The Sweatshop of Love Blog

(Yikes. What a title. The (But Fun!) I threw in there doesn’t even really jazz it up. An exclamation point just looked stupid. No one would exclaim after saying that.)

I’m Michigan bound today! My Amtrak (kill me) to Holland leaves at 5:20 and I’ll be rolling in around 9:30pm. My mom called me yesterday to alert me that Edy’s is having a huge sale and to ask what flavors of ice cream she should pick up.

So yes, it’s going to be an awesome stay in the mitt.

I’ve been chatting to you lately about my pretty minimalist lifestyle – my spending less lets you live happily making less philosophy -  so I wanted to break down my pattern sales for those of you who might be curious about it. I know I was before I started trying to sell my patterns!

I went into producing this ebook with no expectations whatsoever. I know The Sweatshop will not make me a millionaire and I don’t want it to. I love it and it’s a bonus that I’m starting to be able to live off my work. This was my first try, my first try of many!, and the more patterns I write the more people I reach the more money I make from doing what I love. At least that is the plan.

So! The Summer Tour of Knitting Patterns Ebook went on pre-sale May 31st to a select group of my long term knitting students and supporters for a discounted rate of $12. Then it went public on June 1st for $18. On July 1st I released the patterns individually and their cost ranged from $2-5.50.

After two months of availability, here are my sales numbers:

Ebook Pre-Sale = 15 copies at $12 = $180

Ebook Sales at Full Price = 11 copies at $18 = $198

Individual Sales = $49.50

Individual Sales includes 6 copies of the Twin Cities Headband, 4 copies of Baby Sweater Buffet, 1 copy of Caitlin’s Cardi, 1 copy of Traverse City Tube Top, and 1 copy of The Loop Entrelac Tank.

I’ve made $437.50 on this project, and counting. I would absolutely call that a success!

Larger successes:

1. There has only been one mistake found and reported back to me and it wasn’t even an error in a pattern portion of the ebook.

2. Knitters that I don’t know are out there knitting what I’ve designed! Reading my words and making things that wouldn’t exist with out me. That blows my mind.

3. I have relationships with knitters now that I would never know if I didn’t write these patterns. They found one of my patterns, they liked it enough to purchase it, they knit it, they shared that process through the magic of the internet, and now we are part of each others lives.

The bottom line is that I had no expectations going in, so sales exceeded my expectations. But more than that is the knitting community’s reception of my patterns exceeded my expectations. I’m addicted to writing patterns that people want to knit. I want to see their pictures and read their thoughts! I love it.

So I’ve got to use this information to help me write better patterns in the future. This was my first try, and I’m going to make each next product better and better, which should lead to more sales and views and interest and, above all, more people knitting my designs.

I’m leaving in a few hours for a 5 week working vacation because of you! You motivate me to be better and better at what I love doing, which is a solid equation if you ask me.

I mailed a huge check to the US Department of Education Friday, paying off my last student loan. Which means that I am completely debt free. No loans. No credit card debt. Nothing.

I paid for 8 of the 9 semesters it took me to graduate myself with loans. My mom and grandparents helped me out a long the way, and my mom paid the interest on my loans while I was in school, but the majority of that cost was all on me.

I worked in corporate real estate right out of college and made a huge salary I hardly spent. At the time I wanted to save up as much money as I could so I could open a yarn shop, and over the 2 years I worked there I saved around $36,000. I invested a lot of it, I put the rest in a money market account, and before the recession I was making more money off that money than the cost of my loan payments.

But when interest rates went down and you couldn’t find a good short term CD to save your life, and when I realized opening a yarn store wasn’t part of my life’s goals anymore, I started paying off my loans.

$12,000 last year. And $17,000 on Friday.

So here I am, at 26, owing no one in the world any money. Not my landlord, not my mom, not the US Department of Education, not any credit card company, not AT&T. I went to college and paid for the majority of it myself. I’ve had at least one job since I was 15 years old. I work hard at what I love, and I’m really proud of myself for all I’ve accomplished so far in my life.

But it’s kind of terrifying! Like I don’t exist. It’s so unnatural for someone to not be in debt that I feel uncomfortable. I should be expecting a call from Obama asking me to buy a car or something. But shouldn’t everyone’s goal to be debt free? Shouldn’t I be pumped instead of feeling like I’m going to be in trouble? Has American excess been embedded so deeply into my brain at even without practicing it it’s part of my life?

