Another milestone

I'm trying to be more disciplined about updating my shop and I plan to update about every 2 weeks in the future. In aid of that, I listed everything. And by everything, I mean everything. Even the skeins of Mountain Hare I was holding from 2009 because it sells so slowly is up in the shop. Which takes me to another milestone. I've passed 200 items listed in my shop. I'm at a comfortable 207 and the shop is well and truly full.

This is lucky #200 (linked to the shop):

It's Frou Frou in the Jackalope base. I know I did a lot of this colorway in May, but I love it.

This week I'll be dyeing laceweight and settling in to the new schedule and then next week my nieces visit. Never a dull moment!

Happy Solstice, everyone!

Yegads! (an anniversary video and a giveaway)

It's been another year! This is the second anniversary of my little shop and I've decided to mark this one by giving up some "secrets". OK, they weren't all that secret, but it sounds more interesting if I say they were.

The colorway that won the poll was Nebula, but since I had several pots going, I also included the runners up Red Desert and Purple Peacock. This is how the finished colorways look:

From left to right: Nebula, Purple Peacock, Red Desert, and a new colorway as yet unnamed that shows up at the end of the video. These are actual skeins dyed up in the video

I taped several hours of dyeing on Saturday and then clipped it down to a scant 30min. I hope it's interesting; I tried to be succinct but that's never been my strong point! *nibbles fingernails nervously*



And, since this is the first of the month I have a giveaway! I am giving away a skein of the Nebula that I dyed up in the video. I have two skeins that are on the cusp of underweight, hovering right at 100g. So I'm offering one up here and one up in my Ravelry group. Yes, one of these could be yours!

It's the Arctic Hare base, which is a sock/fingering weight yarn with superwash merino/nylon/silk/and real silver for that added glitz. It's very soft and perfect for much more than socks.

To enter this giveaway, just comment here. If you link to this giveaway in any other social networking venues (blog, twitter, FB, etc) mention it in your comment and each will count as another entry. I'll leave this one open through June 7th and select a random winner on June 8th. And yes, as always you can double dip with the Ravelry group to increase your chances as well. Just be sure to check back on June 8th or leave me some way to reach you if you win, Ravelry or twitter username is sufficient.

I'd love to hear what you think about the video and the colorways. These aren't in the shop yet because it's disgustingly, unseasonably hot out, but I hope to take pictures and get them listed before the week is out. I have a bunch of new colorways to go up as well and there's still a bit of a backlog from the winter, so there's plenty to keep my busy.

Keep cool and thanks for a great second year! I have high hopes for Year Three!

Exercising my franchise (and a giveaway)

It's November!  I'm still not entirely sure where all the time goes, but we're due for another giveaway here on my wee blog and this month I have some fun handmade jewelry to kick us off.

I'm giving away this necklace from Lady Sisyphus' Free Time.  Lady Sisyphus brings together all sorts of beads and charms into some really delightful pieces, and she crochets too. *softly chants 'one of us! one of us!*

This necklace is a generous 38in long and will come with a set of coffee bean stitch markers....

... and one of these sets of earrings.



So I did notice that today is November 2nd, but this time I'm starting a day late deliberately.  I don't think anyone in the US can be in ignorance that today is election day.  I don't want to get into the politics of who and what to vote for or against.  I just hope that everyone who can does. 

So, this time, to enter into this drawing, comment that you voted.  If you're a US citizen, have you voted in this mid-term election?  If yes? Comment!  If you're not from the US, did you vote in the most recent government election? If yes, feel free to comment as well.  I'll take comments through Friday and then announce the winner on Saturday.  And if green and blue isn't your style, check out the Rav group to see what I'm offering there.

That's it, nothing more complicated than that and making sure that there's a way for me to reach you if you win.  Now, for me, I have to go to bed so I can get up bright and early so I can exercise my franchise and then run some errands.  There's lots to do and I have another festival to do in less than 2 weeks!

