At 33

Hello world!

Tomorrow I turn 33. It is sort of a milestone for me at such a random number.  Firstly it took me some time to realize how old I really am since I pretty much stopped counting after 30. It's not even the number that makes it a milestone but more just the amount of things have have happened in the past few years, let alone months.

 I was humbled and honored to test for my level 2 shorts at Muay Thai.  It was a hard decision and big challenge for me. I wanted to do it and train for it but I don't think I started to train for the right reasons.

I was coming off of a pretty big high from seeing friends fight and all the fight training our gym had been doing. In the end I did it for all the right reasons, my friends around the gym and fellow testers training kept me level headed and helped me to remember what was really important and the spirit of our gym. There was even a point when I thought I might of pulled out just because I didn't feel my mind and heart were in the right place for this honor.

In the end I went through it and it was AMAZING. This time was somehow more impactful in my life then the first test. It was rough no doubt as I had only started into sparring maybe two months beforehand and even with all the extra gym time I put in there just wasn't anything to prepare for the endurance needed just for sparring. 

Overall this helped me to let go of my senseless competitiveness and goal driven accomplishments. It let me just relax, enjoy and appreciate the moments in life more. I also learned to let go some of my silly cultural habits of seniority which has always been this hanging stress in my life. 

Super proud of all my fellow testers and big shouts out to Doug, Malik and Lavaughn for being there with me through Level 2! It wasn't that long ago but I feel that in my short time of about a year and half I have learned so much and looking at the new beginner's classes I get excited for them and to be a part of their journey.

Then two weeks later........

I completed another wonderful runway show with the Alternative Fashion Mob.  I couldn't be more happy with the results and most importantly all the people I worked with. I have amazing friends all around me and they really lift me up and assist when I need it. My Muay Thai testing definitely help me be very "whoo saaaa" through this fashion show where I let all the problems other people were having slide off of me and didn't stress with what was wrong but just how to get through it and have fun.

I was so fortunate to also have the amazing models that I did for this show. To me the right energy and personality is more important when doing such a big production but I was also fortunate enough to have beautiful models.  You can see photos of my full collection on my Torn Angel Facebook Page. 

Amidst all of this has also been the store!

 Everything is coming together and I just got back from TNNA this weekend and made some very interesting orders that I was not prepared for. It was so hard to go there not knowing what exactly my customer base will be and figuring out who my client really is before I am open. It's a struggle to think about what I want my store to be and how I also want to service the community at the same time. I don't want anyone to feel alienated at the same time I want to stick to my creative guns with my yarn selections.

The POS is all set up and I didn't think that would be such an ordeal but it was and now it's all good. We have a rhythm for it all and I understand how it all works. I would show pictures of the whole store but it's still a slight mess right tools and things needing to be made. I'm also a bit spread out to work on the display for the windows and just general it's a mess.

Lastly I got my second tattoo and I can't say it will be my last but she might be. I'll just show you a picture because it means too much to me to just clump my feelings together with everything else and I am still relishing in the glow of it and all the feelings surmounted with this tattoo.

Tomorrow is my birthday and I'll be spending the entire day traveling across time zones to be in Korea! now that so many things are over with I can finally start to get excited as I pack and get ready. I can say that I am nowhere near where I thought I would be today.  If I talked to younger self I would reassure myself and say:

"No, you won't be married with 3 kids as a housewife or working for a large fashion company, but it's ok. You will find a new fantastic path, be happier and be full of wonderful encounters, friendships and fulfillment in ways you didn't know exist. You will be an entire person on your own whole and without regret and you will love everything with all your heart and it will be ok even though it's not where you thought you would be. Enjoy the adventure because it is all yours alone"

Cheers!

Dreams to reality

Hello!
Long time no post. It's ok life happens and it's just happening very rapidly for me again. This past month has been yet another flurry of activities at work. We were given unexpected notice to vacate out donated gallery space. I won't get into details but Columbus Underground did a good post about it here.  It was inconvenient timing considering it was also during the peak of my grant writing season and strategic planning for the board of trustees. Amongst some other karfluffel that had to do with grant writing.  Not the best situation but overall for the best. It was just very draining and exhausting of course and mentally not very good for my positive vibes.

