I am not a granny, I am not a granny, I am not...

...even though I made this hand-sewn and hand-embroidered lavender bag.

Because the lavender has been growing like weed.

Because I'm currently spending near all my time on nerdy/design activities. Which means I still have a few 'grandma' credits left before turning into a full-fledged 'doilies, bears and kittens' person. I'm still cool.

But mostly because it was too ridiculously hot and sunny to move and/or concentrate, while I still needed something to do on my day off. Forgive me, for I had nothing better to do. The weather report weaves tales of a continuing heatwave, so more embroidery might follow...

I love this!

Hi there, long time no see! I'd like to ask how you're doing, but since I doubt I'd get a response I'll just start talking on my own again ;). Once again about my design work, since that is basically all I'm doing at the moment. A little boring to the naked eye, but all the more interesting for me ;). I love creating! Love it!

It is a relief to be able to say that, after working on my designs for, well, forever it seems. It's just several months though in real time though. Since about March I started to work on them 'for real', dedicating several days a week to learning the 3D software, brainstorming, more brainstorming, sketching, and trying my hands at creating models for 3D printing. My whole business plan is based on that, you see. Creating actual, physical, usable products to be 3D printed, instead of just the ones in my head. Sellable products instead of imaginary ones. To earn a bit of extra income in the future that would allow me to spend more time on designing. And so on, until I would be able to work on my own products full time, making the transition to mass produced items.

All this time, a thought, hastily pushed away, kept creeping up. What if this turned out to not be what I loved? What if creating physical products on my own was not what kept my heart beating and my blood flowing? Then what?

For years, I've known that I wanted to work independently as a product designer, and later on in my own design studio. It would take a lot of work and would be a mighty difficult road, I've always known, but I felt that it was just as well the only scenario that I really really wanted.

And now, with my first batch of personally designed products in the shop, my second batch of products arrived just today, and my third batch almost finished (hopefully next week), I think it is safe. Safe to say: I love this! Such a relief ;). Because loving what you do is so incredibly important, especially when planning to walk the difficult road. So yeah, I frickin' love this! Whew!

I'm even considering starting a two-year Master course Industrial Design at Delft University (two hour away from my home to boot), because I'm starting to doubt my current (Bachelor) level of knowledge and skill will be enough to deal with mass-production and more complex commercial designs. Yeah, me, who used to say: "never again" after finishing my Bachelor's. That's how much I love this, and how confident I've become about this suiting me. It would require a rather insane schedule since I would want to continue what I'm doing now as well, and I would still need to brush up my skills and knowledge on several fields since it is another University, where the Bachelor education has a different focus than the one I did. But I would start it only after a year anyway, so I'll have some time for that.

Okay, I'll stop ranting now...


Basically everything else I did apart from work lately were exercises and challenges to improve my skills on several fields. Yes, I'm obsessed, I know ;).

I'm nearing the end of my "14 days, 1 shape a day" challenge. It was to train my 3D software modelling skills. Just using taking 15 to 60 minutes a day to create an aesthetically pleasing shape. Creating a good render (virtually created image) of it was originally part of the challenge because it seemed a good opportunity to learn that as well, but I've mysteriously managed to make my virtual camera disappear and have yet to find it back.

For non-3D-software-experts: the camera is an object in the 3D model from which point the virtual item would be 'photographed', but no camera means no point to photograph from and thus no digital image. There you see kids, always remember where you leave your stuff! (Yes, that was a lame joke, sorry for that).

These are the results of day 1 to 4, in screenshots, still awaiting the missing camera.

I also figured learning to create interesting product pictures would be convenient. And fun. So I'm trying to create more interesting settings when photographing by adding props etc. Haven't gotten very far though. The score so far (including the picture on top of this post):

I've gotten a bit farther with my embroidery.

A quick drawing I made while half asleep, it turned out better than expected. I should try that more often, drawing without thinking about everything. Less thinking about doing, more doing. It's just like life, really.

And another drawing. Sigh, drawing fabric is hard...

I'll post the pictures of my second batch of products soon!

Second batch of 3D printed products to be: check

And.... I'm done with the crazy for batch no. 2. Whew. The list of items to design went quickly from twelve to six by eliminating all new rings and improved versions of batch no. 1 for now. They give me too much work since rings need to be designed in different sizes, and wanting to print them in stainless steel makes them a bit on the chunky size due to material design requirements.

And after that the number went down from six to five, to four, to three, to two completed items and two proof of concepts. Ah, deadlines and priority shifts. Luckily I am my own boss in this, so I can just decide I need to spend more time on an item before I want it ordered. No need to waste money. And I'm cheating on my own schedule anyway... I already started working on daily use products instead of just jewelry, while those take up more time because they need to fit into their context of use (apart from just looking pretty, like jewelry).

Next batch will probably be a big one, since I now I already have several items near completion. Now all I need to do is stay on track and DO NOT DIVERGE. One of my more serious challenges, ugh.

Talking about challenges: for creating aesthetically pleasing shapes, I started using a more iterative process. For me, coming up with 'function' is never a problem, but 'form' usually is. I somehow managed to get through my Industrial Design education without gaining much experience in the field of aesthetics, which is a big handicap now as I just don't feel like I'm really having a grasp on the process. J. suggested I use a more iterative process by just making dozens of versions of the same item, all with minor changes, in one file; then pick one or more, and again make several versions. Instead of trying to adapt and perfect one version, which I was doing before. I did, and see:

Man, so much work. But it does progress faster than when I'm just looking at the screen, sighing because I don't know what else to make of it.

Other projects this week: I baked a 'vlaai', a type of local pie from Limburg (in the south of the Netherlands). Because I needed to do some, uh, 'design research'. Yeah, that's what is was. And I liked the taste of that research, sure do.

A leftover egg white was quickly turned into 'kokosmakronen', a sort of coconut macaroons. Jummy.

And whenever I remembered my evening computer curfew, I worked on embroidering this book travel bag. I love me some not having to think in the evenings while keeping my hands busy.

Oh, and I almost forgot to add a photo of my first batch of products! Voila!

With many thanks to J., the resident photographer with his eternal patience with me and his awesome skills with camera's and flashlights ;).

If you want to see the items in more detail, you can take a look at my website!