Podcast Episode 4 show notes

Podcast episode 4 is up! You can either listen below or subscribe in iTunes. You can search for Cozy Cape Cottage, or click this link. (I'm not sure why episode 4 doesn't show up in the store list, but it did download in my iTunes subscription, so it's there somewhere)

Thank you to 3grrrls and Trinka11 for the sweet iTunes reviews. So exciting and unexpected to see those pop up!

I finished the podster mittens!

Finished - shop sample for the mitten class - still some spots available! We will be using Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride worsted.
I mention the stretchy slipknot cast on

With one project off my needles, I went back and picked up 2 others that have been in progress for quite a while.

Ease pullover by Alicia Plummer, on the needles since February. I want to wear it this fall! I prefer the funnel neck, so now that I'm done knitting the hem, I'm going to divide my last ball to knit the sleeves 2 at a time, and judge the leftovers to see if I can squeak out the funnel neck.

Strie toe up socks by Lara Neel, Sock Architecture. Finished a full color repeat during WI Sheep and Wool. Did a lot of trial and error on turning the heels before just going through all of Lara's calculations as my stitch count is smaller than the pattern sizing due to sport weight yarn. When math4knitters gives you math to do....just do it.

Started Love the Winter hat by Emily Dormier using leftover pink HiKoo worsted from a sweater for my niece, and random stash yarn in white.

I started spinning a new project, my first merino. I'm almost finished with the third bobbin, so I'm looking forward to plying, and to redoing part of the too tightly plied brown yarn from last time.

woolmakers bliss double treadle wheel

I talk a little bit about my sewing debacles described in the last post. I've let out some of the seams on my Lola dress and the fit is quite a bit better, but not perfect. I'm also working on a Halloween costume, Tinkerbell from Simplicity 1792. The size 4 measurements should have fit perfectly, but I think I'm going to start again using size 4 measurements at the neck but grading out to size 5 at the waistline for a little more ease and hopes of wearing it again in the future. Luckily (?) the pattern wildly overestimated the amount of satin fabric I'd need.

After the crafting segments, I talk about teaching crochet 101, WI Sheep and Wool, acquisitions

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This is why they don't like you

Did you guys know there is such a thing as Instagram strategy? And that, at least to some people, it involves being annoying?

I never really experienced this whole thing of people following you, maybe leaving a random comment on a post, and then unfollowing you about 3 hours later until I started doing occasional it works posts. And I just...I'm so confused! How on earth is this a good strategy, and what are they trying to accomplish?

I'm not naive, I totally get that social media can be an effective marketing tool, and that gaining followers is a goal. You gain followers, you build a relationship, they buy your product because they like you, they believe in you, and they believe in your product. That makes sense, and that's fine. I've been on the consumer end of this relationship for podcasters I like, indie dyers, etsy shops, even some bigger brands, and it's pretty straightforward. Some of these accounts are purely for advertising and I don't expect anything from them other than pretty pictures, but some I do expect a little bit more personal interaction. Maybe not for them to follow me back, but to at least occasionally respond to a comment if I've left one or whatever. I just basically expect people to be straightforward. As I get older, I just don't have time for  less.

Personally, I've been keeping an eye on my follower numbers just to make sure that I'm not losing people who might be turned off by too many it works posts. So maybe I do have a strategy, and it's called "not being annoying." The thing I've noticed most though is a rotation of accounts that are either about growing your social media, direct sales leads, or it works automatons who must be secondary accounts designed to be exclusively sales because there is NO evidence that there is an actual personality behind them....and they follow, unfollow, follow, unfollow....and it leaves me somewhere between befuddled and side eye. This kind of thing doesn't really affect my life in a real way...but I just don't get it! If I was going to try to gain or buy followers (I'm not), first, what would be the point, and second, why would I go to you to get them when your weird behavior has completely turned me off to YOU?

Increasing numbers just to increase them....that's just stupid. I prefer my relationships to be real, thanks! I'll continue to follow and friend people I like, people I find inspiring, products I find interesting, and I hope that others do the same.

EDIT to add that I've already had 2 follow/unfollows since writing this post 4 hours ago. I still don't get it.

Full of Fail

This week was full of sewing fails, file disasters that nearly made huge trouble at work, and that time I got stranded at a fiber festival. I'm not sure I ever really believed in the whole Mercury in retrograde thing before....but I might now!

