particular item line.

A grand total of 40 patches sold through Etsy between January and August, then in September, Veronica moved 32 patches online, and in October, 23 (and that is just the online sales; I’m betting she’d about double that number if she factored in all the patches she sold at the fall Connecticut Renaissance Faire).

And then the holiday shopping season hit, and over the course of November and December, Veronica sold a total of 233 patches. Yes, she sold nearly three times as many patches in the last two months of 2011 as she in the preceding 10 months combined – again, not counting whatever walked out of the tent at CTRF.

The turning point, I think was the introduction of the Doctor Who Awareness Ribbon patch in April. That was Veronica’s first real foray into catering to the sci-fi/fantasy geek crowd, and it inspired her to whip up many, many more fun designs.

So, since it’s tradition to do top 10 countdowns for New Year’s, here are the 10 best-selling Storied Threads patches on Etsy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10: (Tie) The dirigible and the Seal of Rassilon. The dirigible is an Urban Threads creation, but the Doctor Who-inspired Seal of Rassilon, the official seal of the founder of the Time Lord society on Gallifrey, is one Veronica digitized herself (an often time-consuming project in and of itself). What’s impressive about the Seal is that it was introduced in the last quarter of 2011, yet sold as many patches as the dirigible, which has been around all year.

9: The Mad Scientist Geek Merit Badge. Another late addition to the line that did brisk business. Customers like that they can easily customize the colors (at no added expense), and it seemed to be a popular holiday gift option for people shopping for the actual (and presumably not mad) scientists in their lives.

 

 

 
8: The Plague Survivor Geek Merit Badge. This was Veronica’s second design for this patch (the first one reminded people too much of the Spy Vs. Spy cartoon in Mad Magazine). I’m a little surprised this one got such a positive response, but apparently people dig the scary bird-faced plague doctor.

 

 

 

 

7: Are You My Mummy? Another Doctor Who-inspired design, this one featuring the eerie “gas mask people” from Series One (the Christopher Eccelston season). The design alone is cool, but the addition of the slogan attracted the Whovians.

 

 

 

 

 

6: The Zombie Survival Geek Merit Badge. I wish I could say Veronica came up with this one, but this is another Urban Threads special – although it did lead her to create the other Geek Merit Badges. That line of products will definitely expand in 2012.

 

 

 

 

5: A Song of Ice and Fire – House Stark. Sadly, it took a TV adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s fantasy series to bring it to the attention of the general public, but the HBO series is bringing in new fans. Like all of Veronica’s Song of Ice and Fire house patches, the House Stark features the house’s totem and words.

 

 

 

 

 

4: The Time Lord Seal. The third Doctor Who-inspired patch on the list, the “logo,” if you will, of the Time Lords. Like the Seal of Rassilon, the Time Lord seal is neat because even if you aren’t aware of its source, it’s a very interesting image.

 

 

 

 

 

3: Fezzes Are Cool. Doctor Who design number four, this one in honor of the current Doctor, Matt Smith. Although bow ties are also cool, they also proved tricky to render as embroidery (although it could still make an appearance in 2012…who knows?).

 

 

 

 

2: The X-Files – I Want To Believe. Veronica did this one on kind of a whim, never expecting the X-Philes of the world to snap this design up in the numbers they did. This patch is a more bold, graphic interpretation of the poster that hung in Agent Fox Mulder’s office.

 

And the top-selling patch for Storied Threads in 2011 is…

 

 

 

1: The Original Doctor Who Awareness Ribbon. I’m pleased with this because I was the one who came up with this design…sort of. I first suggested this concept as a joke, but Veronica ran with it, and the Doctor Who Awareness Ribbon was born. It debuted in April 2011, at the spring Connecticut Renaissance Faire, and immediately sold out. It continues to move well both domestically and abroad, and was even featured on the official Doctor Who Tumblr page!

Remember, all of these patches, as well as more than three dozen other designs, are on sale now at the Storied Threads Etsy shop!

Happy holidays, everybody!

2011 has been an absolutely AMAZING year for Storied Threads.  I’ve been at this business for about five and a half years now, and every year has been better than the year before, which is good.  But this has been the first year that I look at where I am at the end of the year and see myself leaps and bounds ahead of where I was at the beginning of the year.

This year, I began making seriously geeky patches in earnest, and that enterprise has been a big part of this growth. I love making clothing, and I love selling things like pirate coats and mini top hats at shows — but let’s face it, those are investment pieces. It takes some serious thought to decide to drop $250 on a coat, and I get that.  Patches, though, average around $10 each — that’s a MUCH easier impulse buy!

Etsy has also been a big part of my growth this year.  The shows are fabulous when I have them, but this is the first year that I’ve made regular sales via the internet — and 98% of those sales have been via Etsy. It’s a great site, and a fantastic place to find unique things, and to reach out to a whole new market of people. I know I’ve done a good deal of shopping there myself, for more unique stocking stuffers or for costume pieces that just can’t be found anywhere else. And it seems that other people are using it in the same way.

