New Year, New Directions

On Saturday, I spent the entire day - from noon to midnight - putting together a submission to Knitty.  I learned some nifty, new-to-me tricks with Photoshop, taught myself how to size patterns using Excel (so cool! reminds me that I actually like math & formulae), and progressed further in my skills using Quark (a page layout program), which I used to create my schematic.

As exhausting as the day was, it was a lot of fun.  I actually really like desktop publishing, as I'm discovering doing the layout for my self-published patterns, and I want to do more of it.  The Husband is a graphics guy professionally, and this morning I suddenly thought how cool it could be for us to start our own business.

The more I work in offices, the more I realize that it doesn't really matter how great an office I work in, I just don't want to work in an office.  I want to work at home.  I want to do something creative with my time.  I want to be my own boss.

Scott gave me a really cool book for Christmas, called Crafting A Business.  It profiles about 20 women who started their own businesses as artisans, and I'm finding it quite inspirational.  It's so encouraging to see real examples of craftswomen who are making a living doing what they love.  In the second half of the book it has a lot of practical information for starting your own business, and I'm looking forward to getting more into that nitty-gritty section.

There's something especially exciting about starting a new year with all these ideas and possibilities.  Now if I could just win the lottery or get an inheritance from a long-lost relative, I could quit temping and really get down to it!  (Or, I could turn off the TV in the evenings - there's nothing on anymore anyway! - and accept that doing what I love is going to take a lot of hard work.)

Comments

[PumpkinMama]

Hooray! I dabbled in desktop publishing/graphic work just out of college and really enjoyed it as well - I wish I had more time to devote to playing with that stuff now.

[Cheryl]

Good idea! And I'd be happy to be your official photographer . . .

[Danielle]

I did a lot of desktop publishing stuff in my first job, and I enjoyed it. I miss having access to that software now!

[Beth S.]

Good luck making your dream a reality! I'd really love to see you spread your wings and make it happen. :-)

[Ellen]

Good for you! Let me know if I can help in any way. (It's only fair! Remember how I picked your brain when I was thinking about my own Big Plunge?)

[Amanda]

You should try doing amigurumi.

[Pi.Grrrl]

I hope this means that the pattern for your lovely purple sweater with the cable is going to be available! I'll be waiting to see what comes.

[Danielle from SW Missouri]

I have a small yarn store online and hope to open it sometime this yr in my home as a physical store. It has takem alot of work, and hasnt become a success yet but I'm workin on it and hope it will in the near future. Good luck, May I suggest that you look into a e-commerse based host, etsy, or ebay and offer some of your patterns and finished objects for sale there. As I said GOOD LUCK!!