In other news we found a store front! A glorious store front! My dream of having a yarn store has finally come to fruition! Through all this mess at work and stress I can turn around and smile because I see the progress on my store and can't help but smile at the work ahead of me for my own business.  It probably won't be ready for at least a month. I need to still get my vendors in order and even then it will be a soft opening. I can't do a grand opening till after the next TNNA (The National Needleworks Association Convention) and when I get back from my trip to Korea. Oh did I not mention that the Hubby and I will be going to Korea?! (we'll get back to that in a moment).

Here are some pictures of the interior space as we are working on it.

So this is the view from the back of the store. Big open spaces. We are keeping this counter type thing, especially since it has outlets built into it. That area will be perfect for classes and setting up sewing machines. We'll be painting it all white and adding oak counters for the knitting machines to mount and for the ball winder and swift to be located.

Here is another view of what will be the class area. You can kind of get a feel for the dimensions by the huge cabinetry sitting in place that is waiting to be taken out to the dump.

By the front window there were these built in benches. Lovely but messed with the height for the window displays. We moved them out about two feet from the window to give me some room to work with. I will need to paint those benches and make cushions for them. Brilliant front windows with lot's of light and will be a joy to make visual displays in.  I will be channeling my days working at the 5th ave Anthropologie visuals in NYC.

Finally here is a view from the front door looking in. Tons and tons of space which is both scary and exciting to fill. Lot's of work ahead for me and the hubby.

No for reals this is the last store related thing.  A mock up of what our outside will potentially look like if approved by the Landlord.

OK now that is out of my system let's talk Korea.
So hubby finally agreed that if we didn't go to Korea now when would we go? Certainly not when we have a little one or two. We also didn't know the store would happen so soon. We also booked the tickets before we knew all the work move/grant writing got crazy.  Anyways it's been another beacon of light in my life to look forward to.  I'm so nervous I haven't been back to Korea in 14 years and this is the hubby's first time ever! It will certainly be an adventure. We are staying in Seoul as I don't have very many relatives that we keep in contact with over there. We will mostly be on our own as my bestie over there will be busy with work. I've found a lot of friends that will be there at the same time which will be nice.  I could take a whole other post about just Korea. So I think I will.  OH and we are also going to Japan on the way back from Korea! This will be completely new for me as I have never been able to spend tourist time in Japan. All I have seen of Tokyo is the bullet train and the American Embassy to renew my passport between countries for my brother's wedding in 2000.

I will try my best to be more diligent about blogging.  I miss it dearly and really should make more time to do this and read up on the blogs I used to follow.  For now good night and CHEERS!

Moving along

Super exciting news in the world of small business action.

I think I finally have my logo. It still needs a bit of tweaking but here it is. My header logo followed by my more square type logo. It is amazing how long it took me to come to this point using photoshop. I think I still want my ampersand to be more bold so I need to work on thickening that to match my type. Otherwise I am pretty happy with what I have started.

Other exciting news is applying for another spot. Learning from our hesitation on space last time we made the move on a letter of intent pretty quickly. They aren't lying when they say that life is coming at you fast! I have my fingers crossed this will work out. It is a space that is entirely too large for where we wanted to start and over our original intended budget. On the plus side this is a space that we expect to grow into fully and the location is near perfect and accommodates everything I was looking for in a space:

• Bus line access
• Walking distance from home
• Street and dedicated parking
• Part of a neighborhood
• Other successful businesses in close proximity
• Handicap access
• Potential for a small kitchen/dye area
• Open floor plan

We have only just started the process so I don't want to jump the gun but it's a good start.

I did apply for my first vendor and was granted an account which is also exciting. They are one of my first picks for needle and crochet hook vendors. One down and more than a dozen more to go. But I am going to take it in stride till the brick and mortar is secure. I have been dabbling with the idea of just launching an e-commerce site to get the ball rolling and make some social media marketing and income to assist. I also need to order business cards that at least have the logo, email and website.

