Trying to take inventory

Not an inventory of merchandise or supplies or anything tangible.  I'm trying to take an inventory of my business options.  And it's all wide open.  I can continue in the direction I've started (and which has been a lot of work, but successful).  But a lot of the work is tedious and I would really like to have an assistant to take on the tedious, less than artful, tasks.  And in addition to my online presence, I would love, Love, LOVE! to have a brick & mortar store.  And then there are all my other interests.  I just want to do it all!

Now to find a way to successfully combine my love of fiber (dyeing, knitting, spinning), my love of papercrafts (stamping, scrapping, bookmaking), my love of sewing (quilting, fashion), my love of photography (portrait, landscape, stock), my love of vintage (particularly vintage Pyrex), and bath & spa products (hand made soap, candles, etc.) Oh, and throw in the occasional jewelry making and whatever else strikes my fancy at the time.

Can you picture a shop that would include all, or maybe just most, of these interests?  Would you shop at my store?  Would I be trying to do too much?

I need to get my thoughts written down.  And organized. Any suggestions for organization tools to make sense of this stuff?

Comments are most welcome.  Please share a link to my blog so your friends can give me some input, too.

300 Days of Dyeing - Update

Just wanted to let you know I haven't forgotten about the Challenge.  I have slept about 6 hours since Friday night.  And right now I have an exploding headache.  That's why I thought it would be a good idea to make it 300 Days of Dyeing instead of Dyeing Every Day.  I knew there would be Days like this.

But  . . . I still have yarn to dye so as soon as I'm feeling better again I'll be Dyeing again.

300 Days of Dyeing - Day 3

Well, I made it to day three.  Let's see if I can come up with something for Day 4 before it's over.

Day 3's experiment turned out quite nice, I think.  It is a fat quarter of 100% Cotton print, suggested use: quilting. For those of you not into quilting, a fat quarter is a quarter of a yard of fabric in which the yard was cut or torn in half in one direction and then the halves were cut or torn in half in the other direction.  Instead of having a quarter of yard that measures 9" X 44" (that's one quarter length X the typical width of quilting cotton), you have a rectangle that is 18" X 22".  This is a good size for quilters who need just a small amount of a particular color or pattern. Some quilters will use a lot of different fat quarters to make a quilt with a 'scrappy' personality.

Anyway. This is what I started with:

And this is what I finished with:

The white printed hearts did not take the dye, just as I suspected.  (Did you notice that they were photographed right side up this time? Woohoo! ) The shading is irregular.  It almost seems that the brown dye 'split'.  Most dyes are made up of mixtures of primary color dyes.  Depending on many factors (insert lots of chemistry here), the dye may split or break and the results are unpredictable.  I rather like the variation in this and changing from one shade to another. This could be very useful in an applique application. The changing shades could give dimension and life to quilt or mixed media art ware instead of a flat monotone image.

I've been on the computer a lot today.  I'm still trying to learn as much as I can about the business side of an art oriented business.  There is a vast amount of information out on the internet, but only a small part of it is directly applicable to me.  Some is more general in nature and some information can be skewed to apply to me.  So I'm slowly sifting through it, trying to find the gems among the stones.

One gem I've already found is "The Creative Empire."  If you have your own creative business or you are contemplating beginning one, I highly recommend The Creative Empire as a place to connect with other similar to you and who are willing to share ideas and information. It's a great group of small business owners who are there to motivate and support one another.


Now, I think I'm going to throw another piece of cotton fabric in the dye pot (or baggie) and see what comes out tomorrow. Y'all take care and enjoy!

300 Days of Dyeing - Day 2

Day 2 of 300 Days of Dyeing . . . I'm doing a pretty good job of keeping up - so far. I finished the dyeing, drying, and photographing the Day 1 victim.  Day 2 suspect is in the dye pot. Or dye baggie rather.  It's a fat quarter of cotton fabric.  I'm trying a little bit of a different technique-on a very small scale.  It's nothing new, just a new little twist on an old idea. This is what I started with last night. I had to soak it in Soda Ash solution before dyeing, so I threw it in a the Soda Ash bucket last night. It is a light tan with tiny white hearts.  The hearts appear to be printed on the fabric, so I'm not sure how they will take the dye, if they take it at all.  And of course, I followed the 14th Rule of Photography, take the photo with the hearts upside down, and not noticing till I was ready to post the photo.  Since the orientation of the hearts really isn't relevant to the activity, I let it go.

