Taking a break

Just for Christmas lol!

It seems like a good time to reflect now I've been open four and a half months.

To answer my original question, I think I should have remained a SAHM with a hobby. Not that I intend to shut down or anything, just there are things I miss and a lot of pressure I don't necessarily need.

I've just sewn a little sleep doll and discovery bag for my nephew (hmm, hope my sister doesn't read this until after Christmas) and am working on a really nice top for myself and it made me realise I haven't sewn anything for myself or DD since I opened. I've had a wonderful time with the top especially because I know exactly what I want and I've made it up from a completely different pattern, making a toile and fiddling around with that to modify it. It's that sort of creative design that I really enjoy, not just following a routine.

It would be nice to have the time to be sewing DD little dresses and making doll's clothes, she's just getting to the age where she doesn't grow out of things every 5 minutes and is starting to be able to dress and undress dolls. I've also had a ball making up a newborn nappy for someone else, that was the sort of problem that got me interested in designing my own nappies in the first place.

On the business side I think I've actually done pretty well. Thanks to a couple of large orders I'm way ahead of where I expected to be, I'm almost halfway to my break even point a lot quicker than I expected. Of course I keep spending more money too! I've got some decisions to make over the Christmas break about which bits to continue and whether to expand some areas. It's nice to have had enough turnover to start filling in some of the gaps in my business plans.

One of the things I need to do is look at how I'm going to get some more of the creativity I enjoy into it.

• I've been really enjoying appliqueing and doing extra bits on some of the nappies, and they are pretty much a boutique product anyway, so I'll be doing more of that with little frills and furbelows.
• I like doing the T-shirts as well, so I think I'll be pushing those.
• I've been asked about fitted nappies, and given that I'm pregnant and now live somewhere they will actually dry I want to experiment with those and with small/newborn nappies.
• I still have a half made sundress sitting on my sewing desk, because DD completely refused to try it on. I'll have to finish that and see if they are viable, as well as the two half made sunhats.

Looking at the list, part of the trick is going to be getting far enough ahead on the basic nappies that I can do some of the fun stuff as well.