Friday, November 30, 2007

No Pics Again

I now have ideas in my head for the Yule gifts, stockings, tree skirts, sockies, oh my! But it's all waiting until after Saturday. Cheer America! will be in town and the Boosters have provided the concesssions for the last three of their competitions. I'm secretary of the Boosters. Hence I will be working the concession all day.
My toe up socks are almost complete, 3.5 inches of ribbing and I'm done. Those are for me because they're by hand. It's nearly impossible to knit goods by hand and still make a bit of money.
Several months ago, T mentioned something about being debt free. This idea has stuck in my head and now I'm trying real hard to reduce our credit card balances. Wrong time of year to do that! But I'm gaining slowly. The balances are shrinking slowly and I have made a few bucks here and there (and expecting a bit more). My goal by this time next year is to have no credit card debt, just the house payment! I best get knitting and selling myself!

Friday, November 16, 2007

Nervous Mervis

Why would I be nervous? Headed to my second craft show tomorrow. The last show I did bombed!!!! Turns you off from making any effort to try another one.
Last year I tried Indian River and told lots of people about it. Indian River is supposed to be one of the largest, best shows of the season. Right, I sold 1 item for $2.50 last year. EEEEK. That worked out to be a huge loss for me.
This year I'm down sizing (I think) heading to Onaway, and I advertised! We'll see if that makes a difference.
Also, locally, there seems to be 'craft show wars'. I know from experience how much the Indian River show costs for a booth--too much for me. Now I see that all the area meeting halls are hosting their own shows, with a much lower table/booth cost. I think I'll try to hit a few of them also.
I'm gonna go simple this year. I get a table and 2 chairs. I'm gonna cover the table with the afghans and rugs I've made and fill baskets with my knits. I've made a sign, printed some business cards and will also take SOME orders for Christmas delivery.
Wish me Luck!

Thursday, November 08, 2007

November in Northern Michigan


This is what we woke up to this morning. Snow on the ground. A nice dusting to make the world look fresh.
Knit-wise I've been zipping through Tempting II from Knitty in a wonderful alpaca from Knit Picks.
This weekend our local machine knitters club will be dying yarn and I'll be dragging along some newbies. Gotta get some of the youngers knitting! (Gosh I never thought I say something like that.)
Tuesday was the first day of my afterschool knitting class. I had five students, 12 to 16 year olds, very excited about knitting. In the 50 minutes we had together, one finished 3 rows, one finished 1 row and the other three were well into their first row.
That seems odd to me as I grew up in a crafting family. Many American families have no concept of doing for themselves; growing food, making and repairing clothing, WOW!