luxe

so firstly, update. nonstop, everyday new things added…birdies with hats (yes, really.), freeform crocheted jewelry, tons of scarves, neckywarmers and other wearables and yarn and fiber. yesterday i did my first holiday yarn of the season that has tiny christmas lights in it. i have to take photos to-morrow. super cute. really. so pop by and try to pop by every day if you have a moment to swoon. hee.

new season of project runway. ooooooooh. so excited. it seems like a higher quality of designers. it always cracks me up to see the 21 year olds that have that “it’s perfect!” way about them still. and then, a few years or 10 later, you are horrified that you not only cranked out really strange stuff (and not in a good way) but did it with obnoxious attitude. sigh. and then the slightly older people that are more of an artist and make really odd things that wouldn’t suit many people, but they love that about their clothes, but it makes most people hate them. those people never get hurt because they think that you just don’t get it. maybe that is best, really. so far, good. what say you?

in other news, jake got me (and himself) and early channukah/xmas pressie…a BIIIIIG ipod video! squuuueeeeeeee! i have had a 10G first generation ipod for ages. the battery doesn’t work, although i fairness, it has never broken and has worked forever. it is covered in paint and ink and is a mess, but it served me well. we have huge music collections in this house and i am unable to keep track of what we have and where it is because i had no room. so i got the biggest memory ipod and you can put photos on there and shows and whatever you like. so. awesome. i am on the lookout for a fun cover for it. any ideas? thanks jake!

my good etsy friend, ashley and i are doing some swapping for xmas gifts (okay, maybe some of it is for us, too.) and i am super excited. jake got two really cute new jackets, a black velvet blazer (he looks so gq in it!) and a olive green corduroy jacket with patches on the elbows…really swank, so anyway, he needed some cufflinks and i found these awesome ones in ashley’s store…lookie here…i have one of the pebble rings from her shop from a previous swap with an opal set in it (my birfstone) which i love, and she made me custom a wee love knot ring. so go…buy. her prices are really reasonable. and she is awesome.

i think that is about all for the mo.
xo
n.

i listed some new toys and fiber and yarn on www.luxe.etsy.com and trolled for a bit to see what else was being listed under toys. so. i found lesley anne green’s fine art, masquerading as dolls. amazingly gorgeous in the total lack of realization that they are not gorgeous at all. wow. and via her site, i found scott radke’s work which is just…wow. wow. floored. did i say wow?

i had a dream about where the pieces i have been messing around with will be going. the phallic things will grow, and will be stitched and patched and puckered and have banners and junk. and they will be BIG. that is what i mean when i say grow. i also dreamed of a similar piece that is more figural, but with no limbs, no facial features, and will be striped burgundy/red and a dirty white or cream color. i plan to make one the size of a small child…i few feet tall and see what i want to do from there. the two big big ones (i already have two of the pointy ones that are a few feet tall that need to be stuffed and tormented) are crocheted. i need to figure out if that is realistic or not. i have always had an affection for obviously labor intensive work. i don’t use faux finishes. if it looks like there are 10 layers…there are probably actually 20. i have always felt in my own work that it doesn’t seem genuine otherwise. i am not sure why i feel this way. so much of art is fooling the eye. i, however, am a 3-d person. if there the work is flat, i feel like it isn’t finished, that it needs some other dimension. for my own work, i just love it to be a mixture. that makes it feel like a part of my world, rather than something i just look at.

i guess because of my spacial issues, i don’t do more than glance, even if i want to. but when the piece has more dimension to it, i feel like it is a being. a part of my world, rather than just a thing to look at. does that make sense?

so, i packed orders, spun a bit of yarn and then ran out to joann’s to get the cheapo big skeins of yarn for the striped sculpture, although, as i said, it really might end up being sewn. we will see.

also, i worked on some legs for the bird softies. i got round nose pliers, as barbe had gently suggested, rather than using random pliers from around the house, and i was stunned how much easier it was to make what i envisioned. whoa! i just need to see how it works out to attach the legs. and then…woo!

i haven’t been sleeping lately, literally just not. last night anyway, i kept trying to no avail. so i am tired. my skin is a total wreck. my hormones are crazy, i think.