Going through this process has also forced me to work on putting my business plan all together and in writing in one place. I can talk it big but to have something physical to send in replacement of me being a spokesperson is entirely different. I actually get a bit of sick pleasure working on it the same way I do for my work at the Ohio Art League writing grants. It is very interesting how closely both grant writing and business plan writing are similar. You are basically trying to win someone over to your side with clear, precise writing, stating facts, projections and puffing your feathers a bit. 

Lord, I never thought I would want to own a business. All this administrative work is just not fun, or so I thought. There is also a sick pleasure with the idea of being incredibly successful because of your own endeavors. Even working on the projected expenses, income, and startup budget I find exciting. I know what I am good at and this store will use my personal potential to the fullest. 

I am an enabler so I make a fantastic sales rep.

I am a helper so I love to educate people and see that "A HA" moment hit them

I am a hard worker, so I will put all my energy and love into this business

I am a talented seamstress, so I know the addition of alterations will be a good profitable decision.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!

This past weekend was Ohayocon and I had the pleasure of my friend Vinh taking some professional photos of me in my Lolita regalia!

I am completely in love with these pictures and wish I had more places and excuses to use them in things.  I am very tempted to change my Linkedin profile picture to the one below. 

Outfit Details:

Blouse - Fanplus Friend

Skirt - Enchantlic Enchantilly 

Socks - Enchantlic Enchantilly

Shoes- Uggs

Locket - Toronto Craft Vendor

Makeup foundation - Too faced Glitter Glue, Benefit Plush foundation, Shiseido powder

Blush - MAC Dainty mineralize and Lazy Sunday creme blush

Eyes - MAC white frost/parrot/shroomed/holographic glitter pigment, Limecrime Elf

Eyeliner - Urban Decay 24/7 black liquid liner

Lashes - some cheap fancy ones from a Korean cosmetic store

Brows - Faceshop

Lips - MAC pervette, MAC baby sparks lip glass

It is a very strange thing to look at your own face and be like WOW that is stunning! Not to be a total narcissist but the curls were just right, my hair color is spot on with my makeup and the blush was done well for once! Everything in this picture just worked right and I still can't believe that this is me. I think this is also one of the few pictures where I see the huge difference that my Muay Thai has made in my life and body.

Anyways that is all for now..... people really shouldn't be blogging at 3am in the morning anyways..

Cheers!

Happy Holidays! and oh shit... Branding.....

Happy Holidays everyone!

As I get a few days of respite I work I have taken some of this time to work on myself and my own personal ventures. I have very little work to do when everyone else is on vacation for the holidays so I might as well make the most of the time.

I am in no way, shape, or form a graphic designer but I dabble a little bit for my own sake. I know I need business cards and I need to get a branding strategy together for my wee little yarn store in the works. I didn't want to deal with bubbly or fancy lettering. I've always been a fan of a straightforward easy to read font with a little class and vintage feel. My go to font is a Courier or Typewriter style.
Since I didn't want to use the font as cute or catchy thing in my store name I decided I wanted to do a fancy ampersand. I LOVE the ampersand.

Today I broke out the good ol scrap papers with some heavy 7.0 mm roller ball pens and graphite pencils to get my rough sketches down as I work on this whole branding thang. Branding is very important to a business and I am not trying to down play it at all. It just isn't my specialty nor do I feel that I have the skill set to make it as good as it could be. But these are the breaks when you have very little, to no money allocated in the business for this kind of thing. My main focus is having the funds for stock in the store and rent for at least 5-6 months squirreled away for any emergencies.

I have taken inspiration from the Georgia BOLD style ampersand into these two iterations. I knew I wanted to use the knitting needle in some way and of course the yarn. The difficult thing is thinking how literal I wanted it to look like am ampersand. I wanted it to still have a little mystery and quirk. One of those things that you might assume and not get right away but the closer you look you can get a little chuckle from the nuance of this logo.

