My new Hat Listings

I had an absolutely delightful Thanksgiving holiday. I had some relaxing and enjoyable days with my immediate family and the chaos of Thanksgiving day with the whole Lenox clan. I'll share pictures from the week later but I just wanted to share my new hat listings today. I got my niece Jess to do some modeling for me. She's turning into a real beauty and growing up so fast. She had fun being a super model for a few hours and did a great job I think.

These are the three hats that I have just listed in my Etsy shop. I've decided to build up my shop again as I had 2 sales the past few weeks without even trying including my most expensive scarf/hat set. Perhaps things are starting to turn around for online sales after all.The top hat is called Naturally Pink and was knit with an organic wool with environmentally friendly dyes. I used a chevron ribbed stitch which shows off the colors nicely and has lots of give. The black striped beanie is is called Silk Mountain and is from my favorite yarn brand, Noro. It is a wool, silk, mohair blend and is super soft and warm. And finally the Perfectly Purple Hat was knit with a wool handspun in lovely shades of purple, blue, and green.

She also modeled some scarves too but I haven't had time to edit or list any of them yet. I'll share when I can. It's too bad she doesn't live closer as it would be nice to have such a willing model close by.

Mother/Daughter Weekend.

There was a whole lot of mother/daughter bonding going on this weekend. In fact, I would call it the theme of the event for me. I spent more alone time with my Mom than I have years. This was nice, except for the being sick as a dog on Sunday part. The craft show day was cold and windy which was good for my sales but it didn't help my cold much to say the least. I'm still coughing up a storm and just hoping to make it through the day at work.


I had a lot of support from family and friends at this event which made it extra special for me. It's going to be a very Lenox Knits Christmas at the Barnitz household this year for sure. They are the amazingly supportive neighbors and old family friends that bought many gifts to exchange this year.

Lisa and her daughter were going to have to miss the show on Saturday so they came over the night before to get a advance show all to themselves. They had a lot of fun playing in my tubs and frolicking in the knitwear. Kennedy is an absolute doll and she is an excellent model too. I plan on having her do some modeling for me the next time I'm home for my Etsy shop.
I also made a surprising number of stranger sales which was encouraging. I got lots of compliments from Mom's friends but the rest of my sales were to the hip, discerning shoppers of Rolla like this pair here. They were my last customers of the day and two of my favorites. They are future mother and daughter in laws and they had a lot of fun picking out their scarves. They had a nice camaraderie and they let me take a picture with their chosen scarves.




I think that I will probably do this event next year as well. It's a nice change of pace from the indie shows I do and it was a good day for sales to boot. I can almost fit all of my inventory into one tub which is a first in awhile. You can tell that I have had things priced to move this year for sure.

Sets For Sale!

A month ago I posted about my indecision regarding my Etsy shop here. I've decided that it's important to have some sort of online presence even if it's not as active as I have kept it in the past. That way the customers who take my card at my shows have a way to shop in the future, etc. I also think that my empty shop may have hurt my chances of getting into the Rock n Roll Show as well.

I went ahead and renewed the items that I had listings for that didn't sell at the Strange Folk Festival and listed a few of my scarf/hat sets this week. I must say that the listing process has definitely been improved since the last time I did it awhile ago. I also like that you can use pictures that aren't perfectly square now.
The top shot is of my Fabulously Pink Set. I have it priced at $40 for both the scarf and the hat. I also have a teal set in the same pattern and size that I don't have photographed yet.

The Rainbow Bright Set is made with a machine washable acrylic and is priced at $35 for the hat and scarf together.

And finally my favorite set is the All Natural Pink Set. It was made with an organic cotton yarn with natural dyes. The scarf and hat are priced at $45 together. They are more for fashion than warmth but I think that they are a very cool ensemble.If anyone has any custom requests for scarf/hat combos I would be happy to oblige. I can probably find something in my stash to meet your color/fiber requests. If not that is just another reason to shop for yarn!

Strange Folk Here I come!

I'm getting so excited for this weekend's Strange Folk Festival. I can't believe that it is almost here. I thankfully took Friday off so that I can get myself fully ready. If you let me know that you are a blog reader I will give you 15% off your entire purchase this weekend!

