Prototypes: Successes, Failures and Works-in-Progress

Day by day, I am trying out different objects I can make to sell.  Mostly, this has been a great deal of fun.  Playing with patterns, making adjustments, adding adornments, re-sizing for felting, trying different color combinations - I love the process of creation.  Sometimes though, I am very unhappy with the results.  Felting can be very dramatic - and not always in a good way.  I was working on a felted cloche, knitting away at it for the past 2-3 weeks.  Sunday was a rough day.  I felted it and in the first five minutes ruined my carefully made rose (a ball of fluff).  The tie also felted way too quickly, despite being removed very early.  The hat, except for its brim, took forever and came out stiff and strangely proportioned (with the contrast brim way too small).  No one in my family wanted to be anywhere near me as I struggled through my disappointment.  The day ended up being productive though, as I opened the Etsy shop, even though I only managed to list 3 items!  I wanted to open it so my friend could pay for an item she had already ordered, even though that meant opening small.

Happily, yesterday saw two successes.  I had been working on "all-season" ideas and came up with a decent design for a crown.  Here is my first prototype: 

Let the wild rumpus begin!!!

I liked the first one so much that I immediately went to work on the second.  My neighbor wants to buy them from me, but I think I will list them in my shop -- so she can review them for me!







I have been working on some other designs as well, but they are still in progress.  This is my first little hand puppet - complete with a little bell inside.  I like it a lot, but I think I will make some adjustments as I make more.

I made these faerie/elf slippers last week, but one of the members of my knitting group took them home for her grandson.  I will need to make more so I can list them in my shop.  Cute, huh?

Open for Business!

Hoorah!!  It's small, but I have opened a shop on Etsy!  You can take a peek at http://www.etsy.com/shop/Feltaroo.  We spent hours and hours brainstorming names, but I eventually rejected all the smart puns (Doug) and long adjective strewn names (me) and went with the name Maggie invented.  It's easy to spell and no one has it.  Thanks Maggie!

Sunshine, Sickness & Swatches

So, as a matter of great note - the sun is shining this morning in Berlin.  This alone merits blogging.  Not only that, but it shone for a couple of hours yesterday as well.  I see clouds on the move, so the blog post must be short; I must feel the sun on my face today.  Even better, the days are getting noticeably longer!  While my family & friends in the US are buried under snow, we feel spring in the air here in Eastern Germany.  Unfortunately, the family has been battling cold after cold.  Instead of appreciating the amazing break in the weather, we have mostly been huddled up on couches and going through box after box of tissues.  I managed a week of running, but have been idle again for four days.  Argh!  Cabin fever!  At least the sun is shining and it looks like a new world outside our windows.

Alright.  I have a confession to make.  I almost never make a gauge swatch.  All you non-knitters out there- before you quit reading, I'll explain.  Making a gauge swatch is when you do a little square of knitting (6x6") with the needles you plan to use to see if you have the right number of stitches per inch and rows per inch -- so you come out the right size at the end.  Not gauging is really very stupid: sort of like not pre-washing your fabric when you sew a dress or paying bills without checking your balance.  It can lead to hundreds of wasted hours.  Why then do I fail to do it?  Impatience.  Yes, my old bugaboo.

Impatience was my character flaw that made midwifery so terribly difficult for me.  I deeply believe patience and trust are what distinguish midwives as the marvelous caregivers they are and what I continually found an insufficient supply of in myself.  Luckily, my impatience really only hurts me when knitting (and not a client!).  Yet, as today marks the completion of another year of my life and the dawn of a new year, I feel compelled toward resolutions.

May my 42nd year be marked as the year of the gauge swatch, literally and metaphorically.  May I make an effort, in the minutiae and the grandiose, to look ahead, be prevention minded and forward planning.  I do not want nor expect to quash all my impulsiveness and passion, but I'd like to value my work and life enough to invest a little more forethought into what I do.  This past year, Doug and I have been doing that with our health - with food and exercise.  We still have fun with what we eat, but we are trying to choose what we believe will keep us well in the long run.  Of COURSE, I could still do a LOT better (10-15 more pounds to lose, etc.).  It's just been a good learning path for me/us this year, leading to this moment. The beginning of the year of the swatch.

So, gauge swatches.  Wish me luck!

In the meantime, I will also continue to felt.

Plugging Away at My List

Sorry for the radio silence!  I have been busy clicking away at the needles - not the keyboard.  I am happy to say that I have been attending to my goals, shockingly!  Perhaps the biggest news is that I have made something absolutely lovely that I believe could be one of my first two products that I could sell.  It is a gorgeous felted baby bonnet with sweet round shaping such as to cup a baby's head lovingly.  Plus, it goes great with the felted baby booties I already make -- to form a set.  Together, they are truly beautiful and seem like they could become heirlooms.  Pictures don't do them justice, but I will try to post a few!

