I’ve sort of been off in my own little world lately and have been doing a lot of thinking about where I want my business to go and how I want to get it there. Admittedly I try to keep the ‘business stuff’ off of this blog because I’ve been told before that people don’t really like when someone’s blog is all about their business. I can totally understand that but I also really love reading blogs that are written by women with their own shops & crafty businesses where they talk about their daily routines - be it cutting a million squares for quilts or knitting tons of hats for their craft show booths. I have a ’shop blog’ but I barely use it… its on blogger and I actually forget that its over there half the time. Its mostly a ’shop update’ announcement place anyway. I’ve been kicking around things about the business lately and when I got frustrated by having to explain so much to a non-knitting or spinning husband I was told that I should ask “the blog”- which is hysterical that he’d suggest something like that. (and he doesn’t even read Yarn Harlot.. lol)
So.. where was I? Oh yeah.. shop. I’ve decided that I am going to list myself as a “yarnie” over on Ravelry b/c I have been selling my handspun for a while, its likely that someone might have it in their stash, and I’d really like to pursue that part of my business further. I recently sent out a skein (in the photo) with the name “Two Paws Handspun” because its the name that I have all of my handspun yarns listed under on Ravelry in my own stash - and the name seems to have stuck. So this is where I get all confuzzled… In Ravelry you have a Brand name which also comes up under your user name in the “yarnies” section (say “Lorna’s Laces”for example) and then you can have different sorts of yarns (and LL has Shepard sock, Lion & Lamb.. etc) and you get a line that says where the person bought the yarn (”Knitch yarn shop” for example) or you can add in a website address. I’ve been sitting here for DAYS trying to decide how I want to list everything in Ravelry because I know that its a data base and would be a big fat mess to try and edit once its been done.. so I want it to work properly.
What I’m getting at here is that I basically need help deciding what name I should use. I could list the “Brand Name” (which would also be my Yarnie name) as Mousie Masala & then list ALL of the yarns as Two Paws Handspun - the whole whack of them regardless of plies or type. OR I could list the “Brand name” as Two Paws Handspun - then come up with catagories and names for the types of yarn I am selling/will sell (single, two ply.. art yarn.. etc). I really want to use Ravelry’s system to see IF anyone and how many folks have either stashed my yarn or used it as projects.. so I really don’t want to name each individual yarn by its colorway as I’ve seen some folks do. I have looked through Ravelry’s Yarnie section so many times that I’m starting to recognize people’s icons without looking at the names.
Where do I stand? I’m confuzzled to say the least. I’m not sure how I want to be “known”- whether I should go with my shop name of Mousie Masala that’s been out there for a few years.. or use the Two Paws Handspun as my brand (because Mousie Masala is technically the SHOP itself.. and Two Paws is the yarn..) and hope that people make the connection but then have to “name” all of my yarns. I’m totally over-analyzing this but I also want to be able to come up in the search thing when you type in a yarn. I *have* however changed the banner on my Etsy shop to reflect this name addition.. so I’m pretty committed to the name itself.
So, I’d really love to hear your opinion. I know there are some Rav Yarnies that read my blog too so that would be helpful to hear from y’all as well. Thanks in advance.