The woes of the crafter!

This past week has gone by as quickly as if I’d blinked and woken up seven days later! I spent two full days out in Berkeley and Palo Alto, and the long weekend in Santa Barbara for my friend’s bachelorette getaway (with some time in San Jose with family). I feel quite calm, but the hectic pace of things isn’t likely to give anytime soon. As I type this, our Tisha-cat is in surgery which may or may not accomplish anything, so we’ll be coping with the aftermath of that for the next few weeks or months. The VONA manuscript is due next Monday. I’ve set several personal goals for this month which I will need all my focus and time to complete. As I say, I don’t really feel crazy, but the eye of the storm still has a hurricane raging around it…

One solid chunk of last week went to making the above gift for my bachelorette friend. I knew she’d be getting plenty of lingerie at the party, so I decided to make her a set of lingerie, shoe, and laundry travel bags instead of contributing to the panty pile. I searched through my fabric stash for five prints I thought she might like, and made them a set with matching white bands and hand monograms in purple (her favorite color). Since she’s changing her name, the monograms are in her new initials. 🙂 I’m so happy with the bags, I’m considering adding similar sets to the shop, but I’m not sure whether they would sell. They took a fair amount of time to make, so they’d be expensive — though I just did a quick Etsy search and there are many such bags out there at much higher prices than I’d be charging. On the other hand, Jinny was selling some very beautiful ones at Craft Happy for very reasonable prices, and I was surprised at how little interest people showed (the finishing was amazing!). So perhaps there’s not a big market.

In my recent travels, I’ve been struck by the irony of making beautiful travel products for other people, but not owning them myself. While I was packing for Santa Barbara, I badly wished I had my own set of travel bags like the ones I made for Jennifer — and a jewelry pouch like the ones in my shop! But my time is so limited, I have to “budget” carefully when I make anything for myself. It’s as if I need to save up for these things, except that it’s not money I pay with, but time… which we all know can’t be saved up or hoarded. And so, even though I make a great number of wonderfully useful products that I’d love to have, chances are, I won’t get to have them. Alas!

As always, my weekend travels gave me fresh perspective, and I’m longing to write about that here — but I think this entry is already long enough. I’ll save those thoughts for another time!