Looking for some bag testers

I'm expanding the etsy line of hex bags beyond the small hex bags. It's part of the quest for the perfect (knitting project) bag. I like the general size of these bag for a "medium size" project bag but the devil is in the details.

Quick summary:
Bag testers needed. Pick one, two, or all three of the models below. I am looking for feedback on the size, shape, and functionality of the model. What would you change about it? Do you feel any part of the bag is out of proportion to the rest? You can pick your own fabric or I can grab something out of my stash as a surprise. I am looking for about 3 people per bag. What you get may not necessarily be the final design that I go with.

I'm charging a nominal fee to cover the non-fabric costs. You get to keep the bag and leftover fabric.

Schedule:
I don't plan to start sewing until November. After November 4th to be exact, when I get back in front of my sewing machine. For the month of October, I'm hoping to get some volunteers and I will send you fabric requirements, if you choose to use your own custom fabric. This gives you time to find the fabric and get it to me.

Bag A has a 10 inch hex frame. It's just over 10 inches wide, 8.25 inches tall, with a bottom width of 4.5 inches. It comes with a handle that fits over your shoulders so this can work as a knitting bag or an everyday purse. There are interior pockets.





Bag B has a 10 inch hex frame. It's about 10.5 inches wide, 8 inches tall, with a bottom width of 7 inches. This has a much wider bag bottom. The photo below has a handle for over the shoulder. Unless you specifically request this model, what you'll get will probably have two handles, one on each side of the bag. Also comes with interior pockets.





Bag C is a zippered pouch. It is 10 inches wide, about 8.5 inches tall, with a bottom width of 4.5 inches. If you note the single D ring on the right side of this bag, there will be a wrist strap/handle on this bag. Also comes with interior pockets.





Pricing
Bag A - $14
Bag B - $12
Bag C - $16
If you choose to not provide your own fabric and want to leave that up to me, please add $8.

Shipping/Delivery
If you're local to me, we can just meet up somewhere
If you are not local to me, we can sort that out in email.

For those that have read this far and are interested, please email me at sewJudybags at gmail dot com.

Hex bags on Etsy

There's been a slight rearranging of things to the right hand side there. You'll notice a new etsy shop. I decided to open sewJudyBags for the various bags I've been making. So, there's some shopping to be done if you don't want to make your own!

I look at it as a sewing adventure as try to create a good knitting bag or a good tote bag. Sometimes, it's so hard to find the perfect bag for my uses!

My hands f-ing hurt

And I'm looking for ways to amuse myself that does not involve gripping needles. Obviously, that means no knitting or beading. Boo! But I do have a few pretty things to show you all.

First up is one of my happiest and most favorite purchases. The first time I heard of Leah Fairbanks was reading an article about her in Bead & Button. I fell in love with her beads. She has a garden theme running throughout and her use of color is amazing! I walked past her booth on my last rounds at Bead&Button on Sunday and I had to stop and admire...and buy. She had a necklace around her neck with one of her beads as the focal bead and strung with gemstones and that became my inspiration. I had bought a few strands of faceted amethysts on the first day of B&B and I knew that's what I was going to use them for. All I was missing were the crystal squaredells and I set off on a last minute hunt for them! The last thing I did before I went to bed after I got back was put this necklace together. I absolutely love it! The price is high since the bead was expensive, but also it's going to take that much for me to part with it :) Sorry all!



Next up...and why my hands are currently hurting a lot...I started working on this almost immediately after I returned from Bead&Button. Laura McCabe had one of these in class and I loved it! I was inspired for the color and in trying to bead from my stash, I realized that I had the perfect beads to make the spiral ndebele strap. The ball is Laura McCabe's "Crown Jewel" design with Swarovski rivolis and bicones. Yum.


This is probably my second favorite necklace right now, right after the Leah Fairbanks bead one. There are probably more of these to come. It's also over on etsy.

Some housekeeping

Yeah...of the beaded variety. It's a task I've had in mind so I finally got around to it today. I added 2 items to the etsy shop today:




I haven't decided yet what else will be going on there. I've also been toying around with the idea of putting some floral pieces on there.

Necklaces come and go

Etsy shop alert. Stuck a necklace on the etsy shop. It's this one:

I thought it was time.

Weekend goals

It's Labor Day weekend! I have 3 days off, though I'll probably have to monitor work slightly. Whee! I thought I'd make a list of things I'd like to accomplish this weekend, just so I have a reminder.

• Run 10+ miles Saturday mornining


• Bike the full Mt. Vernon trail


• Get my entire yarn stash into pictures so they can be loaded into ravelry


• Organize the larges batches of beads


• Start putting all my necklaces up on etsy. Yup, that's right all. The ones I don't want to part with might be marked a little higher...but that's cuz I don't want to part with them as much


• probably a little much but pull up the carpet in the room upstairs with the yarn and beads

If I can do all of that, I think I will be happy.

Other general administrative things

This


and this


will be going to etsy Monday night.

Ups and downs

And sometimes, life's annoyances intrude into your crafty escape.