I think I much prefer the ball of yarn version even though it isn't as clear. It is just for branding and its like that game where you can put the letters to a simple word out there in the wrong order but the brain still knows what word was intended.

I've also started to hunker down and look at my vendor applications for whole sale ordering and realizing I need to get this business cap on and get active with the business account, email, and get card made. 

There is a lead on a possible location! but that's all I'll say. I'm not going to stress out until May about having a location but of course the sooner the better.

Cheers! and have a wonderful holiday with your family, loved ones and furbabies if you have them!

 

Oh Hai, I've been MIA

Why hello there blog......
I've missed you have you missed me?

Life has, as it will, unexpectedly thrown me many a curve balls over this past year. It was been a little over one year that I have now held my position as the Gallery Manager and Organizational Administrator for the Ohio Art League.  It has had many trials and tribulations and I want to stick by my guns by not put anything negative on my blog. Hence not posting lately, not necessarily because of the job and work but everything in life has been a big ball of stress and angst but also light in unexpected areas.  It has been undoubtedly hard to focus.

My yarn store dreams are once again at a standstill. I have it all set up I just need my business account with the hubby and the space. I'm almost so prepared that I am scared to jump in. Also I am finding that I would like to be a bit more financially independent when I move onto this venture so I am content to sit another 6-8 months with a paying steady job to get majority of my debt paid off from silly things like store credit cards and low $200-1500 credit cards that I don't really need and should learn to live without.

All is well in the world of Torn Angel. I have been busy with custom orders, lot's of bridal work and working closely with the lovely new group that is Columbus Alternative Fashion Mob. Below are two of my favorite creations for that show.

 

Working on fashion things again has gotten my brain and fingers itching to also have the yarn store as a studio space. I have 1,001 ideas but no time or space to create them. I know I have the talent to make a living off of it, I just need to be kinder to myself and believe in myself more.

My biggest accomplishment since last I wrote was completing my level one shorts testing for my Muay Thai gym.  It was an amazing and humbling experience. I don't think I've ever worked that hard or trained so much for anything before in my life.  It was 11 full, non-stop minutes of physical intensity that felt like my lungs were on fire and I could barely stand. Clenches, boxing, kicks and just for fun I had jumping kicks to added as my extra special contribution to pain. A friend told me afterwards they felt like they were watching Mortal Kombat and repeatedly pressing for the jumping kick because I just kept going for a near 2 mins on jumping roundhouses. 

TOTALLY WORTH IT!

I can now consider myself a true student of Kru Hope Vitellas. Having this outlet has been the best thing I have done in a long time for myself. I have lost weight, been in amazing shape and the people at the gym are nothing but loving positive energy that helps me great through some of the tougher days I've had this year. My friend Laura also joined the gym with me and nicknamed me for Rainbow Dash from My Little Ponies.

REPRESENT!

Finally for this post I also hosted a Korean Indie Rock Band during their first US tour! It was great to hang out with some Koren natives and practice a bit of my broken Korean with them. We actually communicated very well considering how terrible my speaking is.

The band is called Love X Stereo and they are AMAZING. I got them a last minute hook up at Kobo Live with the help of my buddy Jacob Wooten and the fast thinking of Wolf Starr. Amazing fellows to work with for anything local and community. Anyways back to the band!

 

Love X Stereo is anything BUT the usual kpop. They are a indie rock electronica band and I love their sound and feel. My favorite two tracks are Soul City and Lose to Win.  It was so random but isn't that how the best things always happen? My friend Vinh had become friends with them and asked me to host them and find a spot for them to play. Now I have 5 new fantastic friends across the sea. It's always cool when you meet people that you see as "celebrity" and they are totally down to earth and cool and enjoy playing video games as much as you do. I can't wait till they visit again next year on their next tour!

Check out their new Album GLOW and help support another form of independent artists!

This is all I've got for now. Things are looking better and brighter.  Even with the yarn store on hold I am still checking out and doing as much research as I can by visiting other yarn stores and sampling new yarns and companies.

