Traveling, Adulting and Inspiration

     A week and a half ago I ordered a whole bunch of Sparkle Rays ribbon after seeing Maire's stash. Finding 1/16" ribbon is a bit of a challenge so any time I have a new brand name it makes the search just a bit easier. From this photo array I am starting to think I might like the color pink. Maybe. 

     I did not get to jump into playing with my new ribbon right away, but I did finally get to use the new super fine point glue bottles I picked up. Also inspired by my visit with Maire. Once you get the consistency of the glue just right it makes absolutely perfect, narrow lines and leaves you with basically no glue clean-up. I used a second bottle for my Jewel It glue. Now I can apply the jewel glue right to the doll and it comes out perfectly. For years I have been dabbing it on with tweezers. This will save me a lot of glue and potentially make applying bling faster and easier. I love finding ways to be efficient. 

     This purple doll was a custom order. The customer wanted a similar doll to the blue doll I made for the Breyerfest sale. While gathering materials to make this doll I realized that purple is not an easy color to come by these days. I already had the glitter purple but I didn't have any patterned purple fabric. So I went to Joann's and found very little. This was one though and I really liked it. I guess though I should start buying up purple fabric if I happened to see it. I know it is the favorite color of a lot of people but it is sort of hard to come by.

      Yesterday I was chatting with Fabian and he offered to send me his sewing machine. How do I have such amazing people in my life? How did I get so lucky? Anyway, I told him I can't even imagine the cost to ship a sewing machine and I should just take mine in for a tune-up because that is probably all it needs. I mentioned I had not done it because I HATE calling people I don't know so I had not called the place to check costs and so on. He said he would call for me, just give him the number. OK, I needed to adult at that point so I looked the place up, called, told them what I was having for issues and was told it is likely a thread tension issues (yes, I know that) which will most likely be fixed with a tune-up. I also learned cool things about my machine, which is self lubricating. Apparently they will just continue to lubricate themselves the more you use them. Who knew? I have no idea how it works. The lady on the phone said that you do need to use them though or they will freeze up. I told her what I do and that I use the machine at least once a week but it is several (many) years old and has never been serviced. Anyway, adulting happened and I can bring the machine in for service tomorrow. I also called my Mom to see if I could come and use hers if I absolutely had to. That was a yes. So now I have relief. And maybe soon will have less battles with my sewing machine. That will also make working more efficient. 
     In a bit Travis and I are off to New Jersey for a pony play date with Jackie. I am really excited, I can't even remember the last time I saw her. The Internet makes everyone a bit closer, but there is no substitute for sitting face to face with your friends. So we'll go and hang out and I very likely will find more inspiration to work. Traveling is not super easy for me, I LOVE seeing people and new places are fun, but familiar is great. I could really do the same thing almost all the time and be content. Sadly, that same thing is often binge watching shows. I have been trying to get out more and go more places and do new things. New York and New Jersey are in the same direction and use a lot of the same highways, so I have gotten pretty used to traveling on I-95. They conveniently have a whole bunch of rest stops along both sides. But I have now been to Long Island, Brooklynn and spent time in NYC because my GPS is weird. So today I am going to aim for the Tappan Zee bridge and see if I can force the GPS to cooperate. It's good to try new things. I should probably wake Travis up or we will never be ready to go.