More About All This Later

So a whole lot has happened since our last post on Sept. 6th. Here’s a quick run down:

1) Went on vacation!! It ROCKED as always. Fishing and family, sun and sea, car breaking down and getting fixed…we all had a wonderful time and I’m sure we’ll be talking more about this soon. Here’s a few pics for your interest:

 

2) Came back just in time for Art in Autumn, an annual art fair/festival held in Weaverville, NC and right in front of our workplace. I’m normally on vacation when this happens, so this was the first year I attended. Granted I only had a little over an hour (between the time they started and I had to work) but it was enough time to scoop up some lovelies for some early Christmas presents…oh ok, and two things for myself 😉 I had a blast, saw some amazing works of art (snagged some business cards, too!) and was super envious of the professionalism of everyone’s displays. More on this later as well.

3) This one’s sad. One of our co-workers was killed in a car accident. I, honestly, don’t really know what to say about this. Danielle and I worked together for three years, which in the service industry is pretty much forever. She was the one who gave me my application when I applied and the only server left from when I first started. She left behind a husband and a four (about to be five) year old son. Here’s a link to the news story about Danielle, definitely check it out. Our owner, Matt Danford, is amazing. He’s matching 100% of donations for her family as well as donating 100% of our revenue on the 17th. Jessi, my wonderful sister, is donating all her profits for the month of October from her etsy shop. I’ll be writing more about this later as well.

4) Sam was promoted! I don’t want to steal his thunder so I’ll let him tell you about this one. Not sure when, as there was an increase in hours, but I’m sure things will be calming down soon.

5) I got my sewing machine! With everything going on, it actually sat in the living room for about a week and a half before I got to use it. Broke the old girl in yesterday and am loving it! I swear, this machine might be the beginning of Terminators. It is so smart!! I received a request for a messenger bag on etsy, so started testing the pattern yesterday. It’s coming along quite nicely, if I do say so myself…which I do. 😉

There’s been a lot going on over here in Samland, even joked with my parents the other day that we needed another vacation! With all of this, there’s been a lot of thinking happening in my head. There will, of course, be ‘more about this later’ but I can say that the blog will be hearing from me more. I feel like I’ve been restricting myself with my posting. Previously, I’ve only done a post if I’ve had enough time to fully discuss everything which is why I don’t post as frequently as I would like. Blogging take much more time than I was initially expecting!! BUT, whoever said my posts have to be long? Why not just throw a picture up or a short paragraph whenever I feel like it? Isn’t the whole reason I wanted to start this blog was to do what I wanted with it? So here’s what I’m going to try: one week, seven posts and this one doesn’t count! Stay tuned and I’ll catch you guys tomorrow!

Work Break Ramblings

Hello all! I’m on my break at work right now, so I figured I come on over and chat for a bit. Let’s see, normally I would be running home to finish a knit or sewn project, but not today. I’m in the middle of a painting project and I’ve already done everything I can today. Now all I can do is wait until tomorrow. Gotta be honest…it’s killing me. I don’t want to wait! Why does paint drying take so much time? This project is going to take me at least another week!! I’m super excited about this one, but I can’t even talk about it because it’s a gift. Boo! I just want to finish it and give it so I can talk about it and show the crazy amount of picture I took while working on it. (It might even be my first tutorial depending on how it turns out…I’m not very confident in my painting skills, but practice make perfect, right?) I decided this morning that I’ve got to find something to do to help pass the time.

Sewing’s out since my machine needs to visit a repairman (AGAIN!) but I’m holding on it. First, I’m about to go on vacation and I’ve done a lot recently so I feel like a smallish break is in order to allow me to get ready for vacay. But that doesn’t help me with being bored during my break, now does it? I mean, I can’t exactly start packing while I’m sitting at Blue Mountain Pizza now can I? Plus, I’ve been thinking about just getting a (gasp) NEW machine! Excitement!! The one that I have right now was free, given to me by my sister when her hubby got her a new one for Christmas this past year. And I do love this machine. It’s a Kenmore and was the machine I learned on, which makes me super comfy on it. When it’s working, it’s awesome and I love it and everything’s great. The problem is it keeps quitting on me and always right when I start getting into a project too which just adds to the irritation. Anyway, long story shorter, my brother-in-law thinks that the whole bobbin case needs to be replaced, but when I took it to the last repairman he said nothing was wrong with it and it just needed maintenance.  Well, it worked for about a month of use time and then bam! right back doing the exact same ting that it was doing before. Gosh and that makes me so mad when it’s the exact, same problem. Good news is that I’m SUPER close to saving up enough money to buy a new machine. A Singer Quantum Stylist 9960, to be exact! (the same one my sister got for Christmas.) This brings up the question: should I even worry about fixing my old machine or just hold out for the new one? Hmm…I keep thinking I should just chill out on the whole problem until after vacation.

