Springtime In The Rockies: Rabbit-based Decorations

jazz hands!

I've been focusing on trying to use up my rather... let's say "thorough"... stash of craft supplies. I've already completed a few rather intense sewing projects (not shown) with my cotton print fabrics, but what I feel compelled to share here are a couple of seasonal decorations I pulled together entirely from various supplies stashes over the St. Patrick's Day weekend.

First, Easter T-rex dares you to hunt Easter eggs.

Second, weird pile of bits arranged in a bleached & dyed bottle brush tree sprouting out of a rabbit head mug.

Third, I repaired this yarn doll rabbit that Betty roughed up once in a fit of separation anxiety... within hours of my finishing making it. Now that Betty has left this mortal coil, I guess it is safe to bring back Mr. E. Rabbit.

Before the "accident":

What was left:

Post surgery:

I added a hat to cover the sprung eyeball situation.

I couldn't face making new polymer clay eggs, then painting them. So one row of felt grass and one large egg from a box of wee bits & bobs I scored at the 50-mile Garage Sale last year.

With the doe rabbit the inspired the project in the first place, made my my grandmother.

Finally, this super cool jackalope ornament that was a birthday gift from one of my besties over at Fizzy Party!

He fits right in with the faux chocolate jackalope I made last year and Dale, our resident jackalope, but he doesn't fit quite right on the cabinet handle. I'm still on the search for just the right spot.

The Trials of Solomon Parker - Back in Butte

The World Tour of Montana for The Trials of Solomon Parker wrapped up this weekend in Butte!

First stop: Books & Books an great independent bookstore run.

Eric signed all of their copies and personalized those they sold on Saturday. He's classy like that.

"Hey, look at that." Eric Scott Fischl

Nest stop: Headframe Spirits right around the corner.

It got realllllly crowded in there. Turns out it was Homecoming weekend at Montana Tech.

Sold some books, chatted with some folks, consumed some superior cocktails.
"You can't get this in Iceland." Tara Fields

We got in on a quick distillery tour and ran into our old pal, Bigfoot!

I made mini cupcakes with Headframe's Neversweat Bourbon Whiskey in copper papers, of course.

We stayed and the formerly grand Hotel Finlen which was grand enough for a one-night stay, but... PRO TIP: Do not visit Butte on Homecoming weekend, because the carousing in the streets was really loud and pretty much all night long.

Lots of copper and if my eye is correct, it's Modern Masters Metallic Paint, Copper.

Old school

By the time we were done with this, most of the downtown retailers were closed, so we hit Pekin Noodle Parlour, the oldest continually-operated Chinese Restaurant in the US. It was an experience not to be missed, but the food can be missed. Ahem.

Of course, Butte is ripe for puns and jokes...

It was a quick trip; we head home on Sunday morning so we could attend the annual Barter Party of our awesome friends. I made gin again, took some sewn things, and Eric had books! We got alllll kinds of great stuff and had a great time. I only wish we hadn't been so exhausted from not sleeping at all.

The Trials of Solomon Parker - Getting Crafty

I'm having a hard time finding the enthusiasm to put together that promised post on our experience with the Lolo Peak Fire, but I will get to it. In all likelihood.

IN THE MEANTIME, here's what's been going on around here in regards to Eric's second novel's release earlier this month*: fan crafting!**

The Trials of Solomon Parker has a cyclical plot, rotating between Butte, Montana during the copper wars years, and Stevensville, Montana around 1900. So this year, I got the bug to participate in Stevensville's annual Scarecrow Festival (Oct 6-7) with a TToSP-themed scarecrow!

On Saturday, Oct 7, Eric set up at the Blacksmith Brewing Co. tasting room to talk with folks and hopefully sell some books, which he did.

This was the perfect opportunity to play the awesome book trailer his friend, Patrick of Afflux Films, made:

And of course, this kind of event inspired me to make another book display piece, this time a miniature mine car.

One thing I noticed about the set up at the Blacksmith Brewery tasting room is that it was kind of hard to tell exactly what was going on with that-guy-sitting-there-with-some-books-in-front-of-him. This is especially the case once friends started showing up and visiting. I decided a little backdrop would help make it obvious that Eric was there with a purpose other than drinking and that this could be useful for other only-semi-official-events.

I looked at a few tutorials online for the frame, made size adjustments, then assembled a portable stand out of 3/4" PVC. There are about a bazillion blogs posting the same process, even calling it the same thing, so I won't go into it here. You can search "10 minute, $10 photo backdrop" to find it, but let me tell you two things: you won't get all the materials for $10 unless you find some kind of smoking deal and it will take more than 10 minutes just to clean the writing off the pipe (if you are so inclined) and of course more than 10 minutes to go buy it all. ;) Nonetheless, it is a quick and inexpensive way to make a backdrop stand that could have plenty of uses for plenty of folks. I expect we'll use it for Eric's future books' events as well as for Halloween decorating, etc.

For The Trials of Solomon Parker backdrop, I used the same techniques I used to make the Dr Potter's Medicine Show banner:

• Pre-washed & cut fabric to fit, hemmed sides, sewed rod pockets at top and bottom
• Printed out an image to fit my opaque projector, 
• Traced that onto cloth using opaque projector, 
• Hand-painted where I'd drawn the projected image with acrylic paint mixed with fabric medium

HELP!
You know what really, truly, helps authors and is super easy? Rating their books on Amazon and/or GoodReads. If you think The Trials of Solomon Parker is worth 4 or 5 stars, please follow one or both of those links and click the stars! It truly only takes a few minutes, less if you already have a GoodReads account. No matter where you bought your copy, you can leave stars on Amazon.


