It's open. God help us.

So I finally spilled the beans to the House Cup about my store last weekend, to coincide with the new term. Which is great! They've already bought me out of house-emblazoned undies (must go to Target to get more materials), as well as a fair few purchases of the tshirts, and even one Whoodie. That's a lot of profit, considering the really fairly low base cost of the supplies. I'm hoping I can keep the momentum going despite my sojourn to Europe over the summer, and I'm really hoping I can ramp it up in the weeks leading up to the new films this fall. I think there's a pretty good chance of that, really, because Boston is kind of a hub for Wrock (that would be Wizarding Rock, and yes, it's as dorky as it sounds), and the shirts have always been really popular at other Wrock events.

About that whole "more smoothly next time" thing

Yeah, not so much with the "more smoothly." Prepping for my presentation yesterday almost gave me a stroke, it was so anxiety-laden. I wanted to have something ready for them to participate with, but then I couldn't get Johnny's LOST jumpsuit tshirt to cut out properly (the Dharma initiative apparently even baffles die-cutting machines), so I thought I'd go with a Property of Azkaban shirt, but then my sticky mat got un-sticky, and I had to find the spray glue, and then that was TOO strong, and I ruined one because it wouldn't come unstuck. But eventually I got one together, and stuck it to a shirt, and brought it in. And I was going to show them how the gazelle actually worked, but then I thought I forgot the registry key that makes it go (and then, upon my return home, immediately found it in the storage drawer in the front of the machine, meaning I had it with me the whole time, which...dumb). But the painting turned out kind of fun, and I had some stuff in the store to show them, and that was great. And now if I can just keep stuff in the store, that will be super.

The fateful time is at hand

...I finally made something on my Gazelle. Seriously, I have been terrified of it for weeks, probably as a result of the trauma of the fire in the laptop. But I saw Ashley and Jack (Ally's sister and nephew) last week, and we were in the craft store, and he wanted some vinyl stickies to go on his wall, and all they had were princesses, so Ashley said "I bet Juju would make you some dinosaurs if you asked really nicely," and then he did, so obviously I had to make them.

So we bought some vinyl (which was unconscionably expensive - $9 for a 12"x24" piece), and I started attempting to make him some dinosaurs using clip art from the internet.

And wow, did that ever involve more cursing than I would have anticipated. First the drivers wouldn't install. Then my computer wouldn't recognize the USB port that the authentication key thingy was attached to. Then, for whatever reason, the auto-vectorization program got all crazy and did every line as a dotted line. Then it went even crazier, and went over every line three times, ever so slightly off register with the previous lines.

Fortunately, I was practicing these on paper, because otherwise by this time the hideously expensive vinyl would have been gone.

I finally, finally managed to get them done, and popped them in the mail. I hope he likes them - it was a true struggle to get them accomplished. Hopefully I've figured out most of the kinks and it'll be smoother sailing from now on.

busy busy busy busy

Things that are super:

1. All the stuff for the Lather tomorrow has successfully arrived, and I am cleared to go to bed early
2. My mum just got word on her externship for the summer, which means she can start working in the fall
3. Superman
4. I am high as a kite off cough medicine right now.

Things that are not-so-super:

1. Oh my god, the Lather is tomorrow, and I'm going to be awake for like twenty eight hours in a row making it happen.
2. She's going to be working all summer (yay) for free (boooooo) before she can get a job. And I won't be employed this summer, because I'm going to be in Garfagnana/my job doesn't really happen in the summertime, anyway
3. Clark Kent (Really, does he have to be such a DORK in his secret identity? Batman's still cool when he's Bruce Wayne!)
4. I am high as a kite off cough medicine because the thing that I've had for the last four weeks is PNEUMONIA AS A RESULT OF WHOOPING COUGH. Which...two days ago, they told me that I just had allergies! What the hell, UHS!

On a positive, crafty note, I came up with a new idea for some superhero-themed tshirts that I'm hoping to make as soon as I get my Harry Potter stuff established.

I can't believe it.

...I sold something. I don't even have a STORE yet, and I sold something! So that's exciting!

I was at Happy Hour last night, actually, and I was wearing one of my shirts, because the theme was "All Things British," and hey, what's more British than Harry Potter? And some girls saw me, and demanded to know where I bought my shirt. So I told them I'd made it a couple of years before, and they were astonished! And one of them offered me $30 to make her one. So clearly I accepted, because hey, I wasn't even planning on charging that much for them when I have the actual shop! Yay in-person advertising!

Ew

I am so incredibly disgusting right now. Fever of 102, so I'm all sweaty, and a cough building that has made it really hard to fall to sleep.

On the plus side, it's given me lots of time curled up in bed with my new laptop. Which is good for two reasons:

1) I have made a ton of new designs

2) I finally caught up on all the TV I haven't been able to watch over the last few weeks

And I bought some business cards to carry with me to fan events and include with people's purchases, so they can tell their friends. I mean...I say "bought," but I actually got them for free. I paid $5 for shipping.

