Monday, July 28, 2008

How to handle customs? (And a sneak peek!)

I'm actually quite perplexed on this one. I love knitting Silly Stripes, especially customs as the colors that other mommas come up with are so much fun for me to work up! But, I'm finding that I have more mommas wanting Silly Stripes than I have the time to work on knitting. So, how do I do it? Sell to my friends first? This doesn't seem quite fair. Should I keep a list that has no obtainable end? Keep a list from email or PM requests? Not sure I could organize all that. Sell to the momma with the fastest finger? Slots via lottery? Auction? I really don't know what the best option is.
Here's the other part...I still want to stock my store, and I also would love to knit up some of the amazing HC yarn that I have in my stash! :)

So~dear reader...are you out there? I'm asking for your opinion...what would you like to see happen? Oh, and I must share this with you. lol...I have a momma who's threatened (promised? ) to email me a poem everyday until she has a slot. With her permission....
I was going to write you a large and heartfelt piece of poetry proclaiming my love for your knitting and describing my unending quest to own one of these beauties. However, we're both busy women - I'm sure you don't have anymore time to read that then I do to write it. And so, I've decided that I will have to do the next-best, time saving, condensed version.
That's right. Haikus.
I was thinking maybe one each day until your next stocking. And if I'm too annoying, well, I'm sure you know where the block sender button is on your email. (I'd help you out with that, but I use hotmail, so mine is probably in a different place than yours.)

So without further delay -

Little Bear Knit Wear
longies dance across my dreams
like crabs in the sand

Fantastic! Don't you think? It sure made my day!! I know how she thinks I should fill my customs. lol...but what do you think? Please comment to let me know your opinion and suggestion. :)

Now, to share a wip! (Work In Progress)



I love these colors together. Again...a pair I'd love to keep for Bear. ;) They'll be off to their new home in a week or so.


5 comments:

marissa said...

Hmmm...I can see how this would be a tough issue. I think that maybe the best way to handle this would be to give custom slots to the first people who leave comments on each blog post. It would probably be a good idea to have this policy start, oh, about 5 minutes ago :)
Of course, if that doesn't sound appealing (but really, why wouldn't it?) you could handle your customs the same way crankypants does, and let everyone sign up over a few hour period each month, and then use a number generator to randomly select as many people as you can take on. Or else do it the old-fashioned hyenacart way and just have the spots go live at a certain time and whoever has the fastest fingers gets them. If you do have any space on your list for longies though, I think I would probably start by giving that mama with the haikus a slot. She sounds pretty cool. ;) Good luck with however you decide to tackle the stocking issue!

Anonymous said...

Oh Monica- when you get it figured out please let me know! lol! For me, I just go by the date requested. Deposits are important I think and show that the buyer is not just window shopping. It's so hard to judge how long a wait can be because being a mom of little ones can be so unpredictable. I think maybe closing the list once you think it would be more than a 6-8 week wait would be smart since so much can happen in that time period. But as I said, I'm still figuring it out. I think it'd be easier on the WAHM-end to keep slots through HC, or Crankypants style. But limit it to a number so it's always in your control. Eh - was that even helpful?! lol

Monica said...

Yes! That's helpful! I think that I'm going to stock through HC for now. But, I'm going to sleep on it one more night. :)
I don't ever want anymore than I feel I can keep up on. And yes, with two toddlers...life is sometimes silly! :D

Anonymous said...

I think this is a hard issue for a lot of creative WAHMs... I like the way Amy does it doing to random lottos at the beginning of the month.. depending on how many she thinks she can do in the month. You could even auction a couple pairs too for people who dont want to wait.

I love your longies and would love a pair, so i think if you didnt like that idea, you could also just go ahead and give slots to those who post in your blog! :giggle:

Just kidding of course... Im a definite fan of your knitting though!

Monica said...

LOL! I think that you and Marissa would both approve of that last idea! :D
I'm really thrilled that people are enjoying my work. It's really fun for me.
Thanks momma!