Its All Coming Back!

There will be a MASSIVE shop update through out the day today.

All of my knitted items are coming back to the shop!

All of my hats, my scarves, mitts, bags, and other et ceteras will be added to the shop and finally available for purchase again :)

Who else is excited?  (Obviously, I am!)

Custom Scarves

Yesterday I finished up two custom scarves by finally attaching the fringe and labels :) For some strange reason it always takes me a little longer than it should to finish up with the fringe on things and I'm not quite sure why? Regardless, I love both of these scarves and am excited to see them off to their new homes!

The first is a simple lace scarf in a hand-dyed merino. It is very soft, very cozy and very long:

Second is this gorgeous leaf lace scarf out of a wonderful alpaca and silk blend called Miracle. so soft and wonderful to work with! I used up two skeins completely, nothing left :)

Across the Big Colorful Universe

Two new scarves have been listed in my shop! This super long, wide colorful one:

And this one which would be absolutely perfect to wrap around your shoulders on a chilly night where you just wanted to wear your most favorite LBD!

Crazy Purples, Helmets and Babies

So I finally have added a new item to my shop! It's been over a month since anything new has made its way to my shop, I've been super busy with custom orders, hats, knucks, scarves, slippers, etc. Its nice to finally have new things on Etsy too!

So here it is, the coolest, most neato torpedo purple scarf you've ever seen!

Also, coming soon to my shop (hopefully tomorrow or later this evening) I will be adding the finished set of these booties I talked about way back in this post and the matching beanie!

And here is one of the custom orders I recently finished, a helmet-style hat. The wearer is a bicyclist and wanted something that would keep his ears warm but not cover his eyes (he has a rather large dome-piece). So here is the finished creation, being modeled by my very super handsome boyfriend :)

Interview and Helpful Hints From CricketsCreations!

After reading so many of her forum posts and other articles and reading her advice to other team members in the Etsyknitters Team, I asked Celeste of CricketsCreations if she would pretty please do an interview and give us some insight into this brilliant and very kind person:

When did you start knitting?

I took an elective class when I was eight years old. From there, I
studied knitting books and tried out patterns. Now I design all my own
work and can get really creative!

What is your favorite thing about what you do?

I'm a color and texture junkie who also happens to be a Gemini...scarves are great because I get to play with all kinds of crazy combos and don't have a chance to get bored (I make 2-3 scarves a day, generally)!

What does a typical day look like for CricketsCreations?

Get up in the morning, shower and get dressed (I like to "get ready for
the day" even though I work from home). Then, I start working for Best
Friends Animal Society from my home office (which is also my home studio
for scarfin'). If you're curious about what I do for Best Friends,
please see http://network.bestfriends.org/Blogs/PostDetail.aspx?bp=5628.

On my breaks, I take a few minutes to do the following daily on Etsy:

1) Answer any Conversations (convos), relist sold items, send a note to
customers thanking them & letting them know when I'll ship their order,
renew popular scarves on Etsy, etc.

2) Scroll through the pages at http://www.etsy.com/treasury.php and
http://www.etsy.com/treasury_west.php looking for gold stars next to the
treasury title. A gold star tells me I'm in that treasury, so when I
see one I enter that treasury, click on each item and leave a comment.

About once a day, I feature one of the curators who's included me in my
blog at http://cricketscreations.blogspot.com/ (I wish I could feature
them all, but I'm usually in several treasuries at once).

3) Visit
http://www.majaba.org/heartsitems.php?userid=&submit=Submit&name= and
check for new item hearts (this gives me an idea of which items are most
popular and/or which to make sure I have plenty of in my inventory).

Once work at my "real job" is completed, I spend the rest of the day
shipping scarf orders (its' such a thrill!), remaking scarves which have
sold or creating/photographing/listing new designs.

I integrate family & friends...either visiting while I knit, or taking a
break from business to have dinner, see a movie or go for a drive.

If you could branch out to any other medium what would you choose to learn?

Lampworking and glassblowing! I'm utterly fascinated by chemistry, physics & other sciences and love the transformation of glass to works of art!

Are there any other tid bits you want to throw out there? Anything at all :)

Here's a link to my success tips:

http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5838121

Thank you so much, once again, for doing this. I really do feel that your wisdom and helpfulness is priceless and I hope to one day aspire to your success!