After many weeks with long hours in front of the computer, I am so pleased that the Mystic Moose website for my craft shop is finally up and running. It was a wonderful place to put all the lovely photographs of totes that never quite reach the etsy listing photos – usually because they are too detailed or busy for the thumbnails. It links to my etsy shop, since that is the only place I sell my things online at the moment, but I really enjoyed making and designing the site, and will sell things from it directly someday soon!
On the theme of lovely new things, I have also branched out from the cotton tote bags I sell in my shop. For the last few weeks I have been perfecting my designs for pencil cases and purses, heat pressing my illustrations onto un-dyed cotton and sewing them in my studio. I had a huge delivery of zips at the end of last week, but couldn’t start immediately because I was searching for the zipper foot for my sewing machine. Even though I used the normal foot for the trail runs, and it looked okay, I felt it was important to take extra care when making something I was planning on selling. I visited my local sewing shop hoping to by a new zipper foot, but they had sold out of that morning. Eventually I found it last night when I crawled into the attic to look in the box the sewing machine originally came in. The box now holds a collection of beloved children’s books I can’t seem to let go of, and right at the bottom of the box, nestled between The Lorax and The Cat Who Walked By Himself, was the zipper foot. It was still in its plastic zipper bag with a needle threader, and apparently had been left behind in my excitement to use my new sewing machine two years ago.
After that little adventure, the pencil-case-making road had few bumps, and it wasn’t long before I had quite a selection to choose from. Not using a pattern or instructions meant that it was an interesting learning experience, working out how to have all the seams on the inside and yet leave a space to turn it inside out. I tried various places for this visible seam, including along the zip and on the bottom of the lining, but eventually settled on the side of the lining since it is least visible, and it meant I could sew in a lovely little Mystic Moose tag. I altered designs that are currently used on my totes, such as the typewriter, and the vintage map hearts, but I have some new designs floating about in my head right now.
I am hoping to order my new business cards soon, but I’ve been waiting for the perfect photograph of my products, and this wider range of sizes should making interesting compositions more exciting!
Also, don’t forget to enter the Mystic Moose giveaway over at Lazy Explorers! You could win your favourite Mystic Moose cotton tote, and the winner will be chosen on 13th June 2012, so head over to find out how to enter! This giveway is now closed, and the winner can be found here.
