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.

Monday: Just Another Day In The Office

Unless you work from home.  Then Monday opens up a whole different world of opportunities.  What to do today?  What to do first?  Well, that's often determined for you.  What has to be done today?  What has to be done first?  For me that involves a cup of coffee and reclining in bed with my laptop.  After I let the dog out.  Twice.  Because he didn't like the back yard this morning. 

Monday mornings in my 'office' also involve researching market trends, developing marketing strategies, and much more.  Like 'Social Networking'.  Yeah, I love my job.  Mainly because I love my colleagues and customers.  It's not a chore to network with you.  It's a joy and I am truly blessed to be able to share what I love with awesome people who want to to know more.  This blog post is dedicated to all of you-friends, colleagues, customers, and just cool people who like to check in to see what's going on in my little world.

If you have ever owned your own business, you fully understand that "a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own household.."(1)  I am fortunate to have a husband who recognizes the value of my work and my business.  But I understand how rare that is.  Often family members fail to see the value of what we do while 'strangers' encourage and support us.  I sometimes have mixed emotions when I look on Facebook and see the 'Likes' for my posts and comments.  They are, more times than not, 'Liked' by people halfway around the world that I've never met and are likely to never meet.  All the while, my many of my 'friends' and family (who I know visit Facebook because of the games they play) seem to never see a link.  I understand life is busy.  But really.  How long does it really take to click a button? 

And it's not just Facebook. On Ravelry, it only takes a moment to click the 'Love' or 'Agree' buttons. (and I wish more sites had those options. I often 'Agree' on Facebook, though I don't always 'Like'. ) On Twitter, just an occasional response to let me know that someone in my list of 1000+ followers are actually reading an occasional tweet is appreciated.

Do you read my blog? Or did you just click to see if there are any photos and then move on? I didn't realize how often I was doing that to other people till I started keeping track of my own blog statistics. Now I try to make an effort more often to at least leave a short comment to let the writer know I did read the post and I appreciate the efforts they are making, whether to promote their business or the industry in general.

I'm going to wind this up because I really do have work to do this morning – besides laundry. I still have a sock to finish and photograph, patterns to write and format, trying to remember how to list the patterns for sale on my website, a serious website update, soap to be made, new patterns that have been spinning around head to be designed, and the rest of the never ending list of tasks. But I do love doing them all.

(1) Mark 6:4 - New American Standard Bible (©1995)

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!

TeresaLeviteStudio Artisan Studio ArtFire Buy & Sell Handmade

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