Weekend Recap

Okay, if you hadn't noticed I completely flaked on doing a new video. The demonstration wasn't coming together like I would have liked. Then the weather was particularly loud and the cats decided to sit exactly where I like to make the videos. So essentially I blew it off and blamed the world around me for it. I'm sure I could have worked harder on the idea, moved to another room, or at least tried to find a quieter place, but instead I sat, covered in cats, and read. My apologies to anyone that might have been waiting for me to get my act together.

Not much else happened over the weekend save for a family birthday party, some movie watching and a nice walk out during a brief break in rain storms. I did get an order in the shop, but I'm stalled on it as I wait for a response from the customer. They ordered a bracelet that measures 6.5 inches and then noted at checkout that their wrist was an inch longer than that. Unfortunately it is not a design that I can simply make longer. The listing doesn't say that it can be sized at all and while I sussed out a couple of possible remedies and presented them, both will make the piece look significantly different, so I await the customer's choice in the matter. Until I hear back, I'm in a holding pattern on that. Of course the post office is closed today anyway, so I'm got at least another day before I feel like I'm being slow and neglectful. On the plus side nothing else horrific happened, so I'm going to go ahead and call the weekend a win.

Look What I Got

Another day just as planned with lots of tatting and nothing all that interesting. Well, that is until I got a message from a customer on etsy. She had asked me for a mask with as many crystals as possible because she wanted to use it on stage while she danced and it need to sparkle. I did my best to add as many as the lace could handle and still hold its integrity, sent it off and honestly forgot all about it until I got the message complete with a video of it in action as well as this amazing photo I got permission to share with you. As you've probably guessed, she's a belly dancer and the dance in the video I was treated to has her dancing with a sword balanced across her head...I was pretty impressed. All that aside though, it is a phenomenal feeling to know that your customers appreciate your work and getting these kinds of photos makes my week.

Speaking of my week, I still have a list of things that need remaking as long as my arm, but as I suspected the shop has been quiet since I received the last one a few days ago. This is most likely a very good thing. So today, it's remake, remake and more remake. When I remake the rest of the scrolling necklaces it will have to be with different bits and that means they'll need fresh photos, so I'll be saving those for last, but the rest of the list is so random that I find myself stalling between pieces trying to decide which to do next. Hopefully I'll get my act together and get productive today. It's going to be a long day.

Instructables Again

I know I've been talking a lot about Instructables lately. Yeah, I'm going to keep doing that. I was over there yesterday to answer a question and I noted that my mask tutorial has been viewed...wait for it...over 33,000 times. May I just say, damn. Now, I know that not all of those eyes liked what they say, some clicked and left, but my etsy traffic is showing an upswing due to those eyes. They added my mask to their newsletter this week and just yesterday my etsy views went from an average of, oh 150-175 a day to 450. Sure they aren't buying right now, but that doesn't mean they won't come back later and get a little something. I guess the point that I'm trying to make is Instructables...good.

On a related note, I have at least two more Instructables planned for when I get a little down time. I've been wanting to put up the barefoot sandals for some time, but just haven't had the opportunity. I have also decided to do one on tatting the other way, with a cut thread. This method mimics tatting with a single shuttle and while I tend to avoid it, often rewriting a pattern with chains instead of thread spaces, it is still sometimes necessary for some patterns. So, I will share, when I get the time. I imagine that might mean after the first of the year, but I'll try to get to it sooner. There might be a nice down time after the Halloween rush.

I abandoned a pair of ankle corsets yesterday to start work on a Kind Of Pale Jewel mask after I had an inquiry about it. I don't usually start work on something after such a uncommitted comment, but I figured that it needed to be made anyway. Of course the inquiry has not yet turned into a sale and time is short before Halloween is upon us. I wonder why it is that folks with the shorted deadline seem to take the longest to actually place the order, assuming of course that it gets placed at all. Sure, people have the right to change their minds and take their time. That's fine really, but I am one of those people that just wants to get to work, to get immediate answers, you know, terribly impatient. Then I fear that someone else will order the same thing and my claim that it can be done in time becomes void because the customer is no longer first in line. But, hey it's first come first serve right?