Is Geek Good Enough

So I spent last night with some friends, and we talked about my shirts. They've got...some ideas about things that I need to start focusing on. You know...branching out some more from the geeky stuff and into more punky things. Which is tempting, because I can make a good Clash joke as well as anybody, but then I wonder...should I just focus on building my brand among the geeks for now? Work on the Harry Potter and Doctor Who fans, eventually branch out into Battlestar Galactica and LOST, and see where I go from there? Or should I try to build the two lines at once, so that it's not as hard to switch gears?

How I became a creeper

So...I have issues with puzzles. I am compelled to try to figure them out. So when I started knitting, I also turned into a creepy starer, irresistibly compelled to stare at sweaters until I could figure out the stitch pattern. I also started asking people whether their winter hats and scarves were handmade (often they are - I can spot them with pretty good accuracy).

And I'm starting to have that problem with tshirts, too. I mean...a lot of them are done by automatic presses, of course, which obviously I can't replicate...but they give me ideas. I could make some of them, or at least approximations thereof. But like I said...it makes me stare at people.

(I have also noticed an alarming trend toward walking with my chest pushed out when I wear things I've made. I think I'm subconsciously trying to make people admire my shirt.)

Worst. Day. Ever.

Okay, so....I'm going to start this post off by talking about bread. It seems tangential, but it's all going to come together.

1) I love bread. It is delicious. It goes with lots of things. It is inexpensive.

2) Humanity (well...many cultures, if perhaps not all of them) has survived on a largely bread-based diet for thousands of years.

3) Apparently, after 27 years of happy bread-consumption, now I'm allergic to wheat? What?

So that's new and horrifying.

Also new and horrifying:

My computer literally caught on fire. A fire in the hard drive. It was very, very upsetting.

Fortunately, however, I didn't have it hooked up to the Gazelle, which might have fried it. Granted, this is mostly because I'm still scared of the Gazelle, but you know...silver linings, right?

It came!

It came it came it came it came!

It is enormous. Way bigger than I would have thought it would be. I mean...I know it's meant to cut 12x12, and that's pretty big, but this beast is like 18" across or more. And tall. It's taller than my printer, actually.

I'm...kind of intimidated by it. Seriously. I mean...what if I damage it? What if I damage myself with it? I'm not well-known for my grace and dexterity - I've got dozens of craft-mishap scars, and this thing is powered by a motor.

Cut!

I did it, I did it, I did it! I bought my cutting machine! I got a Bosskut Gazelle. And it was expensive. I used a substantial part of my tax refund (about a quarter) to pay for it, but I did the math, and I only have to sell 17 shirts to break even, which I feel pretty confident about doing.

The story of the shirts

My favorite holiday is Halloween. That might seem irrelevant, but I swear it isn’t. Because I love Halloween, and because my mother and my grandmother both love Halloween, I have never worn a store-bought costume. Halloween planning starts in my house in about August. Some years, it starts in July. I like to dress up.

So when the first Harry Potter movie came out in November of 2001, my HP-loving BFF and I decided we were dressing up. I made us some flowing black robes, broke out my wooly grey skirt and sweater, and we went in costume. A year later, for the next movie, same getup. But then the third movie came out, in July of 2004. And Ally (said BFF) lived in Washington DC. There was no way I was going to be outside in wool clothing in the middle of the DC summer. So I came up with something else, namely t-shirts. I went to Staples, bought some iron-on transfer paper, and put together something to put on our shirts. And they were very popular when we were standing in line, but they didn’t hold up to repeating wearing, because the transfer paper cracked and faded. So when the sixth book came out sometime later, and we were debating about what to do (because it was summer again, of course, and doing the full uniform thing was right out), I said “well…maybe I can use fabric paint to do something?” So I bought some contact paper, to use as a stencil (because I’m under no delusions about my draftsmanship, particularly free-hand), and wound up with this:

Yeah. It’s a teeny little bit risque, but I wanted it to be unusual. (I made something different for Ally, but she can’t find hers just now, so you’ll just have to settle for this.) Well, they went over like gangbusters. Not only did everyone love them, they couldn’t believe I’d made them myself, in my kitchen.

By the time the fourth movie rolled around, I was willing to go a little further, and started adding some images to my work – mostly simple line-drawings, but I produced House Elves and Goblets of Fire to tie in with the plot of the movie. When The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe movie came out, not long after, one of the friends who had gotten a Goblet of Fire shirt decided she wanted some Narnian shirts for us to wear, and I expanded into other fandoms.

Skip to 2009, when my shirts were expected for any dorky outing, and were getting real attention at said dorky outings from people of less crafty persuasions. This kind of attention was nothing new – I’d been having people offer to buy shirts for a couple of years by that point, but the length of time required to make each one was prohibitive – the painting was fast and easy, but my method of stencil creation took yonks to do, and wasn’t durable enough to use more than once, meaning that even a very simple shirt took about an hour to do, which was too hard to fit in to my life as a student with a job. I tried everything to shorten the time. I tried using different cutting utensils (wasn’t dexterous enough with them). I tried using more durable stencil materials, so they could be reused (couldn’t make totally detached areas). I tried using silk-screens (couldn’t get a clean line). And then…I found it. A machine which would do the cutting for me, bringing stencil-making down to just a few minutes each. And now, finally, I’m starting my shop.