Weekend Wrap Up - Pinwheel Photography (ear warmer)

This week I finished a product intended to be the next best thing to hit my Etsy store. It's been a lot of fun putting it together. Now that the time has changed, it has become impossible to take pictures during the week after I get off work (boo!) so now I have to take them all on the weekends. I've been waiting all week to take photos of the new product.

My fiance and I took a trip over to the park to take some pictures in the great Christmas weather. Here's the results:

I am so super pleased with how this turned out (the photographs and the work.) Not only is it cute, but incredibly functional! My head stayd warm throughout the entire shoot... the same can't be said for my fingers.

I will be putting this up for sale in my store this week. Soon to follow are more in different colors. Keep in touch via Facebook to find out excatly when it hits my store and where to find it :)

Introducing Gift Cards!

Awesome news! I am now offering gift cards! These can be used for custom orders or Etsy store purchases. There are a lot of holidays coming up and there are ALWAYS people getting married or having babies. Ocassions to give gifts come all the time. Giving the gift of something handmade gives an extra touch, more so than something commercial you can grab at the mall.

Gift cards can be purchased via the Gift Card tab on the top of my website.

Show someone special that you love them, and give them the gift of hand made art.  A boutique quality, heirloom piece has a place in everyone's home and heart and won't be soon forgotten.

Weekend wrap-up ~ funky flu & Etsy opening

Source: http://my-sweet-sweet-time.blogspot.com/2010/04/late-saturday.html

This week has been incredibly busy! This is exactly how I feel but add a couple tissues up her nose and add some yarn and needles. Juggling a day job and your own business can be very trying at times! I certainly do not feel like I did enough for Innov8ive Knits this week. I've been pulling some extra overtime at my day job for trade shows and inventory. At the end of the week, I managed to catch one of the worst colds I have had in a long time. I don't think I have slept this much in well… ever! I tried to squeeze some knitting while I was on the couch but my head was so fuzzy all the stitches mushed together and when I looked down, I had no idea what I had made!! lol It was best I stopped while I was ahead.


On the bright side, I DID manage to get some things accomplished before it all went downhill! I have officially started putting things on my Etsy store!!! I am building up stock and listings for the GRAND OPENING. I don't have a date picked for it just yet (this depends on how many more custom orders I pick up and how much time I have to work on stock pieces) nor have I decided what I will do to make the GRAND OPENING something special (I'm thinking a special coupon or sale for my blog or facebook followers). I am so proud and excited about it. This really feels like a big move forward for my business, and I hope it really starts to gain traffic. The more I get in that store, the more hits it will get, and the better the chance people will make purchases. 


If there is something that you have seen or that I made that you would like to see in the store or you think would be popular let me know! I am always looking for people's opinions. YOU as my follower and customer has the most important input and my ears are ALWAYS open to your thoughts. (or my eyes in this case)


Also I have found someone to model for the Rhythm hat. If I am still not couch surfing this week due to my super awesome cold, I intend to get the photos done for this in the coming week, so be ready to see that. Let me know what your thoughts of this hat are too! Do you like this more traditional hat, and what colors would you like to see in the future? I have been told that a charcoal grey and crimson red would be nice (even though they are Alabama colors). 


Believe it or not, I am STILL working on that never ending scarf! I am on my last skein of yarn though so it is finally coming to an end. Next time I make this thing I will pick a bigger yarn for sure! 

I decided as well that I have another idea to add to my store categories: baby mobiles! I want to knit tiny themed toys and attach them to different materials to hang over a baby bed. Themes including: stars & moons, safari animals, farm animals, & planes. If you have any other ideas for this I would love to hear them. This is definitely going to hit a future Friday soon when I clear up some projects already on my queue. 


There are so many great things up my sleeve and I can't wait to put them out there for the world to see. It's so exciting to see things really start to come together. Now it's just waiting time until I get my first Etsy buy! I am in need of feedback to build credibility. Don't forget to share the growing store with your friends and add it to your Etsy circle. Also keep subscribed to the blog because the bearded beanie Christmas giveaway will be here before you know it and you won't want to miss it!

Weekend Wrap-UP ~ Busy bee! rhythm hats, polar bears, and lions, oh my!

Happy productive weekend time! I just LOVE the feeling of getting things accomplished. Although my poor fiance has been left to his own devices this week because I've been so busy, I have been tearing up my to do list and taking names! I was quite sure at times I had taken on too much this week and my head was going to explode but it didn't and I feel so relieved to be able to look back on what all Innov8ive Knits has gotten done this week:

Polar Bear photo shoot & edits. I finished up the polar bear set sometime last week and since my customer was in need of them for a shower fairly quickly I found a last minute model and did a shoot after work one afternoon. We met up in a grassy area near an abandoned church that my model's mommy recommended. I would have never thought to go there but they turned out very good. I got the chance to finally sit down and narrow down the pictures I took and edit them. Put to work some of the new things I have learned in my much valuable Photoshop class- taking out odd things in the background, adding my business name in the photos, making the pictures have brighter pictures and softened them with more light. I'm so thrilled with how they turned out. I was concearned with that after I looked at the original pictures because my settings weren't right and they turned out a little blue straight from the camera. I'm really pleased overall with them and quitr proud of them. Each time I do a shoot like this I do new edits and new angles, and they look better. You can almost see the progression in my albums. Photography is so important in a mostly web based business.

