JANUARY ROUND UP

Hey guys!

Wow, another month comes to a close … where the hell did it go?

So how has 2019 started for you?

For me, it hasn't been as productive as I would like.  Cold dark days and the lurgy Gods have zapped my motivation and things I wanted to do, have not been done.  That said, it hasn’t been completely un-productive.

Lets start with UPF January…

At the start of the month, I updated my list of outstanding projects, of which I had:

Cross Stitch - 10

Crochet - 11

Knitting - 5

Starting with the knitting, I finished 1 project:

I made a pair of fingerless mitts from a pattern that a friend gave me.  This was really easy to do, although, they took me a few months to make as I'm not a great knitter, and have to concentrate super hard to make sure I don't drop a stitch.

I also finished knitting the pieces for my Brownie doll (WIP's can be viewed via my Instagram page).  This probably won't get finished any time soon, as I hate sewing up knitted pieces!  In fact, most of my outstanding knitted pieces are at the sewing up stage! @______@

I didn't manage to get any more crochet projects finished.  Again, some are at the sewing up stage.

I really need to set a day aside to finish these off.

Finally, I made a 'small-ish' dent in the cross-stitch projects.  I managed to finish two projects that had been in my basket for the best part of 13 years!  Again, there are WIP's on my Instagram, but here are the finished items:

BTW, I didn't get to do any work on that "Gettysberg" design!

I'm going to try chipping away at my UFP's during the course of the year as it would be great to get rid of the bags of un-finished projects cluttering my spare room. 

Ideally, I need to focus on finishing some of my own designs as I am still keen to get my store up and running.

... and speaking of my store ...

I've been doing a lot of internet research over the past month.  

Etsy appear to have made lots of changes to their site over the last year, which doesn't appear to have gone down too well with people, and I have to say, it's put me off using them.  

I can't help feeling that they may have become a victim of their own success.

I am considering alternatives, and two that keep getting mentioned are Zibbet and ArtFire.  I'm leaning towards the former, which has no listing or transactions fees and their free package allows you to list up to 10 items which I think might be a good way for me to test the waters.

The other option (for now), is to sell to you guys direct via my blog.  I was thinking of having a "Shop" page on here listing all the patterns for sale.  If you see one you like, you send payment via PayPal and I email you the pattern … simples!

So let me know what you think.

I have lots of other ideas and stuff that I want to consider over the next few months, but for now my head feels like it wants to explode, so we'll leave it there!

Till next time … keep Kalm and cross-stitch! x