Kathy Barrick: August 2008

Friday, August 29, 2008

Question...

6:14 PM | | Edit Post

Over on the News Page of my CHS website (www.carriagehousesamplings.com) I listed the names of my five new designs. They are: A Happy Halloween, The Birds & The Bees, Grace McGaa's Sampler (or My Christmas Gift From Art), Swan and Virtuous Woman Stocking.

Now for the question: Given these titles, are you excited about seeing one more than the others? Do the titles alone conjure up visions? Which one do you think is going to be the one you can't live without?

And, after you see the photos, please feel free to let me know your favorite!

Thanks!

13 comments

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Just an Observation...

2:47 PM | | Edit Post

Man, there are lots of berries on the holly bushes this year!

Hope you're all having a good one!

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Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Look...

10:51 AM | | Edit Post

I have a couple of things to show you this morning. The first are the gorgeous sunflowers Liz and Casey brought me when they came Saturday. They are glorious!! Sunflowers truly are my very, very, very favorite flower EVER! Rosie and Tuck are posing behind them. They're not supposed to be on the living room couch, but they just fit into the photo, so I didn't shew them down until afterwards! Thank you Lizzie! You are the best!!

The second thing I wanted to share with you this morning is the new house necklace I made. I'm on a roll and can't seem to stop!! This one, with it's leaping rabbit bar pin, reminds me of samplers, so I thought you guys should see it. More photos are available on my Etsy page: www.moandmo.etsy.com.

That's it! I'm off to the post office, the bank, the printers, UPS...the usual round!

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Monday, August 25, 2008

A Working Weekend & Another House Necklace

1:19 PM | | Edit Post

I made another house necklace this morning. This one is sold (thank you Robin!), but I wanted to post a photo anyway. I just love these things!

It was a super fast weekend! Liz and her beau (LOL Sorry Liz!) Casey, came up to visit Saturday. We spent the day in Lancaster, then came home, cooked out and did some swimming. After a whole day of playing on Saturday, I felt like I'd better get some work done Sunday. So I made charts. Lots and lots of charts. 718 charts to be exact. That's a lot of charts!! And it was many episodes of Northern Exposure!

Today will be a day of printing, getting more charts ready to put together. I'm definitely making progress! The St. Louis market is just three weeks away and panic is beginning to set in!

Hope you all have a great day!

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Wednesday, August 20, 2008

6:57 PM | | Edit Post

Well, it obviously didn't take me too long to do that!! I couldn't wait another second and made a house necklace instead of: a) working on charts, b) making dinner, c) working on charts....well, you get the idea! I DID take Rose and Tuck out for a yard run, so I'm not feeling entirely guilty.

What do you think of the house necklace? If you're not wild about this one, many more will follow! You can see more photos here: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14453659.

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Great Progress Day!

4:22 PM | | Edit Post

Not only did I get TONS of charts printed today, I also ran errands (post office, UPS and printers) and stopped at two antique malls. For twenty-five years I've been collecting early antiques. It's such fun to change my focus a little and shop for small treasures to use in making jewelry. I'm passing right by the cool furniture, fabulous textiles and great woodenware and focusing entirely on tiny stuff. Takes a lot more time, but I absolutely love it! Today was a lucky day....I found a set of tiny, early wooden houses. They are truly adorable. Probably turn of the century, German. They'll make the most wonderful necklaces! I hope to get my first one made tonight, so stay tuned!

Joanne Ambrose finished stitching my Swan model and I received it in the mail yesterday. As always, Joanne did the MOST fabulous job! I should take a photo of the back of this piece before I frame it. It's perfect!! And, I've got the frame ordered for it, so as soon as that comes, I can get that design going too.

Carol Sims sent me photos yesterday of the model she's stitching. She's making remarkable progress, even though she's convinced I sneak over to her house every night and add more leaves to the design!

So, three of my five new designs are now stitched. One is printed. One is framed and photographed and can be printed tomorrow. Another can be printed as soon as the frame arrives. The last two will be more last-minute, I'm afraid. But that's ok, I'm used to it!!

Ok, Rosie and Tucker are DYING for me to take them out for a run through the yard. Rosie's favorite thing to do in the whole wide world is run through the corn fields until she's exhausted and roasting hot, then jump down to the second step of the pool and stand chest-high in the water until she cools off. Personally, I leave out the running through the corn fields part and head straight for the pool!!