as i was leaving the house to run errands yesterday, i slid my foot into my pretty beaded flip flops and they were wet. i look down to see that peeps (no one else pees all over the house, well, excpet for me, anyway.) had peed on my sandals. it got on the bottom of my vans but that was it. she is something. and if you attempt to ignore her to punish her, she goes nuts. she all but does the highland fling to get you to look at her.bad monkey.

okay, well, here are the new softies that are listed, so pop by and buy em whilst you can!

here
and here
and here, too.

mwah!
n.

i have a hideous hand cramp in my right hand and arm that my brace isn’t helping with. so this will be short. as you can see, kahlo said she would type for me, but she just types whatever she wants.

341 people heart me on etsy! how cool is that? do you heart me? do ya?

i had to ship an order from the luxefibre website and i couldn’t access it. i guess that there are some updates going on in the software, so until i get it updated, no dice. everything on luxe.etsy.com is fine, other than not showing up quickly in the searches. if you go to my actualy store, everything should be there…no worries. i will be doing loads of dyeing this week, so prepare for that, and with the summer weather, i will be forced to do the vibrant bright wildflower-a-rama, so they will be gooood. for sure. i spun up some of the fiber i dyed last week, in a pink and yellow, there is still a few bumps of that left which will be listed, but it is such a happy yarn. i hope to ply it tomorrow if my hand feels better. i am planning to do the hot pour method of dyeing, where i will heat up the fiber in my roaster (maybe even outside!) and then put the dyes in, where they will strike immediately, so things don’t really mix. i am eager to see the different result. i will try to document for ya.

okay, off i go. gah.

so, my sales on etsy have been kinda bad in the last month or so. i was out of town for a week, my mom was here for a week and i assumed that slack 2 weeks were the cause…i looked on the forums to see what other people were saying, and from having other businesses in the past, i know that this is a bit of a slow time for any business except ice cream shops, but it said that…

RevolvingDork
Etsy Admin
RevolvingDork says:
Hi all,

On thursday night night we got caught up with all of the older listings that were not appearing in searches and the categories. After that, however, newly created listings were only appearing several hours after they were listed.

This is due to the system receiving far more listing updates than it can handle in a short period of time. We’re still working on optimizing this system so the delay between listing and appearing in searches is shortened, but it may take a few days. We hope to have it done sometime this week. Unfortunately, it’s a very complex problem, and as such is difficult to estimate a completion time.

In the meantime, listings will only appear in their categories several hours to several days after they are created. Please note that they will still appear in real time in your shop, the time machine, and listing tickers, and all other flash applications.

The site copy on the listing process has been updated to reflect this new delay.

Because the search cache is not being updated as quickly as it should be, you may see sold listings coming up in search and browser results. This is caused by the same problem, and will be fixed when the system is back up to speed.

We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused, and we will post updates as we make progress towards shrinking the lag between listing time and “searchable” time.
Posted at 12:35 pm, June 20 2007 EST

i am annoyed. for example, difference between items listed one day apart is 353 views and 40 views. and it bums me out because usually i get tons of views and things sell. there are some gorgeous yarns just sitting there. anyway, i am going to contact some of the yarn stores that are interested and clear out some of the stuff i have listed, so if you see something you want, it may not be there for long. well, it might be somewhere else, anyway. i also have listed more spinning “kits”, including one to make some of the snowbride yarns, luscious creamy superfine merino (21 micron!) and your choice of colors sparkle and novelty yarns. plus some other kits, too. i am going to put up some flower ones that have soysilk, merino, loose sequions, sparkle and handbeaded handpainted felt poppies to add in for yourself after you spin it up. i did look at some of the other shops that are alway busy and/or sold out and they had lots of stuff still in their stores, so i know it isn’t me. i will take the time to work on some of the softies i have been making, and after doing a big flower skein and plying it, i worked on some collaged frames, boxes and mattes due to a bit of mental block on artsy things. i have tons of stuff that needs to be framed, plus all of the plates i have collected (i really need to take photos, including a jesus dinner plate that looks to have been used…a lot. odd? isn’t that sort of thing for display?) i am going to glue hangers on the back because the wire plate holder thingies are downright shady. i have had them pop off a plate just sitting on a table, so i don’t want to hang anything with one of those.

