This year, my holiday knitting is pretty much non-existent. I’ve made gifts the last two years, and I just decided not to take on that anxiety this year. It requires a lot more advance planning than I managed. Now, with that said, there might be one or two gifts coming off my needles this year, but that’s about all. I’m partly relieved and partly sad, which tells me this hiatus probably won’t be a long one. So, family, if you’re reading this, put your requests in early next year!

So what am I doing if I’m not making gifts for people? For quite a while, I was busy making stuff for my two craft shows. My second show was last week. It was a one-day, 4-hour fair, and it was a bust. I had two sales that *almost* covered the table fee, and then I bought a super-cute necklace from my booth neighbor. It’s my sneaking suspicion that the clientele there were the type of people who think that handmade gifts aren’t as good. I had a few compliments, but most were just quick glances. I even had two people ask me, “Are all of these handmade?” before walking away empty-handed.

Don’t worry, I didn’t take the lack of sales personally. Disappointing, sure, but I know the problem was market, not product. The silver lining is that the fair was to support the First Hand Foundation, a charity run by Cerner, so my table fee went to a good cause. But still, it wasn’t really worth the work, given that my Knitting SIL had to find a babysitter so she could haul all my stuff, and I had to move around on Helga, my knee scooter.

With shows done for now, my focus is back on my Etsy shop. I’ve been working on adding pieces, and today I finished! It’s completely up to date with all my current inventory, and you can check it out here. As a holiday special I’m offering free first class shipping with the code SHIPMYHATS. My sales are slowly increasing, and I’m getting a few custom orders from it too. Of course, most of them are Yoda hats! And I managed to finish the mermaid blanket, FINALLY. I completely forgot to take a photo of the finished piece, darn it all. It turned out pretty good, but I don’t know that I ever want to make another one. If I do, I know that I’ll charge a higher price next time!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to turn up the new Adele album and go back to knitting Yoda hats.