The Enemy, or How I got Involved in the Petti Romper Wars

This droll posting appeared in Etsy's Business Topics forum today. For those of you unfamiliar with Etsyland, it has its own language, its own bylaws, and its own national costume (over-sized glasses and skinny jeans).

NAME REDACTED from SHOP NAME REDACTED says

I'm working on expanding my line into lace petti rompers, petti dresses, and that whole line of frilly girly stuff. I'll be making my tutus, but I have a high quality wholesale source for petti skirts, dresses, and rompers. I will be modifying them by putting them in a set with a matching headband, sash, and possibly legwarmers. I will probably also so some cutting and sewing to make striped/two-toned rompers/dresses, etc. I'm just curious as to how little modifying I need to do to still keep it handmade. Will including it in a set with a handmade matching headband and sash and hand embellished matching legwarmers be called handmade?

Here is how they define "handmade" in Etsyland. Enjoy digging through the text for a coherent answer. 

Here's the reality. In Etsyland, "handmade" includes: 

1. Hand-assembled: i.e. mass-produced octopus charm looped onto mass-produced chain

2. Minimally altered/"upcycled"*: i.e. mass-produced clothing with a ribbon "sash" that you cut yourself tossed into the box with the dress that someone else made

3. Objects made by a "collective": i.e. furniture that you have imported from India and Mexico** 

If you have a problem with an Etsy shop, you can flag them for review. They will either do nothing or put a freeze on your account for being a meanie. 

I had the nerve to post my honest feelings about this topic in the forum. I await notification of the suspension of my account. But that didn't feel like enough, so I added the following to my Personal Profile:

When you choose to purchase from Very Sage, you are supporting Molly, a real, live person! Molly, who bought her yarn at a local shop, designed your hat in her little apartment, chatted about stitches with an old Russian lady on the subway, and ran to the post office during her lunch break to pop your hat in the mail. And why should you settle for anything less? After all, you're a real person too. 

*This word makes me want to barf. 

**FURNITURE RESELLER (not their real name) says in their profile: "As a company we are dedicated to preserving and experimenting with styles and techniques which transcend time and cover the globe. Our skilled artisans come from century old centers of furniture making excellence in India and Mexico. Your purchase help these traditions flourish." 

In Defense of Crocheting in Bars: a toast to social awkwardness

If you know me, chances are we've acted out this scene together:

The setting: a bar in Brooklyn or Manhattan
The cast: yours truly, and a few friends/acquaintances

Work Guy: Man, today sucked. I'm really glad we came out.
Me: Yeah, me to. I'm going to drown my sorrows in guacamole.
Work Guy: Give me the biggest beer you've got.
Work Friend: Hell yeah on that guacamole. 
Work Girl: God, XYZ is such a bitch.
Work Guy: Man, everyone we work with totally sucks.
Work Girl: Yeah, what a bunch of ass-holes.
Me: (removing hook and half-made hat from oversized purse) Mind if I crochet?
Work Friend: Cool, what are you working on?
Work Girl and Guy: ...

Fin

Here is why I crochet in bars. It's not that I'm not interested in conversing with you -- I am. It's not that I don't want to get to know you better -- I do, or else I would have gone home. It's not that I'm so anxious about social occasions that I have to keep my hands busy (although admittedly, that has something to do with it). It's this: I really like to crochet. In fact, I freaking love to crochet. I love that it makes me feel productive. I love that it allows me to create something tangible. It gives me a sense of satisfaction that I can't find in my work, because me work does not produce anything tangible, ever.

It's been interesting to discover that a lot of the people that I know professionally do not have any hobbies. Granted, being an attorney does not leave you with a lot of free time. I'm always really excited to learn about other people's unexpected non-work activities. Some people gently mock an older, somewhat awkward colleague for being involved in community theater. The other day, I found myself deep in conversation with this gent about the relative merits of Crazy For You versus My Fair Lady. And guess what? It was delightful. He morphed into a newly animated, considerably less awkward person. This guy probably would have understood why I crochet in bars. He sneaks off into vacant hallways to sing show tunes between trials.

Maybe I'll design a hat called the Eliza Doolittle. We can talk about it over a beer if you like. I'll multitask.

P.S. New inventory coming soon!

Very Sage, where have you been?

Nearly a year without a post? Absurdity!

