Etsy Shop Update Today

I will be slowly, but surely updating my etsy shop with bags today. I will start around 4pm and end.... who knows...I have 15 bags to add!! yes, 15. this is largely due to the great but extremely overcrowded show last night. i did not have a hand in the arranging and setup of displays and unfortunately my bags where lost within the sea of merchandise. the space was tiny for the amount of stuff and people, so unless it was a quick grab, many sales where lost. despite my lack of sales, i met some really cool people.
i've become one step closer to getting my tattoo, from miss lauren b., at evermore. I am getting Three Ages of Women, by Gustav Klimt, as an upper arm sleeve. I'm doing it for a number of reasons, mainly it is to honor fair's birth. Here is the actually painting, but lauren with be simplifying it and changing some coloring .
i found a great hook up for asian baby slings, from South City Slings.

and i got to hang out with longtime friend kate, from red anvil.

so, in the end, i may not of been financially successful, but it was a great social evening with sword-toting belly dancers, fellow crazy crafters and artists, and a few solid women that i hopefully will be hanging with again.

bird bags

These are lovely vintage burlap fabric squares that i found on etsy. i'm turning them into bags this week and will have them available at indie valentine. six days to go...

The Crowded Fire

every once in a while my husband, michael, gets a wild hair and decides he wants to do something seemingly improbable... but he does it. like, hitchhike down to san fran and meet ferlinghetti, talk to russian poet yevgeny yetushenko, interview howard zen for his live non-broadcast talk show he's been wanting to do for years and so many more things. it's sometimes hard to believe the things that michael has done, but there's always proof.
this friday, michael will have his first talk show and is interviewing (by telephone...through p.a.) author howard zinn and lakota activist russel means. oh yeah and next month he's got noam choamsky. i can't wait to be there. these are people that i studied for years and to have it happened at Picasso's, a coffeehouse/cafe, in slightly backwards-trying-to-get-turned-around st. charles, missouri, makes it even better.
here's the information below, click on the poster to enlarge.

Fair Ophelia Bags

people have been asking me what kinds of bags they can order, so here are a few examples of the fair ophelia bags...

pleated bag, this is the largest version, but i make them in various sizes

the pleated bag in use...in a very messy studio.

coffee sack messenger bag, sized for a laptop

small coffee messenger

shoulder coffee purse

i have done custom bags in other designs, but those are typically a one-time deal, unless requested.

i have been busy designing a coffee clutch purse, a unisex wallet, wristlets, and other goods for the Indie Valentine show.
off to work...

The Franklins

angela

michael

whitman

fair

James sent us the pictures from his visit. There are a lot of good ones, here is just a taste.

scary yet cute

this is one of the strange things my step-dad buys to amuse us. fair actually wore it for a few minutes and we couldn't help but add the buckshot rifle. god bless the u s of a!

they both like it...

i just received this photo and was surprised to see the resemblence of the cats. i didn't even know Alexandra's cat was black... it makes the bag even better.

Cat Bag

my cousin finally received her bag, so i can now share it with all of you. i free-motion machine stitched the flap design. at first, i was a little concerned that it was too halloweeny, but i think it's perfect for a cat lover. it seems to have attitude.

indie valentine

i just found out that i will be part of this year's Indie Valentine Craft Show. Yeah!!!! and my god the work that must be done. i will give more details later... until then, here's the official site:

Indie Valentine

weekend with na-do

cooking up some oatmeal

drinking up some tea

i finally had my girls' weekend, despite a head cold. we decided to hold off on chicago and stay in town. it was a whole bunch of sleepin' in, tea in the early afternoon, way too many movies (Grandma's Boy, Sweeney Todd, Hot Rod, UltraViolet **horrible, even with Milla to look at**, and Foot Loose) and we ended it with a walk through the Botanical Gardens. Na-Do is the only other person that I can watch really bad...but oh so good 80's movies and some just plain stupid ones with and do it five times in a row. If it hadn't been for Mr. Johnny Deppe and a crazy 70 degree day in January, we would of attempted the madness once again. but instead we went for a walk and took advantage of some bag wearin' photo ops...

this is another example of a bag i made for myself, but na-do ended up with it. it's the first pleated design... i bit longer than the one's i've done lately.

my latest messenger bag

this weekend was just what i needed...i heart na-do.

it's been a while...again...

i found out that the next semester does not start until the 21st of the month... i somehow thought that i only had a three week break... so i have been taking a lot of time making my own creations, along with the many custom orders. i feel like i am in constant need of more fabric, mainly browns and reds, but after organizing my solids...

i realized that there is more potential for bags than i thought. i just made two large pleated bags and posted them on my etsy. I also just finished an order from my manager, at The Vine

she gave me free range on the fabrics and i had fun using some of my "grandma" hand-me-alongs. I have been using a lot of the swatches given to me too. it's really the only way i would be able to make a bag out of designer fabrics.

