Did I ever show you the outside view of my shop? There it is. That’s my window way at the top there. The downstairs guy owns the building and has the first floor. He’s and architect.
Are you looking at that beautiful thing there to the right? Let me give you a closer look at the fabulousness.
Yup. Got a sign. I haven’t had a sign all this time. Just a little swingy thing that sat out behind the mailbox. It was lame and the letters always fell off. Well, on Saturday the sign guy came. Phil – that’s the landlord/architect – worked with me and the sign guy so we could share his sign space and here’s what happened. I have a sign. Like a real business. I’m overly excited about this. Plus those sheep crack me up. I think it’s an eye catching sign and I’m hoping that Phil and I will both benefit. Before I mostly got people who already knew the spinning was there or by people finding my website. But now I think I might be coming to work to find a line of people waiting outside the door to get in. O.K. maybe that’s wishful thinking but a girl can dream, right?
Little by little this little business is turning into what I want it to be. I started out with plenty of ideas but not a clue of how to attain my goals. Erica has been a great resource for direction. I can see the big picture but can’t seem to break it down into manageable bite sized pieces. Erica has a gift for seeing the big picture AND being able to break it down. She’s also bossy enough to get me off my whiny and scared tail and into action.
Because of these fabulous things I have been moving step by step toward my vision. I’ve been thinking about what makes me different than other places. What can I offer people that others can’t or don’t. It’s been an eye opening exercise . I’m finding a few more things I need to do differently as well as discovering that I am already doing plenty of things right – according to me.
I must admit to being a little impatient to reach some of these goals and over ordering in some instances and getting into a little minor hysterics this summer wondering how I was going to do this – me being not much of a business person and all. Again, Erica to the rescue.
I think I also need to give Kate some credit here. There’s a story here. I got my Ravelry invitation in June. I was so excited and immediately went and signed in and looked around. Fright set in. It’s huge. I ran away and didn’t go back. When Kate and Erica were here for Galina I mentioned that I had my invite but hadn‘t been back due to the overwhelming nature of the thing. You’ve seen pictures of my craft/sewing/wool room. It’s a bit overwhelming itself and the idea of documenting all of it was…scary. I told all of this stuff to the girls and Kate said, “You don’t have to put it all on at once!” What!?! I thought. So I said to Kate, “You mean I could just take pictures of my lace yarns and put them up and then later go back and put my sock yarns and then later go back and put the worsteds?”
Now I know what you’re thinking. “This girl’s a pea brain.” I must agree that in these instances I feel like a pea brain. It never occurred to me that I didn’t have to get it all up there in a day.
So, now I have the lace yarns and 3 projects up. That’s what I did in August and in September I have big plans for sock yarns.
That brings me back to the break it down idea for the shop. I don’t have to have the whole website ready for internet sales right now. I don’t have to have anything more technical than I already have for book keeping. I do need to work on fearlessly selling through stock. I do need to work on developing my offered classes. I do need to work on my organizational skills.
If you have a wool or spinning shop near you and there are things that you love about it then could you let me know. I need to know.
Changing the subject. Here’s a new spinning wheel I put together today. This was an unfinished Ashford Traveller that went out last week. Today it came back looking like this. It’s beautiful. This girl is a new spinner and has had only 2 lessons. A wheel like this will definitely encourage her to practice. It does spin beautifully too.
