Fuck off Murphy....

punk ass.  I can see you over there just waiting for your chance.  It was a bitch ass move to make the Fiance's boots a half size too small, but those little things are the only thing you better fuck with this November.  Bitch.

Well I am back to just as normal for me as I can get.  The muscle pain is gone and well my appetite is not quite still there yet, it's recovered as well as can be expected.

With the recovery came being able to double down on work again. How much you work you ask?

Allow me to breakdown my orders for you.

Order #1, what's left of it anyways:
A green coat
A light browns coat
A messenger bag

Order two:
2 Toothless (yeap, cute little bugger)

Order #3:
A Ma Cobb hat
A dark blue and black scarf

Order #4:
Another Ma Cobb Hat

Order #5:
A large green shawl

Order #6:
Three Christmas stockings

Order #7:
Dolls (though how many of these I'll be making I'm not sure yet...)

"That's a lot of work there..."

Well kinda.  I have all the patterns, I know what and how these are all going to look like (save the messenger bag, I keep changing my mind on it.)  However I've also got pictures I need to take, and my fiance is never home long enough to doing nothing for long enough to get drafted.

I need a kid... Well... maybe not.  I need more space, which we're going to get when we move to Arizona.  Which means more cooking and baking (yay!). And I digress....

Anyways, that means you guys who take the time to read here, may be getting stuck with cheat articles of pictures of projects as they are coming along and videos of cute stuff.  Maybe some prepping or survivalist videos if I can find some I like.  (Yeah, key term there.)

Sadly I do not have any Samhain plans (pronounced Sow-in) aka Halloween for you mundanes. I'm fairly certain it'll rather simple, spiced cider and a good meal with the Fiance.  I'm rather content with that actually.

Anyways, I hope you're all having a good week, a great Thursday and I'll see ya'll Saturday.

Meanwhile, I'm going to enjoy some more coffee, and then get cracking on work.

Oh Monday, Monday...

Almost back to normal from Thursday kicking my almost-non existent ass.  All that's left is the small meals I'm eating around 4-5 times a day, mild fatigue and some still serious back muscle pain.  I'm just over here thanking the Gods that it's not spasms (!!!).

Been thinking about either doing an auction on the Jade Rose Zen facebook page or doing a "12 days of Christmas/Yule" flash sale event and having about two things a day.

Either way, I'll be cross posting to Google +  plus as well and here to the blog.  Among everything will be some of the really popular stuff, like the dolls, shawls and blankets, but there will be some surprises in there too. =)

In the meantime, I'm going back to bouncing around youtube listening to music, working on orders and sitting in my comfy chair.

In the meantime, here's something I found today.  Enjoy:

Heads up

Crapp... where'd October go?

It's coming up on that time of the year where my orders for knit and crocheted stuff skyrocket.

You folks know you can buy handmade gifts year round right?  And that it really helps out the person making them?   Anyways...

After the gear article series is done on Blue Collar Prepping, I won't be doing weekly articles until January 15th, 2015.  There a few reasons this, one that I just spoke of in the upper paragraphs.

1) I have several orders for Christmas already, and the last day that I'm accepting custom work in order to get it out by December 16th is November 15th.  After that the custom options are getting shut off until January 15th.

2) I'm about on dry in terms writing material that I can crack out.  A large number of the articles I had done for BCP was due to the fact that I didn't feel like a large number of these prepping blogs where actually addressing things that were important... they were all doom and gloom. (Hey, one of the things you're going to have to keep an eye is depression and you stupid fucks writing all doom and gloom aren't helping, ya jackasses.)

Yes I've had some coffee this morning but not a full cup yet.  How can you tell?

So when I am back full in January, I will have more articles on skills that are a good idea to be known and understood if you want to be comfortable during hard times.  First series once back I'm planning on doing a break down of gardening and bits and pieces of information you may not know.

3) We are trying to get moved from California to Arizona.  This is proving to be a major stress factor for me because we have soooooooo many things that we need to straighten out first before we can move.

Hence why I'm focusing on the crochet orders as much as possible so that they are as good as I can make them, and keep setting up that reputation as a good crafter for myself.  This is because the Zibbet and Etsy store are my main sources of income, outside of the tiny bit that comes in from Amazon links.

This blog here will be maintained, but it'll mostly be just showing orders that I've managed to get done and probably cute video of puppies, kittens and other various animals doing adorable shit.  But it's going to be a tiny bit erratic.

Now it's entirely possible that I will get all my orders done by the 16th of December.  What am I going to do between then and my return date of January 16th?

Simple.

Chill.

I have books to read, to work on and a large amount of research to do for the next year's articles.  If I do this right, I'll end up with several months worth of material again.

And probably several more adventures along the way.

In the meantime...

BABY BURRO!

Seen near Lake Havasu.

John Wallin Liberto - Artist plus a few updates from me.

"You're here!"

