Spoonflower

Not too long ago I ordered a pattern from Sprout, which I plan on posting about soon.  But after it arrived I placed an order with it's companion site, Spoonflower.  They were having a buy one, get one half off sale on FQs so I randomly selected a bunch I liked.

Spoonflower is a really awesome concept.  They offer custom fabric printing.  Basically you can chose any design on the site (or design and upload your own!) and have it printed on one of 20 different fabrics from wovens to knits to fleeces and canvas.

I ordered some designs already available on the site, but I did upload one of my own to give it a test and I'll follow up with that, later!

It takes a while for your order to process, which is understandable.  Each design needs to be print on each separate fabric you ordered.  It seems daunting, but my order arrived in about three weeks, all the way here.  I ordered on 7 November, it shipped on 17 November, and arrived yesterday 28 November (which is a little longer shipping wise than usual, but it's the holidays).   The prices are a little on the high side, but considering you're ordering 100% custom fabric it's well worth it.

The site is ridiculously inspiring.  There are so many prints to chose from, but also panels!  There are some amazing designers who create single FQ panels of ornaments and stocking and plushies and coin purses and little dolls!  I ordered this little doll to make for Christmas.

These are some other panels they have!

🐙 Before my order even shipped I went back and ordered a full yard of the one dark octopus fabric because I have something curious in mind for it.

Another amazing thing is that there is a coordinating line of fabrics that match some Urban Threads embroidery design!

Also included was a swatch of another fabric type, which I thought was really very handy as I am still new to all the different sorts!

They recently had a Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale (💥it's been extended through today!!!💥) as well and I ordered four more full yards of fabrics in various prints and bases, including knit and satin!  I'm so excited.

Lace Snowflakes

I recently discovered I could embroidery lace.  At first, I just couldn't wrap my head around how it worked!  I've done a few designs now and it makes perfect sense... mostly.  I ran across this on the Urban Threads site and figured I'd give it a go!

Here is a video from my IG, it shows the foundation stitches of a snowflake.  It's embroidered on wash-away film that smells just like what it probably is, a film of dried glue!

This is the result, the final snowflake still in the hoop.

The film is clear, it's just sitting on my white worktop.  I used a bit darker of a blue as my background then in the sample, but I'm very happy with it.

I searched around Etsy and ended up finding another pattern that I liked, too.  It's designed with little spaces for crystals, and while I don't have any, I think it still looks great!

I embroidered them both with just poly embroidery thread from ARC, with the same thread in the bobbin.  I used Rinse Away from Sulky and once they were stitched out, just trimmed the stabalizer close and then let them soak in some water until they were 'free'. 

They're a lovely weight, not flimsy at all, and while I did buy some starch to spray them with to stiffen them up to hang as ornaments, I don't think I need to use it!

I have a few other lace designs I hope to try over the next couple of days.  They are time consuming to stitch, although really all there is to do is watch the machine.  They just take longer than average to complete!

Experidery

I did some experimental embroidery over the weekend.  It's obvious I'm going to need to invest in some sore of program to resize, etc, some designs.  I have a pretty basic machine that will go up to 5x7, but there are a lot of designs I actually want a little smaller than 4x4 which is the smallest design most companies make.

See that dot there under the right thumb?  That's supposed to be the top center of my design, but by the time I got it hooped and pulled tight I was so off!  I'll need to practice more to be able to align more complicated designs.

This is a little better, but you can see here how this design would work better if it was a bit smaller!  It sort of folds over the end of the flap and ends up around the back.

All in due time.

Ruffled Wristlet

Scrolling through my IG feed (are you seeing a pattern here?) I noticed the Ruffled Wristlet pattern posted by @cpeicheff  aka Carla's Creations.

The pattern is available on Craftsy, which is an awesome site to find, purchase, and easily download a lot of different patterns.

It was pretty cute and looked like a great way to experiment with some of the bigger scraps I have hanging around.

The pattern doesn't come with any 'pieces', that is, it's simply the directions for cutting and sewing, which I wasn't sure about.  Turns out now that I have the pattern memorized, it's great not to have to fuss with pattern pieces, I can cut sit and cut scraps with a ruler and rotary cutter.

I used gray metallic Essex Linen as the base and the ruffled accent is from the Holiday Traditions collection from Henry Glass.  It's actually gray, too, but for some reason looks blue!

So far I've made 5 of them, I have a couple more cut out, just waiting.  I snagged these pictures from my IG.

Some of my ruffled pieces are a little shorter than the 20 inches the pattern calls for, but I find this doesn't make too much of a difference.  They are rather easy to sew, no fancy seams, darts, or anything so it would be good for a beginner, the only tricky part is the gathering, but it's simple to master.

I have posted a couple of questions to the designer under her IG pictures, but they were never answered.  She seems to only comment a select few people, which I suppose is understandable and I was able to work out the answers myself so it's nothing too complicated.

Near and Deer

I've really been enjoying my embroidery machine!  I had originally got it on a whim, with the idea of launching a second business, which while still an option, isn't going to happen any time soon.