I’ll be taking a week off from blogging next week, as I’ll be travelling to see family for Christmas and then (finally) catching up on all of those Etsy orders. (Right now, I’m filling orders that were placed about 7 days ago, which is MUCH longer than I like to make people wait!) So I wanted to take the opportunity now to thank you all for being the most awesome fans and customers a geeky entrepreneur could ask for.

Have a wonderful Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Solstice, Yule, New Year’s, and any other holiday you may celebrate this time of year! I can’t wait to see what 2012 brings!

Holy new Etsy stock, Batman!

Let me just start by saying that the Dickens Festival this weekend was a BLAST! I know I saw lots of familiar faces there, and hope that those of you who couldn’t make it this year will be able to next year — from what I hear, preliminary planning has already begun, and it will be even bigger and better than this year was.

At every show we do, we joke about how we’re going to go home with nothing but empty bins to load into the car, having sold completely out of stock. As lovely as that dream is, though, it never really happens. And for Dickens (as for many shows) Kate and I built up a ton of stock to have ready to go for it. Now that the event is over — it’s all getting listed on Etsy, for those of you who couldn’t make it! I wish I could show off every awesome piece for you here, but that would be an unmanageable post, and you all would never read through to the end. So instead, I will simply give you a few highlights — you’ll have to go to the Etsy shop for yourself to see the rest.

Messenger bags!

Time Lord Seal Messenger Bag

I made up a bunch of a new* style of messenger bag for this show, to see how they’d do.  They’re still a small size, but a more traditional wide style. They’re also simpler than my other bags, with only one interior pocket, which makes them a little bit more affordable.

*Okay, “new” is not quite an accurate description. In fact, I’ve made four of these bags before — I first made them as Christmas gifts for CTRF’s Pope and Cardinal, and later they were commissioned by a couple members of Commedia Mania, who had seen them and liked them as character bags, and easy period ways to carry things with them on site for the show. But they are “new” in the sense that I’ve never made them for off-the-rack sale before, and haven’t even had a chance yet to do a proper photo shoot for them and get them up on the website.

We went home with four of these bags still in stock, and they all got listed over at Etsy this morning.  Since they (like everything else I listed today) are already made, they can be ordered as late as this weekend, and still be received in time to give as Christmas (or Solstice or Yule or New Years or Holiday of Your Choice) gifts.

Hats!

Teal Newsboy Cap

So many hats! I sent Kate home a few weeks ago with piles of fabric, and instructions to make as many hats as she could — and man, did she deliver.  She made up a bunch of newsboy caps, as we figured a Victorian period event was a more appropriate setting for this style than our usual medieval and Renaissance faires. And she also made half a dozen fur-lined Barbarossa hats, which always seem to do well when it’s cold outside. And baby, it was  cold outside this weekend — we’ve had  a lovely, long, extended autumn in New England this year, but this weekend Old Man Winter finally showed up to assert himself.

Winter Scarves!

Mmm.....flannel.....

And speaking of perfect accessories for the cold — we made up a bunch of warm, embroidered scarves! Most of these are made of flannel, although there are a few exceptions. That’s what happens when you decide to make them on a whim, and send your assistant rummaging through the fabric stacks with the instructions “Just find anything long enough and warm enough to be a scarf!” The flannels were my favorite, though, and if I keep making them, I suspect that’s the material I’ll generally use. (Barring special requests. And awesome finds of clearance fabrics.)

Like the messenger bags, these are so new to Storied Threads that they don’t yet have a home on our website, so Etsy is (for the moment) the only place you’ll find them.

Steampunk Belt Pouches!

Steampunky goodness

And finally (for this post at least) — Steampunk Belt Pouches! I made the first of these quite a long while ago, as a project in sewing therapy. (I needed a night of pure no-obligations creativity. It was therapeutic.) And while I’ve gotten lots of compliments on mine, I never got around to making any for stock. Partly just a matter of finding the time, and partly due to not having the right kinds of clasps on hand. So, I decided to remedy that fact for this show, and got two of these fantastic belt pouches made. I’m thrilled with how they came out, and think they’re really very sexy…but couldn’t find a good way to display them, alas, so they didn’t get quite as much love as I’d hoped for. However, that works out well for you, because now you don’t need to be anywhere near Massachusetts to buy them — I’ll ship it to you wherever you are!

I mentioned this at the beginning of the post, but it’s worth saying again — all of these bags and hats and scarves (and anything, really, that isn’t a patch) are already made and ready to ship. That means that I can DEFINITELY get them to you in time for Christmas gift-giving!  They’ll all ship Priority Mail, so if you order by this weekend, they’ll ship on Monday, and arrive just in time for you to wrap them and place them under your tree.