Happy April! It's warming up, everything is blooming, and the markets are crazy busy all of a sudden. It's so exciting to see a crowd every week.. and a little exhausting. Last week I brought a felt project to work on and never even got a chance to pick it up! A very good problem to have. There's been a Lot of very good problems in my life lately. I'm selling out of stuff! That's so exciting! I'm going to be spending most of today, and probably next week too, just making new prints. And I'm so caught up in my personal projects, having so much fun, that it's suddenly a real struggle to make enough time for everything I want to do.

It was really fun to make. And I'm really looking forward to the challenge of making the logs line up with the glass properly, clip through that dome, so the wood grain is visible where they cut up against the glass.

It's based on a sketch from one of my middle school sketchbooks, a fancy lady in a huge ballgown captioned, in all bold underlined caps, "i WILL make this." I'm sure I meant an actual dress, cosplay style, but I'm pretty content to settle for a luxurious doll. My partner 3d printed the doll parts and I assembled and colored them. I'm also hand making the whole outfit- the corset, the skirts, the hoops. Using embroidery thread and my tiniest crochet hook to make the lace trimming, hand stitching tiny gathers to puff out the skirts. I spent a good hour this morning, when I should've been working, stringing up tiny golden beads to bedazzle the yellow underskirt with. I also started this long before I understood how to use the buttonhole attachment on my sewing machine, so those tiny eyelets are all hand-done, meticulously, which is a big reason why this project has gone back into storage so many times.

She still needs a blouse and hair and shoes and a face, but she's come along a ton in the last couple months. At this point I'm mostly looking for excuses to add in more beads and lace and embroidery. Making her opulent and luxurious feels like a real tender gift to my younger self. I like to fill my life with things that my younger self would have enjoyed, would have been happy to know were in their future. It feels like a worthy gift for a child who deserved an easier time. And it makes me a lot more excited for growing older, to know that even as my tastes change, my future self will still have enough respect for the Me of today that I can look forward to the life they'll be living.

Let me know if you'd like a more detailed breakdown of her dress once it's closer to finished! I think it'd be fun, if there's interest.

My schedule- I'll be at the Saturday Market every Saturday this month, except for the 20th, which I intend to dedicate to Making Art and also spending time with my partner (it's our anniversary that weekend! We'll have been together for 5 whole years! I'm so excited!)

There's some new stuff up in my shop as of the 20th of last month- my big spring update. Give that a look if you haven't already.

Thanks for reading!