Styx (Woland and Moon)

So I was fortunate enough to have Styx (Woland and Moon) heart my Etsy shop recently, which brought my attention to this incredible Etsy store that makes shoes! If there is one thing I am more passionate about than purses, it's shoes. The only problem I have with their shop is that I don't know which shoes I like better! They are all enormously unique and beautifully made. It is a goal of mine to someday come out with a Pursecution line of shoes (Shoesecution?) and I hope I can maintain such a display of artistic craftsmanship as Styx has.
To read more about Styx/Woland and Moon, go to Desiree's Shoe Blog or check out their Etsy shop at wolandandmoon.etsy.com.

Magdalene, the story behind the beautiful bag...

I was recently asked to make a 'Magdalene' shoulder bag again, which was fantastic because it rekindled the love I have for this beautiful bag and the story behind it. I figured I'd share the story with any readers I have too:D This is not a story about the Magdalene you may think, it is about insane asylums from the early 20th century. As quoted from Wikipedia... "Magdalene Asylums were institutions for so-called fallen women, most of them operated by different orders of the Roman Catholic Church. In most asylums, the inmates were required to undertake hard physical labour such as laundry work. In Ireland, such asylums were known as Magdalene Laundries. It has been estimated that 30,000 women were admitted during the 150-year history of these institutions, often against their will. The last Magdalene Asylum in Ireland closed on September 25th, 1996."
To read more of this fascinating time in the not so distant past, please go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalen_Asylum.
This bag to me represents the repression that women were subjected to in these often male dominated years, the buckles like that of a straight jacket (not that women had to wear these in Magdalene Asylums, but you get the point). I often wonder how a woman like myself may have been regarded in historic times, as like American asylums of the same period, it was often a good way to hide the out spoken females in a mans life. I'm pretty sure I would have seen the inside of one of these places....

How The Magic Happens...

I have a lot of favorite things in the world: my kids, my husband, my dogs, 2 of my cats.... but these are two of my favorite things when it comes to my profession. My machines. I have gone through a number of sewing machines since I started making purses, from my beautiful Pfaff Creative 7570, which was incredible up until I decided I wanted to work with leather, to my New Home machine, which I inherited from a good friends Mom, to my current antiquities that will not relent when it comes to my material of choice. Hell, if given half the chance they would plow through my fingers. The machine I am using most often is an 'International'. This machine has been really hard to find out any information about. I got it for $14 at Unique Thrift Store with no manual or accessories, but it is a monster when it comes to leather. On the top it says "Sewing Machine Sales Corp." in the same script as the 'International' label on the front, but you can tell they are put on separately. I know that Singer made generic machines other companies could buy and put their names on, but I have not been able to locate anything about this one, including the age of it. My new machine, er, new to me at least, is a White Family Rotary machine made in 1912. It is pretty enough to put on display as an art piece if you ask me, but that would be wasting such a brilliant machine. I got it from a woman on Craigslist for a mere $40 and it came with all the accessories! Two boxes full! I ordered a photo copy of the manual, which has cleared up a lot of confusion about so many of the accessories it came with. I could have sworn one of them was to help build a robot, but it turns out it gathers material. Anywho, these are but a couple of my machines I use now. I have 6 machines so far, the oldest is the 1912 White Rotary, the newest is the Pfaff Creative 7570 (side note, if you haven't used a Pfaff before, go out and try one, the 'top feed' is pretty much the best thing ever to come along in sewing technology). To my husbands dismay, I have not finished my search for the perfect machine, and even have dreams of getting a post bed machine or a cylinder arm machine, but I think those will be a lot further down the line, like when I sell enough purses to pay for one.... I should mention I am open to donations too.... (For legal purposes I should say I'm just kidding about that part..kind of).

Dreams Can Come True....

I never knew (up until my gal pal, Joj, bought me a gift certificate for my birthday) that all my sock dreams could come true in one place! I have searched up and down for unique and cool socks, and here I find out that they are all available under one virtual roof. www.sockdreams.com. Not only do they have a spectacular selection, but they are inexpensive on top of it!!! Even better, I ordered my killer crocheted tights on a Saturday and received them in the mail on the following Tuesday morning, and shipping was free! Does it get any better? I think not.... From arm warmers to leg warmers, ankle socks to incredibly long socks designed to scrunch down, this site has it all. Now do yourself a favor, go check out Sock Dreams and decorate those cute legs of yours.

My Creative/Crazy Kiddos....

Let me tell you how great it was listening to this song being blasted over and over during the making of their music video. Well worth it though, these are a couple of hilariously creative girls.

And The Award Goes To.....

So I would like to enter one of my lovely little bags into 'The Independent Handbag Designer Awards' through www.handbagdesigner101.com, but I am not sure which bag to enter. This is where anyone reading my blog can assist. I will be entering the 'Best Handmade Handbag' category, the deadline is April 15th, 2009. "With prizes like a new SINGER CURVY sewing machine and being featured on the SINGER website where the winning designer will also share a handbag pattern from his/her collection for the Best Handmade Handbag and a booth with full marketing and promotion (over ,000 value) at WWDMAGIC for the Best Overall Handbag in Style and Design, the 2009 Independent Handbag Designer Awards has truly become the most prolific accessory industry event of its kind." Sounds exciting huh? So, I need you to vote on which bag you think will not only represent my style, but show that not only do I pay attention to the current trends in the industry, but I also create my own (well, I try at least;)

Online Surveys & Market Research

"One Day in the Life of.." only took one day!

Recently it seems that I can not read enough. I have switched my tv time to reading time and in the last couple of weeks gone through three books. Either that's a lot of tv time I used to waste, or I read fast. I like to think it's the latter, but I don't know how true that is. "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" is the most recent book I read, and it only took my day off to get all the way through it! The book is only about 140 pages, not including the introduction, forward and afterward, which I recommend reading as well. There is a lot of interesting information about the author, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and about the times in Russia under Stalins rule. As the title suggests, the whole book from beginning to end covers only one day of a mans life, his days just happen to be spent in the Gulag, Russian labor camps in Siberia. Ivan Denisovich Shukhov was sentenced to 10 years after being accused of being a spy (this came from a brief encapturement by the Germans which arroused suspicions of the Russians). Ivan is not a hero, he is not a villain, he does not speak out, he barely even has opinions. He gets through his days by being the prisoner that blends in. He stays relatively unharmed this way, and out of the solitary confinement cells, which break men daily. The book is a fairly easy read and really got my imagination into the camp, the prisoners and how horrible it must have been for them. Not because of the beatings or the abuse of power, but because of the basic injustice of it all. Solzhenitsyn does such a fantastic job of describing what we would consider mundane details, but after reading the book you realize that the mundane is all the prisoners have and it's what the authorities strive to take away. I hope you pick up the book and enjoy it as much as I did (less than $6 from Barnes and Noble).