so that was my day. it went by fast, rather solitary, but in a nice way. so on to my newest addiction…when jake was in brooklyn, he stopped at a nice market and got some good chocolates. we are into the good stuff. hee. anyway, he got this stuff that is from modica, italy and area very famous for its chocolate and candies and pastries. the chocolatiers were influenced by the spaniards that came to sicily who had been influenced by the mayans who didn’t make chocolate with the milk and the heat and cocoa butter oil, etc. basically, the grind up the cocoa beans into a paste (think turkish coffee) and add pure sugar cane crystals which crunch in your teeth…ooh it is amazing. and hardcore. like the most amazing coffee/chocolate you have ever ever had. when i first ate it i didn’t know what i thought, but it really grows on you. incredible. and it seriously gives you a rush. if you are a big coffee snob, you will go nutso over this chocolate. it isn’t creamy or melt in your mouth, it is a whole different beast, but oh my! and! it is really hard to find it in the US, but it is available through amazon here it is 6 bucks for a bar, but it is a big bar and one piece of it will knock you on your ass. they are also made into squares that are ready to add to warm milk or water for the best hot chocolate ever. they have pistachio (good!), plain, cinnamon, vanilla, chili, and bergamot. needless to say, i am buying some. big time.

whilst serching for this stuff online, i cam across this cool website, 101cookbooks.com that has recipes from famous cookbooks reviewed. the one on the link is for sweet pistachio butter. are. you. kidding. me? ummmmm. um. um.

i am working on another fuzzy amiguri. he is just a head and arms and legs, i imagine it will reveal itself to me, as the others have. i don’t tend to have a clear idea of what i am doing. i tried to do some sketches last night, but i was uninspired, although i did come up with some that have a head at each end, or have a teeny upper body and big fat lower body. otherwise, dunno.

okay, “traveler” is on, so i am off to watch that. too sleepy to do more than one thing at once. other than crochet and tv. although the crochet will likely look like poopies.

xo
n.

we hung out with butter and his new girlfriend on friday, and i was really glad that she was really nice and intelligent. i tend to not do so well meeting girlfriends. let’s leave it at that. i think this one went fairly well.

i woke up saturday and was just exhausted. i tried to push myself to do work anyway, i did 3 bobbins of singles on the electric, strung a million flowers and pompoms for plying and then pushed myself to go in the studio and finish a custom order yarn, and literally by the end of the bobbin, my legs were cramped and i had to push to finish it up. i was incredibly frustrated with myself, but that was it. i did what i could. i was supposed to pack orders, but i was out of the tyvek envelopes i use, or the flat rate boxes, all i have is a big one or a really small one. so i couldn’t do orders, which was fine, because i was too tired to do it, really. so jake got groceries. and made dinner. he is a sweet boy. anytime i get exhausted like that, i get depressed about things. not about being sick, but just other things. i decided that i would like to have some people over for a tea and knitting or crafting, spinning lesson if you fancy (i have 2 manual wheels and an electric and i love teaching.) so any of you that live nearby, let me know and we can start organizing.

today, i feel a bit better, although i didn’t sleep well and had freaky dreams about a cupboard in my mom’s house that has the candy in it, and i was looking for peppermint crisps, which is an awesome south african candy that is thin shards of peppermint in chocolate. i love mint and chocolate, anyway, i opened a box up and live crabs came out. and then i started freaking out trying to get them into the box they came out of. it was creepy. anyone know what the hell that meant? maybe it means that if you try to take your mom’s foreign chocolate stash, you may get crabs? and my family never eats seafood, only fish. and my mom rarely cooked fish either because she thought it stunk. although when we cook fresh fish, it doesn’t. but anyway. we never had stuff like that.

