The Long Weekend

I'm certainly feeling a little muddled up this morning and it was an amazingly long weekend. It all started with a visit from an old friend, then the Thanksgiving meal at our house. This was followed by a trip to the movies on Friday, decorating the tree on Saturday and a Sunday in with a sick kid. Even though I was able to write that all out in a single thought, it was a very long and drawn out span of time with little of consequence actually getting done.

I got in some yarn on Saturday that was ordered to make a custom tatted scarf, so once I got that all rolled up, I started work on the scarf. I was actually amazed at how much faster the Art Deco scarf is coming along this time. Though I did need to constantly refer back to the pictures of the one I sold for the edging, the motifs worked up like clockwork and the project I was afraid would take up the better part on the week could be done as early as this evening. Speaking of custom order fear, I finally sold the custom caplet to its intended recipient. I had worried that it would not meet expectations, but I worried for nothing. This of course does not mean that I will cease irrational stress over custom orders, but it really is a relieve to have this one on its way to its owner.

Weekend sales were not amazing, but better than I had thought they would be. I still don't think that my free gift or shipping upgrade swayed any casual shoppers and it is much more likely that these purchases would have been made anyway. Still, I feel pretty good about sending freebies out for the holidays. I used to do it with every order, but soon I was spending more time tatting free bookmarks than I was making things to sell. Really, I think people just want what they ordered made well, shipped quickly and friendly customer service, so that's what I've done since.

Well, the other kid is sick now and it promises to be an even longer week than it was a weekend. I did try out an old tatting pattern called beading over the weekend that might make it into the store this week in the form of a new necklace and bracelet, but no promises. I'm likely to remain muddled up for a bit longer.