Yet More Wool

 We've just come back from a very quick visit over to England to see Peter's daughter and her boyfriend - staying for a few days in the Midlands - so of course I managed to fit in a trip to the local woolshop while we were there.

Over the last couple of years I've noticed that the woolshop is kind of moving in a different direction; maybe trying for a different market? But they don't have so many of the more expensive brands now and are selling a lot of the cheaper, acrylic yarns instead...so not really what I am looking for.

I still managed to buy all these (in the photo above) - including a pom-pom maker!

In a way it was a good thing that they weren't selling the yarns that I like to buy: otherwise I know I'd have ended up spending a LOT of money there...


A friend of my sister's has very kindly given me the wool in the two photos below! It was stuff she'd bought but won't be using for one reason or another so I was happy to take it off her hands (she didn't want any money for it so I will be making a donation to Action Aid shortly in thanks)

 It'll be my first time using either of these yarns - I don't think I've ever used ANY Red Heart brand yarns, but this one feels nice :) and the Tivoli 'Rocky' is a new one to me - it's lovely chunky yarn. I'm thinking about making scarves from both of them - there's tonnes of the Rocky one, she'd bought enough for a jumper for her husband!

 In the meantime I'm still making crocodile stitch wrist warmers!

 The three below are new shades of King Cole's ''Riot dk'' and I like them all - I love their choice in colours and this is probably the one yarn that I have used more than any other for these wrist warmers.

Portmagee Christmas Market, 2016

This afternoon I went to my first of my Christmas markets - I'm only doing three (I think that's all I usually do?!): Portmagee, the Tech and the Old Oratory in Cahirciveen.

I've a feeling I didn't do so well at Portmagee in previous years - I'll have to go back and check in my little book - but this year broke the mould...I just sold one headband!

Things can only get better! I'm not going to let it get to me; the markets are always a bit hit or miss and it isn't worth getting upset over. I always bring my crochet with me anyway, so I was able to work away even though I wasn't selling anything: and my 'neighbour' was my friend Kate, so we nattered away a lot of the time.

Things have been really dead in my Etsy shop just recently too; I haven't had a single sale through Etsy all this month. Things *should* be starting to pick up there in the run-up to Christmas but there's no sign of that happening this year :(

I feel like I kind of had my peak season earlier this year - when I sold all those crocodile wrist warmers (at the end of September/into October) and that might be it now!

It isn't all doom and gloom though; I had an email from Jaye (my best customer!) and she wants to buy all of these - it'll be 9 pairs of crocodile st. wrist warmers, 2 pairs of plain ones, a headband, two hats and a shower mitt. Phew! I took the photo so that I could send her a reply back to make sure I'd put all the right ones aside for her - the ball of wool at the bottom will be wrist warmers in a day or so.

More Taking Stock

Lucy has shut up her centre/gift shop for the winter now so earlier this week I got all my bits and pieces back from her.

She's been open for three summers now and each one has been more and more of a success for my crochet and cards.. I'm really happy with how I did there this season, and if it can be improved on for next year then that's even better again.

Now that I've got some more stock back, I'm up to 88 items in my Etsy shop (I still haven't listed the hats/wristwarmers for Jaye yet) and I have another pair of wrist warmers to photograph and list either today or tomorrow.

I've added these wrist warmers and hat to my Etsy shop - they were in Lucy's shop and I hadn't listed them on Etsy first so they are 'new' to my shop.

 I need to get these two scarves listed too, once I've got Peter to work out the postage for me first.

After I made the turquoise wool ruffled bag a few days ago I wound off the rest of the wool from the cone and I still have 1.2kg left of it - I want to make at least one more of the slouchy 'artists' hats in it and then maybe another ruffled bag and then see what's left...

Annual Stock Take

Well I know I just said yesterday that I was going to put off my annual 'taking stock' post until I got everything back from Lucy but I've changed my mind and am going to do it anyway today!

2015/2014 stock taking post

My listings in my Etsy shop are WAY down on the previous two years: this time last year I had 105 listings and 165 the year before that; I don't think I've been making less, just that I've had a lot of sales of wrist warmers in the last month or so and am struggling to make up some stock again.

It's a good complaint really as things have been selling so well but I do want to get some stuff made up before the winter markets - my first market is just under three weeks away.

Once I get my 'old' stock back from Lucy's shop that will bump up my stock levels a bit but I do need to crack on with making new items for sale ....

I've only got a total of 67 items listed - that doesn't count the two hats and four pairs of wrist warmers that I have in reserve for Jaye's next order (towards the end of this month) 

• 10 listings in my wrist warmers and cuffs section
•  7 listings in my bath and beauty section
• 11 listings in my hats and headbands section
•  1 listing in my bags section
• 13 listings in my sea glass/sea shells section
•  2 listings in my treasure jars section
• 21 listings in my greetings cards section.

As of today I have 966 Etsy sales and a feedback rating of 521 - I think I still just have two four star reviews in total.