Set up Shop

The set up show e-course finished at the end of October. It was an information packed month of daily emails and interesting discussions on Facebook.

I have learned a lot and gained encouragement and confidence.

A big thing that stuck in my mind from doing the course was that your business will never be finished or perfect, so I have decided to stop preparing and today I opened my shop (you can click on the tab at the top of the page and go there now for a look!).

It is a big leap of faith. Will anyone like my colourways? Will anyone choose to spend their hard earned money to buy my yarn? Have I properly figured out my shipping methods? Are all the elements of my shop set up? I guess only time will tell.

A new phase of learning and development now starts and I am excited to see where it takes me.

Rest Day and Course Progress

Today is the second "rest day" of the Set up Shop e-course. We are two-thirds of the way through and I am enjoying the process of taking time each day to focus on an aspect of my new venture.

We have covered off a lot of topics including: branding, product descriptions, packaging, postage, pricing, photography, shop about page and policies, order systems, and financial records.

I have made a little progress every day, getting all the details sorted out. Some days of the course I have felt quite comfortable with, like setting up an organisation system for emails and financial recording - I was able to get these sections done quickly and without much thought. Other topics have taken multiple days, numerous drafts and much more thought.

Today I wrote a template for the product descriptions for the shop. I am also going to keep a separate file that contains a description of each colourway. I can then combine these two files to use when I list a yarn.

Another thing I tackled today was designing my ball bands. I have gone fairly basic, using my passioned flower image on the left hand side and incorporating all the details in the white space on the right. Not sure that this will be the final version, but I'm happy with what I have been able to come up with (you will have to wait for the shop launch to check them out).

I still have a lot of work to do - I need to re-work my policy page, finish my list of tags, properly research postage and packaging costs plus there is still several more lessons to go. I am loving every minute I spend on this and excited to see where it will take me.

Yarn dyeing - my journey so far

It was only at the beginning of this year that I took the plunge to try dyeing yarn.

I have experimented with sprinkling powder directly into the pot

I have squirted stock dyes directly into the pot and on to yarn with a vague plan and no intention of being able to replicate the outcome, and wound yarn for my first attempt at self striping.

I have progressed quickly from this ad hoc kind of approach, to dyeing with more intention. Basing my colour decisions on inspiration and planning the outcome of the yarn. I am taking a lot of photo's mostly of flowers and leaves, but also of the sky, sea, graffiti and anything else the catches my eye.

I now take careful and detailed notes as I dye. Tracking exact amounts of dye, the method used, steps taken and time the yarn spends in the pot.

Iris and City Sunset

Teal not Green and Winter Roses

Yarn dyeing has definitely become an obsession, a passion that I want to pursue as a business and share my creations and inspirations with other crafters.

This is a big and scary step! Putting my creations out there in to the world for judgement, not only that but embarking on a small business without much experience is quite daunting.

I have enrolled in a short e-course by Create & Thrive, called Set Up Shop. It is a step by step guide, covering all aspects of what goes in to setting up an on-line craft business. I am finding it extremely useful and thought provoking. It has been reassuring, some of what we have covered I had already considered myself. I just never had the confidence to put it in to action. Having someone who has already experienced success in this area providing this guide has given me the extra drive to push ahead.

Stayed tuned to see how things progress from here. Much work is going on in the background. I will post progress and thoughts of the course as well as updates on the shop.

What inspires me

Most of my thoughts on the blog so far have been directly about knitting or yarn. Sharing my projects and progress.

As the seasons change and the spring flowers take over the garden I thought I would share what is currently inspiring me.

In my very first post I wrote about how craft feeds the soul, the grounding factor that creates peace and provides escape. The action of making something, creating an idea in my head, and then using my hands to make that idea come to life.

This is definitely the driving force behind why I craft. It is my escape, my happy place and my creative outlet.

Everyday, out in the world, I take note of how colour occurs in nature. The combinations of colour and the vibrancy catch my eye. How amazing are these colours from my garden this morning!?!?!

How can seeing this beauty in nature not lead to inspiration?



To begin with it makes me happy. I put hard work into my garden throughout the year and these are the results of that work. Proud displays of the care that I have taken.

Flowers and foliage are also great guides on which to base colourways for yarn. Nature has a way of getting things right, so it is fun to try to capture that in dye.

I grab my camera out frequently to capture these types of images. Fuel for my creative fire.

What inspires you? Where does your craft inspiration come from?

Knitrospective - Shawls

What makes a great shawl? Colour? Shape? Size? Lace? Beads? Garter?