on best week ever they were saying that jennifer hudson from dream girls is the girl you want to just be friends with because she is not “hot” like beyonce, and said that about other people that are gorgeous, but regular sized women, and i got so furious. has anyone noticed that most models are not actually…pretty? skinny? yes. the face? not so important. similarly with many actresses and other stars. they are considered “hot” or “sexy” even if they are not actually terribly attractive. thin…yes, that is all that matters. talented? that doesn’t really matter either. and then, if you are too thin, which is the difference between the olsen twin that is 100 lbs, and the one that is 90 lbs…well, then, you are gross. let me go on to say that in college, i got chubby. after college, i got even chubbier. i went on the atkins diet and literally lost my taste for food. i was going through some bad stuff, and i think it was the only thing i could control, and control, i did. i found that once you totally cut out any carbs or sugars, you don’t want them. nothing tempts you. i have never had a great appetite. if it isn’t really good, i won’t eat it. and i don’t eat much, i pick. somehow, i am still chubby. anyway, i got skinnier than i have ever been, i am short and have a small frame (about 5′2) and i got down to a bit more than 100 lbs, a size 2 or 4. i loved it. i felt awesome. and guys went nuts over me. i remembered the same guys that didn’t give me a second glance and anyone that gave me that vibe, i told to screw off. i never forgot it. it bothers me so much that i am critical of other people’s bodies. my gran and mom are, as well. and it just sucks. i look at the fashion models with their creepy 11 year old boy bodies, and i wonder how that has become the ideal. and don’t get me wrong, for the people who are naturally skinny, they have their own kind of beauty that does not add or take away from anyone else’s, but that is not the same as people starving themselves because the media has so much to say about anyone that is not super thin that they develop issues. anyway. it really upset me to see the incredibly ugly comedians on best week ever making those kinds of comments about women that were in fact drop dead gorgeous. i imagine that when they look in the mirror they are the new 007? or look like a sesame street character.

barbe and i are hoping to do a podcast this week. we are thinking that we will make it shorter…what do you guys think of that? was it too long? be honest. we are new at this.

we are going to check out new mattresses today. ours is beat and we are crippled when we wake up or turn over. anyone who has gotten a really good mattress recently, leave a comment and let me know what you got and what you thought of it. i am excited! it has been far too long.

i should be updating luxe.etsy.com later today, proably around 6p, so check in, okay? i didn’t get a chance to do more batts, but there are some gorgeous targhee ones still available, plus the henny penny ones, which are crazy carded with lots of fun stuff in there. i have loads of fiber dyed up for new batts, plus i just got in a bunch of locks to dye that will be available, probably by the ounce. i have had some issues with my dyes being really pastelly, so i think the dye batches may be too old. although, i will use em up anyway, and just not plan for them to be bright. they still come out really pretty. i am a color junkie, so i am pretty open to whatever comes out…

i have been working on some embroideries of drawings i have done, of the strange plants i was drawing a while ago. i want to do some mixed media pieces with similar drawings. i really adore them. i like the feather ones, too. i know i posted them before, i but i will post em again for any new peeps….

i really enjoy the repetition of embroidery my drawings, although i am now realizing from starting some of them that i need to enlarge them. i do them on vintage linens. i am never sure how to frame the, although, it might be fine just in a plain frame under glass. suggestions? most all of the embroideries are on vintage linens with lacy edges, so i can’t just stretch it, you know? i would prefer not to pay 200 bucks to have it framed pro, either.

oh, for some reason, on my yahoo account, i have been getting penis enlargement/viagra and the like/local horny slut spams. the same ones everyday but from a different fake name. anyone else have this problem? my penis really is big enough.

this morning i watched a movie called duma about a boy and a cheetah that was really a sweet movie. it would be suitable for kids, and for catlovers. and has a happy ending. cheetah gets a lady cheetah.

okay, off i go.
xo
n.

well! if you haven’t seen the now famous “bunny foo foo” yarn, here it is…and it is sold, i am sorry. i am going to go in search for more of these beads which were from a children’s easter jewelry set from last year…so…but anyway, i spun all of the scraps of roving end to end overlapping a bit and then plied these in. there is a plain matching skein too. i have other ones going up to-morrow, also that are just gorgeous. no “plain” ones in the batch. so check in around suppertime to-morrow and then again sunday for yarns and spinning batts. i have dyed up soooooo much loose fiber lately that there should be some really good batts to fill the luxe.etsy.com shop. and it is all combined shipping, $4.05 no matter what you buy, so let’s just say that i send priority and insure them so i pay more than that…okay…yarn photos…let me say, i am loving the new photo toys. so fun. and it makes my blog look fancy!

