on the road again

Why the pile of stuff on the hearth, you ask? Well, I'm off to First Fridays again! Coming along on the trip are my dolls, critters, hats, cuffs and assorted other stuff. And a few more critters to be stuffed during the day tomorrow, hopefully. It would be great to sell some things, but if not it will be a nice visit with family there. So it's a win-win.

If you're in or around Florence, come downtown and see me tomorrow night! And if you've had your eye on something in the Etsy or Artfire shop, you might want to snatch it now, just in case it sells. I'll be putting my shops on vacation mode tomorrow afternoon.

All the critters

One of the commenters in the giveaway, knit1kids4, asked what the frogs look like. It occurred to me that many of my current readers might not know what all the critters look like - after all, it's been a year since I made any! So here's an old photo so everyone can see. Just to be clear, these are not current ones I'm about to list; these are long gone. But I am making more this week, so keep an eye out for them!

Help me out here - which is your favorite? I had not planned to make any elephants, because they didn't sell well before, but what do you think? I'm working on toning down the patterns a little bit - sometimes they get a little wild. I'd love your input on colors, styles you like best, any observations you'd like to share!

Speedy's new home

Thank you all for participating in my little giveaway! Now comes the hard part for me - choosing ONLY ONE!

The random number generator chose 11, which is…

Amanda's comment!

Amanda is one of our great SHEteam members, and I'm happy she stopped by to comment. So how about YOU stop by and visit her shop?

and we have toys!

So once again, I get to add little stuffed critters to my Etsy shop! I am still in the process, but we have some owls, and will have the turtles, whales and frogs like before.

This is a "Pi Guy" - I came up with him for Pi Day, which is right around the corner - March 14! This one sold this morning, actually, but as I write there are two more there in other colors.
I am also offering a few Mae dolls by the Bit of Whimsy pattern this time around:
And Harriet Hares, also by Bit of Whimsy:
And I believe I promised a bit of fun here on the blog, to celebrate the return to toy making! So, how about a giveaway? Leave a comment here, and I'll enter you in a drawing. Tweet, blog, or mention on Facebook, then comment here what you did, and I'll enter you again for each of those. (And make sure I know how to contact you if you win!) We'll be drawing for this guy:
He's a turtle, and his name is Speedy. See his fleet feet?
Just look at that face. This is more fun than I ought to have. :)
**Ha! Just realized I didn't give you a date for the drawing. How about Tuesday, March 2?**

Comments are closed for this giveaway.

truth be told

Recent events have brought to light the fact that I have a spiteful streak. I have a tendency to burn my bridges, paint myself into a corner, cut off my nose to spite my face (and likely throw it at the offending party).

Take the past year's CPSIA events, for example. I stopped making toys because the testing requirements made it completely unfeasible to sell one-of-a-kind toys. Over the course of the year, though, some other things happened; stays were granted, fabric and a very few other materials were exempted from testing, etc. It's still an infuriating situation, but many of the road blocks in my way, personally, were removed.

It came to the point that the only thing standing in the way of making toys again was… you guessed it… spite. Fury at a government who would make things so complicated for so little good to show for it. But in the end, was the government hurt by my pity party? Certainly not. The only one hurt by it was me.

Don't get me wrong, the labeling is still a hassle. But labeling has to be done, CPSIA or not. And I've reached the decision that I can give it a try. Because it's hard to be spiteful and infuriated when you're making a toy. It's like therapy. (Was the new design enough of a clue? Lizi did the banner all by herself, by the way!)

So over the next few days, I will once again be listing toys in my Etsy shop, and maybe ArtFire as well. There will be the old standbys, but also some new things. And just in time to ship for Easter! There will also be some fun going on here at the blog, so you may want to keep an eye here too.

I figured you were wondering about the basket of arms and legs. ;)