On other fronts, I have been practicing my continental knitting -- just the knit stitch for now and only until my hand gets stiff.  I can see that it will be infinitely faster, once I get the hang of it!  Also, I have been researching designs for a felted baby boy hat.  This has involved experimenting with designs for regular knitted hats  - translating them for felting and then seeing how well they felt.  I think I have one that will work after I have made some additional adjustments.  Maybe I will post some pics of my prototype another day.  I haven't done any needle felting yet, but I have made a couple of swatches (future coasters) that I will be able to practice on.  We had our first (very small) knitting group on Sunday (but I really HAVE to get an advertisement in some newsletters).  Finally, I have been investigating options for selling my creations.  It is complicated a bit by the fact that I don't have access to sending business items through the US mail.  So, while I have looked into Etsy (a lovely website for buying and selling handmade items), I would have to mail things internationally - and charge a higher shipping rate accordingly.  Not impossible, but worth thinking about twice.  I have asked at one shop locally, but they claim to only sell items made by their employees.  I plan to take a sample by anyway!  

German Knitting Group

I had a marvelous time at the German knitting group this morning.  I really must learn some German, though.  These lovely women have so much to teach!  For example, although I have knitted several pairs of socks, I have always used a particular pattern and I MUST still have it in front of me when I am turning the heel.  I have the general idea of how it should be done, but I don't really remember.  So, as a novice, I had no idea that there were different options for how you shape the heel while you are turning it.  But I sure noticed the lovely round heel that the woman across from me was knitting.  She says that it fits the foot much better and that that's how they all make their socks now and that she would teach me how.  Yeah!  Of course, when I got home, I immediately looked it up on line.  After doing some research, I think it is something like the French Heel, but I'm not sure -- it may have more in common with what is sometimes called a "short-row heel".  

Also, they are having me try to knit continental style -- with the yarn in my left hand.  I see a distinct advantage, especially for purling or combinations of knitting and purling.  I would love to be an ambidextrous knitter by the time I have to leave Germany! Which leads me to the beginning of a list of knitting goals.  I, of course, have a list of projects I want to do - as all crafters do.  A LONG list.  But what I really want to have is a list of learning goals.  I have had a mental list for a long time, but I will now create a written one (which always makes it so much more real).

1. Become a proficient felter (nearly complete!)
2. Learn to needle felt
3. Find/develop and master several embellishments (like flowers) for the felted items I make.
4. Learn to knit round-heeled socks.
5. Become proficient with cables (including at least one large cabling project, like a sweater)
6. Become an ambidextrous knitter!
7. Develop a set of items that I think are sale-able (finding/buying/making patterns, perfecting them, making prototypes).
8. And show them to people who might want to carry/sell them.
9. Start an Expat/English speaking knitting group in Berlin and have it be successful.
10. Write my first knitting pattern (not merely an extreme revision of somebody else's).

That would be a great start.

Knit Vlog for the 26th

The slippers are made from the late Bev Galeska's pattern in Felted Knits.

A Portable Career

Definitions:

Career
1. a path or progress through life or history
2. a profession or occupation chosen as one's life's work
Portable
1. able to be carried or moved easily, esp by hand
2. (of software, files, etc) able to be transferred from one type of computer system to another (read "one type of culture or country")

I have been feeling a strange urge lately. I suppose it isn't shocking. The kids are no longer homeschooling; we are mostly set-up and starting to feel at-home; and, we are in Europe (= a little short of cash). All these do add up to a certain question -- shouldn't I be doing something else? Shouldn't I be making some money?

Now, to be honest, what I have been feeling is a little more than that. Over two months ago I applied for a job at the embassy. Nothing overly involved, just some escort work. It would have provided some extra money, renewed my HR status and updated my security clearance without threatening my mostly haus-frau status. I have had more involved jobs in the past and I knew I wasn't ready to take on a commitment like being CLO. Of course, the government hiring freeze has prevented anything coming of my effort.

No, what I am now thinking about is more like, "what am I going to do when I finally grow up?" Oh dear. Despite my cold last week, I even ventured out to a spouse coffee discussion of Portable Careers -- I must actually, finally, be interested. Of course, we did some nice sharing, but no one was able to give me a list of fabulous jobs, with increasing complexity & responsibility over the years (as well as increasing pay) that are easily portable from one continent to another.

I have had some super work the last few years - raising my kids. Unfortunately, in addition to clean laundry and warm food and love, I am sensing lately that what I could also be providing for them is some savings for college! Oh well. I know I am incredibly privileged to have the choices I have: to stay at home, work part-time, choose what I do. Still, once I raise the question, "what could I be doing outside the home?", I find the options somewhat limited by our circumstances.

As I open this Pandora's box, I must be clear -- I chose these circumstances just as much as my husband did. I want and wanted this life. Now comes the time for me to be creative about looking for work that I will find fulfilling, that I could "choose as my life's work" and that will fit these wild circumstances. Oh, and by the way, is mostly part-time, since I still have this other job set (mother, wife, and home-mover).

So, this is NOT a post with a conclusion, just an opening. Please feel free to comment!

In the meantime, I am applying for a job to substitute teach at the International School. NOT a career!