I think I shall move my crafty adventures to this blog instead of mixing in with my VOX political / news rants. That was a silly place to post it when I have my art blog. Me trying to draw and me trying to be crafty goes together. My wtf is wrong with Republicans rants and purses, those don’t go together… well… sometimes they do, but not usually.
The fabric store that mom shops at in Portland is who I ordered from online. They just called to tell me they’re out of the cute skull fabric I was gonna use for a wallet. HA! Poor Brian we were already going to Joann’s this weekend to buy zippers / snaps since the online selection sucks (think they must only like sending or tracking the bigger / spendier items for online sales) and an iron (hey I don’t need an iron for jeans and t-shirts). Well now I gotta find a replacement material locally for the wallet. Oopsie.
Also the patterns arrived. I noticed a few things.
1. The more I look at them the more I realize that one pattern is the purse I use now. Identical other than this pattern has a pocket in “front” (decorated) where as mine has one on the “back” (front of the purse is decorated so the pocket is plain and on the back) and the strap on the pattern purse is attached differently and not adjustable. But seriously it’s identical is size, shape, etc otherwise.
2. Not so sure patterns are worth paying for. While both purses and the wallet are cute, if I knew anything about sewing and knew about how much fabric and what other materials were needed to make a purse like the one I have now, I suspect I could have made something like it without a pattern and saved $10 per pattern and could then sell them. Can’t sell ones made from these patterns. And calling them patterns is somewhat generous.
The more simple of the two purse patterns is made from two fat squares and does have a “pattern” inside showing you where to cut the material into the strap, etc. The more complex purse pattern is 4 pages of text with tiny pics that go along with the text. Things like pics of the stuff sewn together to show what yours should look like if you followed the text right. Or irons sitting on the fabric to show you what they mean by pressing. *blinks* Genius. The only pattern I really love as a pattern is the wallet. It’s five page of LARGE COLOR pics with easy to read large print bold directions to go with each picture. Granted it didn’t have the spiffy square — your fabrics should be this size — guides but it tells you how big each piece should be and I’ll give that up for these quality directions. Of course it’s also the most complicated one I can easily screw up… It’s probably the only one of the three I feel was unique enough to deserve its copyright / do not sell items you make based on this pattern notice, etc. I didn’t see other patterns like it. It’s actually detailed and worthy of the money I spent based on a glance. Maybe the others are too, once I get into reading them. But at first glance they don’t seem that special or unique, there were other patterns I considered that were similar to them, and don’t even offer much in terms of being a “pattern”.
In fact. Mom you were sewing and making patterns when I was a kid. Make friggin patterns that have good pics and stuff. These people don’t know what the word pattern means and they make $8-12 each for them.
Still can’t sew though if I ever stop having this headache, I might finish organizing my office to make room for a sewing machine (Brian laughed when I said that, surely he wasn’t laughing at ME, must have been the cats). But I can Zazzle! I’m not a fan of tote bags but I did draw and list this one for sale today:
quick purse sketch
Don’t mind me, this is a 20-30 second paper / pencil sketch of an idea for a purse. The problems of course are many 1. I’d want to many different girls for purses so I’d have to plan this out and order tons from Spoonflower aka figure out the right sizes, etc. 2. I don’t sew. 3. For any other problems, see #2 
Then again it’s a pretty simple purse that I’d like to make so maybe if I ever finish organizing my office, I might take up a new craft since chainmail is too hard on me now to do regularly.
I credit Anouk with helping inspire this. New Anouk Music always makes me feel like doing something artistic! *nods* She has a free download through the 8th here.
My mommy person posted about this site, so I am too since she posted it when Misi has been looking for a way to sell crafty stuff but wasn’t too sure about Etsy, I pointed her to her and figured some of the rest of you might wanna check it out too. It’s called ArtFire and you can find info here: Register on ArtFire.com. Basically they have a free version (where you can list 10 things without fees and limited options) or a paid version that is currently $7 a month for life (what that becomes when they run out of intro/beta accounts, I’ve no clue so sign up now I guess) still no fees but instead of 10 listings you can have an unlimited number of listings, customize your store, have a blog, etc. For you hardcore ETSY folk or artistic / crafty eBay’ers it might be a good deal? I signed up even though I’ve not made jewelry in ages and am basically out of materials. Figured I’d reserve my name now as there never used to be any other DelusionalAngels but now there occasionally are. And when we move someday (probably next year) to a place with room to I dunno move around in, I might *gasp* learn to sew so I can make bags out of my girl drawings.
Lookie mom @ 47 seconds in 
Made their video. Shipped, so let me know when it arrives and what you figure out what to do with it.
I got an invite to Spoonflower. Don’t know what spoonflower is? It’s a new site, still in beta, aka you have to sign up and wait for an invite to get in. They let you upload your own images and then send you fabric with your images on it. No, not screen printing, actual fabric with your designs. It can be tiled like any fabric you’d buy pre-made. It can be one big design for say wall hangings or to make dolls with. Whatever you can imagine. They sell different sizes from a swatch 8″x8″ (currently $5 + $1 shipping) up to 5 yards 42″x180″ (currently $90 + $7 shipping). Well our apartment is too small for a sewing machine and we don’t plan to move for a few months (until Brian’s job situation is sorted). So my first piece of fabric was just made and is being sent to mom. And 8×8 swatch with one of my girls on it and three coffee cups I made. I can’t wait to see what she does with it and her opinion of the fabric. If it’s nice then I’ll getting a sewing machine to make purses of my own art when we move.
