Little Updates

1.) I got a part-time job working overnight doing stock replenishment for a beauty supply store here in town. My first night was last night and it was a breeze. I love having something to constantly do where my mind is totally focused on the task at hand; it's like meditation for me. Plus, I'm already accustomed to the schedule. It may only be a seasonal position, I'm not entirely sure, but I'm happy to have it. Hopefully they see my work ethic and ability to learn quickly and decide to keep me on permanently. (I've had to remind myself that even if you are competent, have common sense, and are skillful most people will still treat the "new girl" like an idiot until she's proven herself to them which unfortunately you have to do at any new work environment no matter your level of position or authority. It's a reality that I accept.)

2.) The sock knitting loom is a trial of patience.
It took me two hours to get just this far because of the tedium of pulling the loops over the small pegs. The fabric I've knitted so far bare extends the height of the loom. I do think that knitting looms are ideal for folks who have never knitted before and are just learning concept so they can be very useful. However, after two hours I think I I would have had a finished or nearly finished sock using traditional knitting technique of knitting in the round with four needles. I've decided to test this theory out and continue to finish the sock on the loom and then create its twin using traditional knitting needles. I'll post my results later. Sadly, this means no sock loom knitted Christmas gifts for anyone this year.

3.) I've slowed down a lot.
For the past year I've been going quite hard with getting Thorn & Laurel up and running. I realized that though I loved this new endeavor it was wearing me out. I have a book that is really helpful in deepening my understanding of the emotional and psychological part of starting a business (lots and lots of ups and downs). It's titled Birthing the Elephant, The woman's go-for-it! guide to overcoming the big challenges of launching a business by Karin Abarbanel and Bruce Freeman and I recommend anyone even thinking of becoming an entrepreneur to read it woman or otherwise. I've gone back over the pages and assured myself that it's okay to take a breather before I head into the next phase of the business. Giving myself a chance to recharge my batteries and regain focus I think will really help. Of course I have lists and lists of new ideas and my original business plan to serve as my road map, but one person can only do so much before she has to sit down for a minute. Doing so has helped me balance my stress, expectations, and time better. I'm looking quite positively towards the future.

4.) Wedding Project
I'm making stellar progress on the project I told you about here. I would ordinarily post pictures but since we don't want the groom accidentally seeing the bride in her gown before the wedding day I'll have to wait, but I will show you some muslins that I've done up in a later post. It's so exciting!

I hope everyone has had a beautiful past few weeks and if you've celebrated Thanksgiving this past weekend I hope it was a happy and safe one.

Until next time,

claire lynette

MS. RITA: Working to Fund My Dream

My old friend Boo always knew how to cheer me up | Taken Jan. 2010

I had a feeling that the store might not do so well in the beginning. I didn't think it'd be going this poorly but I had a contingency plan in place if it came to be. Now it is time to put that plan to action and I've started searching for a part time job this week. Hopefully I find something with flexible hours or ideally night time hours so that I can still have time to work on bringing my store to where I'd like it to be. Just searching through the want ads is more than enough of a reminder to me of how much I want to work for myself. There are so many vague postings and so many scams it's a bit overwhelming. Especially since I don't live in a town where my degree would be useful to anyone except another retailer I find myself stuck in the very same place I was five years ago when I moved home. The idea of leaving again crossed my mind but for right now my place is here until I can be more established and financially stable again.

I'm okay with taking a job outside of my field of study. I've done it for the last four years and it's not so bad until that stifled feeling creeps up as it always does when you aren't doing the thing you are meant to do. This time though I want to stay closer to my roots if I can. And while I work for someone else I'll still pursue ways to bring income in on my own. Not just through the store but through other ventures such as writing books and developing sewing classes.

To be completely honest with you I'm so very tired. The insomnia is better but emotionally I'm drained. So many other things, not just the store, aren't going the way I thought they would or would have liked them to. Many times I feel as if there is no one I can talk to and that people have very little concern for where I am or how I'm feeling because they "know that I'll be all right". While they are most likely right and I do agree that eventually I'll be just fine, it still feels very lonely to be the only one who seems to care. Still, I press on. The best thing for me to do when I'm feeling like this is to create something. The project I'm working on for my friend's wedding is a much welcome distraction. It will help me to focus on something other than how miserable I've been lately and how alone I feel. Creating something that can put a smile on her face is so important to me and I want to make sure it's just right.

