It's been a really long time since I posted anything…It's been a crazy two months. Here's a (somewhat) brief recap of the past couple of months:
DesignerCon ended up being a total bust for me. I didn't even break even…I think it just wasn't the right audience for my stuff.
This year, my shop got slammed pretty hard on Black Friday – Cyber Monday weekend. In previous years, I typically get 5 orders (at most) during that weekend. But this year, I received around 30 orders from that weekend alone…and orders just kept rolling in after that. I wasn't prepared at all for something like that to happen, but it was definitely a HUGE learning experience. For a brief moment in time, I felt what it's like to be a high volume shop and it was crazy & wonderful. But it made preparing for Renegade Craft Fair very difficult; I really only had a couple of days to make inventory for both the LA and SF show.
It was our first time doing the Renegade Craft Fair LA Holiday Market. In previous years, we did Unique LA instead simply because it was indoors. Overall, I did OK. It was definitely one of my worst holiday shows ever, but I think it was because of the weather and low inventory. It was in the 70 – 80s that weekend which made selling knits very difficult. You know it must be hot when Front Porch Pops is selling out of popsicles!
I just got back from Renegade SF on Tuesday morning. The drive back down to LA totally sucked. I was stuck in really bad traffic for the first two hours of the drive…and this was after spending 30 minutes of driving around Berkeley trying to find the freeway entrance. By the time we got back to LA, my contacts were really dry and stuck to my eyeballs. But once again, Renegade SF was awesome. It was a little slower this year compared to last year, but it was still a really good show. I think the lower turnout was due to the dates being too close to Christmas, so a lot of people were out of town or were already done with their holiday shopping.
I've been doing so much knitting for the past 3 weeks, it's not even funny. So far, I've knitted over 40 hats! (and I still have around 20 more to complete) This is the most amount of hats I have ever knitted in my life and the fact that this is just 3 weeks of work blows my mind.
In that time, I've watched a lot of bad movies because I can't watch anything that requires me to be engaged when I knit. I've also been listening to a whole lot of music…I finally got around to listening to Neko Case's most recent album, The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You. This album totally wins the "Best Longest Album Title EVER" award in my book, but it's also an amazing album. I'm almost willing to say it's my favorite album from her. I constantly have this album on repeat; my favorite track being "Calling Cards". I think it's my favorite album right now because it hits me right in the heart and Neko Case just has this powerful voice that really resonates.
I should really catch up on some rest before tackling the next back of hats. Until next time, Merry Christmas everyone! And enjoy this Tiny Desk Concert featuring Neko Case.
