Etsy Sale

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This week I'm holding a Spring Cleaning Sale in my Etsy Shop! Use the Coupon Code "SPRING" to get 25% off everything in the shop! Here are a few samples...





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cats are not dogs, and how tangling string untangles frustration

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As Airbnb hosts, we have lots of lovely interactions with guests while they're here, and with potential guests making inquiries before they book. I try to be really clear in our listing, about the house, amenities, and rules. The trouble is, some people would rather not actually read the listing, or if they do, they just ignore the parts they don't like. Oy. I mean really, who thinks cats and dogs are the same thing?

Today I got a booking for two nights in March, from a very nice-sounding couple coming down from Canada. They were very excited to stay here at Mermaid's Nest, and everything was great... until I got to the part in their message about bringing their cat...

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I've had this amazing ball of hand-dyed-and-spun yarn for months. It was made, and given to me, by my friend Valerie, which makes it even more special. I've moved it around the house, looked at it, held it, and asked it what it wanted to be, but it's been very quiet. I've loved it so much just as a ball of yarn, I was in no hurry to knit it into something else. Here it is with my great-grandmother's hand carved crochet hook. So much wonderfulness. Maybe sometimes yarn can just be yarn, at least for a while.


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where to buy what i make

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I closed my Etsy shop recently. What??? Why???

Well, because I think Etsy has done great harm to the livelihoods of makers everywhere. If you do manage to get noticed, which is pretty difficult these days, it's impossible to compete with the pricing on so-called "handmade" goods that are mass produced in foreign countries. Equally frustrating to me is the number of actual makers who drastically underprice their work, effectively turning themselves into voluntary sweatshop laborers in order to stay in the game at all.

I'm not playing.

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