Leather Making

This is my kitchen table. A big fat leathery mess.
DS and I have been delving into leather work. He wanted to give his friends 'Handmade!'
I'm happy to support that.
Also, very interested.

One of two hides I now have in the house - will they stay with me or do they travel with DS?

He made this hatchet cover.
 

•  We covered pattern making. 
• How to figure out dimensions if you do not want to pay $4.99 for a digital download. 
•  How leather stretches (OMG). 
• What types of leather we really needed. 
•  How to hold a bic lighter so it does not scorch the leather (do not use on cork!).
• Which tools are necessary (thank you garage sale find! and Tandy Leather).

The wallet behind the cork  was our first presentable wallet. I made the cork one first. This holds a card on each side (mirror image design) with a pocket in the middle for paper bills/more cards.

We are now working on a design for a four card minimalist wallet with middle pocket. DS bought the second hide - a shoulder cut - the other night. This leather cut looks like we'll be able to shave the 'seams' easier and provide a bit more structure - and less stretch.


His goal is a minimalist wallet. He also made a couple of journal covers. 

I have seriously awesome kids.

Hearts For Teresa

My blogging friend, Teresa, has a serious addiction to red hearts.

I planned to make her one for Christmas, but, you know how that goes. I made it last night based off a pin on one of my pinterest boards.


I dragged out a box of wool stash (clothing and yardage) and found the red and the blue (from a plaid) I was looking for. Nabbed my embroidery floss and a super awesome needle and settled into watching episode 4 of Downton Abbey. This heart took about 20 minutes more than the episode.


I actually had to grab a youtube video to recall how to start the blanket stitch - and how long has it been since I've made french knots?

1000 Customers on Etsy And Giveaway Winner

Congratulations to my awesome customers on etsy.
I looked at my etsy stats last fall and was quietly surprised that I was so close to 1000 sales since I  opened the sh0p in 2009. I put a concerted effort into realizing my #1000 goal and reached it January 20th.

My customer was ecstatic that I had the vintage pattern she had been searching for and replied, "OMG! Jupiter luck again! That's amazing and I'm so glad I am your 1000th order! Thank you for making this order free! And, thanks to you having this pattern, I can unleash my creative potential. May you have many more thousands of sales! :)"

Jupiter Luck!

Jupiter Luck received everything here FREE for being my 1000th customer.

Missy Jupiter Luck ordered a pattern bundle and I enclosed some sewing goodies as well as some Hawaiian zipper pulls & notepad. I made the zippy bag on right a couple months ago with some japanese silk kimono scraps and put everything inside. On the left-hand side of the photo below a pattern,  I made a quick pocket tissue cover with some fabric I bought in Oahu at Fabricmart.

I was thinking about stopping at the dollar store to see if they had any bells and whistles to put inside the package, but I'm afraid I am still on Hawaiian time and it's all buttoned up and sent now.


I have some of the best customers on Etsy. I've sold online for many years - since before ebay started. Etsy customers truly appreciate hand made and love vintage.
*****************************************************

While in Hawaii, I did a giveaway. "How much is a simple 5" x 7" zippy pouch?

It was lined, it did have a strap. Whoever guessed closest to how much that puppy was going for would win something.

I had guesses of $22.00, $19.95, $28, $35 & $39.95.



A no-special-fabric zippy pouch with strap
is $45.00
in Haleiwa, Oahu.



**** And our winner is  ****

$39.95 - I'll take the Macadamia nuts! LOL! You lucky person! ((hugs)), Teresa :-)

I'll be sending Teresa some Macadamia Nuts tomorrow.

Thank you for playing my pricing game!

Sunny

DS and DD take photos differently than me. In a focused, memorable way that excites me.

They are much more in tune with what other people are doing online on Instagram or SnapChat. Other online platforms that make me feel old trying to figure them out.

My blog is more of a photo-journal 'cuz my memory is going.

I take photos and write from there. And it's mostly to get stuff out of my brain.


Koko Head


They are trying to recreate awesome photos by putting their own spin on them.

They are acting because of a photo they want to take.


pu'u manamana

Kuni Island Fabrics

On Monday, I took TheBus down to Honolulu to go fabric shopping.

