Where I've Been

I haven't had so much of a creative block as I have too many irons in the fire at this point. I currently have 4 or 5 partially finished projects sitting on my table and it's at the point that I kind of don't know where to start. In addition, when I turned 31 in December, I decided I was old enough to wear what I wanted and that it was time to stop worrying about what other people thought. This is why I wore black nail polish and sequined All-Stars to school today.They make me happy.

And, most importantly I decided it was time to actually get healthy for a change. I have tried to lose weight before, but this time I am doing things a little differently, and while things are slow, they are progressing in the right direction. And then I decided that I needed to expand my horizons a bit, so I have been volunteer tutoring with a Somali Refugee organization once a week. All of this means that I have been spending less time sewing and more time cooking, working out, and just being away from home. I leave my house at 6 am and don't get home until 4 or later, then in bed by 10 and the time just sort of drips away. But the thing is, I am happy. Really happy, so I am ok with things for the most part. I have been sort of turning things over in my mind and am trying to decide what to do with my etsy shop and I still haven't decided what to do yet.

Meanwhile, I have been playing around with the "math is sweet" thing. I know it's dorky, but I like puns, and being a teacher (and 31) means that I can indulge my dorkiness if I want to. I have also been playing around with freezer paper stencils because I love the simplicity of the designs. I have some ideas, which I am somewhat reluctant to share yet, but one of them involves the words "history rocks" with one of the easter island heads (because, you know, they are historical rocks, and history rocks - ba dum dum -) and that made me think of Easter, which made me think of rabbits, and well, one thing led to another and I ended the weekend with this: Here's the thing....I am getting lost in this design...and it is to the point that I can't decide if it's funny or stupid. So please tell me, do I have something that makes sense and is very mildly funny in a dorky kind of way or if it is something that is just kind of "nod-your-head-and-smile" but not at all funny and so on. Does it actually look like something you would recognize? When you look at it, do you think, "oh yeah, that's one of those easter island heads" or do you think, "hmmm....it's a squished grey rabbit wearing sunglasses."

These are things I need to know....input? Anyone? Please?

PS - if you need a reminder, the Easter Island heads look like this

Reasons

I am been such a slogger (slacker blogger) this week, sorry! I have some excuses...none of them great, but it is the first week back to school after an extended Christmas break and it is always a hard transition for me to get back into the swing of things. Over breaks, I tend to stay up really late and get up really late, and getting up at 5:15 for school is rough.

In addition, I tend to hit my sewing high point about 10 pm, and during school, I have to go to bed then. BLEAH.

In my last post, I asked a question - is it ok to use a pattern to sew an item and then sell it? The reason that had been in my head was that over Thanksgiving, when my mom was here, we stopped in a high-end boutique downtown since I wanted to see how the commission thing went. In the front of the store were these very simple little clutches that were made from upholstery remnants and "vintage" buttons and were priced at $45.

I felt like I had seen the pattern before, but couldn't remember where, and then a few weeks later, I saw an actual copy of Amy Karol's Bend the Rules Sewing and realized that the clutch on the cover is THE EXACT SAME.


So that is where the question came from. Ethically, before that point, I would have said that no, it is not ok to sell something made from someone else's pattern, especially in large quantities(There were probably 50 little clutches in the store). But that started me thinking and that's why I asked the question.

Commenters seem to be evenly split between two camps, those who make things and those who do not. So my next question is this: Is it ok to make something on commission for someone who wants a specific pattern? For example, if I win an etsy alchemy bid from someone who wants a diaper bag, and wants me to use Amy Butler fabric with an Indygo Junction pattern, is that ok to sell?