In July 2017, I began plotting to acquire this monstrous, insane embroidery machine that way outside of what I could afford. But, it was so cool! It was capable of embroidering with 10 needles threaded at once and embroidering an area of 14″x 14″, that is just crazy! Like I said, I couldn’t afford it. (For those of you in the audience who are curious, the object of my desire is the Brother PR1000E) So… I started a little Etsy store to make a little money on the side so I could start saving up for this monster.
In my little store primarily I sell embroidery designs that I make by digitizing images. This means nothing to you if you do not have an embroidery machine. Basically when you get an embroidery machine you are limited to “making” the designs already programmed onto it. Which usually are fairly lame. There are tons of stores selling really cool designs out on the web. My two favorites are embroidery library and Urban Threads. Both are stellar! But there are some niches I thought I could fill, namely Masonic family and Eastern Star designs. I make other things too as the whim (read obsession) catches me but these are what I make the most of. I also sell quilt blocks, bags, aprons with the designs stitched out on them, but people rarely buy those. Most of my customers are people with embroidery machines who purchase the digital design, download it, and use it with their machine. I have since branched out to heat press sublimation (think T-shirts and metal items with the design infused) and creating SVG/JPG’s for cutting machines like Cricut/Silhouette.
So that is why I started the store. Jump forward two little months, start having chest pains… by October I am no longer able to teach, eek! Teaching, working has pretty much been my reason for existing for 19 years. What am I going to do? Well I do have this little store… In a lot of ways this little store has saved my life. Since my diagnosis, I sleep very odd hours and have very little energy (which sometimes translates into not bathing very often <eek>) my brain often shuts down after thirty minutes of usage, and I must take frequent naps. None of these things lend themselves to holding down a job. But…. I must feel useful!! I must feel like I am making a contribution to society!! Enter the Etsy store!
My little store allows me to make designs at 2:00 am when I can’t sleep, my laptop and recliner don’t care that I haven’t bathed in three days and that I have been wearing the same socks for said amount of time… <bleack> I can set daily goals for myself, which sometimes I meet, sometimes I don’t. I try to not be harsh with myself because you know it just makes the Lupus worse if I am stressin’ out. But having a purpose gets me out of bed every day… admittedly only into the living room and into the recliner, but hey, I am outta bed!
I don’t make a lot of money with my store, but it serves a much greater purpose it keeps me from going insane! And I have this one little duckie design that I think is seriously cute, but no one has ever bought it… very sad…
So if you are interested/inclined… so check out my store… the link is at the top of this page!