Customer Appreciation

This weekend I passed the three year mark on etsy and since I started making tatted jewelry just a few weeks before I started trying to sell it, it means I've been tatting now for just three short years. As a bit of where I came from, here's the very first piece I sold. You might recognize the motif for this bracelet as the same flower that I used for my instructable. It was made with clearance thread and seed beads laying around the house. I used a nickle barrel clasp and I sold it for five dollars.

I don't often get to see what my pieces look like worn by their owners, but recently I've received a few customer appreciation pictures with my feedback on the etsy. So I thought that I'd make a nice little collage and put on a little display as a comparison to my 'early' work.So up top we have one of my masks with extra crystal embellishments, then one of my In bloom pendants that made it across the pond. On the bottom we have my Gothic Princess choker worn to a Vampire ball and a stunning picture of my Viva la Reine necklace. So thanks to all my amazing customers, they look fabulous and it makes me feel so great to see these pictures.

If you have a picture of yourself or others wearing TotusMel's tatted goodness, send them along to me care of the email in my profile and I would love to share them with the world, or at the least the small part of it that reads my ramblings. Every time I pass a milestone or anniversary, I think about my humble beginnings and wonder where I go from here. I hope I can continue to raise the bar on my work and keep moving forward. It's either that or I burn out and fade away.

Waiting Is The Hardest Part

As you can imagine, I spent a large chunk of time pimping the giveaway yesterday. This is the first one I'm hosted and I really want it to create a great amount of traffic for Diana, so if you haven't checked it out yet, scroll down and get entered. It will just take you a minute, I swear.

Even though I was clearly distracted, I did managed to get stressed out about other things as well. I have a couple of potential special order customers swimming around the hook without taking that final bite. The timing is a bit odd, since it wasn't a week ago that I made a bold announcement about not working on things until you've been paid. What's a little different about both of these, is that that both came with deadlines, very quick deadlines. So here I am sitting on things that will take a bit of time to make. If I don't start on them and they go ahead and make their purchase, I may not finish in time. Of course on the flip side, if I do make up these items and they don't follow through, not only am I stuck with pieces that I didn't need to make, but I've lost the time I could have used to work on other things.

I do have a confession though, I went ahead and made one of the pieces requested in advance, partly because I had wanted to make this design in red anyway and I'm fairly certain it could sell independent of this customer.

All the clovers on the edges of this piece did work a number on my finger though. You see when I make a join between the rings of a clover, I slide the needle across my finger, through the picot and the snag the thread through with the needle by using my finger. I might not be explaining that well, but what it means is that I kept hitting the same spot on the side of my finger in between the ridges, slowly splitting it open. I've got some liquid bandage on there now, since real bandages snag the thread when I tat. Just a little sacrifice to the gods of the craft I suppose.

I hope I don't have to wait much longer on these orders, because I have so many other things I should get on including a couple of new ideas bobbing around in my brain.

Now You See It...

Now you don't. I am referring to the amazing disappearing special order customer. I've only had a few of these over the years. It took me a couple of times to learn my lesson. I would instantly get to work as soon as a request was made. I would offer up a completed product or even worse, I would work on prototype that required tons of design work only to have them change their minds or simply disappear. Eventually I learned that I shouldn't do any work until I get paid.

Flash forward a year or so, I haven't had any of these bad apples in quite a while and I begin to trust that people who ask for something really want it or they are at least up front about the tentativeness of the request. I begin to let my no work until paid rule slide a bit and nothing bad happens so I start to forget that anything could go wrong. That of course, is when the amazing disappearing customer act is performed again with such slickness that I never saw it coming.

I don't think that these thing are malicious, just inconsiderate. This time, I ordered supplies, and made a prototype all based on very consistent communication. Then more than a week later...nothing. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, life happens, thing get in the way. In fact, I still hold out hope that the order is still coming, but either way the lesson has been relearned. Do no work, order no supplies, go not one step beyond until paid confirmation.

Luckily for me, the supplies I ordered can easily be re purposed if necessary and there was very little effort expended. This time I get off not too worse for the wear, but in the past, I even had a trade go south where I custom made five pieces before the communication stopped cold. At this point, I'm wondering if I should institute some sort of nonrefundable design fee for all request to avoid this drama in future, but I still want to operate under the assumption that people are generally honest and forthcoming. Maybe that;s me being naive, but I want to trust in people.

I hope that my disappearing customer turns out to be a fluke or better yet, that they reappear and I can create wonderful pieces for them. I would much rather be tatting than worrying about getting paid.