Brain... Seriously?

Click on the picture to be taken to this
Etsy listing!

So between two colds back to back that lasted a month and the monthly uterine rebellion, my brain has been fuzzy, over clocked and refusing to cooperate when I want to go to sleep.

So what does my brain do last night as I'm laying there in the hour after me and DR had gone to bed do?

"Hey I wonder if people look up stuff via DnD alignment types? Wouldn't it be fun to make a Chaotic Neutral series? Or even a Lawful Ebil? ...how the hell would make a Lawful ebil even work? What color schemes would I need to use?"

GAH!

I'd already been planning a series based on the core classes. The thing with ideas like this is that while it's cool and fantastical... those who would actually be enthusiastic about buying such in limited numbers and limited budgets.

Biggest drawback to being a hand crafter: Making the cool pretty shit versus the more practical every day shit that appeals to a more broad demographic. Occasionally making one of the fantasy things here and there to show that I posses the skill level to do such is okay but not at the expense of the things that sell.

The little things add up quickly. Hell one of these days I dream of waking up and finding I'm out of Dice Bags would be great! Then again I enjoy making those, so running out probably isn't going to happen anytime soon. ^_^

I found out not too long ago, finding baby and toddler boy themed blankets is a bit harder than I had originally thought. So I'm definitely going to be trying to keep a few of those in the shop from now on. 

Other than that, it's just a finish other projects day. Hopefully I'm feeling well enough at week's end to list some more things on the shop but staging, taking pictures, editing them and creating the listings can be very menial and mentally tiring. Definitely best for days when I've been staying on top of eating and other self care that's crucial for certain stuff to behave.

It's almost 2015 already?!

The Chief just seemed appropriate. =)

Holy shit... well I finally got all my Christmas orders done.  I've learned some serious lessons this year, like me and poison oak don't get along, but there's been others.

Like time management.

Like if someone brings my ability to work to a crashing halt, I need to put my damn foot down about there are very specific times they can be over and very specific time amounts they can stay.  I lost a lot more time than I like to think about to that idiot. Who now is trying to use her boys as pawns to get her into a better housing situation or flown home. Oh and it's everyone else's fault but her own that she's now couch surfing. I feel sorry for her kids.  Her...not an ounce. She had four different jobs that she managed to land.... then got too drunk and hungover.  I'm sure you can guess how that ended.

I've learned that I've healed a lot this year. I was able to go hiking with two folks I barely knew and had a blast. Nothing triggered. No episodes. Just a good much needed break. I was able to go to a ballet (!!!!), the Nutcracker. I had DR with me of course and a bag with crochet in it. (HA! Thought I left that behind didn't ya?)

I've learned to have less fear of the future. Still have a massive amount, but it's probably half of what it was. Fear as in, whether or not I am capable to learn enough as to the where's and what's I'll be doing in the future are of minor concern.

I managed so far to get through this holiday season with a panic attack. I think it's been at least three or four months since the last one, that's a record. There have been a couple of minor ones that I managed to head off, and no anxiety attacks flaring into a panic attack.  Whew.  Now that (!) is progress.

I still miss my cat though. =(

And yes for those of you wondering Mace is based on Mindy.  Many of the interactions between Lacy and Mace in normal every day to day, are actually things that happened with us at the cabin. Including the bit about band aids needed on the thighs.  Ouchz!

I've started writing again. I used to write a lot of that was... let's just say, only DR gets to see that and even then I get a pat on the head. Yeah, that's the best way to sum up his reaction and no, I don't find it insulting. I tend to understand that action a bit better than vocal reactions to that old stuff.

I know I need to charge a bit more for some of the things I make.  Like the coats.  I think I'll be phasing out a couple of things after New Year's and introducing several new things that are going to go over well I think. Nope, no hints.

We also have a table now.  Yes, it's el cheapo fold plastic table from Wal*Mart, but we have a damn table. We have a place we can sit and eat our meals at...instead asian style on the floor....

I still have a few other orders, but I still don't know what to do with myself now that all the Christmas ones are done. Feels weird to be honest.  Good, but weird.

We celebrated Yule this Sunday. I managed to make a leg of lamb taste amazing. We threw it into the crockpot with leeks, rice and green onions.  I barely tugged on the bone and it came out with no meat left on it. We did stuffed bell peppers with goat creme cheese and veggies.  There's enough food left over for another week's worth of meals.

