Crochet business thoughts around the round table ...

Let's walk into a business meeting here at Southern Gal's Crochet. The place where we (the hubs and I) gather and discuss everything is at the round table. Topics range from running the house, paying the bills, how our jobs are going and of course new plans for the business. 

Yes, technically Southern Gal's Crochet is MY business but let's get real he plays a big part in it, such as making post office runs, buying yarn and more yarn and more yarn. Haha! Truthfully though I run by ideas and use his keen eye on whether the parts look crooked, he is key to my success.   

Now to the point, several times I have had the idea of branching into products for sale. Here is what we discussed and the decisions.

This will be happening:

One of the first things I want to get going in this branch will be safety eyes. If you don't know already, I have strong opinions about them and what kind to use and how to use them. I was thinking that a good way to combat these feelings was to just go ahead and offer them in my shop. 

This may be happening:

The next item we discussed was a travel pack of  crochet accessories. I don't know about you but I am forever forgetting something like a yarn needle or scissors. I don't want to carry a bulking organizer, just something that will fit in my purse and have some of the immediate essentials. 

We have done so much research on the travel pack, it is an investment that can be a gamble of being a hit or miss. I am sure other small business's feel the same when thinking about expanding but I pointed out (and to quote my mother) "we wont know till we try". Long story short 2 days later, we are still thinking about it.

This might not be happening yet:

Next up on the table is making project bags. I have been wanting to do this for a very long time but it just never seems to come to light. Not enough time, in the day to do it all. This one might have to be put on the back burner for a little while longer. Bags may or may not look like the picture below, I won't know till I actually make some and see which style I like best.

Hope you enjoyed attending our meeting today and would love to hear your input.

Happy Crocheting!

Winter storm knitting

Oh my what a 12 days it has been! 

For me it started with hubby home for two days vacation time plus the weekend. His plan was to have 4 days off for his b-day weekend but he didn't plan on being home for 11 days!
I don't know about yall but for me it is really hard to stay in my "at home" work schedule with him under foot and yabbering all the time. 

I had started knitting his bday scarf on the 10th but was trying to be secretive about so I was only able to work on it when he was at work or asleep.

Then the storm hit, power went out and took the water with it. Oh goodness it was cold for us old Texans, we were all bundled up but still trying to be a bit active to keep the blood flowing. For 2.5 days we lived pioneer style. Knitting by lamplight at night and gathering snow and roof runoff for water during the day.

I knitted his scarf, my scarf and even a pixie hat, LOL! I looked ridiculous in that hat but I it was helping me stay warm. No, your not getting a picture of that! Hahaha.

While I was making the hat, my hubby is watching me and suddenly he says "that don't look too hard".

Dude, really?! My brain is yelling things that I didn't say. 

For me knitting is a challenge, self taught and I make a jillion mistakes and the needles slip, stitches get turned around or lost completely. I am getting a bit better but still nowhere near teaching level. Truth be told, I'm not even sure I cast on right. LOL!

I gave him some yarn, needles and showed him the cast on and the first row. Somehow he managed to get the last stitch with a 4 inch loop on it. He tried again and well next thing I know he is ripping it out and wrapping the yarn around the skein, he was done! Haha, maybe next time but it was fun for him to join me for a moment.

(As you can see he is wearing his new scarf and also sporting a very old helmet hat crocheted with 2 strands of yarn.)

Happy knitting and crocheting!

"Hey We Crochet" crochet group

Hey We Crochet Facebook crochet group
 
I started the day off normal enough... 

Declutter my desk area, always a must after finishing one project and before starting a new one. Well at least it is for me, not everyone is nuts like me. While I was doing that I was also browsing Facebook. 

I ran across an interesting post in a group page for designers talking about group pages that let you self promote. I started doing some searches of crochet groups, unfortunately so many look fun to be in but don't allow self promotion. 

Mostly this rule is because some people post their stuff everyday and sometimes multiple times a day, ruining it for the rest. I get it but boy can it be frustrating. Say I want to post a pic of my work, as a designer, it is of course going to be something I created with my own pattern. Other members of the group ask where can they get the pattern. Guess what! You are not allowed to post the link because that would be self promoting, it can get very aggravating. 

I know if this bugs me and other designers as well, then there needs to be a fix.