Anyway, I haven’t knit in what seems like forever though it’s only be since July so I figured I’d throw some needles and yarn into the old bag and bring that to work with me. I have a couple baby gifts to work on, plus Christmas is right around the corner (at least in the handmade world), so it’s back to the yarn world for me. It will be nice to hang out with the good old needles for a bit but it does get a smidge hot holding the wool during the summer. Well, enough complaining, I should go and cast on since I only have an hour left. I’ll leave you guys with a picture of the first etsy sale.

Made a couple of these after getting the business cards, posted them on facebook and got a custom order! Hooray! So here’s ‘Hidden Bicycles.’ This is also the one that Jessi, my sister, picked for hers. Guess it’s popular and I should probably make some more once I’m back up and sewing 😉 See you cats later!

“You type, we talk?”

…and so it begins…

Hey, world! How are you? We’re pretty good, though we don’t really know what to do here. If you haven’t guessed, this is our first blog. So let’s start with the basics, shall we?

We are Sam Halbert and Sammi Koontz and, with our powers combined (insert Captain Planet clip here), we are SAM SQUARED (throw in some epic background music while you’re at it)!! So, there’s that, I guess… Anyway, on to more important things, like who we are and how we came to be. Here’s a brief overview of the past 2.5ish years (apologies to those of you who were present for all this).

So this is Sammi, the female part of all this. For me, it began when I decided to pick up and move from Rock Hill, SC to Madison County, NC. I got this job at a small pizza joint, Blue Mountain Pizza, and met this guy, Sam Strider Halbert. And, yes, his middle name is a reference to Lord of the Rings.

Hey, it’s Sam now. So I’d been working at this pizza place for going on 4 years by the time Sammi came around, but I’m so insanely happy she did. I was all awkward at first with her (there’s a funny story there about one of our first conversations that I’ll save for later if any of you are interested) but eventually we started to hit it off. I’ve got to give her some credit for Facebook staking me. Not gonna lie, it felt good.

Truth be told, I DID try to get his attention at work, but he was totally oblivious.

All right, I’ll give you that one good lookin’.

Needless to say, we started dating, started doing awesome things, and started thinking that we should put our awesomeness out for the world and see what awesomeness it attracts. Hmm…that sounds a little weird, but hey, seeing as how you’re here, way to be awesome! We like the word awesome. And that led us to start our little company, Sam Squared, and this blog. Here is where we get to show you all the different things we do. What you may ask? How’s about photography, knitting, board game creation, eating, playing video games, crafting, watching stuff, and all sorts of other things?? Huh!?! Interested yet?!?

To give you a little background on my credentials, I graduated from ABTech with a degree in Digital Media, so basically if it involves a computer and some sort of other media combined, I can probably do it. I also have experience in other hands on types of art. Basically, I love designing and working with my hands.

As for me, my amazing sister (blueskiesdragonflies.blogspot.com) taught me to knit on December 26th, 2010. I literally begged her to teach me but, since she does hand made Christmas and has 4 kiddos, we had to wait until Christmas was done. Since then I’ve gone yarn crazy, recently dived into sewing, had an affair with coasters and dabbled with journals. I’ve learned to do what makes me happy and, as it turns out, there are many things that make me happy! Super cheese alert and super run away!!

This blog follows what we do, personally and professionally. Sometimes we’ll post together; most of the time it’ll be one of us solo. Thanks for reading all of our first blog! That’s our intro and we bid you adieu!