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Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Gifts!

9:53 AM | | Edit Post

I received the most wonderful package in the mail yesterday. My sweet daughter, Liz, sent me wonderful gifts! Just because. How sweet is that?!! They were (almost) too beautiful to open.

A "K"! Just for me! I love this!! She's the most amazing jeweler!

And then there was this. The most gorgeous necklace ever. It took my breath away. Truly. It did.

How did I get so lucky?

I wish you all had a Liz for your very own.

Vist her blog at: http://lizmathews.blogspot.com/. And visit her Etsy shop at: www.lizmathews.com. You won't be sorry!

2 comments

Where Women Create...and other stuff too

8:18 AM | | Edit Post

Have you seen the book, "Where Women Create"? It's very cool. I so need it. My workroom is in the worst shape of it's life. It's quite sad, actually. I try, honestly I do. It just never works for long. BUT, it's the next room in the house to be renovated and hopefully will be done before Christmas. There is lots to do: First the entire room has to be emptied. Oh my. Then the old carpet has to be ripped up. Then Art has to cut into the floor to insulate the pipes under the floor. It's just a crawl space under there, not a basement. Then, a new (old) floor will be put down, the walls will be insulated and rebuilt and painted. And, we need to put in a new heating system for my workroom and the room above it. It's FREEZING in here in the winter. Once we do that, we'll put in new office furniture, and I can get organized. YAY! I'll keep you posted.

On to a more fun subject....jewelry of course! I started a new piece at midnight last night, but didn't finish it. Here's a preview:

On the sampler front, I framed a new piece yesterday so I could get my ad into the Needlework Retailer on time. I finished designing another new piece and will overnight the chart, linen and silk to The Attic in Mesa, AZ today. Once there, a wonderful person will stitch it for me and get it to Valley House Primitives (www.valleyhouseprimitives.com) for framing. Thank you, thank you Jean Lea and Joy and Janet at Valley House Primitives!

I STILL haven't packed up my trunk show. That will be the first thing (well, the next thing) I do this morning. Then it's off to the UPS and the post office. Then I get to finish my new necklace. Then....we'll see!

Have a good one!

1 comments

Sunday, August 10, 2008

New Blog - First Post

11:10 AM | | Edit Post

It just seemed like it was time to do this! A place to talk about both my sampler designs and my jewelry designs - and life in general - feels like the ideal solution. I tend to use my website (http://www.carriagehousesamplings.com/) as a blog and that doesn't seem quite appropriate. So, here I am! I'll try to entertain, not bore. But my life isn't always exciting, so you kind of have to take the good with the bad!

Today will be a combination sort of day. I started out making jewelry, ended up outside with the dogs, pulling weeds (and weeds and weeds and weeds....) and MUST spend the rest of the day getting a trunk show ready to go out the door, grocery shopping and trying to pull this house together. Art has been at a motorcycle rally in Maryland since Friday morning and will be back sometime today. So, I feel like I need to hurry up and get work done before he gets back because once he's back, my focus will need to change somewhat.

So you're not totally bored, I'll insert a photo (as soon I as figure out how) of the jewelry I made last night and this morning..... Ok, well it seems all photos go at the top. Sorry about that. Will try to keep that in mind for future posts. The top photo is my Donkey Necklace and the bottom one is my Girl Scout Necklace. You can see more at my Etsy shop at: www.moandmo.etsy.com.

A word (or two) about Mo and Mo Jewelry. Anne Brown, my best friend, sister at heart, almost next-door neighbor, fellow designer (The Goode Huswife), fellow jewelry-maker, comrade in arms, fellow Mo, and I used to make soldered glass jewelry together. After making about 500000000 pieces, I got a tad sick of it. Fortunately, Anne didn't. So she's now doing the glass jewelry and I'm now doing "vintage-antique-assemblage" kind of stuff. Since the reaction to my jewelry by the stitching world wasn't quite fire-hot, I decided I needed a new place to show it. Hence my Etsy shop. What started out being Mo and Mo Jewelry, is now just Mo Jewelry. What's kind of interesting is that now my jewelry is starting to catch on in the stitching world!

Ok, I've gone on (and on) enough for now. Will do my best to update this regularly. Will try not to bore you to death. Will try not to focus tooooooo much on just jewelry. But no guarantees!

6 comments