By Tara, on July 30th, 2009%
Each season I make a little list of the pleasures I want to soak in. I call them manifestos, but they’re really just love letters to the season. These seasonal lists are my own little things-to-do-before-the-moment-passes.
I hope to keep listing these, every Thursday, as a reminder to soak it in over the weekend (and as a mid-week cheer-up).
This next week is going to be packed with summery travely adventury goodness.
I want fully enjoy (and document with lots of photos):
Travelling by train, plane and Seattle’s great bus system (all with my new wheel).
Staying with my college roomates,
Having lunch (and running errands – she’s so sweet!) with Eileen.
Selling yarn, meeting knitters and having a great time at Urban Craft Uprising.
Exploring Portland and hitting every donut, coffee, and yarn stores I can.
Having dinner at Cairene’s with a bunch of lovely fellow small-biz owners/friends.
Going on my first real train trip, from Portland . . . → Read More: Summer Manifesto – West Coast Edition
By Tara, on July 24th, 2009%
This week I’m celebrating the launching into my new life by sharing the path that led me here. Follow along all week!
The crafty-ness started at home, then I went to college and learned to knit. and I ran a business. Yesterday I moved into cubicle-land but today I leave it behind.
Yesterday we left off at January 2009, when I made my Escape Plan.
The plan was simple. I needed 3 of the following 4 things to happen:
My sales to reach $XX/week for 3 out of 4 weeks, for 3 months in a row. (This would show consistency.)
My savings account to grow to $XX (to cover those weeks when my sales weren’t as high).
Open 2 wholesale/consignment accounts (I thought this would provide me with another stream of income, other than Etsy, but I soon realized that wholesale sales wouldn’t help my bottom line as much as just selling the yarn full price in . . . → Read More: Path to Yarn – Out of the Cubicle Forest
By Tara, on July 23rd, 2009%
This week I’m celebrating the launching into my new life by sharing the path that led me here. Follow along all week!
The crafty-ness started at home, then I went to college and learned to knit. Yesterday, I ran a business, but today, I move and lose it.
After working at the Kil’n Time for 2 years, I wanted a change. Jay & I had always wanted to move to Tennessee and we decided now was the time. We were young, underemployed (neither of our jobs required the Bachelor’s degrees we had) and had few responsibilities. 2 weeks later, we lived in Johnson City, TN.
We launched BlondeChickenBoutique.com (it looked a bit different then) the week after we moved. I was selling my handdyed yarn straight from this website, not Etsy. I waited for the sales.
Nothing.
I imagined that my experience as a store manager of a pottery studio would provide me with another interesting, . . . → Read More: Path To Yarn – Moving into Cubicle-land
By Tara, on July 22nd, 2009%
This week I’m celebrating the launching into my new life by sharing the path that led me here. Follow along all week!
The crafty-ness started at home, then I went to college and learned to knit. Today, Debbie Stoller changes my life.
After graduation, I moved back to Ohio and got a job at the paint-your-own-pottery studio, just until I found something “French-y-er”. 3 months after graduation, I got married in a beautiful ceremony on a sunny day.
No matter how hard I looked and how many jobs I applied to, I wasn’t offered a single job that required a BA. I was confused, frustrated and missing my friends.
I joke that I started to knit after a few months of marriage out of boredom. But it’s not far from the truth. I didn’t have any friends in town (I had moved to a different part of the state than I grew up in) and . . . → Read More: Path to Yarn – Debbie Stoller changes my life
By Tara, on July 21st, 2009%
Learning to knit . . . → Read More: Path to Yarn – Learning to Knit
By Tara, on July 20th, 2009%
This week I’m celebrating the launching into my new life by sharing the path that led me here. Follow along all week!
My earliest memories involve crafty-ness. When I think back, I can only picture vignettes of a crafty life, although certainly the signs were around me everyday. Here are my favorite crafty memories.
5 yrs old – My mom & I are hunched over a coloring book. She is beautifully coloring in her page, while I’m scribbling on mine, stopping often to admire her page. She teaches me to outline the sections before coloring them in, while all the while gushing over my “art”.
7 yrs old – My Grams sewed bridesmaids dresses for anyone in our church who got married. She kept all the shiny scraps and I fashioned clothes for the tiny dolls in my dollhouse. I made a “footstool” for the dolls out of a spool, cotton batting and fabric. . . . → Read More: The Path to Yarn – It starts at home
By Tara, on July 17th, 2009%
Celebrating the launch of full-time yarning with a party and a sale! . . . → Read More: Launching a Life
By Tara, on July 11th, 2009%
Now that summer is really here, I’m finding it hard to imagine a project with ultra-bulky, ultra-wooly yarn.
Instead I’m dreaming about thinner yarns and crochet and airy shawls.
Seafoam
I’m trying something new and making lighter weight yarns in matching sets. Each set contains 2 solid-ish yarns + one self-striping yarn. The yarns are available separately or you can buy them all together for a discount.
Beach Walk
If you get all three, just leave me a note in the “Note to seller” section and I’ll take $20 off the total!
Denim
The set pictured here is “Walk on the Beach” and contains Seafoam, Beach Walk and Denim. I imagine it would look fabulous knit into a simple shawl like this or this or crocheted into this shawl . I’d start with Seafoam, then switch to the Beach Walk and end . . . → Read More: Summery Yarn Sets
By Tara, on July 9th, 2009%
Each season I make a little list of the pleasures I want to soak in. I call them manifestos, but they’re really just love letters to the season. These seasonal lists are my own little things-to-do-before-the-moment-passes.
I hope to keep listing these, every Thursday, as a reminder to soak it in over the weekend (and as a mid-week cheer-up).
This last week has been hectic with moving and quitting my job and starting a whole new life. This week I’m looking foward to soaking in the summer and settling into my new house and new job.
I’m especially excited to:
Find some tasty veggies at the Jonesborough Farmer’s Market.
Be inspired to whip up some recipes with all that local food.
Spin on the porch.
Meet lots of local artists at The Big Crafty.
Find the right furniture for my new fiber studio at thrift stores and garage sales.
How are you soaking in . . . → Read More: Summer Manifesto #2
By Tara, on July 8th, 2009%
The best part of the new house has to be the front porch. Even before any of the boxes were unboxed, I dragged a chair to the porch. I sat down with a roving from On The Round
and pre-drafted while admiring the view
and started spinnning.
The yarn tuned out pretty,
but before I had a chance to list it, someone . . . → Read More: Porch Spinning
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