Did I mention these?

I made these Christmasdecorations just prior to the market, and after beading the birdie's eyes with an actual garnet, stuffing them with lavender and putting little brass beads on the whoopy bits (I don't know they're really called, do you?), I thought they were too nice to sell, so I've sent them off to my lovely friend Clare, who is 96, in the UK, as a Christmas gift.

Quite nice, methinks.  Shame about the reflections.  Picnik, where are you now?

Ciao!

You have been warned

OK, Gentle Readers, it's time to get serious.  You know I mostly write this stuff with my tongue stuffed firmly in my cheek - my name isn't really Isabella Golightly (she was my great-grandmother, honest to ghod), I don't really have a fabric addiction (oh yes I do!) and my husband's name isn't really Mr Golightly (it isn't even the same as my name!), but sometimes, serious stuff needs to be discussed.  And this is one of those times, because I've started the sentence with a preposition, so it must be.


I got an email from somebody pretending to be Helen Bainbridge, who has the lovely blog "Baino's Banter".  It was titled "Check out my photos".  I thought it might be from her, because she'd been blogging about her trip to Italy & France, and she knew I was interested in seeing her photos, so I clicked on the link.  I created a user ID, and then, lo and behold, there was nothing from Baino at all.  What did happen was that people in my email address book started getting emails from me (both in my real, actual name, and my Isabella Golightly persona) inviting them to check out my photos.  


I take a lot of photos.  I love photography.  But I don't email every single person in my address book (work colleagues, Etsy suppliers, friends, relatives, you name it) asking them to have a look at them - I'm extremely discerning about who can see what of mine (really mine, not Isabella Golightly's.  She even has a Flickr page!).  So, I did a bit of digging.  Turns out the mob who sent this email are serial spammers who use this insidious method to get into your computer and your address book.

Who are these people? The site is called "fanbox[dot]com". There are lots of pages on the net warning about how insidious these people are - here's a link to 'Can Talk Tech', which will give you some idea of bad these people are. In addition to their completely illegal invasion of your address book, they also use your user ID's and passwords to 'pretend to be you' on other sites. It's phising, pure and simple.

Here's some of the terms and conditions if you do sign up:

“…You agree that your public profile information, including but not limited to your display name, photograph, interests and greeting may be utilized by the community representatives or community technology to encourage other users to communicate with you or to interact with the Service…”

They can pretend to be you so they can spam you via mobile phone, which you are charged for. I also particularly liked this one:

“…you are appointing SMS.ac to be your agent and authorizing SMS.ac to store, in your profile, your usernames and passwords (provided by you) to other web site services (“Other Sites”) and to act on your behalf to access and interact with such Other Sites…”. 

This implies to me that they put some kind of trojan horse on your computer once you sign up, and it records your passwords & user ID's, then they use that info to log onto other sites & pretend to be you.

They can pretend to be you, and the final straw:

“…you, not SMS.ac, are entirely responsible and liable for all activities conducted through your Account…” 

These guys were known as SMS.ac in a previous life. That they had to change company names says a lot about the way they work. So, if you get an email apparently from a friend asking you to check out their photos, talk to the friend first, and open the link at your peril.

That is all. Normal service will resume shortly.

People are...

By turns, nice, weird, rude, amazing, funny, generous, helpful, dismissive... people.

The market was jam packed, and the well-known groovy funky women’s clothing boutique just next door to the beautician had racks of clothes outside, for apparently bargain prices, and let me tell you, Gentle Readers, it was a scrum.  All sense of decorum and propriety was forgotten in the quest for a $25 bargain (details?  women stripping down to their underwear in the street to try things on...).  As we were the first stall immediately beyond the logjam of strollers, frustrated husbands, wailing children and desperately terrified dogs, lots of people just put their heads down and kept going, thrilled to be beyond the ruck, and completely passed us by.

My neighbours, the very worthwhile Clown Doctors, had a secret weapon, which involved free chocolates, cheap Christmas cards and a guessing competition for a 10Kg block of chocolate, which worked quite well on people heading into the scrum, but completely failed on the escapees.