I'm not active on my facebook right now. I'm sad because facebook changed their policies about pages and you basically have to pay after January 2015 for people to see your content. I ain't got that kind of money.  I'm sad because a lot of really awesome pages might go bye-bye while I'm gone.  I'll have a website hopefully soon though, so that I can stop relying on Etsy and Zibbet.

I AM on ello under Evelyn Stormrose, so if anyone is over there and not already friended me, please feel free, drop me a line too while you're at.

I will have be having two coats at the end of February up for grabs.  No clues about the colors, you'll just have to wait and see.

Okay, I've rambled on enough for today. =) See you guys tomorrow.

Pass the Coffee dudes.....

7:30 am this morning....awake.

I managed to get a 15 minute nap. After that it was very clear, there wasn't any going back to sleep.  Oh well.

The to-do list for today includes working on streamlining and cleaning up the facebook page for Jade Rose Zen, which also got a slight name change.  Jade Rose Zen ThreadWorks.

Someone finally went, hey the name doesn't really say much besides being catchy.  *head desk*

Never fails, either people won't give any advice or give too much.  Thankfully my friend Erin knows where to draw the line when it comes to advice.  Lovely gal that she is.

Though last night she asked me, what the heck it was that going on with JRZT.  Etsy brings in half of my orders but zero traffic.  Zibbet brings almost all of my traffic, but no orders.  Half of my orders come from Facebook, but maybe ten percent of traffic.

*head desk; head desk; head desk*

I do plan on building a website that is my store and independent of the crapp shoots that all these sellers.  Whether or not it work out..... well, that's another ball game and one that I'm not going to address until after the move.

And of course, Jade Rose Zen Threadworks even without the spaces is too long for Etsy, but the title can have it....

*rubs temples*

How one manages to stay sane while attempting to maneuver all this shit is beyond me.   So what's on tap for new stuff coming to the Facebook page?  Hopefully by the end of today, I'll have things organized better.  I am not an ads person.  Hell, I can barely write descriptions for the stuff I make that is outside of what the measurements are.  That's all folks need right?  Along with a good two or three pics....

Seriously how the hell do some of these folks come up with this prattle that is in their items listings?

Adding four new albums to the Facebook page, including a available for custom order catalog, knitting, crocheting and a paracord catalog.

Also, I call bullshit on anyone who says the economy is getting better.  PTUI!

Go fuck a duck.  Seriously.  Last year, I was getting several big orders.  This year, I had one big one and everything is small things.  Even small things are great though, but folks just aren't spending their money.  They're holding onto it tightly because they don't know when things are going to suddenly break on their cars that they've duct taping and wishing along as pieces start rattling that really shouldn't rattle.

Hell, I know folks who are trading quarts of food they canned two years ago to shade tree mechanics to get their brakes fixed, oil changed, etc.  People are trading goods for services.   Which is a time-honored tradition by the way.  One that I fully practice whenever able.  To be honest, things are not going to be better economy wise.  There's too many bubbles, there's too many head in the sand and there's coming up probably a few years where you're going to want armed guards on the fields protecting crops.

Won't last for several years though, probably 3-6 at the most.  Americans are bred from incredibly hardy stock, from all over the world.  There's a very unique spirit there that after a time will shake itself clean and look around and go, "Oh hell.  This needs fixed, and this needs fixed...."  So they start fixing stuff in their own lives, which produces this gorgeous ripple effect.  It starts inspiring other folks to get off their asses and get work done.

Oops, there I go another tangent again... what was I talking about... oh yeah, the shop.   I'll be taking a decent number of pictures today of the paracord stuff.  There so much of it, they can literally be broken down by color.  Heck, I'll throw up a second post late today with everything in it.  Sound good?

Well, I'm done rambling for today.  Time for coffee and breakfast.  Ya'll have a great weekend okay?

Fuck off Murphy....

punk ass.  I can see you over there just waiting for your chance.  It was a bitch ass move to make the Fiance's boots a half size too small, but those little things are the only thing you better fuck with this November.  Bitch.

Well I am back to just as normal for me as I can get.  The muscle pain is gone and well my appetite is not quite still there yet, it's recovered as well as can be expected.