Downs - I run the Beaded Flowers Database. I had started this because I got sick of flipping through various books, looking at bad pictures or no pictures of flower patterns. Some of the old books don't have pictures for each pattern. Studio Baboo had a listing in document format but that still required hunting and digging through books and you can get a paper cut in the process. Since I'm a software developer and stuff like sql and php and html and javascript don't scare me, this database was the result. This database has been in existence for a few years. I run it and don't ask for donatations because somewhere deepd own inside, I do believe in open source and the sharing of knowledge and information because in the end, that's how we can advance. So it bothers me that there is at least one person out there who has to go and ruin it for the others.

A couple of days ago, there was a post to the beaded flowers yahoo group about an ebay auction with pictures that were taken directly from my site. The person who sent this email is the person who made those flowers and donated them to the website. The ebay seller did not have permission to use those pictures. She has already alerted eBay to unauthorized use of her picture but is still justifiably upset by it. Some other (opinionated) members of the group have spoken up about this issue and basically dragged me into this. As the person who runs the site, yes, I'm hosting them and using the with her permission. I even give her credit for the flowers and the photographs. Beyond contacting eBay and pointing that out, I'm not sure how else I figure into it since I don't hold copyright over those pictures.

As a designer of flower patterns, I know I have to pay attention to others infringing on my copyright. Yeah, I'd be mighty pissed off as well if someone made use of my photographs of something I had done without my permission. But relatively speaking, it's not as mightily pissed off and threatening lawsuit as I would be if someone had taken a pattern of mine and tried to pass it off as their own. I guess this is where this blog comes in handy because you can see things I've done and it's documented for when I did it. So, I kind of have mixed feelings about this. But also, I don't exactly want to be pissing off my target audience for my designs.

I did email ebay tonight to point out where the pictures came from and how they were altered. Because ya, well, if those were my pictures, I'd be mighty pissed off.

Ups - Someone I don't know bought my stitch markers from etsy. And even more exciting, someone I don't know hearts me! That's exciting :)

Offering #2

This one:


Shades of green. The stone is Australian Jade in a simple beaded bezel. It sits on the tubuler ndebele (herringbone) strap on a decorated peyote stitch bail. That bail has little fringy things made of more seed beads, leaf beads, flower beads, and some 3mm Swarovski bicones. I had added the leaves and flowers because the regular peyote stitch looked too boring and the necklace was beginning to be too green. The clasp is a toggle clasp, also stitched with seed beads. This necklace comes in at 19.5 inches in length. Note that since there is a bail, you can actually take the cabochon off of the beaded necklace.

This will be listing on etsy Tuesday night for $107.

IPO

Well, this is an Initial Public Offering, just not of the stocks and securities variety.




This is an astrophyllite stone set in seed beads. The spiral rope is made with size 8 round core and size 8 triangles. The total length of the necklace, including the clasp measures just over 20 inches. Around the edge of the stone are Swarovski bicones. Listing price is $138.00.

Anyone who is interested is welcome to email me to lay claim to this piece before I put it on etsy (Saturday morning). It will be first come first serve. In the mean time, I will enjoy wearing this out and about.

Email: judyyiudesigns (at) gmail (dot) com

Replace with approprate symbols. I've set up a separate email address for this so that hopefully, emails don't get lost in my inbox.

Taxes! and quick blabberings

Taxes

I love taxes and I hate taxes. As my taxes get more complicated, I get more annoyed at doing them. So while I had wanted to blog about my weekend in the country, I spent most of the evening doing my federal taxes and now I'm brain dead. But, at least I've gotten somewhere. I tried the efile trials at H&R Block and double checked it against numbers I crunched and it looks about right. They actually picked up stuff that I had forgotten. Normally, I manually do my taxes, but this year came the addition of classes at Bead Obsessions and bizarro self employment taxes. Ya...that was fun. But I need a night to recover and then I think I can send them in. Can anyone recommend me a good tax accountant for next year? Following that, a good financial planner?

My plan is kaput

Oh crap, I just remembered that tomorrow evening will be spent sitting in the annual homeowner's association meeting. This is like 3 hours of my life down the drain and only 3 because in the past, the building caretakers kicked us out at 10pm. These things can take forever and nothing ever gets done. Actually, I'm wrong. I'm the only one who gets things done because I sit and knit. Tomorrow night, I'll be working on the top down raglan

Weekend

Was very relaxing. Hopefully, I won't be so brain dead that I can put some pictures up. I did manage to pull out the sleeve stitches and joined the body front and back. I've tried it on and it fits quite well.

Jewelry

I've been toying with this idea and I think I will go ahead with it. All pieces that I'm willing to part with will be previewed on the blog for 2 days. Then if it's still available, it goes to etsy. I did finish another piece but I need to wear it out first. Part of the pictures I need to post tomorrow. It's green. With fringe.

Random etsy musings for the day

Some things that caught my eye while I was surfing the etsy forums and various etsy shops:

• For anyone who is thinking of selling their hand knit wares, read this.


• It's surprising how some people do pricing. It makes me wonder if they actually make any money.


• Might as well go for it. I'll start off small...like stitch markers. I'll have some jewelry type things before the end of the month.