We’re still at somewhat of a loss as to how to help our friends, J & D. But one way I decided to help was to use my knitting talent to make some caps for her now that she has had another surgery and is undergoing chemo.

Last Friday I selected the softest DK weight yarns I could find at the LYS and decided on the Odessa pattern by Grumperina. I chose two colors of Rowan Cashsoft (the blue and the minty green) and one ball of Lavold Silky wool in pink. But when I got home and knit the blue one I decided that I needed a dark wintery-er color too so I stash raided for the elderberry left over from my Millennium Vest.

I had these iridescent sea glass colored beads in my stash that I got from Earth Faire sometime in the last year or so. They matched the light green yarn perfectly. If I can put my hands on the tube of pearlescent ones that I know I also bought at the same time, I’ll use them with the pink silky wool.

This is a lovely pattern and knits up pretty quick. I also really like the fit. Best of all it is an economical knit, it took just under a 50g ball of DK weight yarn.

Guess what shop I stopped in at today?

If you guessed the “Finely crafted Swiss Sewing Machine Shop” that is around the corner from my house that has been holding my serger hostage since late October, you’d be correct. I just happened to be driving through that particular parking lot on my way from Home Depot to Caputo’s Italian Market and figured, “What the hell, maybe just for shits and giggles I’ll stop in and see if there has been any progress made on getting this thing repaired and back to me.” HAH!

First of all, the look on the sales-lady’s face when I responded to her innocuous question, “How can I help you today?” was, “I’m just checking if by any chance that my machine that has been here since October might be done yet?” was truly priceless.

Secondly, no, it wasn’t. Of course ‘Joe’ wasn’t in today and left no notes on the actual machine as to its status or possible day of parole. It appeared that the parts that “He was waiting for and as soon as they came in he’d pop them in and give me a call” were in fact there but not anywhere near being “popped in”.

The kind sales woman assured me that she would move my machine to his work bench and put a note on it that I’d been in (AGAIN!). I told her to add to the note that I would be back on Thursday to pick up my machine and if it wasn’t done, I’d be taking it and the parts with me anyway and not paying a cent for their “services.”

I wonder what kind of service I would have received if they had known that I was preparing to launch a local business catering to crafters. A business where in I would probably have sewing machines available for rent by the hour and offering sewing classes. A business that could potentially send referrals for new machine purchases and machine repairs their way. It’s a shame too. I really prefer the brand of machine that they sell. It’s making me wonder if maybe I should also look into becoming a machine dealer myself in conjunction with my other business plans. I hear Brother makes a nice machine that is pretty affordable.

Food for thought.

Now that the new year is officially begun, (The girls are back to school!) I need to get serious about getting this business idea off the ground.

One small thing that helps me out a lot is talking with my sister. She and I are both trying to do very similar things but are approaching it from different directions. We decided last summer to try to talk once a week or so about different ideas and to give each other encouragement and motivation. Today she called me for our post-holiday wrap up and so we could get each other going again for the new year. I really needed it because I totally lost focus this past month.

One small step I’ve been taking just to try to raise some funds and get my name out there is to work on my etsy shops a bit more. This month I’ve been focusing on my photography shop. I’ve been adding new images and trying to list and re-list regularly to keep my items at the top of the category.

Soon I will spend some time rephotographing some items for my other shop and updating my listings there and see if that helps at all.

I’m also going to look into buying some online advertising somewhere but I haven’t done enough research in that direction yet.

In the mean time, to keep things cohesive, I’ve added two pages to this site featuring my etsy items and direct clickable image links to etsy. Look in the column on the right under ‘Pages’ for links to those pages. Feel free to browse, no pressure.