we received a surprise phone call from our crazy portland friend james this morning, telling us that he would be dropping in tonight. yeah! he does this every year around Christmas, when he drives from portland to wiscousin and back... stopping to visit on his way home. another piece of portland, stabbing us in the heart... i just talked to another portland friend today and we reminisced about going out to breakfast. gourmet craziness for $7.00, served by a tattooed angry artist, feminist, musician. i really have not found anything comparable and as cheap, here in st. louis. we are missing you portland!
well, off to drink wine, eat stinky cheeses and home made pumpkin bread from a coffee can.

last minute christmas

we decided around 8pm, Christmas eve, to celebrate christmas with fair and whitman. michael and i both have reservations about the holiday, but the idea of seeing fair's disappointment of santa's absence was too much. so santa made a last minute stop...


rob and amy's amazing gift to the family

the crochet madness in amy's blood

fair's letter to santa. she fell asleep in the middle of writing it...

and whitman took advantage of the situation.

christmas with the family -- elfish whitman

fair'o'claus

santa's gift to whitman...

and fair's complimentary house on the lake. (thanks to the late night work of michael and christian...)

one of the two "rigor mortis" dolls that the kids got from rob and amy.

santa also gave fair princess makeup and daddy made her all up. he has a few years of experience under his belt... glam rock days and all

so christmas was good this year. we played Balderdash and i, being a great bull sh*&#er, of course won. the food was tasty and the company was warm. the monster, whitman, slept through the second half and gave us a chance to sit down and enjoy ourselves without the fear of something breaking. i hope everyone else is enjoying the holidays and have a great new year!

angela

my studio

i recently moved my sewing studio from our mudroom to fair's room (her bed is now in the corner of our room). the garage is too cold for michael to paint in now that winter is upon the midwest and i offered up my studio to him. this meant moving into an area half the size and kid accessible. so i had to consider how to make it kid-friendly and not be a pain in the ass to function. i think that i did a good job and this has forced me to turn the scary basement room into a cutting and storage area. the basement is not that bad, it's just that no one has really done anything with it for the last ten years and i'm going through the last four tenants crap they left behind. I did find some treasures though... an antique sewing machine, a "fake" book for a million old country songs, and other unique and random goodies.

the studio...slightly organized

my henry miller poster, an amazing ink-wash of flowers i found and some messiness

my weapon of choice

michael's ink drawing of fair playing her piano

i'm planning a trip with my best friend, na-do, to go up to chicago for a weekend. this will be the first time i've been away from the family for more than a day in forever. but a lady has gots to get her girl time in and have some adventures. so anyone who wants a bag, ask me now... trips cost money. i plan on bringing bags with me to hock a few here and there. we'll see...

New Design

small coffee sack messenger
9x10x2

After many requests, I have designed a new, smaller version of the coffee sack messenger bag. I really like the shape, kind of militaryesque. I made three for a friend to choose two from and of course she chose my favorite one, but i have enough fabric left over to make one for myself...but we know how that ends up... over someone elses shoulder. I will be posting these ones on my etsy shop soon. i think that I will have an officially update day after the first of the year.

i am waiting for my england order to arrive, so that I can post pictures of it. it was one of the most involved and time-consuming free motion stitching design on a messenger bag flap that i've done so far. alexandra... you're family so i went the extra mile and i hope that you love it.

i've been busy trying to keep up with my orders. this week i shipped to alaska, england, colorado, louisiana, oregon and hawaii. it feels good to know that my creations are floating around out there.

well, i have to get to work before the kids wake up.

mas bolsas

i've been waiting to snag my mom's camera to show the bags orders that i've finished in the last month. so here they are...

blue bird stitchin'

more blue bird

small pleated bag for amy's momma

amy's teacherin' bag

i love the interior fabric

and i have so many more to go and about 20 hours of drawing to do by tuesday night!

My Etsy Shop and The City

I have finally set up my etsy shop and will be adding bags over the next few weeks. It is so nice to have an easy way for far away folks to buy my stuff. And on to the city... Michael and I are looking into moving into St. Louis, "the city." We have been really homesick for Portland, in the last month, and we were plotting our return until a strange string of events pointed us to stay in the area. The first was a possible apartment rental in South City from a fellow artisan at the Home -Eco open-house. Then a visit to our favorite coffeehouse, when the kiddos are in tote, where we ran into a lost friend and a possible job oppurtunity. Then the next day, Fair just happened to say,"There's a future in the city," while we were chilling in our living room. My three year old soothsayer... Then the final straw was when we stopped into a bookstore, after a poetry reading and they were actually hiring. michael's dream job, aside from being a full-time artist. So needless to say, we are going to do whatever we can to make the move. I think we are going to shoot for mid-jan or feb. It will be so nice to walk to everything, or at least take the bus, the metro and not be tied to a car. The only downfall is me having to commute back to St. Charles for school twice a week. Well we will see how things fall into place... AHHH!! I have so many bag orders to work on and finals are due next week! breathe, just breathe...