End of February post

One of my resolutions for 2013 was to do end of month posts about what I accomplished in the past month.
Well this post is a few days late, as my family has been sick the past week, and I am sick as I type this. but at least I am out of bed and DRINKING MY TEA!

February started off with the results of the pattern poll.
1st and second pace corsets
3rd place dragon
4th place Girls Regency dress
5th place Child's Medieval gowns

I also wrote posts covering pattern envelopes Front on historical clothing, front on craft, and pattern envelope backs. I still have a few more posts on this subject in the works.

Then I took some personal time and made a Valentine for the love of my life I also made three scaled down versions (to provide more family friendly photos) and listed those in my etsy shop, thus fulfilling my 1 new etsy item a month goal.

Yes I did fall off the blog once a week goal, partly due to the sickness in the house, but more due to the fact that I am in desperate NEED of rearranging our living spaces! I spent several hours measuring the rooms and the furniture in them, putting those measurements into CAD and moving things around virtually. We have a plan, and some things have already been changed. I will have some personal sewing to do for this too, and am likely to share it here.

Dinah and her mate. The first two dragons I ever designed. The look after each other, just like my husband and I have been taking care of each other while being sick.

I didn't get to working on any of the proposed patterns I polled you on, mainly because I REALLY need to organize my space. This is daunting to me, on top of the normal everyday running of my family.

So what I WILL be doing in March is this:
Moving around my computer and sewing space, maybe It will even be clean enough to share pictures with you? Hopefully this doesn't take all month, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did.
More blog posts on pattern designing are already in the works.
And I have a couple of free patterns and tutorials I am working on as well.

And the Bronze goes to…

Dragon Pattern

The Dragon pattern received more votes than I expected and a for a while in the beginning was in the Lead! In the end it had 16% of the votes, showing that there is clearly an interest in it, even though it is not a costume pattern. This warms my heart as a few people who are interested in costumes, suggested that there would be little interest in the dragons and dolls. So while it is clear that the corsets are the bigger draw, Dragon are cool too!

Dragonlet was my first ever attempt at writing a pattern, and thus is 90% ready to be produced. I just want to clean up the pattern a bit as I have learned how to use CAD since I made that pattern. I will also need to make a new dragon, as the first Dragons; Magnus and Crystal are now several years old and have faded, as they have always had an honored place in my home, being one of the last things to pack up and close to the first to unpack! So it may very well be the first pattern released, as I expect the corset patterns will take a lot more time in drafting, grading and testing!

So you haven't seen the last of them!

This means that the Corset patterns are in First and Second Place, Which one will win?

One week left on the poll

There is just 8 days left to vote on the poll.
For a while there, it was a 3 way tie, and not in a way I expected! then I posted to some Live Journal Communities and that all changed.
As of this posting, there have been 20 votes.

Not much of a sample size, if you ask me.

So I ask you again to Share this post and comment if you feel like it. Why did you vote for that one? Tell me what your second choice was. Tell me which one you are least interested in and why.

On the Left is one of my Antique Skeleton Corsets. I own 2 and they are so different that the published pattern will include both styles.

On the Right is my 1810 Corset en X, I entered it into Foundations Revealed's 2012 contest and placed. You can read more on it here. The pattern will be multi sized and have at least 2 variations.

On the Left is my Regency Era Girls dress, it has a flat fron, like the inspirational period dresses I talked about here, and I hope to round out the dress into a complete outfit.

On the Right is my Medieval Child's Era Gown. it comes in both boys and girls styles. I really need to share more about this garment, I just need to dig up more of the pictures. Here is some of the inspiration.

Last of course is my Dragon Pattern. 26" long, wired and magnificent. This pattern is not a toy for children, but I have other ones that are suitable for children.

Thanks to all those who voted, and thanks to those who comment, thanks also if you shared this link!

Introducing a POLL!

In my attempts to find the balance in my life, I have decided I need a good clear goal and a path to achieving it. I also need to be held accountable to someone. I think what I need is to do a month end post on the current project pattern, so which pattern should be first?

So here is the Poll, which you should be able to see at the upper left of this page. If you can’t see it, comment!

Which pattern should I FOCUS on first? It may not end up being the first one released, but it will be the one I focus on and blog about creating. All will probably become patterns in time, so don't fret if your first choice is not the one that comes out on top.

The Poll is now CLOSED you may see the results here 

Feel free to share this post, the wider audience the more variety of votes, the clearer the picture will be for me.

The Skeleton Corsets

Needs contact Met again, and the two patterns are SO different, it is more like 2 different corsets, not one in 2 sizes.


The 1810 Corset en X

Needs museum contacts, and grading, then testing. Read more here.

Regency girls outfit.

I have the basic pattern and instructions for the dress, I need to add the under and outer layers.
Read more about the inspiration here

Childs “Medieval” outfit

Refinement of pattern and instructions, additional layers added then off to testing

Dragon pattern.

CAD the pattern and make a new one, photos and testing.

Once again, the Poll should be in the upper left of my blog, and is open until January 31st, 2013. if for some reason you can not vote in the poll, comment! I will tally them all up at the end and anounce the scores on February 2nd.

Please SHARE this post to anyone you think would have an interest in these future patterns.

The Poll is now CLOSED you may see the results here

Etsy Monday November 19th Beaded Dragon

It has been some time since I did an Etsy Monday since I am celebrating my Birthmonth by running a month long special. 50% off by using the code

BIRTHDAYMONTH

Today is a new listing.

Meet DragonBert
Now on my etsy shop.
He stands on his own at about 1 3/4" tall. Green beads and green wire make up his figure.