I have kind of a good excuse, though. Not long after I posted my last update I became a real, live attorney. Like, the kind with a job.

The pros: A salary (it's nothing like what you're thinking. I'm not that kind of lawyer). Learning new things. Meeting new people (also sometimes a con). Health insurance!

The cons: long commutes all over the City (sort of a pro, although my yarn sheds all over my suits and I look like I have a multicolor dog), not enough sleep, working nights and weekends waaaaay too often, and not enough time to design new things. But still -- a salary! Health insurance!

In other good news: I went in for a 6-month check up and had a chest x-ray, and the pneumonia was fully resolved. Let's hope that never, ever happens again.

On to more business-y things. Very Sage has been resurrected for the holiday season. Things have been quiet so far. I'm having a hard time standing out in the crowd (see previous post on "made in China"). I'm having an even harder time with the realities of business: to succeed, you have to make what the people want. And the people want...baby booties.

Baby booties. It started as a way for me to give a homemade, heartfelt gift to the bazillion people in my life who are reproducing. It became a monster. Sure, they're cute. But they fit for 10 minutes, and they take way too long to make. I only have one design that I really like (suitable for boys and girls, not too fussy) and I haven't perfected my technique yet for speedy production. It's often more difficult to make something small than it is to make something large because of the detail involved.

It comes down to this: hats are fun. Booties are work. Just like children, right? So...what do I do now?

"So, what do you do?"

Is there anyone who actually enjoys being asked that question? I don't know anyone, and yet it is a staple of polite conversation. I lost any fondness I may have had for the what-do-you-do line of conversation when I joined the legions of unemployed law school graduates.

Right now the answer is simple: I crochet. A lot.

I have spent most of my time since taking the bar exam in July working a variety of jobs, some of them fairly demeaning, while looking for a "real" job. When you're sending out enough resumes each day to wallpaper an Upper East Side co-op, sometimes you need to do something that makes you feel good about yourself. I crave activities that make me feel productive. If it involves using my hands to create something beautiful, then it's more likely to help me forget the stressful thoughts that are dancing around in my brain.

While I'm still actively seeking a law job, I am also working hard to make the transition from hobby crafter to professional artisan. As far as I can tell, this transition is largely mental. I've always made art of one kind or another. I majored in it in college and have even had some pieces in small exhibitions. However, my artwork never became compatible with my tiny-apartment lifestyle (let's just say that the term "studio" apartment is a complete misnomer). When a friend first taught me to crochet, I sniffed a bit: I was an artist. This was craft. Make something that people would use and wear? How perfectly plebeian.

But something must have stuck, because I have been crocheting with increasing regularity and (I hope) skill for eight years. When I started making hats as gifts, friends and coworkers encouraged me to start selling them. I opened an online shop on Etsy.com, a marketplace for handmade and vintage items, in January 2009. Like many new Etsy sellers I expected the sales to roll in. I mean, my friends loved my stuff, right? And my prices were reasonable, right? And I always got compliments when I wore my hats around New York City, right?

Well, it turns out that none of those things is enough to create a successful online craft empire.

Etsy is enormous. As of today there are 271,433 active shops, and new shops open every day. Doing business on Etsy boils down to one simple fact: if your work doesn't stand out, you don't make sales. While blogs like the hilarious Regretsy.com poke fun at lackluster Etsy items, most of the work on Etsy is impeccable. Furthermore, gone are the olden days of posting a few dark pictures of your friend wearing that cute necklace you made -- many Etsy sellers now hire professional photographers, models, photo editors, copy writers, and graphic designers to make their shops stand out. Online crafting is big business.

Where do I fit into this? Well, I'm still muddling through nearly two years after opening my shop. With the exception of sending my very patient boyfriend on occasional trips to the post office, I do everything myself. I'm still waiting for that magical morning where I wake up to 100 sales in one day. I get excruciatingly frustrated at finding my items buried beneath 10 pages of other hats within minutes of posting them, but I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet. That's one of the reasons I started this blog. Hopefully by writing about my experiences as an aspiring professional artisan I can figure out what I'm doing right and where I'm going wrong. If I'm lucky, maybe people will even read my ramblings and talk about their own experiences. You know, kind of like a virtual stitch and bitch club.

Next time I post I'll bring a box of wine.