I typically work 4 days a week - I chose Mondays as my usual day off, and I really love that schedule. When the weekend is over, I still have that ONE extra day to get stuff done. The only real bummer is that there are a surprising amount of businesses which are closed that day, but that's not terrible because I frequently don't get out of pajamas when I'm home! I work enough hours though that I still get paid for holidays. When they fall on a Monday, I get to choose another day to stay home, which varies depending on what's happening at work that week.

So, all that to say that I took Thursday as my day off this week since we were off Monday for Labor Day. I planned to go for a long run, do a whole bunch of sewing, maybe record a podcast, all on deliciously on my own time before the daycare pickup around 5. HA. HAHAHAHA

Where oh where to begin? First off, I didn't want to run at all, because while the temperature was a comfortable 75 or so, the humidity was nuts. I'm not a very experienced or good runner, so the thought of running in soup? No thanks. I ended up doing a DVD at home, but even that wasn't very satisfying. Maybe I just didn't pick a good one for me that day, or didn't push myself hard enough, but it sort of felt like a waste of time. (The one thing that did kind of work out was that I washed my hair with a "no 'poo" recipe that called for first scrubbing with baking soda and then with apple cider vinegar. It really helped my hair feel quite clean, as lately I've felt like I've had a lot of shampoo build up or something. Anyway.)

By that time it was about 10:30, and I was feeling quite stressed that I was wasting my day. I went down to my sewing room, and cleaned up a whole bunch of past project debris that was holding me back from doing anything else down there. It took me SO long after that, but I finally finished the bra I started a couple of weekends ago. I am pretty sure I put the back part of the band on upside down, but it turns out that makes no difference at all because the fit was BEYOND horrible. It was just....so bad. So, so bad. I was essentially swimming in this thing, in all of the ways that a bra can just NOT fit. I don't know where I went wrong. I even made a muslin! Just....the front didn't fit, and there were seriously extra INCHES around my ribcage. It was not a, well, let's tweak it here and there and see if it works. It's a full on chuck it in the corner and be mad at it for awhile kind of fail. My friend said that hers really didn't turn out either. Perhaps not as full of fail as mine, but still not good. She said that maybe for the next go round, if we can bring ourselves to go there, we should try doing the fitting with the foam for the cups, rather than just fabric. That's a pretty good idea, but I don't know when I'm going to feel like going for it again. Ugh, such a bummer. (I was using this pattern, which I feel bad even saying because I was so unsuccessful!)

After all of that, it was about 3:30. I thought ok, let's change gears. I got out a pattern that I've wanted to make for years, the Lola dress by Victory patterns. I have the fabric too, a navy sweatshirt material. I thought a cute sweatshirt dress might be the perfect palette cleanser to a horribly ill fitting bra. I got the pattern pieces all traced and cut out before I had to leave to get the kidlets, so I was feeling like maybe I turned this thing around and salvaged some of the day after all!

And do you think that was true? No. After dinner and baths, I headed back down because I wanted SOMETHING cute to show for my precious solo day. The pattern directions were really easy to follow, and by 11 pm, I had a totally assembled dress except for the neck, wrist and bottom bands. Before going through the effort of putting those on, I decided to try the dress on for fit. I'm sure you see where this is going....

I could get it ON...but I was totally uncomfortable, and couldn't really move my arms without feeling like I was going to hulk the thing apart. Before completely throwing in the towel, I let out the seam allowance on one of the arms (which, ugh, was only 3/8" instead of 5/8" like many clothing patterns! Now is one of the only times I wished I had that extra 1/4"!!), and it was a great improvement. I can probably go through and let out some of the other seams and it should fit ok in the end, but ugh! I cut the same size in the bra and the dress, and ended up with a tight sweatshirt dress and a bra so loose I could have put it on over said dress.

The following day at at work, I'd left just a couple of things to finish off when I left Wednesday night. I thought, surely I'll have enough time to do these things before my 2:30 call to sign off on these plans!

 Yeah. There was some kind of ridiculous file problem which made it so that I couldn't get into the file until 1 pm!! I had an email window open on my other screen about to cancel the meeting, which would have been sort of a disaster to the project timeline, which obviously would have been very bad. Let's just say that when I finally got in there, I was drawing like the wind and there might have been smoke coming from my mouse. In the end, I got everything done that needed to get done and I got the sign off, but MAN was I stressed out!

So that's Friday. Friday night, I made a last minute decision (in hindsight, OHMYGOD stop making last minute decisions!) to head about an hour away to the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival. I dragged my family along last year, and when I brought it up to my husband he seemed pretty enthusiastic about it....ha, wait, nope! So I decided to go on my own, and rather than drive, I caught a bus from one of our local yarn shops with a friend from knit group. She had told me that it left at 7:45 and would leave the fairgrounds at about 5:30, and I thought that sounded fun. A whole day of shopping, watching the sheep shearing, maybe petting some baby lambs, and I could knit the whole way there and back!