He goes very nicely with the beaded fairy.

Sketchbook Friday Meet Girlfriend Dragon

Meet Girlfriend Dragon

So named by one of my young sons when I first drew her.
She is the logo for Corsetra Designs.
Why a Dragon in a Corset? Well she covers two of the largest aspects of our pattern offerings.
A Refresher image for you.

Corsetra Designs will be offering patterns in several different categories:
1. Corsets taken off of original Antiques and my own drafts.
2. Clothing of my own drafts, and taken off Antiques
3. Cloth Dolls and Dragons
4. Other Miscellaneous Crafts. (am don't feel like limiting myself)

Thus being a Dragon in a Corset she melds most of these aspects together and symbolizes what I want to produce as patterns.

Why not just stick to one of those aspects?
Honestly how many people limit them self to just ONE craft? So many crafts work well with other ones, and indeed, sometimes require other skills, that most, if not all of us actually do more than one craft all the time.
I like making dolls, and clothing for dolls. Many times I make an outfit I would LOVE to wear but can’t for any number of reasons in doll scale just so that I can make it.

Back to Girlfriend Dragon
Here is what the original hand drawing looked like when I scanned it in. Whoops, I ran out of page for all of her!

I also drew this image at the same times, but quickly decided that it wasn't a good representation of what I wanted to do for my pattern line.

I have actually made a dragon similar to the image some years ago, though I STILL have not made her a corset!

Meet Countessa Dragonessa Drackona of Dragonia
She is 19" tall and was made for a challenge on a yahoo group back in 2005. The challenge was to ONLY use the color purple, no other color, not even black or white.

The line from Disney's classic Sword in the Stone "Did I say no purple dragons" kept following me around. one night soon after the challenge was announced I was drawing and a lady dragon popped out of the page. So after some fabric shopping, I drafted up a pattern. and then let it sit. I procrastinated so long that I actually sewed her up in only 3 days, not bad. She placed second in the Public voting, and 6th over all (there were several layers of judging.)

She should get a corset at some time in the future, I think I even made a pattern for an edwardian one for her. It is porbably in the file with her original pattern. She also deserves to have her mate Count Drako Drackona of Dragonia made up for her, he is to be green.
Her eyes are made out of glass pebbles, which were painted on the back. Which you can see adds a realistic look to her when photographed.

Today I am going to play around with Spoonflower and try to get my logo made up so that I can recover my Child size dressform

Another Dragon Bag and copyright thoughts

Here is the second Dragon bag all finished up.

But it is not going on my etsy shop.

I made a mistake, and selling this one would be infringing on copyright, so instead it is being gifted to my friend and fellow dragon lover K in Canada.
My mistake was in the choice of dragon design. Both this and the last dragon were stencils I made from books for a previous gift project. 
This dragon design is from of Dragon Wings and Faerie Things by Jillian Sawyer Amazon Link
Before I finished I double checked the copyright in the book, and then on the website.
On Jillian's website is a clear declaration of Copyright.

So the point of this story is to always check the copyright before you make something for sale!

And it also brings me to think about what type of copyright I will put on my patterns? should I allow sales from my patterns? Should the sales be limited?

Questions I will have to answer before my patterns hit the printers, and I will be sure to tell you of my decision in a blog post to come.

The Celtic knot was also a stencil I made for the same gift project that the dragon stencils were made for. I am actually surprised these stencils were in the house when so much of my sewing and craft supplies are still in the storage unit from my move months ago.

In the mean time, more pictures of the Dragon bag. I outlined this one in couched metallic embroidery floss, just to be different from the last one I did.

The face came out a bit sad looking, but still nice.

Etsy Monday New Item Dragon Bag

It's Monday, so here is the weekly Etsy post.

Unlike last weeks Etsy Special (which is good until the 17th) this weeks is a new item, just finished and listed.

I spent this weekend working on This Dragon Bag. It felt good to be outside in the sunshine painting my favorite creature.

Aren't they sweet?

This bag started out as a pillowcase, but our pillows were always too long, so they never got much use. I  had seen on Pinterest that you could easily turn them into a bag, so that is just what I did! I tossed them in for a good washing and then cut them into bags. Later I will show exactly how I did that as I have more bags to finish up.

This Hand Painted and Embroidered Dragon Bag (which folds into itself for storage) can be found at my etsy store for $15!

Revisiting old patterns

In the past month I have been going through a phase of reducing possessions. Part of this includes setting up my Etsy shop to sell them. One of the things I hope to always have in my store is my Dragonlet pattern I made the original pattern back in 2004, before Etsy existed. At that time I was not ready to sell the pattern to anyone other than friends in my local doll group. I was not ready to start a business, but I hoped to eventually. Since then I have carried the unsold copies of the patterns as I moved. I rediscovered them and decided that Etsy was the format to help me sell them. I am down to my last paper copy to sell.
When the last paper copy has sold, I hope to have an e-pattern available, so I have been redoing the pattern.
Originally the pattern was hand drawn, then I scanned it into the computer and went over the hand drawn lines in a photo editing software. It took a lot of time, but I felt it was a better looking pattern for it.
Since then I have learned how to use a CAD program called Rhino and now I am going over the pattern again, this time in CAD. I am actually surprised at how good the pattern is, I am not having to clean up much, lines are matching up and pieces that are supposed to be symmetrical, are turning out to be just that.
This makes me happy! The pattern will now be better, clearer, and I can alter it with greater ease.

Make the best pattern you can, then learn how to do better. A good patter is worth updating.