Here are the details from their press release:

The 5th annual 2-day Strange Folk Festival happens September 25 & 26 in O’Fallon Illinois from 10am to 6pm both days! There will be 150 indie crafters and artists from across the country. Live music, good food, activities for kids, and you have the Heartland’s largest outdoor indie art festival. Just 15 minutes from downtown St Louis, easily accessible from both sides of the Mississippi. Family-friendly Strange Folk offers free admission and was voted "best craft festival in St Louis" by the River Front Times.

Log on to www.strangefolkfestival.com to see a preview of vendor crafts! Other highlights include a wide variety of food and drinks, The Upcycle Exhange, Authors Pavilion and book signings, live blogging stations, performance art, sewing demos, hand-on crafts and demos, alpaca petting zoom, animal rescue booths and more!You can also meet our good friend Brian Katcher, author of two Young Adult novels, on Saturday afternoon in the Writer's Block booth.

It looks the weather is going to be perfect, knock on wood. I'll be under the covered pavilion so if we should get another rain shower like last year I won't have to worry. I hope to see you there!

Pricing Delimmas

I've been really struggling this year with how I want to price my inventory. The past 2 years I've streamlined everything into very narrow price points. I priced all of my scarves at $15 or $30. My soft wristcuffs were $7 and the wire wristcuffs were $11. Scarflettes were primarily $25 except for some lower end ones that were $15.

Last year at the Strange Folk Festival I started out like the year before with one quilt rack of $15 scarves and one of $30. Two years ago I sold more $15 ones but I sold a good number of $30 ones as well. Last year for the entire first day I didn't sell a single $30 scarf so I eventually took them down and put out all $15 ones. I sold some $30 ones at the Rock and Roll Show but I think with the economy in the state it was in, $30 was just too much of an investment for an accessory.

I'm seriously considering adding a third price point this year at $23. This is right in between the two and would give me more profit on those scarves that I don't feel comfortable selling at just $15. I will only have the top tiered scarves with the highest quality yarns at the $30 mark. They say it is good to have some items that are out of most people's price range to let them know that you are a quality vendor. Mike says that I should make it an even $20 since most people don't want to make change but I don't think there is enough of a difference between $15 and $20.

I'm even more confused by how I want to price my new scarf/hat sets and the single hats. I have used such a range of yarns and techniques on them that I really feel like I should individually price them as I see fit. I want to sell the sets with both pieces and I will probably connect them with twine. They will have the prices marked and I will have all of them on my table.
For example the scarf/hat set at the top of the post was made with a 100% wool, hand dyed yarn. My yarn cost were $8 but if I'd paid full price the yarn was worth much more than that. I used the exact same pattern for this second set and the time was approximately the same but the yarn is an acrylic that I only spent a few dollars on. I wouldn't feel comfortable asking for anything less than $40 for the first set but I would be happy with $25 for the second set.

I also have some individual hats with a wide range of yarn costs and time spent on them. Do you think it would be appropriate to price them all differently or would that be too confusing? I like it when vendors have some consistency in their pricing. When I'm looking at a display or rack I like to know that what I'm looking at is in my price range but I just don't feel comfortable putting the same price on such varying items. Any thoughts about either of my dilemmas would be greatly appreciated.

To Etsy or not to Etsy?

I've been thinking a lot about my online selling woes the past month. I've had my Etsy shop closed for the summer with a message saying that it would open again in the fall. Well, fall is basically here and my shop has no signs of life yet. I'm struggling to find the motivation to get my pictures how I want them. Even now when I know way more about photography than I did when I started, it still takes a lot of time to take the pictures, edit them, and then set up the listing. All for maybe a few sales a month which just isn't worth it to me.

There was a time when I could expect 1 or 2 sales a week during the prime knitwear buying season, late Oct-Dec. There is now so much competition on Etsy that it is nearly impossible to be found, even with improved photos. There are currently 26,553 results for knit scarf. You can tag as efficiently as possible but without some kind of personal promotional tool it's a long shot to be found. I'm not even going to get into my pet peeve about the same people constantly being promoted on the front page and other Etsy promotional areas.