And it was a really great day! It was fun to hang out, I spent way too much money buying pretty things that I don't need, and just had a really relaxing day. We headed over to where the bus had dropped us off around 5:15, and saw zero other people waiting.

And that's when I got nervous. You see....I didn't reserve my spot on the bus ahead of time due to aforementioned last minute decision. One of our other friends decided not to go, so I just took her spot. This meant I had no official confirmation, and no contact info in either direction. The friend I was with is one of those rare birds who does not have a smartphone, and also doesn't know her email password and only checks it at home. The shop website mentioned the bus, but again, no times. I tried calling the shop to see if they could hook us up with a cell phone of the owners, but it had closed at 4, so no answer. The woman standing near the entrance said that yes, there WAS a bus, but it had just left at 5. It was scheduled to leave at 4:30, but hung around until just after 5 when they finally left....just minutes before we showed up at 5:15.

In the end, we got home ok because luckily another friend was vending the event, and luckily not staying overnight between the Saturday and Sunday shows, and we were able to catch a ride with her back to the city. Even if that hadn't happened, I'm sure my husband could have come to rescue us, but that would have been about as exciting as coming along in the first place.

All this ramble to say that in the end, really, no harm, no foul on all of it.....but I am definitely staying in bed Sunday. (She says while typing this during a bout of insomnia in the wee hours Sunday morning....)

Podcast episode 3 show notes

Podcast episode 3 is up! You can either listen below or subscribe in iTunes. You can search for Cozy Cape Cottage, or click this link. 

Thank you to Eva from the charm of it for the shout out!

 I talk about Wild Haven Fiber Company and the upcoming classes - see the full schedule and details for how to sign up here.

Almost done with podster mittens (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/chilly-podsters). Put thumb in backward. Playing yarn chicken with last of the Ella Rae classic wool. Working my way up the flap before I decide if I need to carefully uneven the thumb or just snip it off and re knit with fresh yarn 

Also working on some class samples for crochet 101. Using cotton fleece by brown sheep company. 80 cotton 20 merino in Terra cotta. Should look nice in the shop as a sample. Doing a couple samples, rectangular dish cloth with single, half double, double crochet, a round cloth to teach about typical increases in round, and a big granny square. 

Got my first 3 ply off the wheel! 

woolmakers bliss double treadle wheel
Little Bobbins

Ready to spin something more colorful and traditionally handspun looking yarn

In sewing, I started working on bras

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My first taste of Greens

Last night I had a drink / get to know you / business meeting with my enroller / upline / boss (I clearly don't know the lingo!) Erin, and she gave me a couple product samples to try. One of these were a couple of Greens on the Go, one of the most popular products offered by It Works. (There was a facial wrap in there too, which I totally would have tried when I got home had it not been so late and I so tired!)

This morning I had a couple of spare minutes while we were getting out the door, so I decided to start my day with a sample! While it's fresh in my mind, here are my thoughts in the order in which they occurred.

Open packet. Think, huh, this smells like Crystal Light. I like Crystal Light. This is a good sign.

Dump it into my water bottle and shake.

Think, oh my god, that looks disgusting. What have I gotten myself into! How will I ask people to buy this and say it's great if I can't choke it down?! I don't have a poker face, this is a disaster! However...it still smells good, so......

Big drink. Hey! It's yummy! It's not as sweet as Crystal Light, but there is a pleasant berry taste. I gave it a decent shake but not terribly thorough. I can taste just a few undissolved crystals, but one more swirl in the bottle takes care of it. Plus there are bottles with agitators in them for more thorough mixing if that's an issue for you.

Turn to husband. Say, try this. He side eyes it, but gamely takes a swig. Same reaction - Hey, this is GOOD! What is it! I told him it's that Greens stuff I've been telling you about. It has all kinds of veggies and good stuff in it, plus green tea. I'm going to order some next month - would you drink it if it's in the house? He says sure, he would. So that's cool!

Finally, one of the little ones grabs it and takes a drink, not looking at it. She expected it to be water, as that's usually what's in my water bottle, and she said, "Hey! This water tastes like LEMONADE!!"

So there you have it - a totally unvarnished review, straight from the mouths of babes.

Want to try them for yourself? Leave a comment or send me an email! cozycapecottage@gmail.com. I'd love to hear what you think!