Renovations + a New Studio Space

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If you follow me on Instagram, you probably already know that we've started renovating our new house. Mostly it's just been painting and switching over the old light switches to ones we don't dislike, but we've also been planning some bigger renovations and are in talks with some designers to move forward there.

One closet gone, next one on the way!

The biggest thing so far has been my new studio space. Because I am spoiled and eternally lucky, I'm taking over two rooms upstairs. One was originally a bedroom... and the other one... well. It... uh... had a bed in it? I don't really know its original purpose as it was quite small (a twin bed took up most of the room) and it also has a door to a deck on the roof, which... seems odd for a bedroom to have? So who knows.

Both closets gone, wall and ceiling filled in, and fully primed. :)

We took out the closets in between these two rooms and have fixed up the walls and ceiling and primed and painted base coats on almost everything. The only major construction thing left is the flooring, as there is now a big space in the middle of the room where the closet wall used to be that has no floor. Once that's done I can finish up the painting and fetch all my materials from their basement prison! Yay.



The room is really big now... and to be perfectly honest, it feels a little TOO big, but there's not much that could be done about that with how the rooms were arranged... so poor me. :p I'm sure once my chunky furniture is stuffed in there it will feel a lot smaller, but regardless, I'm really looking forward to getting it all done and being able to get back to sewing and crafting!

I'll be sure to share some photos when it's completely done, but for now, thank you so much for bearing with me through all this! <3

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All painted, carpets removed, and floor ready to be fixed up!

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P.S. If you read this far, I love you and keep an eye open on August 25th for an awesome announcement. <3

We're Moving!

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If you follow me on Instagram, this is probably old news, but my fiancé and I are doing fancy grown-up things and recently purchased our own house!

It's pretty intimidating.

We have a few renovations to (hopefully) do before we move in but we should be all settled in at the end of June! So soon. @.@

This means all kinds of packing (nooo.... :( ) and running back and forth between our old place and the new house, and lots of painting and decorating and contractor wrangling, so probably a lot less sewing.



Good news is that I will still have a studio space, and it has lots of windows and outdoor areas to work (roof deck attached to studio room? umm... yes please!) and we will have a back yard and a forest as a next door neighbour, so I hope that will push me into taking a lot more photos this summer. :D

I hope to post some photos of my new space once it's all pretty-ed up, so there should be tonnes of things coming soon.

And now... back to phoning all the people ~!

Musings and a Commission Hiatus

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Update time!

I know a number of people have been waiting for me to reopen, however, my wrists are still not 100% and I don't know exactly what is causing the problem.

With that in mind, I've made the decision to close my custom shop for the rest of the year to give my hands time to heal properly, and to give myself the time to devote to other important things in my life.



In regards to sewing, I will not be stopping entirely, unless advised to do so again by my doctor, but I will be cutting down significantly. Instead of commissions, I will be doing some ready-made items and working on props and things for my own dolls. I will make an announcement here and on Instagram when I have things available, so check back from time to time in case something you want comes up.

I have a lot of plans for my dolls that have been put on hold for quite some time, so it will be nice to have a break to really dive in to some of them. :)

Hopefully a longer term hiatus will also give me the time to figure out if I can actually continue to take commissions without doing permanent damage to my health.

I hope everyone is doing well. We shall see what the next few months have in store. <3

Phases

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I've noticed that I go through sort of... phases?... with my sewing where there are certain things that just come out really well all the time... and then others that just... don't. No matter how hard I try there's always something wrong with the finished product.

I went through it a while ago with my halter dresses - no matter how carefully I measured or how often I checked the fit, the bust bands kept coming out too big. Maybe the fabric was stretching or I bought magic snaps or something... but now I have a pile of non-fitting dresses sitting on my desk that need to be fixed.



I think I might be going through a phase right now with knit fabrics. It seems like I just can't get anything right the first time around with them and I have to redo the sewing over and over. I guess my pile-o-cardigans will have to wait until this is over. The one I started last week has needed to be re-sewn 4 times already. -.-;

At least all my skirts are coming out well. :) I cut out 4 more to sew up for Doll North and they're getting very close to done. ^^ Now I just have to frantically check the Doll North page every 5 seconds so I don't miss the market sign-up! XD

Hope everyone is doing well!

2015 Resolutions

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I normally don't like making resolutions because I invariably fail and feel bad, but I'm going to try anyway. I've already posted a wishlist on my instagram, but now that I've had some time to think about it, I want to add to it/revise it a little.