Late, but here.  And in case you're wondering why the dolls on the right would be your answer.  Another order finished and will be on its way to a hopefully very happy customer.  So while I'm nomming on my treat (yeah it's just McDonalds double hamburgers, but it's still a treat damnit!) let's jump into the next artist I was newly introduced to here recently.


Now anyone who knows me really well knows that I am in fact a Halo girl.  Halo: Combat Evolved for PC was my first computer game and the fourth Science Fiction universe that I found had found that I really really liked.  Halo has expanded into this lovely complex series of games, books, cartoons and comics.

Halo 4 was how I was introduced to the work of John Wallin Liberto

.
*shiver*  Pass me the battle rifle!

John is a rising star it seems in the concept artist world, so be sure to check out his linked above.

And that is it for today.  I'll see you guys tomorrow and I'll warn you right, it's going to be gross and mushy and all personal like.

(Whether or not the following is an official trailer for Halo 5, I've been able to ascertain.  Either way, enjoy!)

Still sick...

Not as bad though.

Still don't feel up to anything besides being miserable.

Plus side though this got done....

Aye aye aye

Kinda stressing right now.

I have an order that I am working on that requires me to learn how to crochet cables.

....!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have a small deadline on that order, plus two more jackets to design and make, a messenger bag, two cloches, two dolls to finish.

How am I dealing?

By probably going on a hike and exploring an alluvial fan that is near us.  Near being relative at about 15 minutes to get to.  (I love living so close to a national forest!)

Why?

Because I learned a long time ago, the hard way, that it's not okay to just beat yourself through to a deadline.  Yeah I'm going to be tired when I get back, but I've noticed when I've taken time to go outdoorsy things, my productivity is double what it would have been if I hadn't.

It's common sense.

Yeah, I was greatly refreshed from my time in Lake Havasu, but I don't feel fully recovered from this month yet.  That said, tomorrow is going to be a busy day of crocheting, sketching and sharing some pics of the fan.

Plus, the hot water heater in our apartment building is out.  This while it may not yield any prepping lessons or experience, it's applicable in that you have to get creative in order to stay comfortable and clean.

I really like sharing pictures of the places I'm getting to explore and I hope you guys are enjoying them too.  Hopefully for tomorrow as well, I will have Jacket One done and some really good pictures of that.

See ya tomorrow! =)

Oh that's frustrating...

So I get messages from time to time on Etsy from friends of friends being sent to me looking for a particular crocheted thing.

Most of the time, after they hear/see the price they almost always "Thank you for your reply."

Which among us crafters is code for "Why the fuck would I pay that when I can get it from Wal*Mart for 3.99?"

The item in question this time was a beautiful crocheted cloche with flower embellishment.  22-25 bucks.

That covers the materials (which would need to a bit finer of a yarn for the flowers and leaves) and barely covers my time.

This is one of the most... derogatory things that happens on a weekly basis for all crafters I think.  Someone asks us to make something and for how much and then what happens?  The above.

Something else that coincides with this response is almost always the fact that the person who does this, 95% of the time is the same kind of person who bitches about "American jobs being sent overseas".  Here's a newsflash for you oh stupid one, stop fucking taxing businesses out of existence.
Here's a little background for those of you who aren't familiar with how hand crafts like mine work.

We'll use a beanie, as an incredibly simple example.

The basic beanie, can be down with one thread or two.   With any of the stitches know as single, double or treble and hell all the ones in between.

It takes 1-3 skeins of yarn, depending on how nice of a yarn or color variety you want. These range in price from 3.14 for 236 yards of thread (215 meters) to 8.99 for 174 yards.

Then the average crafting time is anywhere from an hour and 45 minutes to five hours (this is dependent on skill level and experience level).  I average an hour and 45 minutes on simple beanies.

Now, let's just say that for a really nice cloche I decide to go with a finer thread for the flowers.  This finer thread costs 6.99 a skein, and I get two in two different colors.  Then one skein at 3.14 for the main hat.

Now that puts me at 17.12 already.  And I haven't even started working on the hat yet.

So we'll say there's four flowers.  Each flower takes me 45 minutes for a total of 3 hours.
The cloche takes me 2 hours to make.

So that's five hours for this hat.  Now at the higher quoted price of 24 dollars minus the 17.12 leaves 6.88.

Now divide 6.88 by 5.

That is 1.376 an hour.

We won't go into any of the other things I make.

I put five hours of time into a hat, and am only asking 24 bucks for it.

Do the crafting community a favor: If you aren't willing to pay for quality and for the investment of our time, don't even open a fucking conversation with us.

In case you're wondering what it would cost if I put in the 8.75 min wage just to give you a baseline:
43.75 and that's just the cost of the time.  Plus material and shipping... try 60 bucks at least.

Do me and the rest of the crafting community a favor: don't get snotty, snobby, condescending, arrogant, snide, rude or belligerent with me when I give you a very reasonable price, when I'm the one who knows how much time goes into my work, not you.  I know my work is going to last you for several years when that junk you buy from some chain store is going to worthless in less than a year.

Stop your bitching about sending jobs overseas when you won't even invest in small business here.