Monday Update: April 1, 2013

No April Fool's joke here! But I did nearly forget to update today! I worked this morning, and that always throws me for a loop. I much prefer afternoon shifts, but I'm getting a mix of them lately. I'm taking what I can get, to be honest. My hours were nearly non existent for a while, so now that I'm getting over 20 a week, I can finally breathe again. My budget was so tight it squeaked for a while, and now I can finally afford everything I need.

Onto the knitting! I assembled a bunch of bow rings this past week. I've been cranking them out for a while, and I made quite a few. I listed a bunch in the shop, and I'm really happy with them. Go take a look! I have a few more that I didn't photograph for whatever reason, so I will hopefully be taking their glamour shots soon, and get them listed as well.
Are there any colours of bow rings you'd like to see? I have tons of yarn to choose from. I rearranged some of the stash so a lot of it is more easily accessible now.

I also got an order from my friend who got the pink headband with the white flower. Some of her coworkers wanted hair bows like hers, so I put those together. This is the whole order. Lots of reds and pinks. Super cute, I think! They're basically the same as the ring, but a bit larger.
In other exciting news, I'm trying something new to sell. I'm knitting it right now, and I'm hoping to have it done in the next couple days. I'll talk more about it another day.
In other, other exciting news, at some point this week, or early next week, I will have a super awesome thing to share with you. I'll be reviewing a product, and you'll have a pretty sweet coupon code.

Monday Update: January 21, 2013

It's the start of a new work week for most, but I don't work till Thursday. This past week, I haven't been super productive as far as knitting goes. I had a couple rough days mentally, and I just didn't want to knit. Yeah, you read it: I didn't want to knit. Most of the time, knitting helps me relax. Well, this week that just wasn't enough. I cried for a good long while one night. Okay, I can't write about this anymore, it's making me misty eyed. I feel a lot better now, which is a good thing.

I finished knitting another neck warmer this week. Very similar to the other ones I've made, just slightly different numbers, because I was using a different yarn. I really like the way this one knit up. The yarn is Loops & Threads "Country Loom" which is available exclusively at Michael's. My mom got me two skeins of this in the Landscape colourway, which is shades brown and blue. I will probably get more of this yarn once my stash diet is over. I definitely won't be replacing Homespun, but this is a nice alternative.



The other things I've been working on are bows. I shared them on Friday, but here is another little peek at one of them. They turned out really good, I think. I tried puling them off the ring base, and they're stuck on there pretty firmly. This was a concern I had when I started making them. I knew the adhesive I had was good on non porous surfaces, but I wasn't sure how it would work on the porous yarn. Well, it works! I have to decide on a colour to keep for myself. I'm a fan of the red, but it won't match most of the stuff I wear to craft shows (where I will likely be wearing it the most) so I might just go with white or black.
I'm sending a couple of these to a photographer friend of mine so I can get some really nice photos up in my Etsy shop. I'll have these listed as soon as I get the photos from her.
In other news, I've been listing earrings in my shop! I used my iPad to take the photos, and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The photos aren't stellar, but they are definitely pretty darn good. I just have to work on my editing skills in Camera+ and I'll be set!

I haven't made any progress on eliminating skeins of yarn. Most of the knitting I have done has been on the baby gift, and that's not much. I'm going to start finishing off the little balls of yarn again so I can start counting some numbers!

What new projects have you been working on?

Monday Update: January 14, 2013

Happy Monday! I've been busy working on the fundraising for my trip to Guatemala, and I haven't been doing a whole heck of a lot else. If you'd like to help, you can purchase something from my Etsy shop, or join the Ready to Ship sale on Petite Tuques' Facebook page.
Last week, I finished three small (very very very small) balls of yarn, as well as one slightly larger one. I am tracking how many skeins/balls I reduce my stash by this year, and this brings me to minus 4. I almost didn't even want to count the small ones at first, because they were so small and insignificant, but I figured if I get some numbers going, it will encourage me to keep going, and not give up less than a month after setting myself the goal. I am hoping to reduce my stash this year quite significantly. I have a LOT of yarn. Most of it is in clear plastic totes, but there is quite a bit in cardboard boxes, and reusable shopping bags. The lowballing goal is to get rid of the cardboard and bags, and the extreme goal is to clear out those, as well as three of the eight plastic totes. If i reach the latter goal, I will allow myself to stock up on yarn that I use most often, such as Homespun, Thick and Quick, and hopefully some sock yarn for the Beekeepers quilt.
To eliminate these balls, I made a bunch of bows, and a colour block neck warmer. I haven't been super productive, partly because of all the fundraising stuff I need to take care of. I've also been working on Christine's baby gift, which I need to have finished soon!

Sorry about the quality of the first one. I didn't realize how terrible it was until I uploaded it to Ribbet.

The middle photo is of a bowl with a bazillion little bows waiting to be sewn. I also made one of my lace neck warmers in dark blue. I am still in love with this pattern. I tweaked it a little bit to adjust the size, just based on how the one I kept for myself is doing.

As far as debt goes, I'm still at $1400. I paid a small chunk on the card, but after interest charges, and a couple small iTunes purchases, I'm back to square one. Some more crappy news on this front is ahead. I don't know whose bright idea it was, but things have changed drastically at my workplace. We got two new full time employees, who've transferred from other stores, as well as a new manager who will be working with us full time (unlike our current manager who splits his time between two stores). What this means is that our already thinly spread hours are even thinner. I'll be lucky to get 5 hours a week. This is all coming at a bad time for me. Not that there is ever really a good time to lose hours at work, but with going away for a couple weeks, I don't feel comfortable applying for jobs now, and then have them call while I'm gone. I think it would just end up making things more difficult for me.
The other option is to try the knitting thing again. I knit almost constantly already. I have a few local stores that sell my stuff pretty successfully. My Etsy shop is getting decent traffic. It seems like this year would be a good year to try doing this again. I'd still keep the one day a week at the Beer Store, but maybe, just maybe, I could supplement with my handiwork. Argh, I'm so confused and torn!

This week has been a busy, confusing week. I hope to get through this in one piece.
What have all of you fine folks been up to?

What I've been Up To

Thank you for the input on my last post where I laid my cards out on the table as far as my debt goes. I didn't publish all the comments, but I did reply to all of them. I will update now and then about my progress, and what I am doing to have more money available for paying off my credit card.

This is what I've been up to lately as far as knitting goes. The first and fourth picture, I've already shared. I'm going to try to do weekly recaps of what I've knit every Monday. Some stuff might be repeated, but I'll try to keep that to a minimum.
The second picture is a small pile of the bows I sewed up last night. I have 15 bows total in those five colours. I want to have 100 made for the craft show I'm doing at the beginning of March. The third photo is of yet another neck warmer. My mom got me this gorgeous Homespun colourway for Christmas. Two skeins of it! I love it! It's so autumnal and warm looking.
I've been knitting loads, but I haven't finished any skeins of yarn yet! This is hopefully going to be remedied with some projects I have on the back burner right now. I need to work on stock for the aforementioned March show before I work on more wintery things for next craft show season.

I'm going to watch some podcasts and knit some more bows! I can't want to show you what these turn into! I think you'll love them!