With the recovery came being able to double down on work again. How much you work you ask?

Allow me to breakdown my orders for you.

Order #1, what's left of it anyways:
A green coat
A light browns coat
A messenger bag

Order two:
2 Toothless (yeap, cute little bugger)

Order #3:
A Ma Cobb hat
A dark blue and black scarf

Order #4:
Another Ma Cobb Hat

Order #5:
A large green shawl

Order #6:
Three Christmas stockings

Order #7:
Dolls (though how many of these I'll be making I'm not sure yet...)

"That's a lot of work there..."

Well kinda.  I have all the patterns, I know what and how these are all going to look like (save the messenger bag, I keep changing my mind on it.)  However I've also got pictures I need to take, and my fiance is never home long enough to doing nothing for long enough to get drafted.

I need a kid... Well... maybe not.  I need more space, which we're going to get when we move to Arizona.  Which means more cooking and baking (yay!). And I digress....

Anyways, that means you guys who take the time to read here, may be getting stuck with cheat articles of pictures of projects as they are coming along and videos of cute stuff.  Maybe some prepping or survivalist videos if I can find some I like.  (Yeah, key term there.)

Sadly I do not have any Samhain plans (pronounced Sow-in) aka Halloween for you mundanes. I'm fairly certain it'll rather simple, spiced cider and a good meal with the Fiance.  I'm rather content with that actually.

Anyways, I hope you're all having a good week, a great Thursday and I'll see ya'll Saturday.

Meanwhile, I'm going to enjoy some more coffee, and then get cracking on work.

Oh Monday, Monday...

Almost back to normal from Thursday kicking my almost-non existent ass.  All that's left is the small meals I'm eating around 4-5 times a day, mild fatigue and some still serious back muscle pain.  I'm just over here thanking the Gods that it's not spasms (!!!).

Been thinking about either doing an auction on the Jade Rose Zen facebook page or doing a "12 days of Christmas/Yule" flash sale event and having about two things a day.

Either way, I'll be cross posting to Google +  plus as well and here to the blog.  Among everything will be some of the really popular stuff, like the dolls, shawls and blankets, but there will be some surprises in there too. =)

In the meantime, I'm going back to bouncing around youtube listening to music, working on orders and sitting in my comfy chair.

In the meantime, here's something I found today.  Enjoy:

Oh that's frustrating...

So I get messages from time to time on Etsy from friends of friends being sent to me looking for a particular crocheted thing.

Most of the time, after they hear/see the price they almost always "Thank you for your reply."

Which among us crafters is code for "Why the fuck would I pay that when I can get it from Wal*Mart for 3.99?"

The item in question this time was a beautiful crocheted cloche with flower embellishment.  22-25 bucks.

That covers the materials (which would need to a bit finer of a yarn for the flowers and leaves) and barely covers my time.

This is one of the most... derogatory things that happens on a weekly basis for all crafters I think.  Someone asks us to make something and for how much and then what happens?  The above.

Something else that coincides with this response is almost always the fact that the person who does this, 95% of the time is the same kind of person who bitches about "American jobs being sent overseas".  Here's a newsflash for you oh stupid one, stop fucking taxing businesses out of existence.
Here's a little background for those of you who aren't familiar with how hand crafts like mine work.

We'll use a beanie, as an incredibly simple example.

The basic beanie, can be down with one thread or two.   With any of the stitches know as single, double or treble and hell all the ones in between.

It takes 1-3 skeins of yarn, depending on how nice of a yarn or color variety you want. These range in price from 3.14 for 236 yards of thread (215 meters) to 8.99 for 174 yards.

Then the average crafting time is anywhere from an hour and 45 minutes to five hours (this is dependent on skill level and experience level).  I average an hour and 45 minutes on simple beanies.

Now, let's just say that for a really nice cloche I decide to go with a finer thread for the flowers.  This finer thread costs 6.99 a skein, and I get two in two different colors.  Then one skein at 3.14 for the main hat.

Now that puts me at 17.12 already.  And I haven't even started working on the hat yet.

So we'll say there's four flowers.  Each flower takes me 45 minutes for a total of 3 hours.
The cloche takes me 2 hours to make.

So that's five hours for this hat.  Now at the higher quoted price of 24 dollars minus the 17.12 leaves 6.88.

