Yardseller.com is the BEST site out there for selling pretty much anything.

     So I have had my Etsy.com/shops/Mrzjaquescrochetedit up and running for a little under 9 months now, and it is finally coming together.  I am getting special order requests, and selling things overseas as well as all across the US and Canada, so to me in less than one year of being in business, that's a pretty big accomplishment  .  I found this new site called Yardseller.com and it works with Facebook really well so that when you list your items on there, they post to your facebook page and get you a ton of exposure thru there too.  Just in the past month I have sold 5 items from that site.  In the last 9 months, my total sales across all of the different sites I have tried is 19.  For only doing this as a hobbie at first this has definitely become much more than that.  I find myself dreaming of a new idea, and then getting up in the middle of the night sometimes just to start on it to see if it will work.  My latest sale on Yardseller was one of my Spectacular Slouchy Mimosa Beanie.  I have actually sold two of them from that site.  It's truly amazing.  I have had only one not so great experience, but I am making up for it.  I received a special order for a black and purple Super Slouchy, so I made it like I normally do, however the first one I made came out SUPER Small, like child size.  Different yarn does that sometimes.  So I made another one a lot bigger, but when she got it, she said that it was still too small  since she has dreads that need to fit in it.  Me being who I am and completely  customer oriented, I offered that if she sends the old one back I will make her a special one out of my favorite Lion Brand Homespun yarn and make it EXTRA SUPER SLOUCHY.  I have a feeling this new one is going to be much more of what she was wanting.  I want to make sure all my customers are COMPLETELY SATISFIED otherwise I will do whatever I can do fix it.  Quality work is what I do.  And I make no exceptions.  I want you to love what you purchase from me, and be proud to tell your friends where you got it from.  Person to person exposure is the best free advertising out there. 

Another Sale! My confidence is growing!

    

     I happily sold this hat yesterday on Yardseller.com.  It is a new site thing thru your facebook page.  Whatever the source of the sale, I don't care.  I am excited that people like my stuff enough to want to buy it and have me ship it across the US.  This latest sale came from Missouri.  I love what I do.  Creating new and beautiful things is always so much fun.  To me it really doesn't matter if I sell anything or not.  When people actually buy it though, it makes me feel so accomplished.    I sometimes hate that I need outside acceptance so much in my life, but doesn't everyone?  At least a little?

     When I was a little girl, getting praised for my gymnastics or singing was an everyday thing.  It got to be that I didn't even realize sometimes when people were paying me a compliment, and they would think me rude for not responding.  It's not that I was TRYING to be rude or stuck up, I was just always more focused on what I was doing rather than what people thought about it.  Now that I'm all grown-up, I wish I had kept some of that "carefree" attitude that I used to have.  There are so many things in my life that I used to enjoy that now I am so self-conscious about them I can't even bring myself to try.  Not crochet, thank the goddess!  This I can share with the world and love no matter if it sells like hot cakes, or just sits there and looks pretty.  Creating these things is what brings me joy and happiness.  It just makes it all the better when others enjoy them as much as I do.

     Mimosa Hat, you are now on your way to your new owner, and I wish you well.  Make me proud!

Ambrosia, the food of the gods...

     As a believer in the Gods of ancient Greece and all of the old stories of Greek Mythology, seeing the name of this yarn being "Ambrosia" automatically made me think of all the Gods and Goddesses sitting up at Mt. Olympus lounging around eating.  Having never seen actual "Ambrosia" myself, only that nasty stuff they sell at the grocery store that is red Jell-O and whipped cream with chunks of fruit salad in it, (gag me with a crooked spoon! YUCK!!!) my imagination has me believing that it is this fuchsia color gelatinous goo type substance, that is like, shimmering and looks like that really cool almost metallic looking stuff they used to put in those toys they called "water weenie's."  To me it is something that could never be duplicated in the human world no matter how hard we try.  


     As much as I love the mixing of all the colors in this hat, it doesn't say "Ambrosia" to me.  I would have called it, "Flirtatious Fuchsia" or something like that.  Lion Brand Homespun has some of the funniest names for their yarn.  It is always one or two words.  Like "Delft" or "Mediterranean" and the colors never cease to amaze me, but I definitely would have found some better names for a few of them.  