Fried Plantains, Veggie Burrito, Egg Sandwich, Rice

I’m sitting in a very empty apartment right now. It is only slightly emptier physically – I’ve lived here for over four years if I can even wrap my brain around that, and PT had only lived here for about 10 months, so most of the things are mine and still here. But I’m sitting in PT’s spot on the couch just so there is something in it. The bed is HUGE with just me, Velma, and Pudge. I’m not crashing into someone else cooking in the kitchen.

I’m unshowered, because what is the point? I’m wearing super ratty underwear, because what is the point? I’m baking bread – small loaf. I’m making granola bars – mostly freezer bound. I cleaned the cat hair off the rug this morning – PT’s job. There are pictures of us everywhere that I just don’t know what to do with.

My freshmen year of college was full of long distance relationship drama. It seemed like everyone I met had one, including me, and eventually they all failed. As far as I know. I moved to Chicago after one year so I didn’t get all the follow up stories. But there was always someone screaming on the phone, someone crying in the bathroom, someone getting drunk and cheating on their boyfriend in California, someone carrying their room phone around with them because their boyfriend was supposed to call them four hours ago and he must be dead.

White Whine Pasta with Mushrooms and Broccoli

Sure, we were 18. We were living on our own for the first time. We were in relationships with the first boys we ever kissed. Shit is bound to happen. My own freshmen long distance relationship fell apart before October.

I like to think that a lot has changed in 8 years. Maturity, self control, smart decision making, knowing what’s important: all of these things should have grown exponentially in these early 20s years.

PT as Frog

But who knows. I have a couple girlfriends in long distance relationships now; Chicago/London and Chicago/Spain. Which sounds a hell of a lot more challenging than Chicago/NYC. Technology makes it easy to communicate constantly with anyone willing.

It’s funny and fitting that most of the pictures from this past week with PT are of food. We had a seriously delicious lunch at Irazu – the site for many past PT/Allyson meals. We made lots of veggie pasta. And tuna helper.

Officially single but fielding/making phone calls and texts and video chats and gchats galore, who knows what the right answer is. If it’s meant to be it will happen. If it isn’t it won’t.

In the mean time I’m going to work like a crazy person. I’ve got all this room and time now magically. Work, work, work.

God decided that with the impending PT move he wanted me to win a couple sweet blog giveaways as an I’m sorry for giving me such a hard time so far this year.

Knits Three Ways

From the delightful Alice over at The Yarn Panda I won this knitting pattern book, Knits Three Ways by Melissa Matthay.

Knit Kimono - Cute!

There are some cute patterns in this book, like this knit kimono. The idea is to take a simple sweater pattern and change it up with different yarns to knit it three different ways. It’s a good book for a beginner, and I’m happy to have it for my students, but if you’ve got a couple sweaters under your belt it’s pretty redundant. We were looking at it in Sweater Club last night and having fun imagining the different styling of some of the frilly sweaters! It’s a great addition to my pattern book collection. Thanks Alice!

EatSmart Digital Food Scale

Then over at fANNEtastic Food, Anne had a giveaway for this digital food scale that I was so pumped to win because I’ve always wanted one!

Scale in Action!

Pudge was all over it when I pulled it out this morning. Well, she was probably just all over the cutie I was weighing, for it’s roll-ability and toy-like nature. Bygones.

Thanks so much, ladies! You made my crappy week way less crappy.

And both of these women have really fun twitters, too: Anne’s here and Alice’s here.

Designer Victoria Smith came up with a great way to discover new blogs and see what is inspiring people all over the blog world with Blog it Forward – a chain of blogs all talking about what inspires them as designers.

What is fun about being a knitter is you can find inspiration in so many different design areas. From fashion to textiles to home goods to yarn to necessity.

A Trip to KnitPicks.com

A Flip Through Vogue Knitting Magazine

Pretty Dresses, like Nadinoo's

Ravelry

Hot Ladies Rocking DIY

Pretty Much Anything Zooey Deschanel Does

Yarn and pretty dresses. That is Allyson in a nutshell. And I’m cool with it. What inspires you?

And please zip on over to The Sweetest Occasion tomorrow to see what inspires her.