I kept saying that I should walk to the post office when I’m only shipping one package but I kept finding reasons to drive there instead. Maybe it was other errands or it was too hot but today I had no excuses! I only had one package to ship, I woke up before it got too hot, and I did all of my errands yesterday. It felt really good to get a little exercise first thing in the morning. It also felt good to not be stuck in the line of people trying to turn left onto a really busy road. I’ve had two orders so far in the month of August (which is 2 more than I had in the whole month of July). I’m working on getting some cotton ready to post but it’s hard to find the time to prepare yarn, especially with my craft room in shambles from the last round of moving stuff in and out. My goal is to double the number of listings I have by September so that I have enough inventory for the holiday shopping season. It’s an ambitious goal though! Let’s see how I do.
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I finally finishing knitting a shawl I’ve been designing. I just powered through those last few really long rows so I could block it today. I wanted a shawl that had some feminine details without being too frilly or over the top. This shawl is in the shape of a trapezoid with a block of eyelet lace in the middle section and a slight ruffle on the edge. I’ll post some more pictures after the shawl finishes blocking. I’m hoping to release this pattern later this month but I don’t know what I’m going to name it. I made this with some three ply cashmere that I had in my shop. I’ve sold out of grey but there is white beige available as well as this hand dyed cashemere.
It is officially the start of my Christmas in July promotion! As I announced previously I will being giving out free samples of my other yarns with every order during the month of July. There is also a 15% off coupon code (CHRISTMASINJULY) and with each item you purchase I will send you a free holiday greeting card. These cards will be handmade by me and if you purchase multiple listings in one order you’ll get multiple cards all free of charge.
I decided to give my customers greeting cards because many knitters and crocheters like to make Christmas gifts for their friends and family. If you are purchasing yarn or a hand knit item to give as a gift, having a cute card to go with it makes it just that much better. If you are planning on giving an item to someone for another occasion (baby shower, birthday, just because, etc) let me know and I’ll make a special card just for you! If there is a type of yarn that you aren’t sure about and would like to try this is a great chance to test it out. Let me know ahead of time what you’re interested in and I will try my best to include that sample with your order. There isn’t a minimum or maximum on any of these promotions so shop as much or as little as you want. Link to my etsy shop
As an awesome gift my boyfriend purchased this yarn swift. It’s the mama bear swift and count and I love it! It is such a basic design, easy to assemble, easy to disassemble and store, and it just works great! I think this will make my yardage estimates much more accurate.
Meanwhile at home:
My tomatoes are continuing to grow and there are even a few flowers now! Yay! I also planted some green bean seeds but it’s only been about 5 days and it still just looks like I’m watering an egg carton full of dirt. I wrote up the scarf pattern today and took some pictures of the finished scarf. I’m naming it the Ramona scarf (after my mom who will be getting this scarf for mother’s day). Before I print it out or publish it I need to measure my scarf again and I need to proof read one more time. I should probably have someone else read it too. It might not be nearly as clear as I think it is. Monday I’m going to my sister’s so she can help me with making the tags for my yarn. I’m hoping that by Tuesday I’ll be making my Etsy listings! I have a laundry basket full of prepped yarn that just needs to be tagged. Well there’s still the yardage issue… but I’ll get that worked out on Monday or Tuesday as well. As of right now my Etsy to do list is: figure out my yardage, create and print tags, attach those tags and label them with the yarn info, create listings, create a ravelry ad to announce my grand opening, and then watch the sales (and money) roll in. That last one is mostly wishful thinking ;) I’m still washing, weighing, measuring, and documenting my yarn. The washing and weighing are fairly straight forward. Even the documenting isn’t bad because I think I have a pretty good set up in place for that. It’s the measuring that’s getting me. I measured around my yarn swift, then count how many times around my yarn went, then multiply. From that measurement I should be able to get the yards per gram for all of the yarn that came from that sweater. The kink in this plan appeared when I did this measurement for a few skeins of the same kind of yarn and came up with different numbers. One was 1 yard per gram and the other was 3… That is a big difference when the skein is 70 grams. My next plan is to carefully measure out one yard of each kind of yarn and then measure that and hopefully I’ll come up with something a little more accurate. I know my measurements will be approximate but I want them to at least be close!
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AuthorI work, take care of my babies, read, and maybe sometimes knit. Archives
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