Organization

Another button to share....
I was over at a friend's house and her husband has his own business. It's a T-shirt business with lots of different orders for colors, sizes, embroidery and different team names, etc. He has what I think is a great way to organize his orders. One wall is mirrored doors. He put up suction cups, with a clip on each one. Each clip holds a large plastic bag, big enough to hold regular 8 1/2 by 11 papers. The papers for each order hang in one of these bags.

My "sewing room" is a bedroom, and it's not very big. But it DOES have mirrored closet doors. I like to enter contests and competitions - it seems the deadlines and the ideas really motivate me to do some of my best work. I don't always have lots of time, so the deadlines are really important to have posted somewhere. Well, I borrowed his idea - I print the guidelines for whatever it is I'm entering, put them in a bag, write the deadline date in big red letters and tape it to the glass door. With just a glance I can see when something's due and if I need to include the thread or beads I used (for future reference), I can just toss those in the bag too. For some reason, if it's laying flat somewhere in that room, it just gets covered up with fabric, threads, beads or drawings - imagine that! Just thought I'd pass this along...

I'm currently working on some proposals to submit to a book and also want to do something for the pincushion competition, so there's not a lot to show so far....
Happy stitching,
Lin Moon

Books!

As some of you know, I work part-time at Borders Books. It gives me a great chance to check out all the new books that come in, especially in the stitchery/jewelry section. I got a couple of new books, one for Christmas and one for my birthday(today! yay!). The first one is a book full of fabulous pictures, that I like to peruse when I need inspiration. It can spark ideas for beading, floral, nature, design, you name it! It is just full of large, gorgeous, detailed pictures of incredible jewelry. The second photo is of the back cover.


Then there's the doll book! I didn't even realize this book existed, except that I saw someone's blog mention it. It is full of dolls of all kinds! (duh) The thing I really like about it is that some pages have a detail shot of the doll along with the whole picture. Also, it's not just avant garde dolls, but also traditional and cloth dolls. Very inspiring!
Happy reading,
Lin Moon

Musings

Just thought I'd share a pic of one of the Asian buttons I have...
I was at work the other night (Borders) and looked at a Canadian magazine: Needle Pulling Thread. I had never seen it before. There was an article about creativity - the author surmising that you recharge your creativity when you're not doing anything purposely creative, but just daydreaming. I thought this was an interesting idea, but I'm not sure it's true. When I go looking around on the net at the various pix of the things people have created, I become very inspired. But then I suppose you could say the same thing about laying under a tree looking up at the clouds, I don't know...

I've been giving SharonB's TIF challenge some thought, also. When thinking about a person I admire, my first thought was my mother. Although she's been gone for about 15 years, I still remember so many things about her that I admired. She had what I always called "moxy". When she was a teenager, if she had a giant pimple on the end of her nose, she didn't care - she just wanted to go out and have fun. (I tended to want to go hide in a closet until it disappeared. If it took a month, well, ok...) But it's one of the things I really liked about her. Every time she visited, she would always try to tell me what to do, like how to drive, how I should wait on my husband (shudder), etc. I could just say, "Mom, I've been driving for 10 years now, I think I know how to do it by now." and she would just say OK, without any underlying guilt-making attitude, without getting her feelings hurt, etc. She always said what she thought, so that communication really went on, not just everyone hiding their feelings. That's one thing my friends say they like about me - that I am open and honest. The only thing is, that I feel I'm definitely lacking in diplomacy - it's hard to balance both.
Anyway, I've started stitching something for TIF, but it's just too small and is driving me crazy, so I'm going to restart on a larger scale so I can actually have some fun with it. Pix next time.
Happy Stitching,
~Lin Moon

Quilting Arts Door Challenge

Before Christmas, I got back my piece I entered in Quilting Arts "Doorway to Imagination" challenge. With the busy holidays, I had forgotten all about it. I thought I'd share some pics now. I tried to think of how I would represent the doorway to my room where I do all my creating. I really enjoyed doing the beaded window, thinking of all the sparkle and glimmer that I like to put into my creations. There were certain rules - the door I chose to represent had a window and lines down the front of it. I wasn't crazy about those lines, wanting the door to have more of a crazy quilt effect, so I did the lines in clear beads and sequins. I loved the idea of the stars coming out of the doorway and really liked putting those in on either side. Sort of like the ideas flowing out of there, when they're flowing that is, and not being stubborn! The whole piece has sort of a pink tinge, since I dyed some cheesecloth and put it under the satin for a little texture and color. The picture seems extra pink, though. Is anyone else out there doing a challenge? I'm interested in the Pincushion Challenge by Piecework magazine...

Happy Stitching,
Lin Moon