Where has the time gone to?

I feel as if I haven't written in ages but know that isn't true.  Thanksgiving was more calm than I expected but my time off from the full time job went by way too quickly.  The yarn shop at the ranch has brought in a couple of sales and I got to use the "Square" last weekend for another sale.  I really do like that tool.

Last Sunday I networked with some Denver based craft owners.  It was co sponsored by Krrb and hosted by Idea Chic which creates handmade stationary items.  I picked up some gift tags for my sale order giveaways which are very nice.  It was nice to discuss production techniques with other artisans and learn I am not alone in the lack of desire to produce mass quantities of the same item.  I met a funny and nice lady named Megan who specializes in jewelry with crystals/beads.  We as a group are going to try to grow the Krrb site for Denver to gain more exposure for our products.

What else has been going on?  Well I have made 5 headbands thus far and am now moving onto the ruffle scarves.  My order of Rowan Kidsilk Creation yarn arrived and I completed the lime green one in a few hours.  It is very soft and pretty. 

I am trying out a new pattern with some dyed cotton yarn which will be my son's Christmas gift.  Although I should probably start to work on his soon as he comes home mid-December and I don't want him to see it.  My purple Flounce yarn which is a special order was a very bad batch of yarn as the dye job had spots of blue and they knotted two fragments together to obtain the correct yardage.  I was very happy that my LYS allowed me to swap the bad for a different skein which is also a high priority project.

On the spinning front I decided to back to my roots of thin yarn and am creating a lace weight Shetland skein (just needs to be plied).  I also spun up the black/white top from the Sheep Shed Studio which is probably more Sports weight but decent yardage.  I think the gray top is next on the list to spin as I have several ounces of it left.  Of course there are pounds of alpaca/milk roving to spin up too.  I made a skein of alpaca/bamboo yarn from the cria fleece batch - so much vegetable matter in it.  I have my work cut out for me in picking the veggies from the skein prior to selling it.  It is a pretty tan color and was easy to spin but you know how I am about veggie matter - this was actually more than the tussah silk roving.

Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday really had no effect on my sales or shops :(!  My views totally tanked during the weekend and I have found myself checking the Etsy and EBay sites several times a day without much happy news.  I am going to try to limit myself to twice a day only for viewing Etsy.  It's not as if my checking the site will encourage sales - I wish.  Still trying to tweet a few times a day which is kinda fun.  So many interesting chatter on Twitter.

I will probably stop listing on EBay soon as there is virtually no traffic there.  As I haven't sold any hand spun yarn on Etsy I am thinking of shifting that product to the Wild Yarn store in Denver.  I'll keep ATAR's mill spun and the rovings on Etsy but unless things change I am not sure if it is worth having the merchandise age on that site.  My knitted items do well on Etsy but I'm thinking yarn is something people need to touch.  We shall see what happens in December.