Sunday, May 12, 2013

WorldCon and Other News

So, first things first: upcoming show announcements!

The big one is that I'm going home to Texas for WorldCon (LoneStarCon 3) in August/September! I'm seriously looking forward to this one.  It's in San Antonio, and the convention center and hotels are on the Riverwalk, which is below street level, heavily shaded, and generally pretty nice, even in the blast-furnace temperatures of late summer in Central Texas.  The show runs Aug. 29-Sept. 2, and I'll have my usual assortment of jewelry, buttons, findings, and art. Afterward I'll be heading up to Austin for a couple of weeks to hang with friends and talk to shops. The Artfire and Etsy shops will definitely be closed from 8/27-9/2. Depending on what sort of printing/mailing facilites I have while I'm in Austin, I may open them back up on 9/3, but only with the stock I have left after WorldCon. I won't be home and able to make more stuff to restock until 9/15 or so.

October 5th-6th will see me back in Washington at the Northwest Bead Society's Bead Bazaar Up in Everett, at the Comcast Arena. I will be focusing on buttons, cabochons, and other findings at this show.

If you just can't wait that long to see me, are in the Seattle area, and are brave of heart (or kinky of mind), I'll also be at the CSPC Vendor Fair, coming up on June 1st. At this event, I'll have mostly claws and some jewelry.

So with housekeeping out of the way, you might be wondering what I've been up to for the last month or so. Well, first there was Norwescon, which went reasonably well, but not so much as I'd hoped.  The folks from Biohazard were quite pleased with the pieces I had ready for them.

Also, at Norwescon, I added a new product to my offerings:



Yep, I'm now offering my enamels as award medals!  There are a lot of interesting possibilities to explore here.

After that was my annual spring studio re-org/remodel. It was a proper remodel this time, with a bunch of cabinets being added, shelves moving around, and finding room for design and photography functions, but still, I only expected the studio to be down for week or two.  Unfortunately, I had to make an unplanned move of living quarters at the same time, so everything ended up taking longer than expected. The studio just got back to full functionality last week.

Here, have some in-progress pics:

This is what the new enamel station looked like when I was still putting in cabinets and shelves and moving things around:


This is the enameling corner a little further along, with the built-in drawer finished and all the cabinets in place:



and this is the new design/assembly/photography desk. The shelves behind are much more full now that I'm done moving stuff in.

And that's pretty much been my entire April and May!