     This has mostly the deep fuchsia as the base color but it blends in soft subtle hints of tangerine, peach, soft rose, aqua, turquoise and even a little plum to really bring the deep cool colors out.  I have found that this hat really looks good with deep blue and purple colors in your outfits because it accents the subtle hints of those colors in the hat.  You can wear it with a lot more than you would originally think.  Obviously it looks good with pinks and purples.  I really hope you like it.  I've been a little slow on making things lately.  I've been severely ill.  


Have a wonderful weekend!


Cheers!


Mrz Jaques

Lion Brand Homespun "Painted Desert" Open Weave Slouchy Beanie

     

     When you live in a town like I do, where the majority of the population is very health and environmentally conscious, you see a lot of very "Earthy" colors being used with the daily decor and style.  I for one am NOT like that, and LOVE to have a lot of bright beautiful colors in my wardrobe because it always seems to bring up my mood.  Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the look of the Earthy tones that seem to go perfectly with the Pacific Northwest where I live, I just can't wear them very much.  My skin tone needs bright colors in order to stay looking healthy.  If I wear greens and browns, I tend to look washed out and sick when I'm actually feeling great.  (Not exactly the attention I'm looking for when out on the town, if you ask me.)  I want to hear things like, "Wow, that hat really brings out the color in your eyes." or "Where did you get that amazing hat?" 

     I bought a skein of yarn knowing what these colors would normally do to my skin tone, but I decided to try it anyway, because with a name like Painted Desert, it wasn't just going to be greens and browns.  It had to have more to it.  In my head I was imagining more of a mossy forest kinda blend from what was shown on the skein, just hoping to find those hidden magical colors that really bring the hat together.  Like this yarn always does, it ceased to amaze me.  I had absolutely no idea that there was purple, turquoise, orange, green, and the soft brown that they have throughout.  

     When I found the end piece to start the hat and it was that amazing turquoise color, I just about lost it.  I have never seen such an amazing blend of such natural colors that remind me of exactly what the yarn is named, Painted Desert.  If you have ever been to the Painted Desert in Arizona then you have seen the amazing spectrum of colors splashed across those hills, and this yarn truly captures the essence of it's beauty.  I tried wearing this hat, and was simply amazed at the constant compliments I got walking through the mall and downtown.  I was stopped almost every 50 to 100 feet and asked where I had gotten it.  

     I have found that carrying my business cards with me when I wear my hats is a great way to drive business.  Whenever someone asks me where I got my hat, I pull out my business card and tell them "I got it from Mrz Jaques Crocheted It on Etsy."  Who knows if it's actually going to get something sold but at least it has been getting my name out there.  

     Well that's all for me today.  I have to go and see the doctor.  Booh!   Wish me luck!

Wishes of crafty and creative crochet creations!  Cheers!

Mrz Jaques

Custom Ordered Iphone4 Pouch with Fuchsia Satin Liner and Matching Button!

     About a week ago I was checking on my Etsy Shop stats and saw that I had a new person "favorite" my shop, so like I always do, I sent her a message, letting her know that I love doing custom orders, and if there is anything specific she is looking for but didn't see, I could probably make it.  Well she immediately wrote back and asked if I could make a custom pouch for her new iPhone4 that she just got a MAGNIFICENT "Bling" case for that she has already lost two of the crystals out of.  I jumped on the opportunity, OBVIOUSLY!  A chance to try and make something new?  DUH!!!

     So for the past week we have been communicating thru emails and text messages to work out the perfect case, which as you can see from the pictures is nothing like the ones I have done in the past.  I was so excited when it was all finished and I sent her the pictures, because she absolutely LOVES IT!!!  The process of making it was quite comical really.

     So after we worked out the perfect yarn and color, we debated on the top design, and finally decided upon the envelope look with the button.  Trying to find that button, in the right size and color was an adventure to say the least.  You'd think that Michael's would have a TON of buttons, but they must have just done a huge sale because they had only a small portion of one isle and there were only a few to choose from.  I got lucky though and found this one.  The awesome part about the liner was I already had the perfect color so that worked out great.