I have kept my shop open the past 3 years through the dry spells because I thought it was important to have an on-line presence. My main priority has been doing a few targeted craft shows a year but I liked having a shop to direct my customers to online. I've enjoyed the camaraderie on Etsy despite their many flaws, but lately I just feel over their antics. They have made a number of controversial design changes and major overhauls to the checkout and feedback systems which make me nervous to reopen at this time.

Etsy Bitch as always, is the best place to go to find out the real story behind the changes. I am sick to death of reading the Storque and getting the sugar coated BS that the Etsy Admin put out. You have to read between the lines so much that it almost becomes illegible. I was even more confused after reading their post about collecting sales tax with the new checkout system. The 99 page forum thread is simply too daunting to figure out what I need to do to be safe.

I'm once again considering other options such as Artfire but I have a box of 500 business cards with my Etsy address on it that I'm planning to use as price tags for the Strange Folk Festival. If anyone has thoughts I would gladly hear them. Do you think that I'm hurting myself by not having an online venue as a kind of portfolio for my work?

Headed in the right direction.

Because I've gotten so much great feedback from you all about the last scarf/hat set pictures I thought I would throw another set of pictures at you from last weekend. It's a more grown up style made with an organic cotton yarn. The hat is my new favorite pattern that I came up with in a fun lace stitch.

This is another example where I can't decide whether I like the one on the torso or the one on the head better. The consensus from the last set was that you liked the head shot best but I'm not so sure in this example. I really wish that I had a mannequin that actually had a head or that I could stick the head on the torso but it doesn't work that way.I will probably enlist Ani one of these weekends to do some modeling for me. I just don't know how people feel about hats being worn to be photographed. You see it all the time on Etsy but I think it could be a turnoff to some potential buyers.

So which one gets your vote in this round. The head shot or the headless torso?

Cream of the crafty crop!

I mentioned a month ago that I was worried that I wouldn't get into my favorite craft show, the Strange Folk Festival, this year due to record number applications. I heard today that I had gotten in which literally made my month! They accepted 150 crafters out of 350 applications and she called us the cream of the crafty crop.

I really think the longevity of my blog and number of followers made a difference this year as they said that they were using web presence as a factor. Since my Etsy shop is on vacation for the summer and my twitter account has been a ghost town for months this little blog is about it.

I will definitely need to start speed knitting to get myself fully stocked for the fall. I will be in good shape for the Strange Folk festival in terms of inventory but if I want to do some other shows I need to get busy.

If you are local in the St. Louis area there is another great show coming up this weekend called theSoulard Market Park Arts and Crafts Fair. There will be 80 local independent artists and crafters selling unique, modern handmade wares. I plan on going by with my nieces to check it out. The Upcycle Exchange will be there collecting donated craft supplies if you have some things cluttering up your craft room, unlike me of course.

No blog Vacation!

Someone asked if I would be still blogging during my summer shop holiday. For sures to that. My blog is definitely just as important of a hobby and outlet as my knitting now. As work gets stressful over the summer I may not have as much time to keep up with all of you but I'll still be around.

I just applied to my favorite craft show of the year, the Strange Folk Festival. I got an e-mail reminder but also a notice that they are getting record applications this year with the growth of the festival last year. She stressed that just because we were accepted last year does not guarantee a spot this year. So keep your fingers crossed with me that I get a spot. I do so enjoy the spirit and camaraderie of my fellow strange folks each year.

The application stresses the importance of branding and web presence. I hope that my shop being closed this summer doesn't affect my chances. The fact that my blog is the first one that comes up on the first page when you google it should help. I'm wishing I'd had time to do some new pictures to enter but I really wanted to get my application in before we went on vacation. I used the one at the top which I think is interesting and has a lot of views on Flickr and a few other favorites from last Fall. I'll keep you posted.

Summer Vacation for my shop!

Be like the flower, turn your face to the sun.
-- Kahlil Gibran

I had an etsy sale last week and instead of being happy about it I was annoyed. I thought now I have to get it wrapped up and go to the Post Office and with everything else that was on my plate last week with my car in the shop, etc. it was just one more thing to deal with. So I've decided to give my shop a nice vacation for the summer. I'm putting her to rest until August so that I can regroup and get my act together with better pictures and fresh inventory.

I only had 15 items listed with most of them things that had been hanging around the shop for at least a year, like the Summer Flowers wristcuff above. I will take some time this summer to put my new photography skills to work and get some new images to really showcase my scarves.