No matter, we both coped, and there were some object lessons for me in having a stall, viz:   

1. Have a price for something you didn’t even consider selling – I could have sold the ‘Bend the Rules’ bunting about 3 times, and hello to the very snippy woman who wanted to know why I didn’t have any made up to sell, and her very nice friend who wanted some for her daughter’s room – mail me! 
2. Make signs for the containers – although it was mostly obvious what things were, nobody bought a badge (but I did give one away, hello Rachel!), perhaps because they couldn’t tell what they were?  Maybe the Ziploc plastic bag packaging threw them off?  Next time I’ll just have them in the box on their luggage tags.
3.  Make more stuff.  I thought I’d be sharing a table with the lovely Kerry, but it turned out she was giving me the whole table – so my stuff looked a little lonely by itself.  I could have sold some of the cinnamon & elderberry bags about 8 times – I think it was the fabrics, because my Christmas special clove-only bags were picked up, sniffed and discarded by about 3 million people (or maybe it only felt like it!), whereas the red, cream & blue ones, and the Momo Wonderland ones pretty much all sold.
4. Don’t feel like you have to justify why things cost what they do – I sold one of the Joel Dewberry birds to a lady who obviously appreciated quality, but a number of people wanted to know why they cost so much more than the ‘two pieces of linen, two buttons, bob’s your uncle’ birds – it was obvious to me, but then... I made them.
5. Ignore the teenagers.  I had a pair of girls go by, one of whom said “those birds are cute”, and the other one trampled all over me by saying “my mum makes that stuff”.  Keep walking, girls.
6. Don’t fall over in the parking lot & sprain your ankle.  It’s very hard to run a market stall with an icepack and towels wrapped around your ankle – and a very big “Thank You” to the charming lady from the Eco Linen stand who came to my rescue with said icepack, and the two wonderful girls who rushed to pick me up out of the dirt.  So undignified.

So, today, Gentle Readers, I am testing a pattern, having my windows cleaned for the first time in two years (how’s that for slovenly, hmm?), catching up with my good friend Doc Rosie who is visiting the lovely Clare, the brains behind Lulu Carter, and resting the ankle.  Oh, and listing the remnants of my Markets expedition in the shop, so if you’re looking for a nice Christmas badge, you’ll know where to come.

Ciao!

Sneak Peek

Well, here's the fruits of our labours - that's me, My Best Friend & the Kidlets.  We stuffed, stitched, punched, cut, knotted, stamped, wrote and argued, mostly about the pricing.  I admit I have no idea how much to charge for things - I always worry that they're overpriced, but then I remember Lois McMaster Bujold in 'A Civil Campaign', where Kareen Koudelka tells Ekaterin "don't undervalue your own work, there's plenty out there who'll do it for you - what they pay for, they'll value".  So, I've gone with more than I would have, say, three months ago, and we shall see.

Fingers crossed!  I will report back on Sunday night, if I'm still alive.


Ciao!

Bend the rules, bunting

So today I had a haircut, had lunch with my good friend & breast cancer survivor KR, where we agreed we never want to go back to the August Institution which employs us both, and I made some 'bend the rules bunting'.  What exactly do I mean by that?  Well, every other bunting I have ever seen has almost religious devotion to a single shape, cut precisely, corners poked out, trimmed off, ironed to within an inch of its life and in some cases, waaaaaaaay over-engineered:

Don't get me wrong, I loved making this for the wedding of Mel and Urby, but it's kind of amazing to think somebody believes they can hold the copyright on rectangles and binding, all stuff which has been around since Adam wore short pants... but I digress.


As part of the fun for Sunday, I made some bunting which was the easiest cheat-y thing I could come up with in a very short space of time - I took 4" & 5" squares, cut some flag/pennant shapes out of my scraps box, made some long skinny strips and used up the leftovers from the binding from this lot of bunting, and pinned it onto this, from Holland Fabric House, and this is the end result:

Quite a different look, isn't it?  Kind of random, kind of messy, kind of funky.  I didn't have to cut anything much except the pennant shapes, and in my spare *snort* time tonight between bouts of stuffing & stitching, I will pink the edges of everything to make sure it doesn't look too tacky.


And now, Gentle Readers, I am off to make Mr Golightly's favourite dinner, which doesn't involve the microwave, bread, baked beans or a raw onion.  


Ciao!

Falling off the wagon

Well, Gentle Readers, that didn't last long, did it now?  Although the eagle-eyed amongst you may see the time and think "what in hell is she doing up at 2.57AM (ESDST)"?  I'm thinking that too.  I'm getting a little tired (absolutely no pun intended) of waking up in the middle of the night, so maybe I need some pharmaceutical help.  Maybe.


