Aunt Hetty's Golden Thimble

Here's a story for International Women's Day. Instead of the usual sewing lesson, Laurel tells a story about her Aunt Hetty.

We put a little extra effort into this one. Laurel plays her piano in harpsicord mode. The illustrations are from two issues of Godey's Lady's Book, handed down through the family, published in 1858 and 1878.

This short, the previous four, plus the three new ones below, make up our sixteenth episode, which I turned in to PhillyCAM on Friday. The episode will air Wednesday mornings at 9:00 for two months starting April 5.

Sewing shorts

There's a new series of Creating Fashion with Laurel videos on YouTube, each less than ten minutes. These shorter lessons are gathering views faster than our half-hour episodes.

I've been adding cover images, which sets these apart from our previous videos. The next full episodes for PhillyCAM will be compilations of these shorts. More are on the way.

Demo reel update

I've been working on my demo reel. I've added some things and removed some things. The previous version was 1:40. Now it's at 1:14. It's a little snappier. And it looks like this:

Sewing darts

The fifteenth episode of Creating Fashion with Laurel is now online. I posted this brief excerpt on Laurel's Instagram feed:

And this is the full episode on YouTube:

This episode was shot around Laurel's Pfaff 360, her heaviest, noisiest sewing machine. It's located in a corner of the studio that's tricky to shoot in.

My shadow lands on that back wall as I'm wandering around with the second camera. I can use effects to remove it from the wall, but I don't have a solution for when it lands on the host, who is in motion. We'll be working on episode sixteen tomorrow and I'm going in with shadows in mind.

Returning to the theory that online viewers prefer shorter videos, our plan going forward is to shoot quick lessons that will post individually and be strung together to comprise the full half hours for PhillyCAM.

Movie Night flyers

In the later months of 2022 I suddenly had the desire to do a lot of graphic design. I took it out on the flyers for The Plastic Club Movie Night events and this is the result. Click on the images to enlarge.

These were fun to do. I majored in graphic design in college, and while I'm generally applying these skills around the edges of projects, it's nice to occasionally do something that is just graphic design.

This is the new one:

Friend and fellow artist Anders Hansen started the movie night events around 2011 and they've been happening once or twice monthly (aside from a pandemic-related hiatis) ever since.

Thank you videos

Strategia Solutions, the operation in Rockville Maryland that manages Laurel's website, asked that she make a short video testimonial for their website.

She liked the idea and thought of two more helpers who she'd like to thank as well. So I set up the video equipment in her office and we made three thank-you shorts. Here they are in succession:

Laurel is referring to Andre, who repairs her computer, Strategia Solutions who maintain LaurelHoffmann.com, and Scott, owner of the Modern Vac & Sew repair shop in Andorra who was a guest on this episode of our show.

Laurel has also thanked them on this post of her blog.

Fat Jack's

Fat Jack's Comicrypt on 20th and Sansom Street is the oldest running comic book store in Philadelphia. It opened in 1976 and, according to this article in The Philadelphia Inquirer, is struggling to stay in business and desperate for help.

What I like about Fat Jack's is that it's the only comic book store in the area that still maintains a large inventory of back issues. Those back issues are currently on sale for 50% off until the end of January.

There's a GoFundMe page and local cartoonists are helping out at the store on weekends by selling their original artwork to raise funds.

I'll be heading over there for a comics shopping spree.