Until next time,

claire lynette

Window Shopping: I Need Glasses

top to bottom: M&D 8875 | Editor Oscar | Sergio

I've long needed to wear my glasses. I don't because I break them, forget them places, and they make the tops of my ear itch. My driver's license renewal is coming up and I'm required to wear my glasses while I drive even though my vision isn't that bad but according to my DMV it's not good enough to go without lenses. I have a pair but the prescription is wrong and was wrong when I got them. Sometimes doctor's don't listen very well and when they don't listen you end up with blurry lenses. I'm looking to get new lenses and those above are the frames I'm considering putting them in. I picked them from the website of the place I'll most likely go to get a new pair. I wish I could afford to have prescription lenses in a variety of different frames but my pocketbook isn't full like that so I have to choose just one. Or I can do the rational thing and find (of course they're lost at the moment) and keep the frames I have now, which I like, and save some dimes.

Which do you like best? Let me know in the comments!

Until next time,

claire lynette

New Project on the Horizon

Over the weekend a dear friend called me with a fashion emergency. This emergency wasn't like any other though as it had to do with what she was going to wear for her wedding day so I was more excited to help than I usually am (and I'm usually pretty damn excited anytime someone thinks to ask me my opinion). She's having a winter wedding which is in just over a month and has everything set: the dress, the bouquet, the hair, etc... except for something to keep her warm. She realized she wanted a shawl/shrug/bolero of some sort to wear that would be elegant and go well with her gown. So she went searching for one thinking it'd be an easy fix and was met with a lot of disappointment: the wrong color, the wrong size, or if ordered it'd arrive too late to be useful. In a moment of either great genius or desperation she called me and asked if I could make one for her. Ordinarily when people ask or allude to me making them something my answer is "no". Point blank and period. I find little satisfaction in sewing for other people because usually the effort it takes to create it goes under-appreciated and/or it's a headache making something to someone's ever changing specifications. Not fit issues mind you but suddenly changing the color or top stitching of a thing. This time my answer was different. I gave her a resolute, "Yes, absolutely!" because

      1.)I've been wanting to do something for her for her wedding but didn't know what

      2.) She has impeccable taste and knows exactly what she wants so in the 11th hour she won't suddenly change her mind about color or design details;

      3.)She would appreciate it so much (it's for her wedding for crying out loud!) and knowing that would keep me at ease while I put it together and inspire me to put forth my very best through the end.

Most likely what we come up with won't be an original design. I don't have the time really and I wouldn't want to give her anything that was half-cocked. But there are lots of lovely patterns out there that I'm sure I can adapt to make what she's thinking of come true. I'll be chronicling the progress of its creation here. Right now I'm waiting on pictures from her to get an idea of what she's looking for and searching the internet for inspiration. To the left are photos I've found so far that set the mood for where I think this project will go. I'm so excited and I hope that I'll be able to take away one less thing for her to stress about leading up to her big day.

Source: 1 |  2  | 3

Until next time,

claire lynette

A Little Makeover

Style Method  is now Truly Claire

you can still access the site using the old address: http://clairelynette-stylemethod.blogspot.com or

use http://www.trulyclaire.com

Like the new blog design? I hope you do! Designing it took very little time at all; however implementing it on Blogger's fickle platform and fiddling with Internet Explorer's odd and unnecessary parameters provided more than a few headaches. There are still some issues with browser resizing but most screens should view it just fine and on all (as far as I know) modern browsers.

BEFORE

FIRST MOCK UP DESIGN

I illustrated the layout in Inkscape and put everything together over a period of two weeks. (Shout out to W3Schools and Web Designer Wall for their tutorials.) It shouldn't have taken more than a day to create the markup, but I learned after several days frustration and lost edits that Blogger's HTML editor doesn't like to save changes in Firefox so I had to switch to Internet Explorer; and Blogger templates (at least the one I modified) use Internet Explorer display parameters from version 7 of the browser which won't display any HTML5 markup thus making the page thoroughly unusable. I figured this out just yesterday and made an easy change.

There are few other changes I plan to make for later but they aren't integral to the layout of the site and I decided I could take my time coding them so I can get them just right for use on the Blogger platform. You may also notice in the markup I have links for Facebook and YouTube...those are coming soon. Yes a YouTube Channel! Exciting!

Let me know what you think of the makeover in the comments!

Until next time,

claire lynette

MS RITA: Disappointment and the Recovering Perfectionist

I didn't want to have two Ms Rita posts back to back, nor did I want to have two hair style posts so close to one another which served as part of a sad reason why I hadn't posted in two weeks. The real reason is during my favorite month of October I'd been stumbling over one disappointment after another in both my professional and private lives and all together I've slipped into a kind of mild depression. Or as my father would call it a case of the blues. If only I was skilled enough to wail away about my troubles while I strum a Gibson ES-355 in a smokey nightclub. Oh Lucille.

