A Long Absence & Neko Case

It's been a really long time since I posted anything…It's been a crazy two months. Here's a (somewhat) brief recap of the past couple of months:

DesignerCon ended up being a total bust for me. I didn't even break even…I think it just wasn't the right audience for my stuff.

This year, my shop got slammed pretty hard on Black Friday – Cyber Monday weekend. In previous years, I typically get 5 orders (at most) during that weekend. But this year, I received around 30 orders from that weekend alone…and orders just kept rolling in after that. I wasn't prepared at all for something like that to happen, but it was definitely a HUGE learning experience. For a brief moment in time, I felt what it's like to be a high volume shop and it was crazy & wonderful. But it made preparing for Renegade Craft Fair very difficult; I really only had a couple of days to make inventory for both the LA and SF show. 

It was our first time doing the Renegade Craft Fair LA Holiday Market. In previous years, we did Unique LA instead simply because it was indoors. Overall, I did OK. It was definitely one of my worst holiday shows ever, but I think it was because of the weather and low inventory. It was in the 70 – 80s that weekend which made selling knits very difficult. You know it must be hot when Front Porch Pops is selling out of popsicles!

I just got back from Renegade SF on Tuesday morning. The drive back down to LA totally sucked. I was stuck in really bad traffic for the first two hours of the drive…and this was after spending 30 minutes of driving around Berkeley trying to find the freeway entrance. By the time we got back to LA, my contacts were really dry and stuck to my eyeballs. But once again, Renegade SF was awesome. It was a little slower this year compared to last year, but it was still a really good show. I think the lower turnout was due to the dates being too close to Christmas, so a lot of people were out of town or were already done with their holiday shopping.

I've been doing so much knitting for the past 3 weeks, it's not even funny. So far, I've knitted over 40 hats! (and I still have around 20 more to complete) This is the most amount of hats I have ever knitted in my life and the fact that this is just 3 weeks of work blows my mind. 

In that time, I've watched a lot of bad movies because I can't watch anything that requires me to be engaged when I knit. I've also been listening to a whole lot of music…I finally got around to listening to Neko Case's most recent album, The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You. This album totally wins the "Best Longest Album Title EVER" award in my book, but it's also an amazing album. I'm almost willing to say it's my favorite album from her. I constantly have this album on repeat; my favorite track being "Calling Cards". I think it's my favorite album right now because it hits me right in the heart and Neko Case just has this powerful voice that really resonates.

I should really catch up on some rest before tackling the next back of hats. Until next time, Merry Christmas everyone! And enjoy this Tiny Desk Concert featuring Neko Case.

Hello August!

I've been spending the past few days relaxing since returning from San Francisco. This was our first time doing summer shows and it's definitely a different pace compared to winter. Doing back-to-back Renegade shows was definitely tiring. But when it was all over, we treated ourselves to lots of great food. Here's a few of my favorite things consumed on my trip.

Pastrami Sandwich from Tartine

Lavender Honey + Mint Chip Ice Cream from Bi-Rite

Potato Puffs from Gregoire

Now that the summer shows are over, I have about five months to get ready for Holiday. I'm starting on some new projects this month; one of which is Discontinued Youth. I'm trying to take this time to focus more on my illustration work so I can properly launch my other shop.

Memories of New York

I was in New York briefly about 3 weeks ago. With all the craziness that followed once I was back home, I didn't get a chance to do a recap of my trip. I had an amazing time, but I didn't come back to LA feeling like I want to move to NY. But if there's one thing I miss, it's all the buildings.

Instagram Obsession

On Tuesday, the ever-popular iPhone app FINALLY released its Android counterpart for the rest of us. For a while there, I thought it wasn't going to see the light of day until long after I switched to the iPhone (June). But the great peeps at Instagram hulled ass and got it done. And with the business of school and unnecessary preoccupation with Instagram, I failed to deliver a Wednesday Want. But in return, here's a few of my faves from the last 3 days via Instagram.

Week in Retrospect: Childhood Lost

ice cream cone abandoned in a parking lot

I was born in El Monte, roughly 20 minutes east of Downtown Los Angeles (when there isn't traffic!) and lived resided there for the first 22 years of my life. Every week we would go to Thrifty (long before it became Rite-Aid) for hand-packed pints of ice cream. It was just a few streets down from our house and I used to love the novelty of their cylindrical ice cream scoops. The favorites in our household were butter pecan and pineapple coconut, although my personal favorite back then was mint chip. Thrifty's ice cream isn't the best in the world but it's good for the price. The factory was just about 5 miles from our house, so we had a bit of pride in supporting a local business…especially since it was the only thing to be proud of in El Monte. I miss those days.

Five weeks have passed since I started my final semester of my undergraduate career. And it's starting to really hit me right about…NOW. Soon enough, I'll have to start worrying about the real responsibilities of growing up: constantly having an income, what my job means to me, putting a roof over my head, working out relationships (with family, friends, and significant others) around work schedules…But on the other hand, I'm ready to get back to a life that I've missed. I want to go back to having time to read and to enjoy the hobbies I've abandoned because there's never enough time. I want to spend time with the people who really matter and let them know I haven't forgotten about them.

This is all coming very quickly. I've spent most of the week listening to what would've been on my mixtapes back in the mid-90s. At one point, I felt like I was blasting the Lilith Fair lineup…minus Sarah MacLachlan. I've come to realize just how much I love Natalie Merchant's Tigerlily; I could just listen to it for days!

Now with just ten weeks left of the semester, there just never seems to be enough time to get everything done. There's nothing left to do but to suck it up and just get to it…and get through it.