DesigningVashti Lotus Yarns at the 12 Month Mark

Hi! I have updates about my crochet blogs: 

1. You're at my oldest blog, where I've been posting a series about becoming a yarn company as a crochet designer. Below is the 6th installment in that series. 

2. I'm blogging at my new Designing Vashti blog.

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I first posted about becoming a yarn company one year ago!

A gazillion yards of DV Lotus yarn! (These are giant cones)

What an amazing year. I remember posting halfway through that the experience has a lot in common with the first year of being a new parent. It's a vivid memory because I didn't realize it until I sat down to blog about Lotus that day. The realization has helped me ever since! Putting words to feelings is a powerful thing.

This is the sixth post in this series. I'm surprised a whole year has gone by, and this new post causes me to notice it LOL. My next reaction is that I have "only" six posts, and yet I also feel proud of having a six-post series. 

Basically it means that every other month I took a moment to check in and reflect on this new experience. This seems like a healthy rhythm for this type of product startup to me. When my son was under a year old, I was too crazy-busy to even think of reflecting on it every other month.

Two changes since the last post: 

FREE SHIPPING to all US addresses, and yarn in more put-ups! 

The free shipping thing
It's the solution to a pressure that I see now was building all year as yarn orders steadily increased. I use a full-featured shopping cart platform, but until this year I only had downloadable items. Configuring it for a mix of products and shipping options is so much simpler with a site-wide free shipping policy. 

These li'l Lotus Snacks remind me of cupcakes.
Each packs 85 yds.

What a relief that decision was. I've wanted to have free shipping all along anyway. (I was initially nervous because most other yarn sites don't offer it, or only in a limited way.) As a shopper I love free shipping!

"Put-ups" 
This refers to the variety of ways a yarn can be wound or packaged: cones, pull-balls, skeins, hanks, sausage skeins, reels, cards; by weight (commonly 1.75 oz/50 g or 3.5 oz/100 g) or by the yard/meter. 

Lotus color sample pack.

Folks, the put-up decision is a big deal for a company and I'm realizing it deserves a separate post! (That's me making a mental note.) 

Over this past year I've come to love the freedom I have to offer Lotus in several put-ups. For decades I've crocheted a gazillion different kinds of projects, from tiny (jewelry charms) to massive (multi-stranded blankets). Ideally I want to buy a small amount of yarn to make a tiny thing, and for giant things I'd want a cone (unless I'm doing portable multi-colored motifs, yum). Not only do I want to save by buying in quantity, I just can't stand weaving in more yarn ends than necessary.

I finally figured out a Designingvashti way to do cones :-)  so those will be up on the site next. 

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This post is part of a series about what it's like to start my own yarn company, as a crochet designer. Here's the first post, where you can also see a list of the other ones in this series.

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