Suddenly I remembered my sister had opened a crochet page awhile back (turns out "awhile back" was actually 8 yrs ago! LOL!), I hadn't thought of her group in such a long time I had actually forgotten about it to tell the truth. Last I saw, she and I were the only members.

I looked it up. It said the page had been archived because the admin left, I was the only member left and did I want to reactivate the page and be the admin. 

I thought "well here is my chance to have a group that can be fun and allows limited self promotion." I really didn't have to think on it too long, I knew almost immediately it was time to do it.

I do hope you will join us over at Hey We Crochet

Happy Crocheting 

Feeling stuck...

Some days are spent with the yarn in my hand waiting for something to come to me, like Frankie sitting there with a blank canvas and a paintbrush just waiting for the brush to take over and do something, some times all you get are two eyes.

I have had soo many of those days throughout my career as a crochet designer. But after it hasn't happened in awhile you tend to forget till... wham it happens. 

I have tried several times to get my brain going on a project and I literally end up with a ball that wont take the form I am trying to achieve. 

It's a reality check. I am not a master artesian of yarn by any means but when the patterns just flow forth with ease, I guess I tend to get a big head about it. 

Then sets in the frustration cause seriously this shouldn't be that complicated but for some reason it is messing with me. 

Best thing to do is walk away, find something else to do while you process what might be going wrong. This usually helps me clear my head and also keeps me from scrapping the whole project completely. But that is not to say I haven't ever totally given up on a project cause believe me, I have. 

I humbly admit there are some ideas in my head that I truly don't have enough knowledge to make it happen. Maybe someday but not anytime soon. A goal to look forward to.

I hope if you are feeling stuck that this will help you to know it happens to everyone.

Happy Crocheting!

 

Designing inspiration...

How do I come up with the designs? 

Honestly, the designs come to me in different ways.

I am currently working on a swan. The idea for him was from a picture I saw online. It was a picture of a cabinet, with what appeared to be a knick-knack of a swan on it, I drew it out on paper. After getting a closer look of the item on the cabinet, turns out it was just a ordinary vase.  So it appears I see things that aren't there. LOL!

Here is another one.. 

My hubby has a old flip phone and on this phone the front has worn off. 

I'm sure not everyone will see what I see but I see an alien.

As you can see my vision came out different but the wear on the phone is what inspired it.

And then there are moments when I draft out something like my recent gnome and all of a sudden I am on a new piece of paper drafting one after another of animals to do in a series using the same base design.

For me you just never know where the inspiration is going to come from, I thought it was this and it turned out to be that, weird shapes that look like something or a base design that multiplies itself into different animals.

Happy crocheting!

Crochet teachers

 As I sit here thinking about what this post is going to be, my best friend Becky popped into my mind.

She and I would spend many hours crocheting together, chatting about crocheting and she taught me so much more than I ever knew I could learn. She was my friend, mentor and teacher. I'm sure we all had some crochet teachers in our lives. It could of just been watching some one crochet on the bus or in a waiting room and a curiosity was created or a long history of teachers in a family.

They all play an important role in how and what we crochet.  How we hold our hook to how we make our stitches. Becky was a pencil holder and I am a knife holder, her stitches were nearly double in size to mine. Not to say all pencil holders make large stitches, just that she did. Who taught her to crochet like that? Her mom and aunt. Which in my mind makes crochet very personal, treasured family traditions. But everyone learns from different sources and that makes it even more personal, say you learned from YouTube videos, those people are passing down their families teachings. I get all warm inside thinking about all the love and passion that goes into teaching someone the art of crochet. 

And to take that a bit further, every pattern that we follow shapes us to what things we like to make. If we enjoy challenges and that pattern nearly drove you crazy till you figured it out instead of tossing it out, then you are more likely to enjoy more complex stitch patterns and designs. If you prefer to relax and let your mind wonder while crocheting, then you probably enjoy more patterns that are on the easier side.  I think I fall in-between those two, I enjoy pushing myself to try new designs but not too overly complex to make me say bad words at it. Haha

My mother taught me that sitting quietly and crocheting while watching tv was very relaxing.

My grandmother taught me that crochet can be more than just a blanket for warmth, there were clothes, baby clothes and kitchen wares as well.

My nana taught me that sometimes more complex stitch patterns can be very pretty and worth the extra effort.

My best friend Becky taught me that even though life can be crazy, the yarn is always there just waiting for you to turn string into something fun.