     Okay, so I get the pouch made, figure out the liner and the button situation, and before when I was sewing in the liner I was using my Mother in-laws sewing machine, which has since been taken back to her house and I didn't have at my immediate disposal.  So I am running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to find a decent sewing machine for myself for not a HUGE investment.  After going to 10 different stores, I finally find a brand new one for like $80.  Totally do-able.  I bring it home, sew in the liner, and get the pics out to her.  She loves it but is worried that the phone won't fit.  I don't have an iPhone and neither does my husband.  Randomly one of his best friends is ON HIS WAY OVER and he happens to have an iPhone4 with a case on it.  So I snap a few pics of the pouch with HIS phone which is what is posted above and viola!  It's a done deal.  I added a strap, which I am picturing below for good measure.  It's awesome and I am so proud!  :)

Lion Brand Homespun..... Oops, I've been miss spelling it this whole time! :)

     I feel like an absolute dummy because of this but I got a comment on one of my hats that the name of the Yarn that I love so much isn't Lyons Brand it's just plain Lion Brand Homespun.  Silly little me hadn't even really looked at the logo on the skeins before and assumed it was someone's last name not the animal.  Oops, my bad!

     Well I am officially correcting myself.  I am also going to be posting the awesome names of the different colors I have been using as well, that is as long as I can find them again.  :)  The hat I am referring to that got the comment was my Pastel Rainbow Open Weave Slouchy Beanie.  The name of the yarn for that is Tudor, which I sold by the way, thru a site called Style.ly and I love them!  I had that hat posted for less than a week and someone bought it!  AWESOME!!!!

     They require a tracking number to be verified which usually takes like 1-3 business days before you see the payment in your Paypal but after that you get the whole amount, not a penny is taken out for the Paypal transaction!  It was, (yep I'm gonna say it again) awesome!  It totally brought me out of my funk of not selling anything.  It also made me think about going out and buying random colors with cool names and seeing what they turned out to be like.

     For example, I got this new color called Mimosa, you know the drink right?  So I'm thinking by the way the colors on the skein are that it's going to be this cool purple and pink with a cream color mixed in..... NOPE!!!  I mean, don't get me wrong, you can see that it DOES have those colors, but it also has orange and yellow that blend in and out of it.  It's truly spectacular!  I'm a big fan of anything pink and purple, especially when it blends in a little bit of orange!!!!  I'm going to make another hat for me to keep out of this yarn for sure!!!!  I need to find a bow to go with it if I'm going to make one for me. 

I don't even know what else to say about it.  Words don't even begin to express what seeing this amazing hat in person does.  I think I'm going to end it with just that.  Hope everyone has a wonderful rest of their weekend!

Cheers!

Mrz Jaques

True Beauty Lies within the Yarn!

I can truly never say enough wonderful things about this yarn.  Lyons Brand Homespun is the ultimate when it comes to luxury and softness!  Over and over again I have my friends tell me that these hats are the softest they have ever felt.  I have heard from others who have used it in their projects that it is extremely difficult and they don't like using it because of how hard it is, but I have found that it is NOT difficult to use if you have a little EXTRA patience.  In my life I have to have a lot of patience in order to get most things to work out the way I want them so this was an easy task for me.  I also find that when using a larger crochet hook, it works best because the smaller you go the harder it is to get a hold of the whole piece of yarn.

I got started using this yarn because my mom had bought two skeins of a color that I would have NEVER bought but she wanted me to make her a pair of my fingerless gloves for her birthday.  She had originally bought it because she wanted to make a scarf out of it, but she said that she couldn't figure out how to work with the yarn.  I am never intimidated by yarn, it is my passion and my obsession so to me it was a challenge and one I wanted to conquer.  It was really surprising to me that the yarn was not as difficult to use as she had  made it seem.

Now it has become my favorite to use whenever I want to make a new hat or anything really because you can get it in pretty much any solid color you want and then they have these mixed colors that are simply spectacular.  I love going into the store and looking at them because I never really know what I'm going to end up with.  They are so amazing with the finished product.  I remember my husband came home on Christmas Eve and I needed to make two sets of my hats and fingerless gloves for his Aunt Stephanie and his Cousin Ashely who were going to be over in like 4 hours.  I was super stressed because I had no idea what colors they would want so I sent my wonderful husband to the yarn store.

I trust his judgement completely because he is WAY more fashionable than I am, which is sad, I know.  He grew up with his mother being an AT HOME hair dresser with her very own salon downstairs.  Needless to say he has always known his way around fashion.  So, long story short, he comes home with two skeins of these colors that I am thinking, NO WAY!!!  One is super BRIGHT pink, and I mean NEON!!  And the other is this funky looking purple brown color that was really strange looking and not pretty.  Two colors I would NEVER have bought at the store myself, but whatever, I didn't have time to go back and get different ones, and he knows his aunt and cousin, which I don't very well.