Perfectionism reared it's ugly head again and I realized I was setting up arbitrary and unnecessary goals for myself. My inflexibility for some things is sometimes overwhelming and at times disabling so when I'm trying to overcome my rigid tendencies and then these things happen:

Professionally:

1.) A license that I applied for according to instructions given to me from the powers that be still hasn't come in. This license is required for me to run my business and it if I'm found to be operating without it I can be charged with a misdemeanor and a fine which I can ill afford to pay. The fact that the application fee was deposited but the application lost boiled my blood. After finding out they sent the wrong application for me to submit, sending in a new one, waiting nearly a month for something that should have been completed in 7-10 business days; several phone calls and e-mails later I received word that they might process the application next week. I received this news this past Friday. Nothing is more disappointing than doing everything by the book and still being screwed. Nothing. As I have made no sales this month (another disappointment) I'm not worried about visiting the nearest cell block, however it's lead to the next problem.

2.) My saved funds are disappearing at an alarming rate and it's unsettling not having any revenue coming into justify the costs and the time put in so far. The fact that a simple piece of paper that I don't have yet is keeping me from reversing this problem just compounds my frustration.

3.) The recent government shut down was responsible for throwing off plans for a photoshoot because a scouted location was taken of the table thanks to being a part of the National Park Service. I had no idea it was national park. Still I opted to regroup and attempt to do the shoot anyway, perhaps in studio, but yet another obstacle reared it's ugly head (see point 2 above) and I canceled it completely.

4.) The fall lines for affordable clothing are pitiful in my opinion and I've had a hard time picking what to carry in the shop. I'm well aware that my emotions brought on by everything I've mentioned so far are probably clouding my ability to make decisions. I hate admitting it, but it's the truth. That and I hate providing what I feel are sub-par products. It's a vicious catch-22. In the mean time I've narrowed the list down to a few viable styles and with all determination will be placing orders at the end of the week. I have faith that my local government will get its act together and I'll have my license to operate in my hands soon. It's a gamble though I believe a reasonable one.

and Personally:

1.) I won't go into much detail here but the essence of it can be summed up in Track 9 on Adele's 21. I laughed when I heard it because before I was feeling more like Track 9 on Lily Allen's It's Not Me It's You. Since I heal through music I've been avoiding these tracks after I first heard them this past week. Especially the one from Ms. Adele. She plucks those heartstrings like a master.

2.) Insomnia is happening. I've never had it before. As a matter of fact I am writing this after waking up after having gone to bed about four hours ago. This has been the program that has gotten steadily worse this month. When I do sleep I'm met with either disturbing, unsettling, and/or nightmarish dreams. I rarely wake up rested. This could be due to a new medication I'm taking meant to regulate issues with my thyroid. Though I believe stress and anxiety has a lot to do with it too. Breathing exercises usually help get me back to sleep but only after a few hours wakefulness. This can't go on much longer if I still want to be a functioning human being.

3.) I'm still mourning the loss of a person I thought was a friend. They aren't dead so it's not that type of loss but I'm nevertheless going through all the stages of grief. I was betrayed and manipulated by this person who was very close to me. They used to be a big part of my life and now they are out. I don't miss them so much as I miss the fondness of the memories I had with them. Now that all of those memories are tainted after learning of their betrayal I'm left with a bitter taste. I forgave them but they can never be in my life again. I've never had this happen before so I'm learning how to deal. It probably means that I'll have an easier time letting people go should this happen again but unfortunately that also means it will be harder for me to hold on to those people in the first place. I'll work on that because it's not how I want to be. Everyone deserves a chance and that means that sometimes you get stomped on.

...all of it makes me want to hide in a hole and give up but...

In spite of all the this and becoming less productive in some areas of my life I've managed to still get a lot done in other ways. I've started exercising regularly again which always helps me feel better and I hope helps with the insomnia, I've learned how to use Spotify and have discovered some great artists and songs from others I've long admired I've never heard before, I've done a lot of coding for this blog and have learned some new things in the process, I've gotten better at cornrows where I actually feel okay with going out in public with them, and I've developed a new shopping program for Thorn & Laurel which I hope to start soon (waiting on that license).

Even though now I'm feeling blue I have joy. That may be difficult for some folks to understand but for me it makes perfect sense. I may not be happy but there is a lot in my life that is right. I know if I focus on that it makes things easier and will help bring me out of my funk. I cried a lot of tears in October and have had a lot of sleepless nights but it will get better. It always does.

Until next time,

claire lynette

Little Surprises

I'm such a lucky lady. My mother surprised me with my very own sock knitting loom! I hadn't realized how much I had talked about making my own socks, legwarmers, and mittens but apparently it was quite a lot that this is what first came to mind when she was looking for a little present. I haven't been doing all that well this month, which I'll elaborate on in a later post, so this was my mom's way of bringing me a little cheer. If I can get the hang of it I know what everyone will be getting for Christmas this year!

We'll be going on a little trip together to select sock yarn that I can use to practice. I hope I can share my creations with you! If it doesn't work out forget this post was ever written because I'll never mention it again.

Wishing you a Happy and Safe Hallowmas!

claire lynette