So here is a big thanks to all the crochet teachers who pass on their family traditions down to others and every time they do they are adding in their own personal flares to it, weather it be in person or in a video. We thank you!

Southern Gal's Crochet beginnings...

 

So if you missed the first part... Leading up to Southern Gal's Crochet.

Welcome to the beginning of Southern Gal's Crochet.

I left off with falling in love with making Amigurumi. This lead to exploring as many patterns as I could get my hands on and quickly realizing patterns are written in various different ways, each designer had their own style just like crocheters. I was learning heaps and had boxes filled with finished products. 

With all these finished products hanging around I needed to do something with them. So I opened a Etsy shop. The first thing they ask for is a shop name, I had no clue what name to be. That was torture for me, my family and friends, eventually it was decided Southern Gal's Crochet was good. 

Selling my finished items and making custom orders went well but I knew it wasn't where my heart was at, I knew I wanted to write patterns for all the ideas I had floating in my head. 

I wrote my first pattern in 2011, I was thrilled with myself. LOL! I laugh cause I was so naive. I had no clue about the legal stuff, protecting your work and making a quality pattern. Heck I didn't even know that you were supposed to get those patterns tested before publishing. 

Yes. Yes I did! I really released a pattern untested and with zero step photos. I hang my head in shame. I soon realized I had made a mistake when I started getting mean messages from customers unhappy with the quality of pattern they purchased. I look back and I don't blame them at all, today I would totally do the same thing, maybe not as mean.

I worked hard at making my patterns better and with a little more style. Slowly building it up one pattern at a time, in just a few years I had a about a dozen patterns. It probably would've been more but I was still taking orders from family and friends. 

One day in 2018 I decided that was it, no more orders, I was going to switch over to just patterns. 

I am glad I did. It freed my creative mind to flow, the pattern ideas were coming at me faster than I could make them. My testers were so busy I had 2 or 3 patterns being tested at once, it was crazy!

Thankfully I got control of my mania and settled into a nice groove. I still get lots of ideas and jot them down but I am not frantically trying to do them all at once anymore. At this slower pace, even if I wasn't to get another idea, I would still have enough to last a few more years. Haha.

I hoped you enjoyed getting to know me a little better and of how it all began is still going.

Happy Crocheting!
Heather Welch

Leading up to Southern Gal's Crochet...

I have always (or so it seems) known how to crochet. Haha, okay not really but I have been surrounded by it from various family members and friends growing up. 

My earliest memory of yarn was when I was about 6, my Nana knitting and my Grammy crocheting. I remember watching them but never asking anything about it.

When my father remarried when I was 7, my step mother (mom) brought yarn into my life, she was a crocheter. I just recently recalled my first toy with her and it was an octopus. Green and blue yarn wrapped around a Styrofoam ball, the legs were braids and the eyes were made with red felt. I was so proud of that thing! LOL!

When I was 8 or 9, I went to camp and learned how to make a chain on my fingers. The Christmas tree that year had lots of chains on it. Hey, my mom had to find something to do with all my practice work!

We had a friend of the family that babysat us occasionally and she decided I needed to move to the next level and taught me how to crochet a single crochet stitch blanket for my Barbie. Well lets just say Barbie got a triangle blanket but a blanket none the less. I eventually taught myself how to quit loosing stitches and also how to do a double crochet (not know that was what it was called).

After picking up crochet for a blanket or scarf now and again through out the years, life had a way of always bringing me back to crochet. Whether it be passing the time while 18 wheeling back and forth across the country or coming home and having nothing to do, so I pick up the hook once again.

Many blankets and scarves were made over the decades.

Till one day shortly after getting my very first computer in April 2008, I decided to check out the website on the label of the Red Heart skein I had. To my surprise they had patterns!, I was in awe, but sadly I had never learned to read a pattern. After picking a blanket design and saving every chart I could find, I took on the task of figuring it out. I remember calling my best friend to share with her my exciting achievement.

After many patterns, failures and frustrated tears, by 2011 I was feeling brave enough to try a toy. I saw this book in the craft store called Sugar'n Cream Bright Ideas and it had a set of monsters in it. I just had to try them!

The original pattern called for felt for the face pieces, I didn't any so I had to figure out how to make the faces in crochet, which pushed my brain to be creative.

I fell in love with making Amigurumi!

It was a love that drove my creativity to blossom.

To be continued...