Happy Spring Equinox

Spring has sprung in the garden!

Hejsa!

Happy spring equinox! We had a couple of mild days this week. Warm enough to put washing on the garden line to dry. Now the quilts I washed smell of sunshine and birdsong. :-)

Here are my not-quite finished pages for spring equinox/Ostara. I am very happy with the result. I am especially happy with the blossom on the right hand page. It is supposed to be blackthorn but I guess it could be any kind of blossom…

I’m undecided whether to leave the empty space on the right hand page or maybe add something else. What do you think?

At the last season in the Wheel of The Year I launched a stitchalong for it but I cancelled it. I had a lot of thoughts about that, and in the interest of being totally honest about what goes on behind the scenes, I’ve put them into words below. :-)

The other day it occurred to me that this textile book project of the Wheel is a bit like The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady by Edith Holden. Not exactly the same of course, but I’m sure there’s an underlying inspiration…

Right, I think that’s all from me. Tony has the day off today so I think I’ll go spend some time with him. Instead of us sitting and staring at each of our computers as we do most days… :-D

Have a lovely weekend!

x Carina

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Some Things I Am Enjoying

Book: Enchantment: Reawakening Wonder in an Exhausted Age* by Katherine May. I got this from the library a few weeks ago and straight away I could tell that this is a book I wanted to own so I returned it. Because by chance, the paperback version was released earlier this month so I wanted to wait for that. Now I am slowly reading the book, taking my time to enjoy it. I can definitely recommend it. :-)

Watching: Whitstable Pearl. A new series we have just started watching. We have watched two episodes so far. I like it. Not 100% sure I’d call it a cosy crime series, but maybe. Here’s the short description of it: Crime drama about a local restaurant owner who sets up a detective agency after undergoing police training in an earlier career.

Music: A suggested Spotify playlist called Into Brooklyn, Early in the Morning Radio. Quiet music. Perfect for mornings I guess. :-)

*bookshop.org affiliate link.

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When I launched the Wheel of The Year project a few weeks ago… I almost immediately changed my mind. (Sorry if you wanted to sign up for it!) 

The thing is, only three people signed up for it. I suppose I could have waited a bit longer to see if more people would join in. But, as I started editing the videos I had recorded for the introduction and the first part, it became clear to me that even if a dozen people joined, that still wouldn't be enough to give myself a reasonable hourly pay for the amount of work going into it. And it would be easier to cancel it with just a few people signed up. Not easy to disappoint people, though, I really don’t like doing that. :-(

Anyway, I think I will record, and edit, video tutorials for each of the pages in the book and then maybe I'll release it next year. 

For the first two pages in the project, I think the edited videos come to a total of around four hours. Now, I do expect that videos for the rest of the pages will be shorter because the first ones are introducing techniques which I won't have to go into quite as much detail with in the following videos. 

But even if it is only two hours of video for the rest of the pages, that still gives a total of 16 hours. Maybe more like 20 hours… And there's a lot more put into each one than the finished length of the video. 

Sketching and researching the motifs and design for each page. 

Making initial templates. 

Cutting out fabric and assembling the pages. Machine stitching my pages.

Adding hand stitching. 

Once the page is finished, I draw the templates on the computer so I have a clean drawing, ready for others to use. 

And then I repeat the making of each page so I can film the videos for it. There is an assembly video and a stitching video for each page. Both of which need to be edited. 

It may take two hours to film a raw version of an hour and twenty minutes which I can hopefully edit down to under an hour. 

The editing takes at least the same time as the duration of the raw version because I have to watch the whole thing and cut things out or add notes on the screen or adjust sound or whatever. 

It takes a lot of time. I want the videos to be as detailed and clear as possible. And it’s only me doing all the work. 

Hopefully I'll be able to release the project for early next year. But I'll have to do a lot of thinking about the price of it. When I look at the price of a craft course on various platforms, they cost much more than the £35 I was going to charge for this, and you get a lot less videos with those. 

For example, an embroidery stitch sampler course on Creativebug with just under 3 hours of video costs $40 and a quilt top course with just over 4 hours costs $50. On Domestika I believe that, regardless of length, all of the courses cost $60 (when they are not running one of their frequent sales.)

Compare that with what I’m working on. There will probably be around 20-22 hours of video plus templates and I’ll be available to answer questions if needed. So what to do about pricing I really don’t know. I want it to be affordable but I also want to get paid a reasonable amount for the work I put into it. I think that’s fair, right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Any thoughts/suggestions/help gratefully received. x

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From the latest paid post: My Secret Stars