Serging ahead

Sew Mama Sew has a timely and informative blog post about sergers (also known as overlockers). I have quite a bit of experience with my mom's overlocker (which arrived the other day) but I must admit to using it vanilla - always scared of messing with any settings. Hopefully I am more adventurous now, and this article gave me a taste of what is possible.

Starting a craft business? Read this,,,

Looks like a useful book for crafty people wanting to start a creative business. One of my favourite blogs, the Simple Dollar, did a review of Craft INC. His summary in short? A good book if you have a passion for some hobby and wish to make money doing it.

Yet another strangely relevant topic on a blog about personal finance - advice always arrives at the right moment for me (and that's why this is a regular read for me).

Embroidery is cool

I wrote about embloggering a while back, and it seems embroidery is firmly on it's way to becoming cool (I also read an article recently about how the kids are onto cross stitch - there was a funny example of a kid who stitched "whatever" ha ha ha). nerdgirljuile is doing some twitter embroidery, and for those of you who know photoshop and aren't interested in a needle and thread, download yourself some embroidery fonts.

Burdastyle

I've known about Burdastyle for a while - it's a tight community who share patterns and blog about their sewing. As they put it "open source style" - that byline appeals to my geeky nature. I browsed their pattern library on friday (my mommy-at-home day) and was thrilled to find loads of free and very reasonably priced patterns. I love the way everyone makes them and uploads their photos - so inspirational!

I am bookmarking

• envelope clutch, the origami in me says yes
• urban hammock (for the new garden) I would love a knitted one, but can't be bothered to diy
• frilly shirt called JJ (love this, but I am too scared to attempt)
• toddlers dress called Vivienne (love the names also)
• mock tux bib
  

Sorry, another Etsy related post

Handmade Marketing, a blog I recently came across, has lots of tips for people who sell handmade.. Subscribe to their feed here.

I found the post about How to Read [a] Google Analytics Report quite interesting and informative. I have set up analytics on this blog and my etsy shop and it's interesting (and kinda addictive) to watch the numbers roll by.

Lucky for me I have an in-house online marketing expert to explain bounce rate (how long people are on your site), visitor loyality (how often the same people return). I also find the referring sites (sites linking to you) interesting, and have discovered some new websites that way. When I was experimenting with listing at different times I used the numbers to figure out which were more effective.

Take note - the data is updated once a day, so don't check too frequently.

Embloggery

I saw embloggery a while back on the craftzine and really thought it was a brilliant idea, although i wondered how long it was going to last (being obviously a time consuming pursuit). Well it seems it is still going strong (since December 1 2008), despite stitching rss and having to embroider left handed!

Today my friend send me another embroidery vs web 2.0 website - embroidered text messages!

Weekend designer

I am just blown away by this blog, Weekend Designer - there are a lot of blogs with howtos and free patterns, but this one is for serious dressmaking. Don't worry though, his (I assume it is a he, not sure why) instructions make it easy for the averagely experienced sewer (that word always looks funny). According to him 'it ain't rocket science'. The patterns featured are super hip (from the world of fashion and design) - another thing that sets this blog aside from the rest - they weren't created by the average crafty woman who gets excited by tissue box covers.

Green crafts

Ladies, this is the ultimate test of your eco-friendliness... washable menstruation pads. I first came across them when shopping for fabric breast pads last year (on Etsy of course - from MellyGirl2007). I got them for free because I bought a fair few pads and at first I didn't have a clue to what it was. Perhaps a handy container - except it wasn't too handy as they didn't fit. Then I read the note from the seller and all was revealed. At first I was unsure (I am putting this very politely) but then after reasoning that I expect my child to wear cloth nappies the least I can do is give it a go. I haven't had a chance yet, but I am sure will soon enough. The blog post with instructions how to make your own is Crafting Green World - a new an novel idea for a craft blog, which I am adding to my rss reader now. Enjoy.

I love highspeed internet with no data cap

For those of you not familiar with the internet in South Africa, we are restricted by the amount of information you can download (when you have 'run out of internet' people say they are capped). It's a whole new set of lingo. I just converted my dad from dial-up and I'm sure his view on the internet is going to explode (well it did for me at least. Goodbye cookbooks; Hello all recipes) We set ourselves up with some prepaid 3G (mobile) internet with Vodacom, and were burning 500 Mb in one to two weeks (just with mild gmail, etsy, blogger and facebook usage). I don't want to know how much we burn here in the Netherlands.

Anyway, the short of this blog post is that I have found a 100 and 1 interesting and inspiring craft blogs (sice I can now search away to my hearts content, at least while baby C allows me). Like this one: http://dana-made-it.blogspot.com/. I love her birthday gift handmade pledge.

Also I heard this afternoon that Helen got her first sale on her Etsy shop, AfricanCotton - some Nelson Mandela shwe shwe. Hopefully she can source some more because we keep hearing stories that it has been discontinued.

One last thing, happy St Patricks day to you all (sorry I couldn't resist the Hoff).

Craftzine

Yet another site for inspiration... the blog of magazine Craft. Unfortunately they are no longer publishing the magazine (they have been merged with Make magazine) but their blogs and website are full of great ideas.

Crafty Crafty

If you struggle to keep up with all the different craft blogs, checkout crafty crafty - which aggregates all the best from the web. Plenty of DIY and howtos to keep you busy for a long while.

She wears shwe shwe

She wears shwe shwe is a cute blog featuring people on the streets who wear shwe shwe; obviously in South Africa that is quite a lot. I love candid and street style blogs, so this one is right up my alley. The creator also sews and posts about her shwe shwe sewing projects.