Overextracted Things: Good stuff, good news, good day, long post

Lots of stuff to report today.... no surprise there considering how long it's been since I posted last.

I was in a funk and feeling down... and no, as jason asked, I was not feeling funky or ready to "get down get down get down.... funky town" or however that goes... although him saying so did make me smile and laugh. I sure do love that guy.

Anyway, enough of that, I was feeling down and low and sad and it must have been that time of the month because I sure feel a-okay now.

I'll start with the most recent and work my way back.
This morning I exceeded my bandwidth for the month over at Craft Leftovers and had to up it. I have had too many downloads for the month! Exciting right? I was pretty surprised and happy about it. I am going to have to start paying more for bandwidth though... so people need to start buying more from the shop or using the donate button to help make this happen. There have been over 300 pattern downloads this month and it's only the 17th! And I haven't even converted all the patterns to pdfs yet so most likely more than that!

It's kind of interesting to think that a year ago when I started this is was shocked/excited when I got 50 hits a week, now Craft Leftovers is consistently getting around 1300+! My average per a day went from 7 to 160! and it a good day was 20 now it's 400! Anyway, I'm excited to say the least.

I know it will take time, but I am a little bummed that the shop doesn't sell more because I really enjoy making kits and finding new "leftover" materials from thrift shops and donated stashes and etc. Oh well, that will come too, it will just take time.

Okay so next thing:
More yarn! I dyed with lettuce yesterday and instead of coming out "blah murk" it came out "lettuce green." It's so pretty.

And I also tried my hand at acid dyeing for the first time too! It looks so great and now I'm hooked! I did two, then another skien, then another, and another! I'm saving one for myself, but the rest I'm going to add into the shop. The official update time is Friday at 5pm! So check it out. I'll save my reasons for not sticking to naturally dyed yarns in the next post, it will give me something to talk about for sure.

Oh and I can't remember if I told you or not, but I finally found a wholesaler for natural yarns. I'm going to keep offering the natural dyed in the superwash merino, but the acid dyed is a superwash merino with 15% nylon. Perfect for socks! I'm also playing with wool roving and bulky yarn for felting. I'm going to try out some hand painting tonight with blues, yellows and greens. I think on my first shot I accidently felted the roving... woops. Try again. Too much agitation. I think I'm going to have to hand paint that and then steam it.

And yesterday I felted, that's right, after two years of knitting I finally made not just one, but two felted projects. I'll show them later once I take a picture, hopefully of the ferrets playing in the one.

Speaking of the kiddos, Mr B is frisking as ever and is eating more more often, but is still not eating on his own. I don't mind getting quality time with him 4 times a day though. Sloane is still all sneezy and I think she is allergic to wool! go figure right? I've been cleaning like mad so hopefully she will show improvement soon.

I do have some bad news. I didn't get into Renegade.. blah. That's okay though, it has helped me to work harder at getting Craft Leftovers more professional looking. My friend is doing packaging design for me, along with some promos, and I'm working on being a better photographer. Renegade wasn't really the right venue anyway, I think they are more alternative art than alternative craft. Whatever. I'm looking into some small little "crafty" shows that are like $25 a table and are all about everyone is welcome to sell their stuff. I like the idea of craft shows with crafty old ladies, those were always so fun to go to growing up. Kind of like a craft garage sale feel. My friend jill says that Craft Leftovers is more suited to a "grass roots" kind of movement than trendy indie movement. I think she's right. Sometimes I do dream of being a trendy ass hole i must admit. Sigh. To fit in somewhere. I suppose I never have so why would I now.

The other thing that I have been thinking about is being a vendor at a fiber festival, like the midwest folk and fiber festival. I think it would be easier for me to get into with Green Prairie Fibers. I could sell my hand dyed yarn and then the kits from Craft Leftovers. There are quite a few good ones in this area. Eventually stitches midwest would be awesome to go to, but that's like a 5 year goal because it's so pricey for a booth.

I might do a small fair in the fall, but mostly it will have to wait until next year because all the deadlines have passed.

Oh so another cool thing. CRAFTzine is going to feature some of my patterns in their pattern podcast! Horray!

So I think this is long enough. I'll see you all later this week!

ps - more stuff:
I just finally got my act together in starting to prep for the conference. I made Craft Leftover Patches. And Deb I haven't forgotten you, your's is on it's way now that I actually made some!.... now where did I put your address.... hmm...