Yet more shuffling about.

Ivory Hat

I’m still shuffling things about between Etsy shops, as I think about where they really need to live. This ivory hat has been really popular in terms of Etsy favourites, but it hasn’t sold in the Emporium, so it’s now going to live in the Eternal Magpie Etsy Shop for a while.

The hats generally seem popular on both Etsy and Pinterest. They’re being included in Treasuries and re-pinned like mad (thank you!), but people seem very reluctant to buy. I’m hoping it’s just a seasonal thing – after all, who wants to think about wearing a warm felt hat in the middle of summer?! Now that the weather’s started to turn a bit more autumnal (I WILL NOT put the heating on in August, damn you summer!), perhaps people will be thinking more hat-related thoughts. I hope so anyway, as I have a batch of felt hoods in lovely autumnal colours just waiting to be turned into more hats.

Headscarf

These headscarves, made originally for the Vintage Night at work, back in May, are also now in the Eternal Magpie Etsy Shop. I must take some new photographs of these, I hadn’t realised they were still on the polystyrene head – and in some cases, not on a head at all! There are eight of these left (two of the dark blue floral), and I don’t think I’ll be making any more once these have sold out. They were really just for that one occasion, and not something I want to keep going with. I have too many different ideas to restrict myself to making the same thing over and over again! I might consider putting together a kit or a pattern though, as these are very easy to make.

Four sash belts

And finally, these sash belts have undergone a make-over, and have also moved into the Eternal Magpie Etsy Shop, out of the Emporium. The starry velvet one has sold, but the other three have had nice heavy D-rings added to one end, so you can just loop them through instead of having to tie yourself in knots. I made one for myself which fastened that way, and then immediately changed all the others, as they’re so much easier to wear – especially with trousers. No more having to wrestle with some nightmarish Gordian knot every time you want to go to the loo!

Once again, I probably won’t be making any more of these belts in precisely this incarnation. I started work on a prototype felted version weeks and weeks ago, I just haven’t quite got around to finishing it yet. I want to wear it a bit first, before I decide whether felted D-ring belts will become a new addition to the shop. I think they might.

I haven’t set foot into my craft room for what feels like weeks now – although I did sleep in there for two nights, while some friends were visiting! That was strangely comforting, to be sleeping on a little fold-out bed surrounded by all of my Stuff. Being the school holidays, I’ve been doing a few extra days at work (teaching wet felting and how to make bread and butter – not at the same time), and all of my spare time at home has been taken up with gardening and tidying and enjoying having guests to stay. Hopefully once we move into September (next week! already!), I can start to get myself back on track again.

An unexpected venture.

Oh, good grief. It’s a month since I last posted here, and I haven’t made a single one of the buttonholes I mentioned in my last post! I have made four in this blouse, though I accidentally made them on the left instead of the right. I decided it didn’t matter too much, as the blouse was for me… but then it didn’t fit, and now the blouse is sitting in the Etsy shop, waiting to find its new home. What you may or may not be able to tell from this little snippet, is that the print is covered with My Little Ponies!

I made the executive decision to split my Etsy shop into two, although at the moment they’re both selling a mishmash of the same things. Once the listings start to expire in one place I’ll re-list them in the other, and hopefully it should all be sorted out over the next couple of months.

The eternal magpie Etsy shop will sell bits and bobs that I’m clearing out from my stash, organic cotton clothing and zipped pouches as I make them, and the more “everyday” styles of felt hat. Oh, and my own sewing patterns, more of which in a moment.

Mr & Mrs Magpie’s Inexplicable Emporium has become a little bit too explicable lately, so I want to have a bit of a tidy-up. This is where I’ll be offering some gemstone jewellery pieces, some of the more complicated-to-make styles of hat, and some corset belts and felt work, once I get around to making them.

So, I mentioned sewing patterns…

A little while ago, a customer who I’d made one of these tunic dresses for (way back in 2009!) got in touch. She wanted to know whether it was possible, as I no longer made these tunics for sale, for her to have a copy of the pattern. I thought about it for a minute, said yes, and set about writing up the instructions.

Since sending off the pattern, Maria has already made not just one, but three tunics – and in the absolutely most fantastic choice of fabrics! And proving that word of mouth is absolutely the best way to sell things, Maria has been very kindly sending everyone who’s admired her tunics over to the eternal magpie Etsy shop, where you can now buy the pattern!

It’s a bit of an experiment at the moment – I’m drawing out the patterns by hand onto brown paper, as I don’t quite have the technology to get them into the computer. I drew them by hand in the first place, and haven’t yet managed to replicate them accurately with my pattern drafting software, which is very frustrating. Also, my greatest bugbear about printing out patterns is having to spend ages sticking all the pages together, so I thought that sending out the patterns complete would be a nice way of saving other people from having to do that.

So, I’ll see what kind of feedback I get about the patterns – whether they’re the right sizes, whether people can understand the instructions, that kind of thing – and decide after a little while whether this is something I want to carry on with or not.

I seem to be pulled in so many different directions these days… I’ll have to see what starts pulling me most strongly.