* October 3 in US and Canada. 5 October in UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India.
** No kidding.

Dr Potter's Medicine Show - Book Tour and More!

Holy cats! What a ride! The DPMS World Tour (of the Pacific Northwest) 2017 has to be considered a success.

FIRST STOP: PORTLAND, OR

Monday, Feb 6, Powell's on Hawthorne. In Conversation with Wendy Wagner.

Thank you Old Hometown Crowd for coming out on a gloomy Monday, dragging your friends along, and for contributing to Powell's SELLING OUT of Dr Potter's Medicine Show! We were told that this "never happens at these kind of readings," so that's super cool! We were also told that they ordered more, so get in there to get one if you haven't already!

Tuesday, Feb 7, Taqueria Nueve. Taco Tuesday

Mostly family plus a few close buds. Delicious!

Wednesday, Feb 8, Casa Fischl-Williams. Family dinner and general shenanigans. Too busy being present to get photos. Eric made beef burgundy, I came down with what has to be a flu.


SECOND STOP: SEATTLE, WA

We decided to hit a few of the Barnes & Noble stores near the interstate on our way up to sign books. Well, I didn't sign them, Eric did. I took photos.

The Vancouver, WA location

And in Olympia, WA, too!

Then after dinner, but before catching a Lyft to the reading, Eric signed a copy at Elliot Bay Book Company in Seattle, too! They've only got one, so get in there and buy it!

Thursday, Feb 9, University Books.

photo by Adam Rakunas

THANK YOU to the Adam Rakunas family for putting us up and showing us around! Cake pops, Taco Thursday, basement bar beers! A cozy and comfortable night's sleep to boot. I am truly sorry that I brought the creeping crudge into your home.


THIRD STOP: SPOKANE, WA

We woke up to news that Snoqualmie Pass on I-90 was open to eastbound traffic, so we jumped on that! We must've saved 6 hours of driving which made all the difference to morale at this point in the tour. I was unabashedly sick by then and we were both tired from all the fun and all the driving.

Friday, Feb 10, Auntie's Books.

Saturday, Feb 11, drove home from Spokane. I slept most of the way and then slept most of the afternoon at home on the sofa. Flu in full effect. Eric started getting symptoms and we both went to bed early and slept late. Lots of dog cuddles and kisses!

Sunday, Feb 12 - Tuesday, Feb 14, regular life + fighting this virus.

FOURTH STOP: MISSOULA, MT

Wednesday, Feb 15, Fact & Fiction.

Could Bigfoot be Eric Scott Fischl's first groupie? I think he was at every reading on the tour!

Thank you to the New Hometown Crowd for coming out on a dreary school night! I think Eric may have hit the low point in his cold on this very night, but he handled it like a champ. Or at least a seasoned veteran of book tours.

During the tour, DPMS got a few more mentions around the internet:

An interview with The Quillery blog.

We met Jay in Spokane through Adam in Seattle. It's really neat how these author-types connect to and support each other! Jay is doing a vlog/day and we both think he's crazy, but look! Eric's in one!

Eric's first ever spoken interview also happens to be W.A.R.G. - The Guild's first ever podcast! What could go wrong?

Dr Potter's Medicine Show COSPLAY

Obviously, I have shared and shared (and yeah, bragged a bit) of the fun things I've gotten to make as my little contribution to helping promote Eric's book. The biggest thing I made was A SUIT! Like a three-piece suit, you guys! I bought a McCall's pattern, lots of fabric, and spent a good 60-70 hours on this and I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. THANKFULLY, Eric was pretty much model size on this, because one thing I am not is a tailor and I have almost no alteration or fitting skills.

Hey look! Bare ground! This was taken when our moms were here for Thanksgiving... before the snow!

Eric has been a terribly good sport about modeling.

The unaltered, real deal!

Admittedly, I'm a bit obsessive about documenting the details of projects (as I am sure people who follow along have noticed) so here are some detail shot of the suit minus the pesky model. Ahem. I made the jacket, pants, and vest. We bought the shirt (H&M), braces (suspenderstore.com), hat (Goodwill at Halloween), shoes (TJ Maxx), and Eric had the socks and walking stick (a 40th birthday gift) already.

These shell buttons came from the 4 or 5 generation button box and might well be from the 1870s! I did have to find new clips for the back.

We got so lucky to find an inexpensive white shirt with the appropriate style collar! It would've been much more costly to make it and taken just that much more time. Suspenders are elastic and less "authentic" than most of the other pieces, but the cost difference easily justified the compromise. And I couldn't have made them for less, either.

Vent and button detail on the back of the jacket.

This jacket is made from about 50 pieces of fabric and interfacing. What with the pockets, lining, etc. it really added up. Oh, and it has 12 or 13 buttons, too!

Wooden buttons purchased online from MJTrim.com.

Special thanks to our neighbors and friends who turned out in the cold & snow to make this photo shoot even possible and all the work of making all the things come to a pretty great end! We certainly could not have pulled it off with out Neighbor Bob's fantastic Western town, knowledge, props, and photography skills! Not to mention everyone who showed up with costumes, props and with GREAT and generous-of-spirit attitudes! And for Coworker Randi's time and skills turning digital photos into daguerreotypes! Without all of them, the suit wouldn't have mattered one bit.