What a Month November Was!

Oh my. Anyone else feel like November was a whirlwind never to be repeated? I started the month feeling sad about losing a friend. Now sooner has I pulled myself together when we lost our cat, suddenly and unexpectedly. Apparently heart failure is a common cause for losing a cat suddenly.

Amongst that, we had our first snow of the season – yay! – and then no sooner did settle and the rain came to wash it away. Sigh.

I could also share that income has been rubbish for this time of year. Was it the US government shut down? Was it general uncertainty in the world? All I know is that my income usually goes up in November because of the holiday period, and this year it dropped by 50%. Madness.

I don’t know that this post will be very long. I’m loathe to spend a couple hours writing it and finding out / editing appropriate photos for something that isn’t getting read, so if you do stick around on this post maybe let me know in the comments how you feel about these monthly update posts?

Disclaimer: This is a personal blog entry and you will not learn anything from reading this other than my thoughts and feelings, which will help you to know me better! 🙂

Personal Update

As mentioned, Artemisia is no longer with us. She spent 6 years as part of our family, and that was too little. I adored her, and it’s going to take a little while to get used to her not being with us anymore. Here’s a photo of her as a teeny tiny kitten. Such a sweet and timid kitty, we expected her to be with us for many years.

Something my OH has mentioned many times since is how he had very few photos from this year, and therefore almost no photos of Artemisia to look back on. His phone is full of screenshots of research for work.

My phone on the other hand is full of thousands of sewing and pattern making photos and videos, with quite a few cat ones amongst them. Lucky for me that she spent as much time in my workspace with me as she did.

I highlight this as a reminder that while we (and by that I mean me) do try to limit the amount of ‘device’ or ‘screen’ time, I think it’s also important to put those devices to use to capture moments before it’s too late.

Wedding Dress Update

If you’ve been here a while, you know we’re getting married in summer 2026. It’s racing along, and the first task (after designing and making the wedding invites) is to get my wedding outfit/s sorted.

I have since drafted a different corset using this book, but it’ll take me the rest of the week to edit and get that posted here and on my YouTube channel, so stay tuned for that one!

Business Update

And now to the business stuff! As the income is down more than up I’ve been playing around and testing to see what might ‘stick’ as extra income sources. These are what I implemented in November:

• Merch
• Membership

The Merch

I know, sounds odd, but I found a UK based company that is ethical, organic and great quality, so I tested getting some sweaters, tees and totes made up with sewing related sayings on them.

I have a sweater and I thinks its great, but so far sales have been… non-existent. I know things take a while to ‘warm up’ but I also feel like if there were going to be sales from my peeps, they would likely have started to trickle in by now. I suspect I’ll finish uploading the sewing puns I worked on, then leave it running in the background for 6 months and reassess.

The Membership

This was a surprise winner. I have attempted at least three times before to create a membership style area, where members get access to my brain in return for a monthly payment.

I’ve tried low price and high price, and it never quite worked.

After digging into the data – going all the way back to 2017! – I realised a lot of that was down to the name.

• Creative Cutting Class in 2017 – provides no context on what it actually was, but massively appealed to my love of alliteration!
• Creative Fashion Skills in 2019 and 2023 – again, doesn’t really get across who it’s really for, so the people who were right for it, were disinterested.
• Fashion Design Skills in 2021 – it attracted the people I wasn’t interested in helping, fashion students who had no interest in paying for help.

And then there came… Creative Dressmaking. Says exactly what it’s about and members are joining while the price is so low!

I dropped the first lesson yesterday, and I had so much fun putting it together. On top of that I was so chuffed last night talking to D about it, and the discussion taking place with members.

I know it’s early days, but I feel like I’m spending time doing what I love with people who I like, and that is a great way to spend working hours! 🥳

The Blog

Of course, the above are tied to my ‘name’ website, but I also spent time writing and updating blog posts here on my blog too. Here’s a list of the new and updated ones in case you missed them:

• Making My Wedding Dress – Design Inspiration and Getting Started
• Easy to Use Circle Skirt Patterns
• 5 Christmas Tee Shirts & Jumpers (For Sewing Lovers)
• Making My First Wedding Corset Toile
• The Best Gifts For Sewers
• 7 Tips for Sewing with Sequin Fabric
• Creative Dressmaking: A Pattern Hacking Membership

Actually, that’s not an awful lot looking at the list, but I’m ok with that for now.

Upcoming Bits & Bobs

December is always a tricky month with the holidays – so many expectations on being somewhere, doing something, that I often feel quite frustrated that my time is not my time.

However, this year we have a family member coming to stay later in the month, so I am determined to not ‘work’ between December 23rd and January 2nd. It’ll be hard, but if I set myself up beforehand, I should be ok.

Work Intentions

My plan is to front load as much as I can into the first three weeks of December. I’ll have some time to myself (which I’m half dreading now The Cat is not here to keep me company) which I plan to use wisely.

• Blog Posts: Aiming to get at least one new and one updated per week for a total of 8.
• YouTube videos: Hoping for two new videos in December, but we’ll see. They’re a lot of work to edit.
• Sewing Patterns: I have two almost ready to go. Just photos and video editing to do… We’ll see how it goes.
• Courses: I want to rejig Learn to Sew even more, based upon student feedback, and I’m hoping to finish the Pattern Crafting course too… 🤞
• Membership: I will be checking in with my members each week day, and releasing their new lessons each week. I would also like to get ahead by getting the second project finalised in the first half of the month too.

Personal Intentions

I’m intending to get the design of my wedding corset finalised in December. I want to order fabric for when I will be in the UK in January, so I need to have a clear idea on quantity this month.

I’m also hoping to get a little more personal art in during December. I feel like my arty hands have taken a back seat for the sewing hands, and I’m itching to get the paintbrushes and pencils out.

Oh, and I also have winter sewing plans too – which you can read about here.

Right.. I think that’s all for this month. Any thoughts, suggestions etc please do leave them in the comments. I’ll wish you a Merry Christmas now, in case you don’t get my emails and a big thank you for being here and supporting me!

Biggest hugs,
Eve