I'm starting to get my motivation to knit back. There were over 3 months when I just wasn't feeling it this year. Mike had set up a router in the living room for the laptop when I was on my back with the broken ankle. I let myself get into the habit of coming home and getting online rather than knitting to relax after work.

I told Mike last month that I didn't think I was going to have enough inventory at the rate I was going for this year's craft show season. So he decided that I couldn't handle having the laptop right next to my couch and he came and took it away. I still have my desktop in my craft room of course but I'm less inclined to waste hours on it and treat it more like my business/photography station.

So I think I'm going to put up an etsy mini of my favorites for the meantime. I'll be back with a full selection of colorful Fall accessories in August.

And now for some knitting

For class this week we are supposed to bring in our best 8 shots of the week. That is double what we normally do and forced me to do some serious work this weekend. I know it doesn't sound like much but when you know that they are going to be blown up to life size and analyzed it pushes you to do your best. I decided to do some shots of my knitting for fun and practice.

I haven't taken any product shots with my new camera yet and probably won't be doing too much for a little while. On-line scarf sales are non-existent in the summer months but I may try to get some things ready for the fall as time goes on. I feel much more confident in being able to get shots that really showcase my knitting now. I may try to set up a little studio in my basement with some lights I bought a long time ago but never figured out how to use. My teacher told me to diffuse them with cheese cloth to get that soft lightening effect.

I took these on my sun porch with a white standing board for science fair projects ($3.99) for the backdrop. I used a low aperture to get the shallow depth of field that gives them an artier effect. I always wanted to be able to do that with my old camera but now I finally have the proper equipment and knowledge to put it to use.

Mike and Ani both hate the mannequin head in the above shot (one of the few things they actually agree on). They say that she is cross eyed and creepy looking. I don't think that is so apparent in pictures but what do you think? She is handmade paper mache and I got her second hand for a very good price.
This one is a hat and scarf set that I really like. I used organic wool which is super soft and has a nice subdued color palette.

Spring Celebration Contribution

So every few days through the Spring Celebration I'm going to be posting additional pictures, interviews, and maybe even a tutorial or two from the contributors. Because I know many of you are out and about actually celebrating Spring, Easter, and/or Passover this weekend I thought I would just share my own contribution for now.

One lucky winner will be receiving the lime green, raw silk scarf with wooden beads hand knit by me, along with an appliqued XL tee shirt from the remaining inventory of my sister in law's shop. She has decided to retire Gray Eyed Scorpio for the time being to focus on other creative pursuits but this very Spring like tee shirt could still be yours. I think the two of them make a very Springy look, don't you? The combined total of the two handmade creations is $35.

Here is a close up of the stitches and beads on the scarf. I used my favorite open stitch pattern which makes for a loose carefree look that you can throw around your neck on a breezy morning. So have you entered the Giveaway yet? What are you planning on choosing if you get first pick? It would be a hard decision for me that is for sure. I really love that pillow by So Many Colors but I've had my eye on WillOaks Studio's pearl necklace for the past month. And then there is the yarn and handmade soap, oh I just don't know what I would choose. Too bad I'm not able to sign up for my own giveaway but you sure can. Just click here to go to the post. I hope you all have a fabulous weekend however you celebrate.

A stroll through my sold listings

I was inspired by Nancy at Nfall2rt to take a stroll back through my sold listings on Etsy. I have sold 90 items although I'd say around 20 of those were actually trades. My first sale came only several hours after I listed my first item on Sep 2, 2007. It was one of my Indian Surprises from above. I sold 5 scarves my first year using the colorful sari silk yarn in bright bold colors. I don't know why I stopped making them to be honest. The last skein I bought on e-bay had a weird smell so I decided to not use it but I think it's time to look for another supplier. The colors really pop off the screen. I remember how proud I was of the pictures of this scarf with the Buddha head statue from my back yard.

I used a lot more props when I first started photographing my scarves. I was constantly bringing a vase or wall hanging or statue into the shot. I got lazy or perhaps more effective at streamlining the process a year into selling. I think it took some of the fun out of it for me and I do still like going back and looking at the prop shots from the past. This one used a moon plaque I had that I think set a mood. I sold this scarf on Dec 3, 2007.