Shawls are a regular in my knitting rotation. I have a lot in my queue and library. Once I have completed one I am searching for the next one to cast on.

They are go-to accessory pieces, especially for my work wardrobe. Essential for combating the chill of air-conditioning and also for adding the "knitterly touch" to my outfits.

I began with small, one skein shawls like the Multnomah by Kate Ray, Mizzle by Patricia Martin and Pimpelliese by Christine Ebers.

Pimpelliese

I now enjoy larger multi-coloured, lace or beaded shawls. Although there is always a place for a more simple, one skein shawl in the knitting rotation (my recently knitted Reyna is an example of this).

Nuvem has been on my needles twice, and could definitely be knit again.

My Hope

The two most intricate shawls I have knit have not been for me, but made as special gifts. The My Hope for my sister on her wedding day and Bella Botanica for my mother-in-law for Christmas. Both had beading and lace work and I loved the process of knitting each of them. I know both have been worn numerous times, which makes me happy. What I am disappointed about it that in both cases I never took proper finished object pictures, only progress and blocking shots.

I think I will at some stage have to knit a lace and bead shawl for myself, but at the moment I am enjoying the squishy garter and fun colour combinations from patterns like Drachenfels and Moonraker by Melanie Berg.

Moonraker

A shawl that was in my queue for a very long time was Bloom, which I finished earlier this year. I wrote a full blog post on the finished object. I have worn it at work and received many compliments - it has some wow factor. I am thinking about yarn combinations for another one.

Bloom

So what is the best kind of shawl? It's much too difficult to decide, I guess I will have to keep knitting more to try out more patterns, colour combinations, shapes and techniques.

Digging into the stash - knitting with that "special skein"

After taking the time to review my stash in preparation for Bendigo (see previous post), I rediscovered some amazing yarn. Not forgotten, more like I had moved it to the back because I did not know what to do with it and felt that it was too special to knit with.

I found a simple shawl pattern on Ravelry; Reyna by Noora Laivola. I liked that it had garter and some lace sections, without being a complicated pattern. As I wanted the yarn to be the star.

During this dig into the stash, I also realised how many partial skeins I have. Leftovers from socks and shawls, but not enough to think of as scraps. So out came the scales and I weighed the portions that I had, sorting them into size piles as I went. The Moonraker Shawl, by Melanie Berg, seemed like the perfect way to incorporate a couple of my smaller skeins into a large project.

My small skeins are from two projects that I really enjoyed. They are a sparkly purple left over from my Low Tide Cardigan and a sparkly blue/grey from the My Hope shawl I made my sister for her wedding.

   

Finished Object - Bloom Shawl

It was so great to come back from Bendigo with yarn for specific projects and so motivating to cast on straight away.

When I arrived home on the Sunday afternoon I immediately balled up the charcoal and teal corriedale I had purchased for Colleens Crafts to make the Bloom Shawl by Kiri FitzGerald-Hillier.

The version of the pattern I followed is the original as it was published in Issue 31 of Yarn Magazine.

My default for reading patterns is the written instructions and then referring to a chart, if provided, as a reminder guide as I complete each round. After completing this pattern, my advice for anyone else is to follow the charts, as the written directions seem to be inaccurate or at least confusing in parts.

First thing I did was find a tutorial on how to do the pinhole cast on - I used the one from Very Pink Knits. It took me a couple of tries to get it right but overall not a hard thing to master.
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The directions were for 5 dpns, but I knit the whole motif on magic loop. One thing that was not clear in the written directions was where to place markers - to split the motif into its four sections. If I had realised this earlier I would have been able to get this information from the chart. I guessed a little as I went along and I think in the end it is not noticeable that I fudged it a bit.

I made several modifications in the wing sections. For the decreases on both the left and right wings I knit two together through the back loop. I tried a few different decreases and decided that in the garter stitch I liked the look of this method best. I flipped the wings, so that the decrease side was the top edge, the finish and angle of the wing seemed to lay better that way. I also connected the blacks at the top of the motif together by knitting the last black stitch of one wing with the first black stitch of the other.

This was a super quick knit - it took me 15 days and zoomed along. I think part of the reason for this, apart from being knit in a DK, was that until you get to the edging there are really not many stitches on the needles, so the rows are short.

In the end I used all but 8 grams of the charcoal (from 213 grams). I do have plenty of the teal left, having only used 40 grams of a 100 gram skein.

I wet blocked the shawl, using blocking wires on the motif to make it square. Then pinned the wings and edge into shape around that square. I also pinned out each point of the lace pattern.