false

More reading, a little tatting, some knitting, and then I remembered that I had this little project tucked away in my nest.I only managed a round or two on it because it wasn't until late in the afternoon that I ran across it.

I also had to field a tatting request in my etsy shop that I was disappointed to have to turn down especially since I could really use the sale. The request was for a custom designed mask. Why did I say no? Well, there are a few reasons. Designing something from scratch can be a long drawn out process with lots of trial an error. You know I love to design new pieces, but doing so on a deadline is incredibly stressful and without an inspiring idea to start with, crazy hard. There's also the matter of price. It's hard enough to price a piece once the final one has been created, it's impossible to guess at one before the design is done, so either I charge too much for what turns out to be a simple design, or more likely I charge far too little for something that takes forever to design and make. Lastly, there's the issue of pleasing the customer which could involve more than one prototype as designs and elements are rejected, meaning lots more work and the possibility of never creating what they were looking for and losing the sale altogether. It's just too much stress.

Don't get me wrong, I have on many occasions designed from scratch for customers, but not usually masks and never without some sort of inspiring moment in the request. Mostly I'm asked to simply modify existing pieces with colors or enhancements or to design something to a very specific shape or size. I had to turn this one down, because I knew I couldn't do it and be satisfied with the outcome, but man do I hate saying no.