All posts tagged velvet

Sewing Sunday: November Edition – Wacom Tablet Case

closed Wacom case

Last month I got a new gadget that I am extremely excited about.  I’m not a huge gadget person, but this one has already paid for itself in terms of increased productivity.  What is this amazing new gadget, you ask?  It is none other than a Wacom tablet, the savior of illustrators and designers everywhere!  Essentially, it’s a drawing surface that allows you to draw directly on your computer screen.  It’s pressure sensitive, and you can draw just like you’re drawing in your sketchbook.  It effectively cuts out the process of having to scan and illustration into the computer and clean it up for use in design projects.  It’s an amazing timesaver, and I can’t believe that I didn’t invest in one sooner in my design career.  I’m not really exaggerating when I say that it has changed my life as an illustrator.

Here it is–the new love of my life (sorry, Ben).  She’s pretty, right?

Wacom Intuos Pro

Okay, enough raving.

When I bought the Wacom tablet, it didn’t come with any sort of a protective case.  I expect that I might want to take it with me on occasion when I’m working remotely, in addition to the fact that it should probably be protected when stored at home, so I decided that I’d make a fabric case for it this month.  Plus, I didn’t have a whole lot of extra time this month to sew due to the fact that I had a draft of a big report due just before Thanksgiving, along with obligations related to Greenbuild, the U.S. Green Building Council’s annual conference, for which I was on the host committee here in Philadelphia.  (You might remember that I was involved in building the Legacy Project for the conference, which I wrote about a couple months ago on this very blog.)  Oh yeah, and somewhere in there, I was working on a cover story about electric cars for a forthcoming issue of Grid Magazine.  You get the point–it was a busy month with little time for sewing.

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Arts Festival Aftermath

TAAF Booth

This past weekend, I participated in the Trenton Avenue Arts Festival.  It was an experimental endeavor, for sure, and my friend and fellow artist, Beth Nentwig, agreed to participate in the experiment with me.  My mom also contributed some very cool bracelets that she’s been making for the last several months.  From a sales perspective, the event was an abject failure.  I sold nothing.  Not one thing.  Not even a single hand-printed linocut card.  Needless to say, it was disheartening.

In the 24 hours following the event, as I reflected on the festival, I figured I had a couple of ways to approach it.  I could take the defeatist approach:  “This is proof that the things I make have no value, and therefore I should just give up making them and trying to sell them.”  But that’s not really my style.  Plus, one data point hardly seems like enough to draw conclusions about the value of one’s work or whether exhibiting at future art festivals has value.  I could make excuses (some of which might even be valid):  “The festival goers were cheap.  The rain kept people from making last-minute purchases.  The audience wasn’t right.”  That might make me feel a little better about myself, but it really doesn’t prepare me for future sales endeavors.  And it’s not really my style, either.

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Holiday DIY Round-Up

Christmas Kraken Holiday Cards

Now that Christmas is past, and we’ve given all our gifts, I can finally share with you all of the stuff I made this Christmas.  For the past two years, in an attempt to not contribute to all of the consumerism of Christmas and, yes, save a little money, I’ve been trying to make as many gifts as possible.  It definitely adds a few more projects to my plate that one could argue I really don’t have time for during the already-busy holiday season, but I really enjoy giving handmade gifts, and especially for those people on my list for whom it’s difficult to shop, it seems more personal than just picking up an arbitrary gift card.

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