so in the one sandy colored one, i have a ton of little mother of pearl shell beads all through it that are just gorgeous. it is such a nice soft beachy yarn….if you had your own island in the caribean kind of island. and then more batts, for sure. also, i have lots of loose fiber and different kinds of locks, which i think i might dye and sell by the ounce, i have had lots of questions about it. so. ask and you will recieve. also, i am going to write up some patterns to include with yarns orders so people know what they can make, if they need it.

we went out to dinner with the sweet butta and his new girlfriend who was a really cool girl. i would hang out with her. she was really really nice, intelligent, together and easy to talk to. i have a hard time meeting girlfriends because i have a history of them hating me, this may be my first really good experience! i fear we bored her because we aren’t terribly exciting and i tried my best not to speak of knitting, or fiber, art or any other stuff that she would likely have no interest in and then my eyes glaze over and i am not listening to anyone while they weep and rip their hair out bored out of their skulls. so then…i am not sure what to talk about. despite that, it was fun.

my laptop has to go to the shop to get something fixed and i really need to send it in soon. here is the problem…in the 2 weeks or more that they will be fixing it, i will have no computer. i found some websites that sell refurbished macs that are pretty cheap (as low as 300 bucks) and i only need to know that it can load photos and do fast uploads for the internet stuff, otherwise, i don’t use it much. email, photos, maybe the podcast stuff, minimal though. so i need to call the place and talk to one of the geeks and ask what i could get for cheap that could do all of that. and then, it is always nice to have a fallback computer anyway. if anyone has a working laptop that has wireless capabilities that would be interested in leasing it to me for a couple of weeks, or selling it for cheap, let me know. again, if uploading stuff on the internet would take forever, no dice. i looked into renting one, and it starts at 250 bucks a week! wha? starts at, so i imagine it is way more than that even. i realized that i could get a refurb one, or open box one from these online places for a few hundred bucks, but i don’t know if they are fast enough for the stuff i do. i know nothing. shameful nothing. i was impressed though, they give you a 1 year warranty thru mac, and 90 days from them. some of them are just completely made from spare parts, all new parts, but spare parts and are way cheaper.

i loved the input on the fashion post. i was a bit scared that i had ranted too much and someone would jump on me or something but what i guess i realized is that fashion used to be glamorous, you know? it seems like around the early 1960’s bad bad things started happenning and never stopped. everything that i like was from the 50’s or earlier. things that took into consideration that we have hips and thighs and boobs and stomachs and other stuff, too, and that things needed to show that off and make our curves look good. back then, even big girls could buy fashionable clothes that made them look sexy. now, fashion is only for the very thin, if you are not 6 feet tall and 100 pounds, it would be frightening. and even on the models, it doesn’t look so good. it really is almost as though fashion is from people who hate women. clearly, they hate the female form. what flatters a 11 year old boy is not what flatters a woman. pretty much across the board.

part of my mania had to do with the full-moon. i get craaaaazy everytime and i never know why. and pms always creeps up on me too, and i am unaware of why i feel so irritable. part of it is the insane amount of money that is wasted on shite. they want and like it because someone told them to. because j-lo wears it, or whatever. and then, you have a nervous breakdown, or get heavier or whatever and they all turn on you and it really upsets me. they are like vultures. i have attempted to be friends with people who turned out to be this way….they are around you to steal attention and style cues (how scary is that?) and if you want, they buy it, etc, and do it with other people, and when that person falls from their high pedestal, they are happy to step over them. it is sad. and the clothes that they had to have that were 3,000 for some ugly mini jacket, garbage. last season. i don’t know why you would want to live like that? i would want things that i will love forever. i love the 30-50’s and anytime i am dressed up, i tend to wear something in that vain. i have always liked that kind of thing. how can anyone be so damn fickle?

okay, i am getting tired and grouchy, so i am going to go.i had bad nightmares and felt awful this morning, so i didn’t sleep so well.

barbe’s phone and internet are sketchy at the mo, so i might try to do a podcast on my end, we will see what happens. i will talk to barbe about it to-morrow to see if i could get the recording thing and tape us from my end.

i know there was more i wanted to say, but…
xo
n.