YAY for me! I reached a nice milestone yesterday in my little sawdust-filled world! I finished cutting out my 72 sets of skaters!
Now I know that may not sound exciting to you all, but it is a great accomplishment for me to have under my belt. It is one of the rare times that I actually PLANNED something and it actually WORKED!
How many times have we planned something out and it looked wonderful in theory only to have life come in and mess everything up for us? I don’t know about you, but for me it has happened more than I care to admit.
Even my partner kind of mocked me when I told him how I was going to do this. He never really said anything, but I could see in his eyes as I was telling him my plan that he was thinking “sure, it’s going to work that way!” He was mighty quiet when I said I was finished and I could tell even he was a bit surprised at how quickly it seemed to go. Score one for the ‘pink cloud!’
Seventy-two sets is a lot even by my standards. Even though they are stack cut, that only makes it slower. And with those tiny skate blades, I had doubts myself if I would be able to pull it off and be accurate. But I thought it through and I planned it out and I did all the prep at once and had everything ready in a box to cut. That way if I had an hour or so I would just grab a piece and go.
By doing these little ‘mini-sessions’ for no more than a couple of hours per day, it kept me fresh and focused and the job didn’t overwhelm me. Even if I wasn’t quite in the mood for cutting, I would put on some good music and cut for an album or two and make a good sized dent in the pile. At least I felt like I accomplished something.
Before long, the pile was down to nearly nothing and I could see the finish line. In a matter of less than a week, I have reached my goal.
So here is what a box of 72 sets looks like:
It doesn’t look like much, does it? When it is all sitting in that little box with all those skate blades and legs looking back at me it is hard to believe that there are that many in there. But they are. And they are accurate as can be and I am proud to send them off to be sold and painted. So I am taking my little moment of glory here and basking in my accomplishment.
:D
There. That is out of my system now. On to other things.
Today’s focus will be on the next segment of the class. I want to get that posted by later tonight if possible. I want people to actually be able to cut this weekend and do some practice. I am probably going to post two lessons close to each other, because I want one to be “Applying the Pattern” and I feel that it needs to stand on its own. I do this so that down the line, when people are looking back on the class or just want to know how to put the pattern on, they won’t have to wade through a lot of other stuff to find the information.
I think for the bulk of the class, I will be posting short and focused segments for this reason. Those of you who know me know that I like to be organized. I want everything to flow in a way so that people can pick and choose each chapter they want to learn and it can be a stand alone lesson on that technique. That will make it easier and more fun for people to follow.
I really am trying to present this stuff in the best possible way. There is so much information I am thinking I want to share, that sometimes even I get a bit overwhelmed. But once we are really rolling, I think we will do fine.
I also finished my son’s logo for his company yesterday. That was a fun project to do and it was nice to be able to help him. I received word from him this morning that for the most part he liked it and he tweaked a couple of things to suit his own taste. I know he and his wife had a vision of what they were aiming for with it and I was happy that I came even close to it and was able to do this for him. At one point in my life, I had thoughts of doing graphic designing for a living. I love working with computers and graphics and find it challenging and fun. But with designing as I do, I get to have the best of both worlds – computers and woodworking – and you all know I never get bored. (Oh, and there is always painting!)
So I will keep this short today so I can get to finishing up my next lesson. Thanks for letting me gloat for a bit. I just had to let out a little Ya-HOO! and do my happy dance here. After all, it is fun to share the victories!
Have a great day!