Thursday, December 18, 2008

Getting Back To Normal

Yesterday I again did something odd. I cleaned the house. For the first time since my daughter got her ear infections, both children were happy enough to leave to their own devices as I whirled through the house vacuuming, washing dishes and doing the laundry. It was not an exciting day, but I have to tell you, I feel better that I got the cleaning done before the house started to rebel.

I worked some more on the crocheted shoes, but it looks like my choice to use existing materials particularly for the sole is resulting in a less than stellar specimen. After I finish these, I'll go ahead and make a pair as slippers and hopefully those will look good enough to show off. All I managed to tat yesterday was a few more pendants for fellow steamteamers. I felt awfully guilty leaving out the enormous stack of packages for my mail carrier to pick up, but they are all off on their way now and that is a huge relieve.

I am again feeling pressure to share some of my patterns. I've had such a great response to both the scarf pattern that I shared here on the blog as well as my instructable for the tatted mask. I can't decide however, on what to share next. Should it be something simple like the scarf that newcomers can try out or something more complex like one of my collar necklaces? If you've any opinion on the matter, please share. I think that after the holidays I will get another pattern up somehow and I am still mulling the idea of repeating the tatting challenge. It was a lot of work, but if I have enough people that want to participate, I'll definitely do it again.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Actually, i think you should write a book :)
(seriously).
Don't feel under pressure to give your patterns away for free if you don't want to. You work hard on them and they are also how you make your money.

People are asking because they like you and your work, and it's a lovely compliment. You have shared some patterns, but you certainly shouldn't feel like you *have to* share more.

(And i'm saying that as some who loves your work and would love to run of with all your patterns!)

TotusMel said...

Ah, thanks. Truly, I've become increasingly frightened of writing a book of patterns. I'm fairly certain that I would fail at this point...maybe in the future.

Anonymous said...

Yeah... i can imagine it would be a hell of a task actually - I don't think you'd fail at all - but i guess it just would be *work*. Remaking everything, writing it all down and then testing it etc.

I started getting 'crafty' after stumbling across Gourmet amigurumi one day, and so followed her Flickr stream a bit as she went through that process for her book. If you have two small children I can see why you'd not leap at the chance right now :)

Although i don't knit, I also read Julie's blog: http://littlecottonrabbits.typepad.co.uk/
Everyone is always bugging her for patterns and she says no - and people respect that. She has two children and they're really her main focus too.

I don't think you'd fail at all, but I also don't think you should be obliged to give away your hard work for free. Just looking at your work has inspired me - and i got that for free - that's good enough for now :)