Check-In Post April 26th 2024

[badly_knitted]

Hello to all members, passers-by, curious onlookers, and shy lurkers, and welcome to our regular daily check-in post. Just leave a comment below to let us know how your current projects are progressing, or even if they're not.

Checking in is NOT compulsory, check in as often or as seldom as you want, this community isn't about pressure it's about encouragement, motivation, and support. Crafting is meant to be fun, and what's more fun than sharing achievements and seeing the wonderful things everyone else is creating?

There may also occasionally be questions, but again you don't have to answer them, they're just a way of getting to know each other a bit better.


This Week's Question: We all make mistakes - what's your most memorable crafting disaster?


If anyone has any questions of their own about the community, or suggestions for tags, questions to be asked on the check-in posts, or if anyone is interested in playing check-in host for a week here on the community, which would entail putting up the daily check-in posts and responding to comments, go to the Questions & Suggestions post and leave a comment.

I now declare this Check-In OPEN!

Comments

[b_e_x]

I do, yeah! It started out with just selling some of the stuff I made, mostly to people I know. I think I had been crocheting for like 8-9 months when I opened my Etsy store (I started in Jan 2021 and opened the store that October, iirc). Then I got into painting my own safety eyes and selling those, and I'd say that's what drives most of my business now - I always feel like the biggest customers for crafters are... other crafters, so I sell a lot more supplies and patterns than I sell finished objects. And then last summer I designed my first pattern and started selling it on Ravelry and Etsy, and now I have three published patterns! The pattern design stuff can be REALLY time-consuming, though, so it's hard to find the time around my actual paid work (I've been a university professor for a decade, and I'm now moving into a fulltime research role).

I definitely crochet while I'm watching stuff at night! My husband and I have a home office with side-by-side desk (not to be cutesy, just for keeping all the cords managed, haha!). So our nightly routine is that we stream something on my second monitor, I sit at my desk and crochet, and he plays a game on his PC!

[illariy]

So cool to hear about how you started your crochet business, thank you for sharing!

I'd say that's what drives most of my business now - I always feel like the biggest customers for crafters are... other crafters

Oh, I had been wondering about that so intrigued to hear it confirmed for your business!

Your evenings with your husband sound so cosy. ♥

Oh, are you on tenure track now and will still be in the new role or are you purposefully moving away from tenure? I am doing another bachelor's degree because I want to change careers and not gonna lie, I love going to uni and everything around it so am curious about your career change.

[b_e_x]

I was tenure track, yes, and became tenured last year! So walking away from that is sorta a big deal, eek. But I always knew that while I do think tenure is an important protection for academic freedom, for many people it becomes "golden handcuffs" and keeps them in their jobs long after they stop enjoying them or being particularly good at them. I always knew that if I wasn't enjoying the work anymore, I should leave.

Academia is a tough path to walk, tbh. I don't regret my choices too much, but it is getting harder and harder to encourage anyone to become a professor. For the luckiest (or just most privileged), yes, it can be amazing, but the overwhelming majority of higher ed teaching jobs are not tenure track, pay little relative to other jobs a person with a PhD could do, and are very tough to manage if you have attachments (because you don't have much say in where you might end up living).