新东西- New Stuff - Crickets & Compasses

Here I am in my second week of self employment, and only now do I have a chance to check in! It's been a real process of adjustment, getting used to the new flow of time and trying to reorganize my space without spending a ton of money. Things are finally settling down, and I've got some new introductions to make!

Emblem of Courage

I've been working on this new design for a while - I had the idea a few weeks ago to pair a screened image of a hand-written letter in Chinese with some sort of symbol. I took the letter of introduction we received about Zhang Lin during the process of coming to sponsor her education and made it ready for burning a Gocco screen. Then I spend quite some time toying with which symbol to overlay. Too busy and it would fight with the Chinese characters. Too simple, I could end up with something meaningless. Finally I settled on the cricket, a beloved little beast in Chinese culture and a symbol of courage. Courage seemed like a perfect match for Zhang Lin, who has been through so much in her young life.

Last night I did the printing, both on moleskines, cards, and tags. They came out so well! I'm excited about posting them in my shop as well as using these cards in my Bamboo Village correspondence. Whether or not this story means anything to you, I hope the design will stand on its own as a beautiful print.


Ancient Compass

During the process of developing the cricket design, I was suddenly inspired with another design idea which ended up being a quick and successful print. I launched the Ancient Compass Moleskine last week and have met with great success and attention. Every time I list one, they generate more traffic than any other item in my shop. These are a great gift for guys - evidenced by the fact that every one that's sold has been purchased by men! Very exciting!

The design is a modified photograph of a fengshui luopan (风水罗盘） - a compass used in hard core feng shui consultations for determining energy flow in physical space.


More Cozy for the Coffee

Finally, I whipped up a couple more french press coffee cozies (one and two). These pretties have been warmly received in the shop since I made up the pattern last month, so I've got one on the needles just about all the time now.

December is turning out to be my best month ever, for more reasons than just Bamboo Village Press. I'm so excited to be fully engaged in this new endeavor, and can't wait to get more work done on the Educational Fund! Coming soon, we've got a new guest artist, and I will finally be able to do some writing about life in rural Sichuan, China.

mid-week

As everyone knows, I don't usually do mid-week posts. But I'm trying to be more communicative about the ole BV, so here we are!

First, in personal WIPs, we've made some progress on my current knitting project, the 103-1 Drops Jacket. May I say again how dearly I love this yarn??? Goodness gracious me, it is so soft, it just exudes the spirit of comfort, into my fingers, hands and then straight to my heart (where I need it these days!). Who knew a mere fiber could produce such wonderous effect? Why, every knitter on the planet who has worked with yarns other than acrylic and novelty yarn, of course! But this alpaca is special. I will say that Misti Alpaca is just as good. Bulky weight alpaca wonderfulness. ::sigh::


So, yeah. I've made some progress! I am done both sleeves! I settled after quite some back and forth on a size large, and I'm sure I won't regret it. It's going to be the embodiment of cozy, and this fabric has a lot of drape, but I wouldn't have been happy if it pulled at the top button. So there you have it. I'm one happy knitter.

In other excitements and acquisitions, I have some new books in my collection! I'm looking forward to some quiet time because I think they're going to be pretty inspiring.

Here's one: China: People, Place, Culture, History - it's a gorgeous coffee table book I've been eyeing at B&N, but saved a bundle on by buying online! It's typical DK Publishing style, with lots of terrific graphics. I'm looking for lots of inspiring ideas for design in this one.



The other one I got is The Chinese Calligraphy Bible. It's a nice spiral-bound number with lots of great ideas for mugs & other etched goods for BV Press.

That's all I've got, besides a steaming cup of Sleepytime tea ready for late night sippin'!