Now divide 6.88 by 5.

That is 1.376 an hour.

We won't go into any of the other things I make.

I put five hours of time into a hat, and am only asking 24 bucks for it.

Do the crafting community a favor: If you aren't willing to pay for quality and for the investment of our time, don't even open a fucking conversation with us.

In case you're wondering what it would cost if I put in the 8.75 min wage just to give you a baseline:
43.75 and that's just the cost of the time.  Plus material and shipping... try 60 bucks at least.

Do me and the rest of the crafting community a favor: don't get snotty, snobby, condescending, arrogant, snide, rude or belligerent with me when I give you a very reasonable price, when I'm the one who knows how much time goes into my work, not you.  I know my work is going to last you for several years when that junk you buy from some chain store is going to worthless in less than a year.

Stop your bitching about sending jobs overseas when you won't even invest in small business here.

It's crunch time!

As I don't have anything off the top of my head that I'd like to rant about, talk about, etc. as I'm in the middle of a crunch time and quite possibly frogging one of the jackets (again!)  so a copy and paste from my notes on Jade Rose Zen on Facebook will just have to suffice.

"Hey everyone, wanted to give y'all a heads up.

The last day of this year that I'm willing to accept to orders for the Holiday seasons is November 16th.  There will be NO MORE ORDERS ACCEPTED AFTER THAT DATE FOR THIS YEAR.  

I'm establishing this policy because I got rushed with orders last year at the last minute and I ended up being late with a few of them.  I don't like being late, I don't like being surprised with stuff at the last minute which I'm sure you don't enjoy either.  

If you are interested in something for Christmas, start telling me now!!!!!

It takes some serious time to get everything made, because I'm working designs and ordering yarn many times for your orders.  

I've already one order that I managed to convince to let me start on it back in June (And boy am I glad they agreed!!!).   

So if you are interested in buying from for this coming winter gift giving season, LET ME KNOW NOW!  

It's okay if you are on budget, and need to put the money back, but please remember I do have a PayPal now and we can work payments if you need to.

This year (after including other current orders) I have room to start designing and settling on yarn:

• 1 Doctor Who scarf.  Full sized, or reduced, this one is the good yarn that is incredibly close to color but a bit more expensive.  Please see the Note, Product list, for pricing.
• 2 twin sized afghans
• 1 coat (I only have time left to work one right now, this might change, I'll update this note if I can take more orders)
• 12 Ma Cobb hats
• 6 dolls
• 12 baby afghans and hats
• 6 shawls
• Tote and Messenger bags - 4, Purses, sized neck to small - 10

I do not have room to take orders on the following:

• full, queen, King sized afghans

 Thank you kindly for being one of my clients, and I'm looking forward to hearing from you!"

You can still find me on Etsy - Jade Rose Zen until December 14th.  That's the last day I can ship things and (hopefully) still get them to folks on time.  After that I'm not having an open shop on Etsy.  I won't be uploading anything new there.

Now on Zibbet- Jade Rose Zen I am open there now, and will be for hopefully several years.  There is new inventory up there and will continue to uploaded through out the season.  On November 16th, the custom order option will be coming down until January 14th.  Between December 14th and January 14th... I'm taking a VACATION!

Prototypes: They are a must!

A long long time ago, in what seems like another dozen lifetimes ago, a woman taught her eldest daughter how to crochet, and a few years later how to read a pattern.  Then after about a decade and a half, that now grown daughter began to freehand her patterns.

Yeap, I was probably around 6-8 years old when my mom took those first steps of introducing me to the world of crochet.

It was simple things at first.  Afghans and hats. Yes, actually afghans are incredibly easy and when they get to a certain size, you can curl up underneath of your work during the cooler months of the year.  I really really like making afghans and shawls.

In the last couple of years, I've stepping outside of the pattern books.  When I moved home with my parents for a time again, I was still struggling with being able to find a big enough comfort zone to be able to work a "normal" job again.  *shudder*

I had already been crocheting constantly at that point as it was an incredibly good coping mechanism for what I was going through. One day I got froggy, and decided that I was going to make a crocheted coat.

I had a large amount of yarn as well that I was trying to get used up, but this prototype was an incredibly important step in my creative endeavors.  I proved to myself that I could design something when I put myself into it.