Oh, and to note a little milestone. My shop has reached 600 listings sold. :)

Bleat (and a tiny video tutorial)

I'm working on lots of things to gear up for the festival next month, and this one keeps cracking me up so I have to share. But before I get into that I just want to remind everyone that I have two yarny fibery swap boxes up for auction at the Help Pakistan LiveJournal community.

Now, on to the thing that's been amusing me for days. See, I like to hand out free patterns when I do a craft show. Ideally they're made out of my own yarn and I can display the finished product around the booth. It draws interest and is a great ice breaker.

So I wanted something new this year. This time I decided to make a sheep mug cozy based on a discussion in the Ravelry forums. I had intended to do something rather different at the start but the idea grew and evolved and... well, this is what happened:


One sheep mug cozy on a standard mug, before blocking.

Through the roof

Last night was full of moment. There was a lot of not getting enough work done (which is why my next shop update starts tomorrow come hell or high water), mangoes with coconut rice, and a mystery. The mangoes with coconut rice will be at the end of this post because I'd like to talk about the mystery. If you just want the recipe, click through the jump cut and page down until you see the food picture. :)

So, the mystery has to do with visitors to my shop and shop hearts. I check Craftcult several times a day to see my shop hearts. I know that hearts don't equal sales, but I think of it as a general barometer of how appealing my shop is. And really, it just makes me feel good. It's a bit of harmless affirmation.

Last night, the number jumped. It jumped so much that I thought it was a glitch and wondered if Craftcult was having problems. There was more than a page of new hearts. That is not typical for my shop! So I went to Craftopolis to see if it also had the anomalous hearts.


Look at the visitors, views and hearts for Aug 9. 821 unique visitors, 2611 page views, and 44 new shop hearts. I was gobsmacked. And I still thought it might be a glitch.

Keep in mind that in May a skein of my yarn was in an Etsy front page Treasury. That day I netted 300+ unique visitors and 26 shop hearts. This blew that day away.

I was still skeptical so I checked and everything kept saying it was real, so I started hunting for the source. I googled my shop, I checked for any more front page treasuries, I checked treasuries in general, I checked Ravelry, I even checked Etsy finds on the slim chance. I came up blank everywhere. There was nothing to explain why people had suddenly decided to heart my shop right and left starting 8:48pm last night.

I waited for midnight so I could check my analytics, and there was the completely unexpected source. Facebook.

Sometimes

Sometimes I get really tired and discouraged, depressed, frustrated. But sometimes, sometimes things click.

This has been a very busy week, and it's not getting any less busy any time soon. I didn't cook dinner tonight because I had to finish updating the shop so I could finish working on my page for the Fiber Cooperative.  14 colorways went up in the shop, I have another dozen or so to photograph yet, and the end of this week is full of dyeing and sample making.  Meanwhile, tomorrow I'll hold another give-away, and then there's the holiday weekend coming up.

I hit 400 sales this month, another little milestone.  Even with a package missing in the mail, even with several lackluster advertising attempts this month and the bills they generated, I look around and feel proud of my accomplishment this week, and it's good to feel good about this and about myself.

And tonight, as I was editing pictures, I got this:

This is the colorway Starry Night and it is the most perfect example of a desire turned into reality that I have ever managed with my yarn.

300

No, not the stylized movie with lots of oiled pectoral muscles and digital grading. 300th sale. It's an arbitrary milestone but a milestone nonetheless, to count the number of items I sell and think of each century as a significant achievement.

This was 300.


I'm pleased with 300. It's Purple Peacock and I listed it and 12 other skeins last night.

Now, on to listing more yarn. I can't get to 400 without listing stuff, after all. I'm almost done listing everything I dyed up in March. I just have 4 colorways left. Tonight should finish that batch. It's in time for the Phatfiber video, which is always good. Then, a break to work on other critical things (taxes, yipe!), and then I'll get April done and listed.

And then it'll be time to dye more yarn for April, and then on to May. Where does the time go?