Next year in January when I tell you that having an Open House the same week that I'm trying to get yarn club dyed, wound, and out, and quarterly sales taxes are due, remind me that maybe that's not the most effective weekend to have an Open House, eh? I want to give everything 100% of myself this week - I'm feeling better, rested, and energetic... but I can't give 100% of myself fully to three different things. WHO KNEW???? I mean, all y'all can effectively do three really intense, time-consuming things, all at once, right? :: shifty eyes ::
ANYWAY! My week!
In ceramics, I'm afraid not a lot is going on right now. That'll change Thursday (I hope) when I have a good portion of the day roped off to glaze... I'd really like to fill the kiln by Friday, fire Saturday, open Sunday, and have a slew of new things for the shop by Monday.
In soap, I'm getting ready to post the January limited edition soap, Lavender Coconut. SO LOVELY, y'all! I'm not usually that into florals but the coconut really blends well. I wish the Internet was scratch 'n' sniff. I'm also getting ready to mail out the first month of 2018's Year of Soap... another thing I'm super excited about. We have a big group this year and I can't wait to hear what they think of the special fragrances I'm doing.
In yarn, well, SO MUCH GOINGS ON! I have a new colorway; well, an older club colorway that I'll be bringing in as a regular colorway starting next week -- Why the Sea is Salt. If I can get the rest of it wound Sunday, after Saturday's Open House, I'm hoping to have it released Monday. When I release it, it'll be in the new format like Bluegrass (formerly called Soylent Green). That means that all six base yarns will be on one page; one listing with drop-down choices for the base yarns. Hmm... maybe I should do a separate post about that, I feel like if I try to make it just two sentences I might confuse everyone. But really, it should be a lot easier to find things now!
What else with yarn.... new color, new ways of listings... oh! And yarn club! The January colorway went out yesterday. Did I deliberately put a couple of typos in the hard copy of the Dyer's Notes? I don't know! You tell me! Does anyone read them? We'll find out! (Sorry, there aren't any prizes for finding the typos, you just get to feel superior to my weird program that for some reason doesn't have a SpellCheck....!).
Lastly, in yarn, I have an idea for a thing I want to do a few times this year. It's not a club, it's not a kit, really.... a set, maybe? A Surprise Box? See, I have a fragrance I got as a sampler that I think would make a fantastic soap and hand lotion, and I have a very similar flavor oil for lip balm, and it just so happens that this fragrance idea would also make a really neat yarn color. But just one color, not three, for a club, so... I think I'm going to do some sort of... I don't know, boxy thing (???) with the yarn/soap/lotion/lip balm. This fragrance would also make a really neat yarn bowl color, but... I don't want to get too crazy. But that did make me think... you know the mermaid mugs I did the other week that sold out? What do you think of the idea of me making more of them (maybe not in the exact same color but something similar) and pairing them with a limited yarn in the same colors? Or a colorway that comes with soap, hand lotion, and stitch markers. Ya see, sometimes I have these ideas but they're just for single things, not three months as in "great idea for a club". I'd like to get some of them out of my head and into the world.
What else is going on....? Oh, yeah, I totally changed the look of HaldeCraft, AGAIN. It seems like every time I get my groove on with a theme, I find it doesn't do this one small little thing that I want it to do, and I get obsessed with finding out a way to make it do that, and usually the only way to do it is to get a new theme that does that thing. Good thing I stopped buying the themes and am only using the free ones now... I'd be really mad at myself for wasting money. Which is my long-winded way of saying that on all listings now, you will see how many are left of that product if there are less than ten of them. Awesome! But please don't let me get any more ideas for anything else my website could maybe do, I don't have time to change the theme again next week, hahaha. And, of course, as I've mentioned like six thousand times, quarterly sales tax is due this week. I worked on it yesterday but then needed it to sit overnight, like soaking beans or something... I never like to send it out the minute I finish. I need a good 24 hours for any issues to bubble up in my math-phobic head... I will send them out later today and then I don't have to think about them for another four months. Three months. Whatever. Moving on!
This is also the week that one of my dearest sets of friends, Chris and Sharon (many of you know Sharon from when we used to own a yarn store together!) moved away. I am so excited for them in their new life in Maryland, very jealous of my Baltimore/DC friends who are going to be so close to such awesome, wonderful people, but also maybe more than a titch sad for myself that they won't be touching distance any more. The Internet makes the world small, and I know this is not goodbye, that Chris's job will keep him travelling to Gainesville occasionally, that Facebook and text messages and Instagram will keep us in touch with each other (after all, I haven't lost another one of my dearest friends and she's lived in DC the entire time I've known her)... but I have still been a little sad this week, and maybe even a little weepy at our last get-together. I want nothing but the best for them, want them only to be happy and excited about their new adventures, but also hope they know how deeply they will be missed, and are loved, here in Florida.
Oh! And The Cranberries have been on heavy rotation in the studio this week, as Dolores O'Riordan died earlier this week. Her voice, if you've never heard it, was amazing. Pure joy to listen to; she could hit high or low with equal abandon - her range was staggering. As if Annie Lennox and Bjork had a love-child. Two of their albums (Everybody Else is Doing it so Why Can't We, and No Need to Argue) were played in my car so much I know every lyric by heart. Listening to them all week has been quite the time-trip back to the early 90s!
OK... I have to sign off now, and start getting the studio ready for the Open House on Saturday. Crafting! Knitting! Spinning! Blacksmithing! That Poor Man is making a selection of stews and soups to fight off the cold weather! It'll be awesome. If I can get the place clean.
Have a great week, everyone!