Sunday 21 June 2015

Starting afresh . . . :)

A bit of a time-lapse on my blog since the beginning of the month. But so much happening!

After months of continual crafting, knitting, crocheting, I realised I'd forgotten to stop creating even although I was no longer operating as a crafts business (having closed down last year for various reasons - too long a story!).  Well, I thought, it seems if you're going to carry on regardless - you might as well see if anyone wants to buy any of this stuff!  So after my hiatus I finally came to the conclusion that a new start was inevitable.  A bit of a scary decision but one I'm glad I've made.  

I have now started a new crafting venture called 'Handmade on the Croft'.  This venture will have more of a focus on handmade crafts with a strong emphasis on traditional crafts such as knitting, crochet, embroidery, intermingled with creative textile crafts (Yes, my beloved Harris Tweed will still feature!).  It's really just a gentle transition from my love of creating handmade textile crafts in home to selling online and possibly to retail outlets.  

I've opened a Big Cartel Shop entitled Handmade on the Croft (just click on the image of the sheep in  my sidebar) and an Etsy shop called Yarns on the Croft where I plan to sell more of my 'yarny' type creations eg. knitting, crochet, etc.but I'm sure I'll sneak in some creative textile stuff there too :)

I'm now ready to go (after confronting the perils of setting up my Paypal checkout for both shops - oooops that was a bit scary!).  Enough of the business, blah, blah, blah - I'm up and running again.

Here's a detail of one of my tweedie collages in my Big Cartel shop (items are still to be made available but will be in the next few days, once I get my postal rates finalised - ah, the finer details!) . . . 


That's all the biz news - the personal crafty stuff in general is still going on.  Here's my very satisfying pile of crochet squares beside my sewing machine . . .


. . ., and beside this some lovely Malabrigo sock yarn which was going to be my background project (ie. a lace shawl for me!) before the 'grannying' took over.  I'll have to reserve this for later on in the year I think . . .


. . . It is lovely though and I have such a gorgeous pattern waiting in the wings for making this into a shawl.

And today, at the last count I have 34 granny squares - ie. almost 4 rows (I have to make 10 rows to complete the cover) . . .


Great fun and a real challenge to make every square different - so far so good :)

Well, that's my update - back to crafting online.  A bit of a vintage vibe going on in my shop I think you'll agree - my collection of lace doilies has been well and truly utilised :)  I had a lovely time designing these items though.  More on them later, once they've been made available to purchase.  My Etsy shop is empty at the moment until I get some yarny goodness in there - we'll get there though!

Thank goodness it's the end of school term - I have the whole of the Summer hols to get to grips with crafty biz again - hurray! :)

Speak soon,
Alison x

P.S.  Sorry for such a blurby, text-laden post - we're over it! - back to shorter crafty posts and the odd shop update here and there :)  Thankyou for following this em, rather bumpy, unpredictble crafty journey of mine - well, it never gets boring, hehe :) :)

4 comments:

veronica said...

Just looked at your crafts--they are so nice. I am sure you will sell when people find you. With best wishes, Vera

fairislerona said...

Good luck with your new venture Alison x

Gaia said...

All the best for the new beginning !! Tweed mixed crafts are so lovely.

Joshua Price said...

It’s great that you have regained your faith in online outlets and have started a new site for a new venture. And I think that opening a personal shop and an Etsy store is a good move; you can further categorize your items on your personal store, and keep the more popular ones in Etsy. That way, you can just lead your followers to your personal one, should they be inclined to check out what other items you have for sale. Cheers!

Joshua Price @ Branding First