The bright pink was for Ashley, and it didn't turn out as bright as I had thought.  It ended up having purple's and oranges, and even shades of burgundy in it that made it absolutely amazing as a finished product.  Ashley was so in love with it she wore it all night long, and still wears it all the time.

The other color was for Stephanie, who is a very petite Italian woman who is just a wonderful human being all together.  The yarn was called Cotton Candy, and it really looked just like that when it was put together into the hat and gloves.  It swirled from a soft pink, into a cream color, into a rosy wine color, into cream again and then into a deep purple.  The blending of the cream into the purple and the wine color was what gave the skein that brown color, but when it was actually made into something, there was absolutely NO BROWN what-so-ever.

In the case of this beautiful creation, the yarn gave just the slightest dark blue and light blue hints along with the white it is blended with, so I had no idea that it would go across the entire spectrum of cool blue hues.  If you look at the picture of it from the back you can see how it just blends so beautifully into each next color.  One word to describe it would be SPECTACULAR.

In this day and age, you have to find things that keep you guessing (and obsessing in my case) otherwise it gets boring and redundant.  I find myself on the verge of stopping this whole thing of trying to sell my stuff because I have had absolutely nothing sell and less and less views each day this month.  My creative juices feel like they are all tapped out, and if it weren't for my friends, like Tanesssa, who gave me an amazing idea for a hat yesterday, I fear I wouldn't be trying anything new and would just go back to making stuff for my family.  I know that there are people out there who appreciate hand made things.  I myself wish I could afford to buy more stuff that was handmade, but right now my  budget is strictly for my bills and food.

This was supposed to help supplement my income that I make working full time, but alas, it is just a hobby and one that I love.  I don't mind.  I will continue to make things, continue to blog about them and maybe someday business will pick back up again.  Time is the only thing that will tell.

That's all for me today,

Cheers!

Mrz Jaques

Tophatter Update! They let me schedule my 2nd hat finally!!!

I don't know if it has anything to do with the fact that I posted the blog I did yesterday but when I logged on to Tophatter this morning, even though it was after 8am PST they had a slot open for me to list my hat on March 19th at 5pm.  To me it is so silly when everything I have tried for the past 2 weeks didn't work but then I write a blog post that gets like 50 hits and the very next day I am able to schedule my item for an auction.  Coincidence?  Maybe.  I just hope that it sells because I really need to make a sale or two this month to cover all the costs that I have been putting out. 

People think that yarn isn't expensive but it really is.  Good quality yarn can be extremely expensive but it is worth it when you can get your hands on it.  Lately I have been relying on donations and whatnot to fund my yarn collection, and it is running scarce.  I am so happy to see one of my favorite sites doing a yarn give away. 

If you haven't heard of them before you should check them out,  www.HookedonCrochet.com which is a free email newsletter sent out by www.AllFreeCrochet.com.  I have found some amazing techniques and patterns that I would have never thought of before.  I am not one to TAKE someones design that they have posted for free and use the whole pattern.  I am weird I guess because I am really REALLY BIG on not wanting to COPY anyone's work unless I paid for the pattern and they get the credit for designing it, so I will always change things, and make it my own.  I find that a lot of the patterns need a little help anyway in getting them to make sense and work correctly so my years of experience come in handy in those cases. 

I mostly signed up for the site's emails because they run contests for yarn give aways, and this month they are giving away Bernat Mosaic's and I WANT IT really bad!  I don't know how many times I have been at Michael's and just sat and felt how amazingly soft and luxurious this yarn is but couldn't bring myself to pay the $7/skein it costs when it's only about 100 yards in each skein.  WAY out of my budget if you ask me.  I couldn't sell anything I made out of it because I'd have to charge like $40 for a hat which is too much in my opinion.  I know that there are people out there selling them for that, but I can't justify it to myself.  I want my hats to be affordable as well as fashionable.  So I always look for good sales, or promotions where they are giving it away. 