The High Times Scarflette became the foundation for an entire shop makeover 2 years ago. I first sold it on Feb 17, 2008. I have since sold a number of them on-line and in person and it is still my bestseller so to speak. I've used up the last of the now discontinued yarn and I decided not to go in search for any remnants that might still be out there on-line. The colors captured the mood I wanted to express with my shop perfectly at that time and the pictures in my banner will live on until I decide to shake things up some day.
This last scarf, called Champagne Blush, sold on Nov 3, 2008. It represents the move away from using props in my shots and is a more straightforward shot. I like how well it shows off the details of the scarf and the eye is not distracted by anything else. The pure white background shows that I was getting better at using the light and my camera.

What do you think. Should I continue to keep it simple or do you like the shots with the props better? I'm still torn. I will need to do a big photo shoot of my inventory that I have left after last year's craft shows to be ready for next year.

Spring Flowers

I haven't really spotted many Spring flowers yet for some reason around here. I'm hoping this weekend we might start to see some colorful bursts that I can capture. The top shot is from last Spring on the farm with the girls. It's one of my favorites and it always puts a smile on my face when I see it. The daffodils are going to bloom without me this year on the farm I'm afraid.

The second shot is of a knitted wire wrist cuff for sale here on my Etsy site. It is a perfect spring accessory in great pastel colors.

I'm so thrilled with the response to my Spring Celebration. I thought I would give you a hint at some of what you can expect starting April 1. I will have interviews and a few tutorials from the participants. So far I have a selection of handmade soaps, a quilted pillow, a spring pearl necklace, a gorgeous pendant, an appliqued tee shirt, a novelty knitted item, a skein of handspun yarn in Spring colors, some knitted Spring accessories, and a selection of DIY craft books from my library.

Something for everyone if I do say so myself. Many of the participants are blog buddies of mine and there are a few new faces that I'm excited to introduce to you all. If you are interested in participating there is still time to let me know. I will need to know by March 30 and you can e-mail me at lenoxknits@yahoo.com to get more details.

I've decided that I'm going to spread the joy and have multiple winners. I think that I've decided to have one big giveaway with a first prize winner who gets the first choice of item and on from there, instead of a series of small giveaways. It will be easier to keep the buzz going for everyone and easier for me to promote it. My main goal for this week is to get the interviews done and to come up with a graphic for the giveaway.

Hats Off

I was going to post this on Saturday and call it Haturday but the weekend really got away from me. That is actually a good thing. It was the first full weekend I've had since the fall/surgery with tickets to the Rep Saturday and some shopping on Sunday with Ani. The top picture is one my friend/former colleague sent me of the twins in their hats I made them. She says they get compliments every time they wear them but I'm sure they get compliments on anything she puts on their adorable heads.

The next shot is of Ani goofing around with the hats I made while laid up on the couch. It's kind of a sad number but a few of them are more intricate than others. The organic wool one in gray has cables throughout and actually took me well over a week to make. Unfortunately it has no give and will only fit a small adult head or child. When I took this shot of Ani she said, "Wait, I think I blinked."

I'm getting much faster and more knowledgeable about which stitch patterns are best for which hat. I've started using ripple stitches as it gives a cool effect especially with variegated or space dyed yarns. And since hats are not reversible like scarves I can use some cool stitches I like that are only interesting on one side.

I know that hat season is basically over but it's all about building up the inventory. It's time for me to really start thinking about next year's craft show season and what I want to focus on. I'm going to have the hats and the high and low end scarf price points. I will whip out a bunch of $15 scarves for 2 months right before my first show but between now and then I'm going to focus on hats and more upscale scarves to match the hats. I'm also thinking about how to sell them in sets. I'm really starting to come out of my creative slump which is definitely a good thing.

To Etsy or Not to Etsy, that is the Question...

Since I can now drive and get into and out of my car with my walker I am back to work full time this week. Getting a big part of my routine back has made a huge difference in my energy level and outlook.

So I started thinking about whether I should take my Etsy shop out of vacation mode or just leave it alone for now. Honestly a sale at the moment would be more trouble than it's worth. I would have to have Mike go into the room that dare not speak it's name (my horribly disorganized craft room if you must know), find the item and wrap it up, and then drag myself into the post office, which sounds like a nightmare to me.

