Introducing Dorchester Designs, and Sewing Project Updates....

Remember last week when got all introspective about having been at my job for a year and disliking it so much?  Well, I really did a lot of thinking, and I decided that I was going to try to built myself a little sewing business on the side.  For now it's just going to be something small, where hopefully, I can get a few custom orders and alterations to keep me busy. 

I came up with a business plan for myself (kinda).  The first step was to make business cards.  Hubs and I got out the computer, came up with a name for the business and ordered the cards.  They came in yesterday:

Hire Me!

What do you think?  I think they came out super cute and I'm really excited to pass them out.  Oh, and yes, I did black out my phone number.  If you are interested, email me.  I just didn't want the whole Internet to have my cell number. You understand I'm sure :)

Step number two is send out a few samples of my work, to whet people's palettes.  I emailed a few of my facebook friends, and Anne (who is my lonely only regular commenter) asking them if I made them something (free of course) and they liked it, would they merciless advertise me.  I got overwhelming yes responses.

The first sample project I'm working on is for a friend from high school that has a small, adorable daughter.  I decided to make her a fabric dollhouse like the one here:

http://uklassinus.blogspot.com/2008/08/fabric-dollhouse-tutorial.html

It's a project that I found in my "One Yard Wonders" book, but that is also at the website UKLassinUS.blogspot.com.  It's really a super easy, super adorable little toy.

I cut out a few pieces on Tuesday night, but then had to stop because I didn't have any plastic canvas or batting (for the house pieces).  Hubs went to Windsor Button in town yesterday for me during work and got the canvas and the batting.  I gave him a list and he just passed it to the sales lady saying "I need this, but I have no idea what it is".  What a good Hubby right?

Since I had the plastic canvas and the batting last night I was able to continue.  I cut out and covered the house pieces.  I secured the batting with packing tape.  I had started doing it with hand stitches, but it was just taking too long.....so, the tape came out.  When finished they looked like this:

I know, definitely not pretty, but it's going to be covered.....sooooo whatever.

Then I started on the fun part, embellishing the exterior of the house.  The directions said to do this with felt after the house was put together, but I vetoed that idea.  I wanted to applique real fabric onto material for decorations.  Currently, I have everything cut and pinned out that I want on the front and back of the house.   I just need to secure it with zig zag stitches on the sewing machine tonight.  I was way too lazy to take out my sewing machine last night.

It's a little hard to picture right now, but the front of the house has a window (with curtains), a red door, and roses.  I'm going to add in the window panes with embroidery floss once everything is stitched in.  The back of the house has a tree with swing (again, going to use floss to make the rope on the swing) and a dog house.  The tree and the dog house were Hubs ideas.  He was super proud of himself for them.  I'm considering putting a puppy somewhere, but maybe I'll do that around one of the other sides. 

That's what I have so far.  What do you think?  Can you picture it?