Yesterday, Day 1 of 300 Days of Dyeing, began with a couple of skeins of 8ply Super Wash Merino yarn.  This is Fingering Weight (Sock Yarn), 100g/420 yards.  I thought I had listed these in my Etsy store and for some reason no one wanted them.  But when I was looking for them so I could 'unlist' them, I couldn't find them.  So it wasn't the creamy tangerine that turned off the customers.  It just wasn't there for them to begin with.  Anyway.  That's neither here nor there. I started out with one thing.  Added some Fuchsia Red (I love that color!), and came out with something I'm not sure I'm crazy about.  I may have to over dye it again.  I'm thinking some charcoal gray might be just the thing.  What do you think?

This is what I started with yesterday:                                                              












And this is what I have  today:     
Since neither of these are listed, you can save me the trouble if you are interested in either of them.  I can sell them for $18 each.  Send me an email and I'll send you an invoice.

I've still got lots to do today. I'm wanting to write another blog post that's not directly related to the 300 day challenge.  I may try to squeeze that in later today.


                                                                                    Until then, take care and enjoy!

300 Days of Dyeing - Day 1

I have joined The Creative Empire. I'm quite excited about it.  I keep a tab in my browser open all the time to check the forum and activities.  I want to learn every bit I can about building my Creative Empire.  When you get a group of entrepreneurs in one place, you there has to be some good stuff shared between them. I'm not sure I've contributed anything.  But I'm soaking up everything I can.

One of the activities on the worksheet for the first seminar pertained to finding your creative voice.  Now, I feel like I already have a pretty good understanding of my creative voice.  If not, I don't think I would have taken the step to participate in The Creative Empire.  But it still got me to thinking.  That along with a couple of twitter posts that I stumbled across.  I don't remember the exact words, but the essence of both were as follows: "If you want to be a writer, practice writing.  If you want to be a painter, practice painting."

All of these together got me thinking.  Yes, I am a Dyer.  Am I a good Dyer? Yes.  Could I be a better Dyer?  Well, probably.  I hope.  I mean, I know I'm good.  But am I excellent?  On occasion, yes. Can I be an excellent Dyer every time I put the dye pot on the stove? I'm not sure.  But I want to be.  I want to be the Master Dyer.  I want to be the one that others look to as an example of what they want to do. But how can I get there.  If I want to be an excellent dyer, then practice excellent dyeing.


That's when I decided to challenge myself.  I've seen other challenges that involved doing something every day for a year.  There are quite a few 365 day challenges out there.  The most popular is 365 Days of Photos - or whatever the actual name is.  If you Google that, you will find it.  I'm thinking that making a commitment to dye something every day for a year is a little ridiculous, for me, anyway. There are just too many things that can go wrong.  Like Life.  But if mold this idea to fit me, I think I can make it!  That's where 300 Days of Dyeing was born.

The challenge: Dye something - anything - for 300 days over a period of approximately one year.  Knowing me, this will take more than a year.  But that's ok.  It's not a race.  It's a developing and evolving experience. Some days will be planned dyeing days for my business.  Some days will be dyeing days for me.  Others will be to experiment.  And yet others will be for the sole purpose of improving. I may improve a color or colorway.  I may improve a technique.  Or I may improve on not making such a mess when I dye.

Here is the yarn I'm over-dying today.  I will dye just one skein. I'll be able to photograph these together later so you can see the difference.  I hesitate to say 'the improvement',  but I've yet to make a skein worse by over-dyeing it.  Many of my favorite yarns are over-dyed.

I may not post everyday that I dye, but I hope you will check in often to see my progress.




Until next time, 
Enjoy!

Oops! It's Wordless Wednesday - On Thursday!