Anyhoo, in other parts of the world, I have two lovely new followers, one of whom you may recognise (if, like me, you waste creatively spend time browsing your followers' profile pages and the blogs they follow), the very lovely Felicity, from All Toile and No Reward, and Carolyn, from somewhere in the wilds of NSW (that's New South Wales to you furriners), whose blog is called 'Ordinary World'.  She has the most beautiful banner, all pink hisbicus (hibiscii?  hibiscuses?) and ferns, and each page is graced with a butterfly and more hisbicuists [joke].  Gorgeous.  And of course, like every blog, her world isn't really ordinary, it's special, because it's hers.


In other news, this blog appears to have been found by the [presumably] Chinese spammers, who left a message advertising:

"spy products, self defense products, gsm baton, spy pepper spray, spy gsm phonestun gun, Stun Baton baton, gsm bug for spy" 


on my blog, and a link to something I didn't even go near, all of which I have promptly deleted.  If this keeps up, I'm going to have to introduce comment vetting.  Next thing you know it'll be Nigerians with offers of cash & Russian brides seeking husbands.  I'm tempted to offer up Mr Golightly but I'm pretty sure he'd be sent back PDQ once they find out he can only cook three things, one of which involves baked beans, raw onions, bread and the microwave.

In happier news, work on the market stall produce races ahead, I spent a very happy & productive three hours with My Best Friend yesterday punching holes, tying ribbon, popping items into bags, arguing about prices and even a spot of sewing - I made one of these:

from Joel Dewberry's new book 'Sewn Spaces'... I didn't do the blanket stitch thingy round the outside the wings, and my pattern appeared to be missing half the markings, but the end result was cute enough - but making one of these took me the same time as it took to make two doorstops.  All those curves to pin & carefully sew around, I s'pose, plus the individual-ette wings to be carefully handstitched on.  I promise to post a picture after the market madness is over.


I've also made another christmas tree, this one jumbo size & decorated with bells, going off to a secret destination after the market (ditto on the photo).  And now, I'm tired, which hopefully means I can go back to bed & actually sleep, as I have a busy day tomorrow involving haircuts, lunching, more sewing, more packaging and bunting!  


Ciao!

On the wagon...

Well, Gentle Readers, much excitement for me this weekend - first of all the Treasury thingy (and did ANY of you get the gratuitous Ferengi reference on my beautiful Treasury description, or am I shouting into the wind here with the sci-fi stuff, hmmm?), and now, my lovely Beautician, Kerry, has invited me to put some stuff onto her table at the Newport Market Day, which is being held on Sunday 14th November.  

I have had numerous invitations to do markets, and I have investigated the effort required (huge, no, really) to have a stall at St Ives Heritage Craft Markets, and I'm sad to say I'm pretty much too lazy to do all that humping, lifting & carrying (actually, my back is so bad I get a backache just looking at lifting the groceries out of the car!).  The sewing part is easy, but the thought of having to get a table, tablecloth, tent, chair, float, display thingys, arrange the stock, keep a supply of food & drink, not go to the toilet all day and be jolly and welcoming to all prospective browsers or those who just want to rub their dirty sticky fingers on my beautiful lavender bags, frogs, doorstops etc etc etc, just put me right off.    

So this is ideal, the lazy person's market stall.  Her table will be selling all those products required to keep us looking beautiful, and I will be selling things you don't really need but which make nice souvenirs, or nice christmas gifts, or hostess gifts [question without notice - is that an {shudder} Americanism????] or teacher gifts, at very reasonable prices.  

If you don't have any plans, and it's a nice day (because, let's face it, who wants to go out in the rain???), pop on down & say hello.  We'll be outside Rapport Beauty, on Barrenjoey Road. I'm the tall dumpy one.  

And of course the other reason for me telling you all this useless information (well, let's face it, if you're in Bahrain, like the very lovely Felicity from "All Toile and no Reward", one of my favourite reads, you are not going to wander down to Newport, now are you?) is that I will be trying very very hard not to post any more this week, until I have made the doorstops, Christmas trees, pouches, sets of lavender bags, sets of clove bags, fridge magnets and Christmas badges, and packaged them all up, and priced them, and have something to show you.  So, please come back on Friday, when all will be revealed!


Ciao!