neckHUGs for charity

Back in January we had a Sale & Swap event over on Swap Workshop and it was a great success for everyone who took park.
Items were swapped at half their usual credit value, yet the maker would still get full value for them. A great way to de-stash! In fact I managed to really clear out my stock and in fact I only have about 4 items left.

I'd listed a bunch of neckHUGs (aka cowls, aka snoods) and was really happy when pippelotje approached me asking if I would mind letting her have a couple of items for charity? She runs the blog voornico (For Nico) for a friend's boy suffering from leukaemia.

Apple Green neckHUG

Blood Orange neckHUG

She lists all sorts of lovely handmade items, so if you are looking for a present, a treat for yourself or just want to help out a 7 year old boy from Paraguay win the fight, please do pop over and have a look!

a week off :D

I am on holidays for a week. A break from the usual nine to five. It's the first holiday I have had in about 3 months. I think it was November when I last had time off, but that time was spent visiting friends abroad and laying laminate flooring throughout the living room and bedroom. So not a great deal of pure unwinding done really.

Needless to say I am quite excited to have a whole 9 days off from work (counting the weekends either end) and I have plans to get a few things done this week.

I need to finish off my first ever sock and cast one for the buddy. Here is what it looks like at the moment;

As you can see I have made it past the dreaded heel and am now on the foot. Hopefully the toe will be easy enough! It's littered with odd loose stitches and for some reason I knitted a but of the heel in purl rather than knit... hmmm. It all adds to the character
Socks are lovely and all, but soooooo difficult lol. Guess I should have maybe waited till I was a bit more experienced. But hey, you learn as you go along and this is a great way of gaining new skills I believe :)

I am also hoping to finish off this cowl which I am knitting following the Cotton Seed pattern from Michelle's lovely TwoAndSixty blog. Thank you Michelle for the pattern!
Only about 10 more rounds to go. With 200 odd stitches in one row, that's only 2000 or so stitches. Phew.

Should be doable with a week and several movies! Wish me luck!!

HüG (by HUGhats)

HüG (by HUGhats):

^ is my Facebook page. I am currently looking at opening up a store option on there. (Not sure that made grammatical sense?!).

What I am trying to say is: I am working on opening an on-line store, linked directly to the Facebook page. This way I can list and sell via the Facebook page, rather than the etsy shop. Not that there is anything wrong with etsy, it's just very BIG. Hard to stand out like that and reach people who are genuinely interested. Or at least that is my personal experience.

I've noticed that I sell more via word-of-mouth, than etsy. The people I have sold to so far have all seemed puzzled by the whole etsy thing and it seemed, almost, an inconvenience for them to have to join up, simply to buy one of my hats.

So I am trying to make it more user-friendly and easy. Not wanting to use the term "mass-market", but having a shop on the Facebook page will perhaps make it simpler for buyers.

I know etsy, and I have known etsy for a number of years. But most people I know have never heard of it. That being said; I ma not going to close the etsy store. I'll keep it open, but I will probably focus on the Facebook store for a while.

There are also no fees to pay on the Facebook shop, and there seems to be no expiry dates either on listings. :)

For me it makes sense, to go the Facebook route. What do you think?