You can see the full set of pictures on my Facebook under Polar Bear hat & diaper cover set in my albums.

Also this week I finished the Lion Toy. I must admit that this project entailed a bit more than I exptected! There's about a MILLION strands of hair this bad boy needs to have individually cut and attached to his head. I have taken some pictures but haven't gotten the chance to edit them just yet because I want a couple more first. I do plan on sometime before this weekend taking him to the park and photographing him in places children would play- sitting in a swing, on a see-saw, climbing ladders, etc. I think this will bring a fun, playful element to the pictures.

AND I started the rhythm hat from last Future Friday's post. It is coming along fairly quickly and the colorwork is very cool. I love watching a project take shape, I think that is my favorite thing about knitting/crocheting is watching a shape develop from nothing. It's like magic.

On the business side I have also put together some spreadsheets to keep track of profit, what has sold, and what hasn't. And I'm preparing for doing a grand opening on Etsy. I was going to wait until I had a few more things in stock to add but what time is better than the present right?  I am planning on having it open by the end of the month! I've also created a new cleaner/professional Quote & Invoice template. On top of that I have hired a graphic designer to create my logo and we are working on the details of the design and soon it will be on EVERYTHING. I can't wait to get new business cards, make new website banners etc.

 Things are really coming together, and although it's not at the point where it pays all the bills it makes me happy and it certainly is growing. I've picked up 4 custom orders just this week! Once the Etsy store is open I hope to be selling stock and picking up more orders. Especially with Christmas on its way I need to take advantage of that and be prepared. If only I had more time to knit!

Order Up! (And photoshoot too!)

When I actually have time (between the day job, dogs, cooking dinner, planning a wedding, and sleeping when necessary) to work on projects and promote my new business, things are really starting to pick up! I have taken my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th custom orders as well as getting a couple of interested prospects. (just because 2 of the orders are from the same person doesn't mean it's not it's own order :-D ).  If things keep up the way they have I will have to start actually writing these down just to stay on track. I can't explain the pride and sheer flattery that come along with someone other than myself saying that they think my work is valuable. I would have never imagined that Innov8ive Knits would have done as well as it has, even on the small scale that it is on.


In addition to the mild success I have had lately, I invested in a good photographing camera. A new camera has been placed into our wedding budget by my fiance and I for our honeymoon and other important things that come after a wedding. We didn't plan on getting a camera until much closer to the date (March 12th) until I really decided to follow my heart and open Innov8ive Knits. With so much of the business being web based via Etsy and Facebook it has occurred to me that my work is no better than the pictures I can take of them to share with the world. So we went ahead and splurged and man am I pleased! We invested in a Nikon D3100 and it has so many buttons I hardly know what to do with myself but man this thing is great! I am really starting to get the chance to give my art the justice it deserves. Here are some photographs from my first shoot on the dino-hawk hat!


This on is my favorite



I also finished another newborn cable hat today in green, that will go up as a Facebook exclusive sale before it hits Etsy in the grand opening. This weekend I am starting on one of the custom orders to hopefully have it done just in time for baby! It was a special customer request per a pattern found on Etsy. I will post pictures of that soon.

It is so exciting to watch things bloom. I can't wait to see  what happens next.









Lots of Firsts

Welcome to my first EVER blog post. Speaking of firsts, this month has been smack full of them! I'm proud to say that thanks to the support of my fiance and other close friends, I have finally gotten the courage to do something I have always wanted to do: turn my knitting into a small business. So to add to the firsts: I've opened a Facebook, an Etsy, made business cards, and have already taken a custom order. Also, just this weekend I have finished my first pair of Mary-Jane booties!

Newborn Mary-Jane Booties

I have high hopes for my small business and appreciate all of the love and support that I have gotten from friends and family. I must admit that putting myself out there wasn't easy, and sometimes I worry it will fail but I have found just through these last few weeks of starting this up that there is nothing more empowering, exhilarating, inspiring, and heartwarming than chasing my dreams. Setbacks and upsets are bound to happen regardless of how successful... or unsuccessful this becomes but I'm doing my best to prepare for them and keeping a positive attitude.  

Currently, I am working on getting a small army of stock to have a "grand opening" for my Etsy store so it's hanging out empty at the moment, but my stock is growing and so far, so is the interest of people. I am very much looking forward to seeing how they sell, what goes first, and what gets the most/least attention. This is all a big learning experience for me and I hope that through this blog you can learn with me and watch things unfold as Innov8ive Knits finds what the future holds!