The Pressure is Mounting

Eric and I made the trek to Venue today. I dropped off 5 hats, checked out my inventory, removed 4 sets of booties that are clearly never going to sell, and talked with Caitlin for awhile about this Artist of the Month business. She showed me my spot for the month of March, which is a prominent place near the front of the store. I am going to have to knit a lot of hats in the next month to fill that space up. And according to Caitlin, the place will be jam packed the night of the Art Walk. Apparently I will need a ton of inventory since it will all fly out the door that night. I should also have pictures and perhaps even a sign.

I am so out of my league. I know NOTHING about displaying my merchandise. Caitlin wants me to think about just how I want to display my hats. Well, that tiered shelf that I'm currently using seems to be working just fine--can't we keep using that? Apparently I need to be creative and dazzle the baby-hat buying public. Seriously, I have no ideas. Zero. How about a box with a bunch of hats thrown in it? Would that work? A long table with some hats strewn about? Is that not appealing enough? Anyone who might be planning to stop by that night--I would seriously lower my expectations if I were you.

I've pulled some loser items from both Happy Delusions and Venue and have placed them ever-so-appealingly on Etsy. There is no reason anyone perusing my Etsy shop has to know that these items are apparently poisonous and will make their baby's head turn green. So they can sit there for awhile getting no attention and then I will sneak them back over to one of my shops so they look like brand new items again. Clearly these are items I will NOT be making anytime again in the foreseeable future, but I would like to at least recoup my costs.

I would like to finish my own pair of convertible mittens, now that I've calmed down and figured out how to make the flap. I would also like to finish my Tilli Tomas scarf while it is still winter (and winter it is! It was 19 degrees when we woke up this morning! And they're talking snow later on this week. It will either be Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, depending on which channel you watch). I also want to finish my sister's socks, begin Leah's convertible mittens (which are way more exciting than mine, truth be told), and finish Cinderella #2. I have been narrowing down my project options for Tiffany's baby and I'm pretty excited about my selections. When I will actually find the time to begin that project I have no idea, but it's still a step in the right direction. And I found a pattern for a sweater for myself that I am dying to try.

Oh, and I do have a job and a house to maintain. Can't say I'm really on top of the house portion of my life (Eric officially ran out of underwear this weekend. The good new is, Mike was able to teach himself how to use the new washing machine while I was at work), but work is great. I am truly amazed at my ability to sell yarn and books to people. Expensive things that I easily talk people into--people who clearly have much more money that I do. If I can't buy it myself, it is somewhat satisfying to help someone else buy it!

And my parting thought for the day: school holidays should be banned. The only benefit I got out of this 3 day weekend is an especially evil 7 year old who yelled at me all day because I told him to find something else, anything else, to do other than play the Wii.