Monday, October 18, 2010

Free Space running low on drive C://

Otherwise know as my umm... brain, for lack of a better word, because I'm fairly certain it doesn't REALLY exist anymore!

Time for a haphazard blog that will make less sense than it should... it's mainly for my benefit, to have a record of thoughts/ideas, but by 'publicizing' it I feel like it makes it binding. My very own virtual notary, lol.

I'm pretty sure I can't list off everything I've crafted since my last actual post. That would be overkill. But there were lots of washcloths, a scarf, a toddler hoodie, gnome hats, crochet tams, newborn hats, armwarmers, wristbands, mini-purses, etc. Busy busy busy! Tristan has been a bit of an enabler, simply because his latest hobby pursuit involves frequent trips to Joann's... in which I always need to "just look" at the yarn, of course.

Speaking of yarn, I finally sucked it up and got some actual wool... I usually shy against it for whatever reason, most likely cost combined with fear of 'ruining' it. But, hey, these were all starting bids at $0.99 a hank on Ebay, and since they are constant, I had no trouble getting them for not much more than that (1.47 was the highest). Throw in the free shipping and the repeats of items, and I was good to go.



Yep. Well, that's minus one hank of the red, which I balled and then got one simple armwarmer out of so far:




If you didn't already know or gather... I have a very furry dog.


Anyway, short-term goals:

FINISH 2nd ARMWARMER.

FINISH 2nd BOOTIE.

FINISH OTHER SIDE OF FRINGE ON SCARF.

(notice a pattern here? Definitely suffering from Second Sock Syndrome.)

FINISH BUTTON CLOSURE AND LINE MINI-PURSE.

Longer term:

Knit PJ pants for both boys.

Combine elements of different patterns to make a custom newsboy-style hat for me.

Sonic the Hedgehog beanie for TJ.

Skull-jumper for baby girl.

Master magic-loop.

Experiment with knooking.

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Oh yeah, and then I still need to make more stuff for my shop, The Purling Pixie.I did have a Facebook shop going earlier in the year with my mom. We had a lot of fans, and did pretty alright, but people were getting a little confused about who was who, how to order, who to send money to, where to make requests. And those that did buy, seemed to stick to their own 'people'; those that only know mom bought mom's stuff, and those that only know me were only interested in mine.

So I spent the better part of 2 weeks ago knitting/crocheting furiously, just to have an okay handful of items 'in-stock' for the opening day of the left fork of Mountain Pixie Crafts. Here is where I feel a bit whiny, though. While I of course have a main point of actually selling the stuff (profits go towards the continuation of my sometimes pricey hobby, because I feel awful having Tris foot the bill), I really just want some sort of feedback. Simple "Ohh, that's cute!" Or even a handful of 'likes'. Or page likes from people I don't know, because someone shared the shop and their friends cared enough to at least look and support it by 'liking it'. But that's not really happening. And as much as I'd rather not admit it, that discourages me. Maybe my stuff sucks? I mean I know it's nothing special, but it isn't horrible, right? That is what kills me, not knowing the "why." I can take whatever criticism, because then it's no longer the unknown. Man, do I hate the unknown. Or maybe, and this is the most frightening thought... there's just not all that much interest in handmade? Why would there be? You can go to Wal-mart and buy a knit beanie for 2 bucks or something. Why pay more? Does anyone really care about handknit vs machine, besides the hand-knitters themselves?

Hmm. Food for thought.