So, without further ado:

1. Spend more time working on my own dolls. 
• Most of them don't really have an outfit that is 100% them (even Mali! yikes. .____.), so I'd like to make at least one for each of them.
2. Get back to working on my photoset. 
• I had a minor disaster that made me quite sad for a while, but I really need to get over it and get back to working on the project, I was having a lot of fun.
3. Take more photos!
• I tried the 'A Doll a Day' challenge last year, but with my school schedule it was just impossible. I think I might try using one of the monthly prompt lists to work on some more creative photos, but I won't be following any schedules.
4. Share more about my dolls' characters.
• Reading about other people's characters is a great pleasure of mine, but I've never been very open about my own. Now that I have my main story characters, I really want to start sharing them.
5. More doll meets!
• I really enjoy getting together with doll friends, but I live pretty far away from the main group here, so I'd like to try to organize some more regular events with people who are more local.
• I've also been waffling on the SD size for AGES, so meets might give me a chance to become more familiar with them and finally decide one way or the other.
6. Finish at least one big personal project.
• Other than the photoset, I have tonnes of ideas buzzing around my head. I'd like to finish at least one of them this year. Need to pick it soon!
7. Get a MNF Moe body for Tobi (with small bust)
• Tobi is supposed to be much shorter than Mali and Bella, but none of the bodies I've seen (or bought -.-) quite worked. I highly doubt I'll be able to swing another doll purchase soon, but I'd really like to get Tobi properly finished.

Instagramz

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I signed up for an Instagram account yesterday. I can't promise I'll keep it forever, but I thought I'd try it out for a while and see how it goes.

I'm not super effective at using mobile apps, so I apologize in advance if I mess something up (or accidentally delete stuff... sorry nenstra ^^;). Hopefully I'll get the hang of it soon, but until then, my username is tayma.leigh. :)

The Little Engine that Could

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I still haven't decided how I feel about these personal kinds of posts, but whatever. :P

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Since I lost the entirety of my free week last week to a stomach bug, I figured a life/sewing update would be nice.

I have a big pile of things I cut out to attempt on the sewing machine as stock for Anime North Next year, but that didn't work super well... my sewing machine still likes to mess with my mind (SURPRISE!)... so I decided to just sew them by hand like normal to get them off of my desk (omg it's so messy XD Run away!). They're going quite well but there are still about 9 things in the pile. Once they're all done, I'll release this stuff and start work on some new patterns and things. :D Yay! Gogogogogo!!

In other news, I suck at photography right now, so even though I have new things sewn and ready to go up - I even wrote up the listings and everything! - I cannot ever let the photos I've taken so far see the light of day.

It's actually appalling.
Like 2009 all over again.

Anyone near Waterloo want to come take sales photos for me? I can pay you in tea and tasty lunch noms. -.- <3

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Things I have learned in the past couple weeks:

1. Stomach bugs suck. Forever.
2. LittleFee have giant heads.
3. I'm actually faster at top-stitching than I thought I was.

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Back to work for me! I hope everyone is feeling well and having happy productive days. :D <3 You're the best.

Finally some downtime!

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Things have been exceptionally hectic since my last update.

Bella's shipping notice arrived just at the start of my exam period and she arrived on the day of my first exam so I didn't get to open her until 10pm. :C After exams I had about one day before my boyfriend's parents arrived to stay with us for 10 days, during which we had to drive to and from Virginia for a wedding. Then it was Christmas celebrations and finally New Year's Eve... and now it's today... and I must say, I'm very glad for the break from all the running around.

So... with that out of the way, time for the updates!!

For the curious:

Bella is safe and sound and sporting a temporary face-up. Her new eyes, wig and extra sleeping head have all arrived as well. The eyes are stunning, but I'm still not 100% sold on the new wig. She has two full outfits and a PJ shirt and has claimed many bracelets. I hope to give her a new face-up when it warms up again now that I have more of an idea how I want her to look. :)

My holidays were busy but otherwise lovely. The wedding was very sweet, and worth the 9.5 hour drive to get there. I was gifted a new printer and have been playing around with printed t-shirts. Also, I was given a 60mm macro lens by the aforementioned boyfriend's parents, which I finally had a chance to try today.

This is my favourite photo from my first lens test. It's not the best, but the cropping is straight from the camera, and that's pretty wonderful. Definitely need to practice with it more, but I don't think that's going to be much of a hardship. ;)

Lastly, I've been working a lot on prototypes and samples for a bunch of new items. They're all in varying stages of completion, but I hope to get at least a few photos up this weekend since I start classes again on Monday. :)

I hope everyone had an excellent holiday as well and I wish all of you a very happy and productive 2014! <3

Excuses, Excuses

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Alright... let's try this again.

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It's been approximately 2 months since my last post, which, to me, is unacceptable. Especially considering there was about a month in between that and the one before... and the same for the one before that... :/

So, with that in mind, I feel the need to explain. It's probably not necessary, but I'm going to do it anyway.

