The Faultless Pajama Foundry

We're starting to catch up on our severe backlog of items -- I took the opportunity afforded by my laptop being mostly out of commission to spend all weekend photographing. The first of what will no doubt be many updates is now live: 12 necklaces and 12 pairs of earrings, all visible on the front page of the Faultless Pajama Foundry.

I'm going to try to hold myself to "list items at least once a week", too! I MEAN IT THIS TIME.

chalk one up earrings
Iolite, blue sky jasper, czech fire-polished glass, blackstone

So this morning I was going through our listings because Etsy has pulled this absolute crap with their search algorithms and words in the title now count for something like ten times the weight of materials in the, you know, materials tags so you now have to put all your ingredients in the title of the listing or else it won't show up in the search results, thanks so much Etsy. I was working from the back of the listings, and when I got to this one, I had to stop and think, oh, wow, those are awesome -- oh wait, I made them. Right. (I do this a lot. My horrible memory means that I am never bored.)

True fact: the iolite beads on the top and bottom of the earrings were so tiny, and so thinly drilled, that I cracked something like a dozen of them trying to open them up enough to fit the eyepin. If we named earrings by what I was muttering when I made them, these would be the Goddamn It Not Another Fucking Broken One earrings. *g*

imperial egg stitch markers
new jade (serpentine), green line jasper, red tiger eye

so, my loyal pajama-ites, i have a confession to make, one that will not surprise many of you in the least: i kind of totally adore new jade. i don't care if it's not really jade. i don't care if it's actually something like 20 different varieties of stone and therefore it's hard to know what people mean when they say it. I don't care if it's easily mistaken for other stones. I just adore it, especially the sea-green and the mottled new jade versions.

I did not think this would be a surprise to any of you.

I love it most for the way it feels when you touch it: cool long after your body heat should be warming it, smooth and satiny. It's like your thumb slides straight over it. I have been known to keep larger new jade coins as worry stones next to my desk, so of course when I was thinking of which gemstones I should make stitch markers out of, it was the first thought.

We updated the shop today with 20+ new sets of stitch markers, and this is one of the new batches! Although this collection is only half of the stitch markers we have to list -- Sarah ran out of oompfh while photographing, before we had to get on the road for the holidays -- you can pretty clearly see that the batch divides into two main conceits: a) pretty glass beads and b) over-the-top luxurious gemstone beads. There's also a collection of smaller markers, for those of us who are more sock-and-lace based and prefer their stitch markers smaller.

There will be more updates over the next few weeks -- hopefully we will be able to catch up with the backlog that started when Sarah was working part-time for a while and I had one hand out of commission!

Reminder: code THANKSGIVING11 will be valid for 20% off on your order until Sunday night.

little black necklace
freshwater pearls, black agate, silver plated brass

This is totally the necklace that goes with the little black dress.

green ladder earrings
glass beads, silver plated toggle clasp components
(faultless pajama guest star item)

( Read more... )

If you're a beader or a polyclay bead maker too, and want some of the toggles, let me know; we have approximately four tons of the damn things and would be happy to hand them over!

A reminder, we will be exhibiting today at the Trinity Fall Festival in downtown Towson. Drop in and see us; mention this newsletter for a discount of $5 additional off any purchase of $50 or more, in addition to the $5 off each additional item purchased after the first item.

geologic ages necklace
red tiger eye (heated), black obsidian (natural), chevron amethyst (natural), silkstone (natural)

( Read more... )
And as a side note, the bowl it was photographed in, up there, was one of my dad's. He'd been giving Sarah a tour of the workshop, and she picked up that bowl, which he'd finished a week or so before, and could not stop touching it; it has that nice silken feel that really good wood gets when it's been lovingly hand-turned and hand-finished. She only reluctantly parted with it, and when she opened one of her larger packages at Christmas, she was delighted to find it there. Keep an eye out for the listing of some of the bowls in Dad's shop in these upcoming weeks: Stephen Paolucci's Wood Artistry.

Meanwhile, Sarah and I have spent the last two weeks frantically making up stuff for the Trinity Fall Festival. The festival is in downtown Towson this coming Saturday, from 10am to 4pm, and we'll be there with bells on, testing out some of our ideas about display and presentation in the hopes of doing future craft shows. If you're local, come and see us! The festival is free, and if you mention this blog, we'll give you $5 off any purchase of $50 or more.