Rambling around IG I ran across a company called Urban Threads which creates 'alternative' themed embroidery art and designs that are perfectly amazing.

They recently had a 'buy one, get one half off' sale and I admit to going overboard.  One of the designs I purchased was this gorgeous deer.

I wasn't sure what I would do with it, it was just pretty.  I ended up pairing it with some rustic cotton prints that I wouldn't normally use in this 241 Tote from Noodlehead.

 I embroidered on Flax Essex Linen in a brown variegated thread from Aurafil (4671) and accented with cotton prints from the Moose Lodge collection by Henry Glass.

 The pattern is for an Advanced Beginner/Intermediate sewer, which I didn't realize until I brought the link over just now.  I managed it quite well!  The curved inset pockets fit in beautifully with no puckers or issues!

The most challenging part was lining up the design.  I embroidered it on a piece of linen and then traced the pattern out flat and then fussed with it to get it placed on the front like I wanted.  It's not quite centered horizontally because the antlers make it quite tall.

Overall I am very pleased with it!  It's not my usual style, but it's very cute.

The Maths

I did a little maths on the way home last night.  I had a two hour flight and little else do to but sit there.

I considered myself even on 15 September, which was my one year anniversary.  Any start up costs, fees, licenses, supplies, etc etc would have been paid for and I was working on zero debt.

Soon after I had to replace a missing supply order (jars, etc) costing about $250us, and then had to refund/replace two missing orders.  I could have simply refunded them and not replaced the items, but I do pride myself on my excellent customer service.  So I was out double the cost of those orders which was about $160us.  Then an order of butters arrived in poor condition (about a month overdue), so I estimated a loss there of about $50us.

So soon into my second year I was down about $460us.

For the next month and a half I had a total of 62 orders.  After the above loss,  Etsy fees, costs, etc etc, I estimated I made about $2us an hour, working an average 40 hour work week.  Now, I put in more than 8 hours a day and often work weekends, but I was going to stick to more traditional numbers.

Yes, I am making a profit, but no.  I cannot say at this time it's worth it.

I wasn't sure what the numbers would work out to, and I sort of regret pulling things apart like this.  It's not really about how much I can make, but the fact that I love doing what I do.  But, it's turning out to be costing me and my family too much, too much time away for what?

So again, this isn't goodbye!  Just... a pause until I can work things out.  Find a little bit better of a balance!

Hiatus

I hadn't expected to be as successful as I am!  I'm not complaining, far from it!  Simply admitting I wasn't prepared.

I thought I was!  But circumstances have proven otherwise.

Etsy as a platform isn't working for me.  While it's great as a start, it's been a mess the last few months with new changes and 'search' rules.  I hope to be able to research and find an independent host and payment processor that's affordable.  Simply finding me on the site was hit or miss, which was fine, I drive enough of my own traffic and promote outside of Etsy well enough.  But they started doing things like... turning 'off' my shop.  Views would drop drastically, sort of out of proportion with my averages.  Just for a day or two.  Ok, so that's great!  It would give me time to catch up on existing orders!  But, that still doesn't sit right with me.  Couple that with the fact that the more you sell and the higher your prices, the more they charge you per sale.  If you know the fees, you know what your bills will be, but.  Still.  It's several hundreds of dollars out of hand. 

Even knowing this and taking that into account, I just am not charging enough to make enough of a profit.  I cannot keep my prices in line with my philosophy, so to speak.  I only use the best butters and oils I can find, and they're already pricey. I cannot 'shop' around for supplies.  I have one company that will ship here more or less safely. I lost a supply order over the summer to the USPS that was several hundreds of dollars and then had to replace it on my own, so I found myself running at a loss.  During that time, I also lost a couple other inbound packages, but more over, several OUTBOUND packages have been lost.  I replace or refund as soon as I can, but.  Again, that period over the summer cost me about $500 out of pocket.  As I type, I am not on 'good terms' with the PO as I've just processed a refund for another 'lost' package.

I work out of a separate space, which is my studio.  Our home has something called a 'dependency', which is basically a mother-in-law suite, or a separate little apartment on the bottom floor.  It's inspected and certified so that I can legally and safely produce and run a business out of it.  There were some issues in the city with the power the last few weeks and one afternoon the power simply 'popped' in there and smoke started filling the space.  A lot of my stock was damaged and a lot of my supplies have this burned smell.  I have to wait to hear what the electrician says, but having the little space rewired will not be cheap.  So for now, my studio is literally out of order.

I'm currently on vacation, more or less, up visiting and taking care of some issues with my mum and enjoying every second!  But when I get home, it will take several months to build up and budget to be able to decide if I can afford to reopen and how to proceed.

This is not good-bye!  Not at all.  I'm going to take the time to refine and fine tune.  To relax!  To work on other things and focus on my family and myself some.

I hope that I can blog more dedicatedly, now that I'm not working 8-10 hour days on top of running the house and parenting my little one.

I hope you'll stick around!