This year on Etsy has been a bust for me anyways. I had a few sales and a few decent trades but nothing much to speak of. Ironically I sold the scarf at the top the day before my fall and had to have Mike take care of shipping, which he wasn't crazy about at all.

I could never get into a good rhythm of picture taking either through the Fall. I wasn't crazy about my setup out on the porch but was too lazy to come up with something better. I tagged the bulk of my inventory for the craft show season before I had taken pictures of them. I've found that it's harder to get a great shot of something after it's been tagged since you have to find an angle were the tag doesn't show.

Speaking of lazy I just don't have the motivation to start up my own website or try a different venue on-line either. My 1000 Markets shop was unceremoniously shut down for lack of activity. I really don't know how some of you do it, keeping multiple sites active and full. For me craft shows have been my biggest success with my business and that is what I plan on focusing my energy on for next year.

My quandary is whether I should keep the shop up and running once I am really up and running, even if it is a shell of its former self. There was a time when if I didn't have at least 3 pages of items listed I felt bad. The main reason I think it is important to have at lease some presence on-line is that some of the craft shows use it to evaluate your work. It has been more like a portfolio of my work than a real business venture for the past year. If I'm wanting to continue to do these shows I'm thinking it is probably worth it to maintain at least a few pages of inventory on Etsy. I've also passed out hundreds if not thousands of business cards over the past few years with my shop address featured prominently.

What do you think. Am I wasting my time on Etsy or should I continue to plug along keeping it somewhat up to date?

Inspire Me

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

‘You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.’

— Jack London

I know that you would think with 4 weeks on the couch that I would have a whole lot of finished knits to show for it. But you would unfortunately be wrong. The first 2 weeks are a blur to me since I was in a lot of pain and taking some serious pain meds that left my brain in a fog. The last two weeks have been pretty unproductive too. I have a small pile of hats that I've made and that is it. Ani was over tonight and looked at the few things at the end of the couch and she said "is that it." I thought you would have filled a room with hats by now.

I made the Flickr widget of my knitted creations at PictoBrowser to help get my creative juices flowing. I have been completely lacking in inspiration. My craft room is a cluttered mess at the moment and I can't really get in there to get to my yarn. When I'm lacking inspiration normally I will go in my room, get out piles of yarn and start playing with different color combinations. I will look through my stitch books until something lights my fire.

I had Mike bring me out some books and some yarn but it just wasn't the same. Tonight Ani went deeper into the yarn stash than Mike chose to venture. She drug a bunch of different things out and helped me to come up with some color combos that peaked my interest. That is what I needed to do a week ago.

I'm not going to beat myself up about not using this time off from work more productively. My body was healing and that was the priority. I wasn't really in a position to make the most of the time and sometimes you can't force it.

I've been thinking a lot about the direction that I want to go with my business in the next year. I just don't know if trying to sell on-line is really worth it to me. It is a lot of work for very little pay off. I'm sure I will have a post soon with my thoughts on this.

Two Scarf Day

I know this is no news flash but it's too damn cold this week. There are record cold temps expected later this week and snow on its way (keep your fingers crossed that I get a snow day tomorrow). Yesterday I had a student come into my office and start removing a few of her many layers. She started unwrapping one scarf and then another. I laughed and said that it was a two scarf day if there ever was one. (The colorful scarf above is keeping my wise man statue warm in this shot and was knit in a soft wool/silk blend.)

That got me thinking. I've been selling my scarves for 3 years now not to mention all the ones I've gifted through the years. On a day like today, when even people who don't normally wear scarves are wearing them, I wonder how many people out there are wearing one of my creations today. It could be close to 100. I've sold at least 400 scarves or scarflettes in my time, although not all of them were cold weather scarves. At least 50 of them were purely fashion accessories. But if you are like me you wear one of them and stack it with a scarflette to keep the chill away, which is what I have on today.

It gives me a thrill to think about all the people wrapping my scarves around their necks today. Hopefully my colorful creations give them at least a tiny lift in spirit as they go out into the Arctic air.