Now I learned several lesson from this particular prototype:

1. Measure, measure, measure!  Especially the armholes.  The sleeves were massive on this thing.  Way too big for a lean critter like myself.

2.  Always double check my sleeve placements.  The sleeves on this piece were almost two inches, too far back.

3.  The neck was too small almost.  From this coat to the next one I made, the front pieces were made more narrow as I worked my way to the shoulders.  This allowed for the hood to fit better, and gave the next piece a very nice sculpted look.  I really wish I had taken a picture of it, but it was a late order that year and it needed to go out.

4. As you can see from the front of this, the bottom was almost too narrow.  It really doesn't sit well anywhere.  This lead to me making the bottom part a couple inches wider than the person's hips and once above the hips, taking it in just a couple of stitches.

5.  On the next coat, I learned the lesson of "Don't be afraid of an extra wide edging."

This summer I've ended up with three coat orders, and will be documenting their progress and if any new lessons are added to the ones above.  Two sized mediums and one size small.  I did the small one first, because that's my size and I can get better pictures of these coats now.

Without having done this prototype, I wouldn't have ever even considered making coats, nor would I be anywhere near where I am currently in my skills and the things I can offer as a crafter.

I have a large amount of scrap yarn ("Gee really?") that I use to test stitch styles before committing them to a project.  Color test swatches have also entered my toolbox so that I can get the colors right before I start work.

This prototype coat, I did in what's called a Shell Stitch and in Double Crochet stitches.  As you can see, it looks good... but not great. I wasn't pleased at all with how it wanted to droop because of how loose the fabric had ended up being.  It was too inclined towards stretching and didn't mold to a body properly.   These days, I use the very simple Half-Double Crochet stitch.

It creates an amazing look, gives the work a stiffer fabric and molds better.  Instead of drooping... it drapes. Almost all of my work that I present now via the shop, was preceded by a prototype. In some cases, several prototypes.

If you've not considered using prototypes in your work before (whatever your work might be), I would highly recommend trying the process out.  I do prototypes with even my cooking these days.  =)

Has the search concluded?

By the Lady of Avalon, that took a while to find a new home.

But I think I have found it.

A site called Zibbet.

It took a while to get to going as I was going through the other sites.  I had been listing a test product on each of the sites, and the results on a couple of them were dismal to say the least.

However Zibbet... oh boy oh boy oh boy!

Pros:

1.  Does NOT take a portion of your sales.  NOPE, NONE, ZILCH! 
2. No listing fees.
3. Print receipts and export your transactions to offline sites.
4. You can make gift certificates specific to your store.
5. They can import your Etsy's listings over to Zibbet, and it's free to do so.

Cons:

1. The system they use is PayPal.  At this point though, I'm willing to forgive for that.

They around four different packages.

The Free Package has:

• No listing fees
• No transaction fees
• Sell up to ten items
• 1 picture per item
• Marketplace exposure.

Four dollars a month gets you the above plus:

• Up to 50 items
• 4 images per item
• More exposure on the marketplace
• Basic shop stats
• And a badge.  (I guess they're the same as like widgets or hot links???)

Then the Eight dollars a month gets the last two packages PLUS:

• Unlimited Items
• 8 images per item
• The most marketplace exposure
• Advanced shop stats
• Create coupons, gift certificates
• Discount feature

They have four main categories:

1. Handmade
2. Fine Arts
3. Vintage (20 years min)
4. Craft Supplies.

You can down or upgrade your shop package at any time.  Cancel, no-questions asked.

Has Jade Rose Zen made the move over to Zibbet?  Not fully yet.  December 14th of ths year will be my last day on Etsy.  After that, it'll be Zibbit, along with Storenvy and either I'll get it figured out how to do a storefront on Blogger or will be building a new website.

Storenvy update:
Now I mentioned in the last article that Storenvy had an option to integrate with your facebook page so that folks could go through Facebook and buy from you (no fee for using the facebook app).  HOWEVER, you have to pay five dollars a month to Storenvy for the subdomain through them...and THEN on top of that, pay whatever domain hoster you want to use for the domain name.    That was a major let down.

aftcra update:
One of the reasons I was having problems with their site was because they were updating to a brand site, with improved security, etc.  I do not have any more updates about them as of yet.