Sorry For No Postings Lately

The holiday season is here, I was swamped with orders (that's the plus side). On the negative side I found out PurrTosa is closing. The store has been open only two years, but the finances just aren't working - this economic climate isn't supporting a cat specific store here in the city.

 

So I lose a venue with it too.  It's a shame, the store helped a number of cats find adopted homes, the lady running the store was very nice, and I was hoping she could make a go of it but that's not to be. It'll be closing its doors in January. 

OMG, The Muffs Have Struck A Chord

It's a complete surprise. Apparently muffs are really "in" and leopard print ones especially so.  I had to make 8 more for this last weekend, they were almost out.  I get a call today from the store's owner saying 'we need more leopard print muffs and some black fur ones too'.  In two days they sold 8 muffs????

 

Well, time to do a trip over to Hancock Fabrics for more fake fur, I'm completely out of it here and the local JoAnn Fabric stores are out of leopard print. 

 

Wow.



Last Two Days For Picking Catnip -- Getting My Raw Materials --

We have freezing temps coming on Wednesday, so the last of the catnip crop will be gone at that point.  I was out today for an hour harvesting what I could, and will go back out tomorrow and get what's available again. And that's it for the season!  The 'fat lady' sang.

 

I've also laid in my bulk stuffing too.  Did the stuffing run down to Janesville's Monterey Mills Outlet with a U-Haul rental truck and tried to keep expenses down.  It's 85 cents a mile, 157 mile round trip. Plus $48 in gas - the truck cost was $186.  I got 25 bags of stuffing, which were supposed to be 20 lbs each, but the weight varied, some bags were 17 lbs., only one of them was over 20 lbs. So total weight was 475 lbs. At $1.19 a pound, well, it was an expensive thing to put all on my charge card, but 25 bags will last me two years. 

 

So I'm set now for a while. The bags are a little bigger around than you can circle with your arms and chin high.  They're all stacked nicely out in the garage.  I usually only have an armful inside, or half a bag at most.  It takes up so much room in the living room and I try not to overdo it.  The living room is enough of a production facility as it is!  This isn't house beautiful, we don't do much entertaining as a result.  

Sorry, Slow Postings Lately

I'm in the middle of the Christmas Rush and the very tail end of catnip picking before the snow comes and kills the last of the plants off for the year.

 

Stockpiling catnip all summer has been an on/off thing with the rain, but I think I have enough. I aim to accumulate enough to fill 25 paper ream boxes with the dried leaves/flowers.  I'm at 29 boxes this year and there's still stuff drying in the garage on the tarp that I have to strip off the stems yet. Potentially two more boxes.  Anything else picked will have to dry inside, we've hit freezing temps lately at night.

 

Right now the most in demand item is the catnip mice.  I've got maybe 4 more weeks then orders will die down and things will be back to normal, allowing for some more creativity here.  I have two full rooms of fabric, at some point it needs to get made into things, not be added to every time I pass a fabric store.  There is no truth to the saying 'they who die with the most fabric, wins!', no siree, if you die with rooms full of fabric it just means there's going to be a HUGE rummage sale after the funeral. That or it'll make a funeral pyre you can see for 30 miles.  Ha!

 

I like the unicorn horns I finished up, the flocked texture of the upholstery fabric is very soft and the spiral designs lasered into the fabric look sort of Celtic on the horns.  The yard of fabric made 32 horns about a foot long. I put catnip in each one and I'm sure they'll all go fast at the Renaissance fair.  The store didn't have any more of that fabric so this may be a one shot item.  Sometimes it goes like that.

 

Two things I haven't tried yet but am looking forward to designing are the shrimp pita cat toys and the sushi wraps, which I've made once before but I think I can eliminate one of the steps. The sushi wrap is a black cone with stuff out the one end - sort of like a black ice cream cone but shorter.  Rice, veggies and a curled shrimp (all very small) sewn in on the end makes it a fairly time intensive thing but if I can eliminate one of the steps it would shorten the sewing time down a bit.  Reworking how I made the rice would help too. Last time I did white fleece balls I stuck in and tacked around the edge.  There's a number of other ways to do it though. Just takes a little thinking time. 

Again With The Muffs

The Country Cellar in Sussex opened their Christmas hours today.  I took a bunch of cat toys, small pouch bags, felt ornaments and muffs over.  I didn't get further in than the checkout desk, people standing in line buying stuff ended up buying all three muffs I had and several cat toys right out of my box.  Two ladies asked when I'd bring more muffs in and I told them next Saturday, but I believe I'll take a dozen over to them tomorrow.

Right after dropping things off I drove over to the fabric store, got 4 yards (total) of fabric and batting, and cut out 12 muffs (no waste! Every bit used!) and sewed them this afternoon.  All I have to do is print off the tags, sew those on and they're ready to go. 

Since all the fake fur, fluffy fleece and batting were on sale 50% off the costs per muff run $1.55 each, LOL!  My price is $8 on them. 

So the Leopard and Snow Leopard muffs are gone, the store didn't have that fabric available anymore but I did get Tiger print and a Gray and Black Wolf fur.  Four muffs out of each.