Cheers!

No restrictions

I had gotten the latest email blast from Coletterie and I just had to smirk a bit. Not that it was bad or I was being especially snotty or anything but it was about a little trip to NYC and different fabric stores. One of which was Mood. Then they described this draping class that was being taught there and this beautiful piece was made.

This is what made me smirk. Of course it is gorgeous but also how many yards of fabric do you think it took to make this? My rough estimate with those wide pleats would be somewhere between 15-20 yards. That is also not muslin which makes a large difference as well. Even muslin at Mood prices for that much yardage it would be about $120. It just amazes me how unrealistic some of these things are that they present to people as options. I guess they can get away with that in NYC but you would find yourself hard pressed to get someone in Columbus to shell out the class price with an additional couple hundred in just draping supplies.  I would know, I teach draping in the summer at CCAD.

I dream of the day when I have copious amounts of money or means to drape amazing unrestricted garments but alas, I must work with what I have and be conservative with each piece. Once upon a time in college I was able to do this regardless of cost, not because I had the money but because I was an oblivious youth with big dreams and very supportive parents. The last time I gave myself unrestricted allowance for fabric was my wedding dress. That took about 8 yards of silk organza because of all the pleats.

 Well anyways that was just my little two cents on that post from Coletterie and their trip to NYC and Mood. It is hard to be a designer without any support and income and especially harder if you are an adult with an interest in it and looking to take classes. Fashion design is not cheap nor is it easy. I try to be as sympathetic as possible to my students pocket books but I feel their pain between the creative expression and the reality of the situation you live in.

Best of luck my friends and don't be discouraged by your resources. Continue to create and learn and be happy in what you are doing for yourself.
Cheers!

Crewel Tool kit

Currently I have been working a lot in crewel embroidery. Mostly french knots and bullion stitch to describe wounds in my fine art work. It is most definitely a labor of love because the work is so tiny yet so many hours go into each piece. I hope that it will translate well when I have my group exhibition in October at the Ohio Art League gallery.

Anyways it got me to looking at my tool kit and also a nudge from a friend about an embroidery toolkit contest going on in the UK. I thought why not. If she thought it was interesting enough to suggest I might as well share it.

So here it is:

In my kit starting at twelve O'clock going clockwise:

• My appleton crewel threads hoop, which I made
• Clover embroidery hoop stand
• Embroidery pocket guide
• Clover embroidery hoop
• Thread heaven
• Embroidery scissors
• Thread snip ring by clover
• Needle pull pads
• Paper piecing hexagons
• Thread
• Seam rippers
• Eraser, pencil, post it notes
• Felted Wool ball pincushion
• Magnet to catch stray pins
• Clover embroidery needle threader

Below are a few more in detail shots of everything.

 

My little magnet pin holder inside the metal tin. It works pretty perfect while I am on the go because i know any loose pins inside the tin will find their way to the magnet so it's not an explosion of pain every time I open it.

My wonderful little collection of cutters.

The favorite is my green pen scissors. They are tiny and fit on my cell phone or in my pocket and have been tested to be airplane safe so far. the ends are a bit rounded which is why I think they have been approved so many times. I got these little wonders off of Jetpens.com

So that covers what is in my embroidery kit!

It was also a nice exercise to get everything reorganized. There is a lot of organizing going on in my life right now with the move out of my studio and back home and prepping for summer and all the festivals and events at work. My biggest challenge is the balance between working on my fine art and working on my fashion for the summer show with the Alternative Fashion Mob.

I was very proud of myself for putting out some of my fine art watercolors at the last AGORA X this past weekend. All three pieces were sold to the same person and he really liked them. It was a sort of unbelievable moment for me because I've only ever sold fashion or craft work and never fine art work. I might of blurted out in his face an enthusiastic "REALLY?!"

Oh silly me and my tactfulness.

 

Sold bruise studies #1-3

Well I hope you all have a good week and I'll try to think of something fun for next week's post!

Cheers!