More Pansies for Ebay

This week has been just so busy for me. I've not had much time to check out blogs, so I'm really behind on reading too. Playing our grandson is so much more fun than sitting at the computer, browsing blogs, so that's my excuse ! I've one more week of babysitting him so things should go back to normal after that ... although I'll probably have grandson withdrawals, so I'll have to force my daughter to let me babysit him during that time too!

Oh look, I'm making even more pansies!

So, my last post, I said I was going to make a few more pansies and then put away the pattern for next year. It looks like that's not going to work out as expected. I made 6 more, thinking I'll put 3 on Ebay and accumulate a group of pincushions to put on Etsy too. I have an account with Etsy but only tried it with a few things because I found that my sales were better on Ebay. After suggestions from my fellow bloggers, and being so unhappy with the Ebay laws, I want to give Etsy a try again.

However ...

I put two pansies up for sale on Ebay as BIN, sold them right away and then I got so many requests for more that I decided to keep making them as long as the buyers wanted them. I ended up selling all the extras that I had intended to sell on Etsy, so I'm just thrilled that they are selling so well again.

So the dye pots came out again and purple wool is now waiting to become pansies.

Oh and by the way, Colleen, the wonderful blogger who reads and comments, asked me what kind of dyes I use.

I use cushings wool dyes but sometimes I use the unsweetened kool-aid for wool dyeing. I like the bright yellow ... lemonade and I use that most of the time for the yellow pansy petals. Sometimes I mix a little orange kool-aid in with the lemonade to give it a more of a sunset yellow color. Or if I want a golden yellow, I'll add some coffee to tone down bightness of the yellow. It's fun to experiment and the smell of cooking kool-aid is so much nicer than the smell of the regular dyes that I use!

I've been asked about how I'm able to part with some of the things that I make. It's never really difficult to sell and send away something that I've made and I think it's because I know that I can always make another if I really wanted it. I just told a someone recently though that I regret selling a pumpkin penny rug that I made a few years ago that I've had hanging over my rocking chair. I didn't feel like making yet another one and a customer was begging me for one so to take the lazy way out, I sold mine to her. I loved that penny rug and now I really miss it.

But anyway, what I normally do, after something I've made is finished, is hang it on my wall while it waits for it's new home. This is my dining room and that wooden thing is an old saw ... the blade is covered with a sheath to make it safe ... but using straight pins, I pin the candle mats to that background strawberry penny rug (mine and not for sale) and I know it looks messy, but that's how I like it.

You can see the pinkeeps lined up on it with the sheep penny rug hanging behind it. That sheep penny rug is my keeper and I won't sell it anytime soon. I can admire anything that I've made because it's right there in the dining room on display. I really love those pansies hanging there though. Sometimes those candle mats look just as nice hanging on the wall as they do laying on a table.



Here's another view of my dining room table. Anyone that steps into that room will know that I do most of my sewing construction there. The table usually always has some kind of project going on and this is actually less messy than it usually is. Our dining room is the hub of the house and it's the perfect location for me to do my work. The computer is to the right of the chair and I have my iron right there ready to iron some freezer paper patterns onto my wool. If I'm making dinner, I can quickly get up to check something and likewise take a few minutes to sew while cooking. The living room TV can be seen and heard from that chair too, so I can easily sit and be entertained while sewing.

This is the view walking from the living room into the dining room. The good thing about the messiness is that I can quickly clear the table by loading everything onto my wooden sewing board and then I can stash the sewing board out of sight.

I do have a sewing room converted spare bedroom upstairs that I could use, but it's not convenient for my needs so it's mostly used for wool storage or for the few times that I have to use my sewing machine.
Happy Day everyone! I've got some cleaning to do ... Rach's 20th birthday is on Sunday and the boyfriend is coming to visit for the weekend. Gotta clean up that spare bedroom/sewing room!