exquisite design, one stone at a time
**If you're only interested in the hand-dyed lace tutorial and not all my babbling, scroll to where the photos begin!** The process for most of the custom roller skating outfits I make is fairly simple: coach has an idea in March, we settle on a plan in early April, dress is finished by early to… Continue reading Hand-Dyed Lace and Where Crazy Ideas Begin
I only sew (super-crazy-stretchy) knits, so how odd is it that I skipped The Monthly Stitch's "Sew Stretchy" May? For newcomers, The Monthly Stitch is an Australian sewing blog, to which I'm a regular contributor. Each month they vote on some new challenge, and finished products are posted on the blog. Being Australia, skating a… Continue reading Plumber’s Paradox
Truly golden, as in gold medal. My blog silence over the past three months is due to a ridiculously heavy sewing load, leading up to both the regional and national championships for roller skating, my largest client base by far. I'm not complaining...I had fifteen separate outfits in various stages of completion during one particular… Continue reading Silence is Golden
I finished this latest creation just in time to enter it in The Monthly Stitch's July challenge, "MonoSewn," where everything had to be black, white, or both. You can read about it here. I knew I wanted a completely white dress, but what I didn't plan on back in November when I decided on this… Continue reading Fifty Shades of White
"Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain." -- Joseph Campbell Except that Joseph wasn't talking about literal burning; painful, blister-inducing burning. But I promised this story, so here it is. Once upon a time there was a skater. A very sweet, very earnest skater, who wanted so… Continue reading Saturday Sayings: Burning Out the Pain
"For the first couple years that you're making stuff, what you're making isn't so good, OK? It's not that great. It's trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it's not quite that good. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, your taste is still killer." - Ira… Continue reading Saturday Sayings: When It’s OK to Stink
That which we obtain too cheap we esteem too lightly. -- Thomas Paine Ok, I know Thomas Paine was talking about freedom, not figure skating dresses. But bear with me here. One of the hardest things I encountered when starting my business was evolving beyond the strange guilt I felt over charging a fair price… Continue reading Saturday Sayings: Thomas Paine and Charging What We’re Worth
(Title irony intentional, of course) This week I'm celebrating (and by "celebrating" I mean I briefly thought about it when it popped into my head at the grocery store while choosing bananas) the twenty year anniversary of the creation of my first skating dress. This slightly unkind reminder of my own personal aging process brought… Continue reading A Creator’s Evolution
Four months ago, at the constant urging of my husband, I quit a job that was making me angry and resentful and began working instead on trying to dismiss the guilt I've always felt for wanting to do something that a) doesn't require the multiple college degrees I hold, and b) doesn't feel like a… Continue reading Guilty Pleasure to CEO
Leave No Stone Unglued 