I had planned to start at Hidden Yardage but they were closed Monday. The next three were in the same vicinity - I started at Kaimuki Dry Goods (previous post) and asked those ladies about lunch. The kids had eaten at Koko Head Diner which was nearby. One of the gals recommended Big City Diner which turned out to be very good.

They called ahead for me to the Calico Cat to double-check -- it was also closed on Mondays.

I found out Kuni Island Fabrics was back the way I had come. And open! Huge relief - cuz my phone was dying. Although I learned how to use Google maps for my transit routes, using the GPS sucks up your battery power just like that!









Downstairs is some fabric and projects/crafts for sale. Upstairs is a sewing classroom. Fabric runs to japanese/Asian style with some other US lines.

They also had quilted fabric - which you see more of in japan - for making bags without having to buy interfacings/battings to get a stiffer fabric.

I loved seeing all the crafts for sale - from tissue holders to small zip bags to small garments.

In the above photo, is a top made from fabric squares, embellished with sashiko stitching lines. I found two fat quarters of this fabric in a basket.

The bags and purses were priced much more moderately than what I found in Haleiwa.

The other real deal at this shop is the fat quarters.

These were just $1.99. A fat quarter is 1/4 of a yard - cut a certain way. These FQ equate to $8/yd. Some of these are SevenBerry from Japan. I love the feel of this fine cotton as well as the inks & patterns.

On the other hand, the FQ of the top with sashiko embellishments went for $4.10.









No knits here, just wovens.

I also bought this tiny needle book.



Everything rusts immediately here. By sticking your needles in the wool, they don't sport rust spots.


All in all, random pieces of loveliness. Those batik pieces at the top of the post - they had pineapples on them. The blue quilted batik had my usual turtle.



My stack shows a preponderance of blues & greens.

The shop lady admitted to owning more fabric than me --storage lockers were involved. I'm not sure how you can store fabrics here in this warm, moist environment. I'm luck to live in Oregon where we have few moths and other not-sewing-friendly insects.



mahalo.

Kaimuki Dry Goods

Kyle!







So, this is what I bought:

Thin tissue knit for a t-shirt. I was even thinking of ice-dyeing this (pencil girl).



Absolutely thought this would make an awesome t-shirt with reverse side as binding. So much texture. My favorite colors. Do not ask about the price.

Definitely more in priceline with the 48. Drawn to certain Trendtex fabrics that you can buy cheaper at FabricMart.

Definitely not done with lusting after japanese fabrics - which were cheaper in Nippori (Tokyo) .
That airplane fabric?? $27/yd.

A lovely chat with the ladies led to a nice lunch spot.

Very friendly, amazingly helpful.

I spent an inordinate amount of time contemplating the swim suit fabrics. A one-piece is not your friend when you gotta go pee.

I'm thinking I should wear a bikini at my age. The age when you move past body issues.

If you're ever on Oahu, kaimuki dry goods is very easy to get to --I took TheBus again. So easy to get around Oahu when you want to ditch hubby and DS. You hear and see so much local flavor.

On this trip, I have learned two new things that my aging Smarty pants phone can do:: Groupon coupon for Pearl harbor that saved us a ton of money at Pacific air museum.

And, Google maps has bus routes. So easy to put in your destination. Google maps pulls up the best bus route, where to transfer, how many steps to walk between stops.

I am seriously getting smarter with my smarty-pants phone.

Haleiwa

Haleiwa reminds me of Paia on Maui.

Handcrafted, artsy.

We enjoyed watching an entrepreneur hack open a coconut for us for $6. When you're done drinking the coconut water, you return to the booth and he will cut the coconut meat into small pieces for further enjoyment.



Lots of blooming flowers (winter).





T-shirts.



Boutiques.


Red Dirt t-shirts.



Locally made (somewhere in HI).I liked the leather trim next to the zipper.



These little 5 x 7" zippy pouches on the table were $$ - can you guess? Leave me a guess in the comments. Closest person gets? Tell me what you'd like to win? Kona coffee? Macadamia nuts? Zippy bag?

The slightly bigger, but still simple zipper pouches were even more. The smaller wallets were about the same price as the zippy bags.


Nice patchwork utilization of doilies and fabric to make a bag.



Squint? Can you see the price on this coffee? 12 oz.



Mahalo.


sunrise sunday