My grandmother died in January. It was a long time coming, and I've more than come to terms with it. However, since my grandfather had also died recently, it meant that their house (where my little part of the family was also living), possessions and all that jazz, were now in the possession of my aunts, uncles and parents. Which would be fine, except that instead of being civil and adult about it, it seemed to become an excuse to rip the family apart at the seams. Yay.

Now, I'd moved most of my stuff out and live a few hours away, because apparently I am a grown up now. So for me it was mostly a matter of getting the rest of it moved or donated and then saying "to hell with you all until you learn to be proper human beings again".

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for my younger brother, who got caught up in the middle of everything and the raw end of almost every deal... Since I could not afford the $50/8 hour round trip bus ride every week (especially during the winter term, when I had classes), I was sort of stuck trying to help from afar... which, as you might expect, didn't really amount to much.

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On top of that, I've been dealing with some sort of health issue(s?) since November, or maybe October...September?... I forget. Luckily after countless visits to countless doctors (it might be only 5 or 6 doctors but I have actually lost count of the number of visits), I finally got them to agree that yes, there is, in fact, something wrong with me. Previously, they'd just done a blood test, or talked to me and then sent me home with an "I don't know, you look healthy, you're probably fine". Gee. Thanks.

Now comes the happy task of trying to convince at least one of them to help me figure out just what that something is. And since the symptoms keep manifesting slightly differently every time I visit (and many of the doctors cut me off after listing 2), I'm expecting it to take a while.

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In happier news, I've also been preparing for a term (ish) abroad, which I'll talk about closer to leaving, but suffice it to say, it's been keeping me pretty busy. (Apparently, the Embassy, immigration board, Travel Companies and a host of other people are not very clear on some of the laws... XD)

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As a result of all of this (I assume, it could also be another symptom), I've been either sleeping or utterly exhausted for the greater portion of most days, so even when I could bring myself to work on something, posting a blog update about it was not at the top of my to do list.

So there you have it, my lovely excuses. Though this may have been more of a 'get it off my chest' post than anything.

I have quite a few other things to post updates on though, so those should be coming in the next few weeks. Hopefully with pictures. :)

Commissions

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I waited 3 years after I started sewing to open up my commission thread, even though people kept telling me that I should.

It was mostly because I didn't think my sewing was good enough, but also things like: 'I need better pictures', 'I need a better layout', 'I need better patterns', 'I need a better way to record orders', etc. I was second guessing myself left right and centre so even when I finally decided, 'Okay, I think I'm good enough... let's do this', it took me months to finally get something decent put together, and I'm STILL not happy with it.

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Okay I guess, but not quite right.

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Looking back I realize that I should have just started it and let it evolve over time, but I am a crazy perfectionist... so I also realize it was very unlikely to happen.

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Originally, I looked at the fact I had to close my thread early as a complete failure. Now, I'm trying to change that to something more akin to it being simply a failed experiment.
I plan to use my work on my collections so set a better baseline for prices and timing, since I'm not paying myself nearly enough for the amount of time I spend on everything.

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I'm planning on opening up again in December for one or two slots, but until then I'm going to work on my collection. While I have the final intention of selling (almost) everything in it, the idea behind this collection and the pieces in it are things that I want and is made to cater to me and my tastes. I think as long as I think of it like that, as something I'm doing for myself, I won't get too overwhelmed and stressed about pleasing everyone else and maybe it will get done on time.

Hopefully I can have it completed and listed by April. Depending on how well that goes, and how much free time I think I have, I might open plushie commissions (things along the lines of the dog I posted earlier) in between everything.

I find them fun and relaxing, since they go together so fast and I don't have to spend weeks ensuring that the pattern fits perfectly, just that it doesn't look stupid or out of scale.

We'll see. Look out for updates here and on DoA. :)

Organizing

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So, now that I'm embarking on this little shop 'for real', I figured it was time to get myself properly organized.

My sewing and doll stuff has always been the most organized part of my room (aside from my bookshelf) but as I'd recently moved, my previous system (categorized bins tucked under my bed) was a bit at odds with the new arrangement (no 'under the bed') and as such quickly fell apart and I found myself leaving bits and bobs all over the place and not being able to find what I needed easily.

Messy and disorganized... and somewhat painful when lost pins found their way into feet....

So, after much pondering about what the best solution might be, we ended up purchasing a rather tall storage shelf and some boxes. Now I have all of my fabrics in two bins - knits and 'not-knits' - threads in another, beads, trims, clays, shipping supplies etc. in others neatly organized on each of the five shelves... and the three in the little cabinet I kidnapped from the dining room... with everything I think I'll need for my upcoming project in another bin that I can easily cart around so I can work on it anywhere.

I'm not sure if it's going to stay this way, since the shelf and all of the boxes are completely full, but it looks like it will work for a while.

At least now I can stop worrying about where I left that roll of ribbon and concentrate on getting things done!