I won't use poor quality materials.  Some people would argue with me and say that Red Heart Supersaver Yarn isn't of good quality but I will tell you that I have always used Red Heart Supersaver and ALWAYS will because it is durable, washable, and you can find it in almost any color you want.  It may NOT be the softest yarn, but if you want something that you can SEE the details of your work in, this is the perfect yarn.  Yes it is acrylic but it's not itchy unless you don't keep up on the maintenance and shave it periodically.  (Shaving a sweater or hat made out of ANY yarn is necessary after a period of time if you want it to remain looking nice and not like a fuzzy, frizzy mess.)

I feel really scatter brained today for some reason.  I had started this as a post to update you all on my tophatter situation, which is hopefully going to get better soon, and it has progressed into talking about the quality of yarn I use.  It always amazes me how a tangent can take me on a path that I never would have even thought of in the beginning of when I started typing.  Anyway, if you get a chance to check out the Auction on the 19th at 5pm check out my hat.  Or if you just can't wait, you can always come and check out my stuff on my Etsy page.

www.etsy.com/shop/mrzjaquescrochetedit

And don't forget to "like" me on Facebook

www.facebook.com/mrzjaquescrochetedit

Wishing you all the best and happy hooking!

Mrz Jaques

Wednesday is hump day.......

I guess they call this day of the week hump day for a reason right?  It not only is the exact MIDDLE of the work week but it is also that day that seems to take FOREVER!!!  It to me is the longest day of the week by far.  At least that seems to be how my brain likes to perceive it.  Today I am finding it hard to get motivated to do anything productive.  I thought that I would have a lot of success with my last hat, the pink and brown one, and yet it seems that no one is interested at all.  My moral for wanting to keep going is depleting more and more each day with no sales, and less and less views of my stuff.  I know that building and audience and clientele takes time.  I just really wish there were something that would happen that would make it easier to wait and be patient.  Patience is my worst character flaw.  I have absolutely none when it comes to getting something I really want.  It helps when I use that motivation to do something good, like create new and beautiful things, but it can play the other angle and completely ruin my ability to think of new things until I get something I have already made sold again.

That Tophatter auction site I joined, sold my second item for a pretty decent price.  It was my Light Purple Homespun Open Weave Slouchy with Sparkly Bow.

  But now I can't even list my other items on there for another auction for some reason.  I can't sell anything if I can't list it, so I'm super bummed and frustrated about that.  I opened a new site thru Copius which has gotten a few hits but no one buying.  I have begun work on a new hat, Pink and Brown again but a totally different design.  More even with the colors.  I'm just hoping that after a few more weeks, when the weather gets nicer and I have more time to work on my stuff, I will have more people interested again.  I am doing the Pick-a-dilly flea market in Eugene on March 19 so if you live in the area, come by and see my stuff in person!

Homepsun Surprise! Blue with hints of Purple

Yarn is one of the most interesting (or boring according to my husband) things I can ever talk about. To me it is such an amazing medium. When I go shopping for yarn, I see the outside of a skein. When it is balled up and you can only see the outside colors. I am a very visual person so when I see something on the "outside" I try to imagine what it will look like as a finished product and buy accents to go with the picture I have in my head.

This yarn, Lyons Brand Homespun is my favorite yarn EVER!!! I have bought multiple skeins in all different colors and each time I buy one that is not a solid color but has some crazy name like 'Colonial' or 'Waterfall' it never turns out to be the same colors I had imagined in my head.

With this one which is called 'Colonial' I had pictured in my head a more medium color blue with grey accents throughout, but as you can see it is not just the blue and grey. Purple accents are everywhere. They are very subtle in some parts and then they are more dense around the back of the hat. It's simply spectacular! Had I known that when I was buying my ribbons to go with I would have tried to find a soft purple and blue ribbon to go with maybe.

With the ribbons I decided that the navy blue wasn't enough on it's own, and neither was the light blue, so I put them together. Little did I know that when they were against one another the light blue has a line of shimmer that totally stands out against the dark navy blue of the other one. I am terrible at tying bows, so this one I just couldn't get to look right for the pictures but when you put it on it looks super cute. This isn't the hat I was talking about in my previous post, that one is still in the works so stay tuned.

That's all for me today, I have a long weekend and a lot of work to do to get ready for the show I am planning on doing for the 18th of March. If I decided to actually do it then I will post location and times if you want to come by and see my stuff in person. Thanks for looking!!!

:)