2009 Ups and Downs

I'm finally getting used to writing 2010 now so I'd better do my recap of 2009 soon before I forget all about it. 2009 was a bit of a roller coaster for me internally if not so much external. I didn't necessarily have any major life upheavals but I had some epic funks and came to some important decisions about my life. I thought I would break it down by the Ups and Downs of 2009. Some are business related but most are personal.

The 3 pictures are of Kate on the farm last week. One minute she was flying through the air, wind whipping through her hair while jumping off of the old cellar. 10 minutes later she had unceremoniously fallen on her bottom while playing on an ice patch. Am I a terrible aunt for recording her fall, I don't know I'll leave that judgement call to you.

First for the Highlights:

1. Lenox Knits had a great year in sales at the indie craft shows. The Rock N Roll Craft Show in November gave me my biggest profit from a show ever. Strange Folk was another successful and fun weekend.
2. Grew my blog followers to 365 which constantly amazes me. I also achieved a Google Page Rank of 3 which made me happy even if I don't fully understand what it means.
3. Got my new DSLR camera (Canon Rebel Xsi). Because of my great craft show results I was able to treat myself to something I wanted but didn't necessarily need. I've gotten such a great deal of pleasure out of taking pictures the past year which I never saw coming.
   
4. Celebrating our 5th wedding Anniversary. I wrote all about it back in June in a whole 4 part series.
5. Our great summer adventure including Alabama, New Orleans, and a cruise to Mexico. Was the biggest and best vacation Mike and I have ever taken together.
6. The trips home to the farm with the kids. All those years spent yearning to get away from the farm and now I see it as a retreat and the nieces and nephews all view it as one big playground.
7. Discovering Roller Derby and meeting Phyllis from The Office sitcom at a match. Sometimes it's the little things that make the year special but I really looked forward to going to those matches with Mike and his Mom.
8. Repertory Theater season tickets, a professional live theater here in St. Louis. This was the first year we have done it as a couple and I've really enjoyed the shows . We splurged on our seats and spent around $600 on the season but it was totally worth it.
9. January 21, 2009. Need I say more...
   

So here in no particular order are the lows from 2009:

1. The girls moving to Texas. This was the hardest thing I've dealt with in awhile and brought on a pretty major Depression. I still miss them dearly but it's getting easier.
2. My weight gain. I went back on my meds last year and the weight gain creep began immediately. I have let myself get out of control again and will be joining Weight Watchers again this month to hopefully get a handle on things.
3. Lack of Etsy sales and general unhappiness with my on-line venue choices. I am really unsure of the direction I want to go with on-line sales in general and I'll be doing a lot of thinking about this.
4. Seemingly never ending construction at work that went on way over it's scheduled completion date. The huge increase in enrollment this year has been a major headache also.
5. Reaching my late 30's and one step closer to that dreaded number. This transition hit me especially hard as a childless woman as I discussed here.

When it comes down to it I have a lot to be thankful about. I have a great family and husband and my time with my nieces and nephews is something I cherish. I'm content with my job and hobbies even with the ups and downs. Thanks for sharing all of it with me this year and I can't wait to share all the surprises from 2010 with you as they come along.

Back to Work

I'm happy to be back among the blogging. Of course I'm also back at my full time job which is not so great but it's all a balance in life. Thanks to those who continued to drop in on me even when I was in hibernation mode. I didn't get nearly as much done over the break as I had hoped. The monster head cold that hit me midweek really disrupted my agenda. I got lots of reading done but not much else. I didn't even do much knitting. I made myself a hat which Mike said made me look like a bag lady. He says that about 1/2 the things I wear but this time I agreed with him so it got frogged (ripped out).

I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the kids. I think Kai and Ani enjoyed getting caught up with the girls so the round trip to get them was worth it even it Mike totally didn't get why I was doing it. The shots above are both from the old '57 Chevy truck. The top shot is completely unaltered and I love the care free nature of it even if you can't see Kate. The second one I played with a little bit and it has a more serious feel, which could be their new album cover as the kids like to say.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about the business and my goals for the new year but I just don't have the time or energy to get into them today. You could go read Nancy's post over at Nfall2rt and I could easily say ditto to most of it and save myself the effort. We appear to both be unhappy with the current state of our Etsy endeavors and hoping to get reinspired to living a creative and handmade life in the new year. I'm sure I'll have more to say about my thoughts on another day but for now I'll leave it there.