What Price is Right?

~I love to make things. I love to design and create many things. Rugs, weavings, embroidery, little sheep and miniatures.( I made the rug above ) I have made and sold many, many items and always have difficulty putting a price on my items. You see, I want to sell many things I make, but I have been told I charge too little. I have been told that by people who actually charge a LOT for their craft and sell enough items to justify their prices. But all it takes is one person to gulp at the price tag on a rug or weaving and self-doubt just charges in on me and I am tempted to lower prices ASAP! ~A few years ago as I was perusing the shop of a local weaver, I was enthralled by her many looms, her colorful rugs hanging on the fence outside her home on the main street of a cute little mountain town near by. We bagan talking about the price of weavings and rugs and how it is hard to explain to people why they should pay more for her / my rugs when they can go to the local discount store and get a very usable and attractive rug for a very low price. Cheap, in fact!The lady in the shop scolded me for my willingness to cheapen my work by being too cheap in pricing. She actually gave me a LONG lecture, and my daughter-in-law witnessed it. But I want to make some money, I want to sell my things. ~All I can say is that I start with my own lambs and sheep. I buy hay for them, tend them with love and lots of attention. I make sure they get their vaccinations, wormings. I keep records on them and think about them a lot. I pay someone to shear them, and then I skirt the wool fleeces, wash most of them myself. I dye the fleeces myself. I spin the wool into yarn for my weaving and rug making. I design and craft the rugs and saddlepads I make, and each rug or saddlepad has many hours of work involved before completion. So really, I cannot put a price on the rug for the hours or work involved. I put a lot of love into what I do too..I LOVE what I am doing. You cannot put a price on that either. ~However, I have discovered that many items I have given away, or sold very cheaply, sometimes are then treated as of little value.....and how can I expect someone who is not familiar with my craft to appreciate the hours and hours of spinning the wool, hours and hours warping the loom, so I can weave them a gift? And if I have woven dyed yarn into the weaving, well, there are many more hours involved? Somehow, it seems like this should make the item matter at least as much as the factory woven table cloth....but I digress. ~Somehow, some way, I need to price my items so they are affordable, but not cheap. Well made, with love, because I don't want to sell something badly made. But I do myself and other fiber artists a disservice when I consider the things made by hand are not worthy of some sort of reflective price....and I have decided I will keep some items rather than sell cheaply. I do make items that are affordable to anyone, but rugs..and weaving..not any more, they will reflect a tiny bit of the time and effort involved. But still, What price is right?

~The pictures are of a wool locker hooked rug I made. It is 3 feet by 4 feet and very, very thick. This is one of the items I do not know how to price, but I finally decided it will not sell below a certain price, and maybe I will never sell it. We'll see.~

Blessings: To be able to work and craft with the wool of the sheep I love, time to craft with my wool, imagination

On The Day That You Were Born....

"On the day that you were born , the angels got together and decided to create a dream come true.

~So they sprinkled moon dust in your hair~

With gold and starlight in your eyes of blue.."

Happy birthday Jim! Lyrics from Karen Carpenters' CLOSE TO YOU

Flying, Ferocious, Feathered Jewels...Hummingbirds

~See the little hummingbird sitting in the bush? This bush is a few feet from the hummingbird feeder hanging in front of our living room picture window.This little Rufous Hummingbird sits here to guard our feeder , HIS feeder. This little bird is really a ferocious flying jewel, intent on guarding the feeder! This little feathered jewel keeps almost all other hummingbirds away from the feeders by dive bombing them. You should hear the buzzing and whirring, right under and around us as we are outside weeding the flower beds directly under the feeder. ~This is the feeder that used to hang in front of our big window. The other night Hubby and I witnessed no less than 6, SIX!! hummingbirds fighting over this feeder, so Hubby suggested the feeder with 4 little places for the birds to feed. Maybe that would help? ~No way! This is the only little bird the ferocious defender of the nectar will allow to eat her fill of the nectar. A female, wouldn't you know?So, four opportunities for the teeny birds to feed at once, but our knight in ruby feathers will allow only her and himself! ~See? He dares you to test him! He might be small, but he is mighty and fearless, and strikingly beautiful. His red feathers shine so bright and red he seems to glow when the sun shines on his metallic like feathers. And we have this amazing show , free for our own personal viewing from the sofa in front of our picture window!Every day, all day, from dawn to dusk!

If He Had Stayed....by Audrey Yeager

~Trilliums growing in the woods at Cedar Pond~ ~If He Had Stayed ~ If He had stayed Where tender, caring hands had put Him, wrapped around with linen and aromatic preparations Stayed enclosed in the cool, dark rock, to sleep on, decayed and forgotten, while eternity rolled away into foreverness, If He had stayed imprisoned Behind the Roman seal, soon to be but another set of bones added to the numberless skeletons bred of earth... If He had stayed down where tradition layed His head, done with sight, and touch and voice... Oh,beloved! If He had stayed... excruciating contemplation! Hopelessness behind doom ahead no gathering here today Yet, here we are, and it can't be said with enough power, not by human voices anyway; No, imagine it ringingly proclaimed by Heaven's angelic hosts...( He didn't stay) He is risen! poem by Audrey Yeager

Little Lamb...

(above: Bide-A-Wee Chicory with her ewe lamb,a daughter of Goth) The Lamb Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou know who made thee Gave thee life and bid thee feed, Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing wooly bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice; Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou know who made thee Little Lamb I'll tell thee, Little Lamb I'll tell thee; He is called by thy name, For He calls himself a lamb; He is meek and mild, He became a little child; I a child and thou a lamb, We are called by his name. Little Lamb God bless thee. Little Lamb God bless thee. by William Blake 1757-1827

(Cedar Pond's Tiara with twin lambs; she is Goth's mother)

The Easter Bunny Brought You?

~Oldest son with his four daughters in front of new home.~

~Another birthday for you oldest son! Oldest , but NOT old. Three decades plus do not make you old, but definitely mean you are an adult..and able to do very well for yourself. Well for yourself in spite of what life might have brought others to despair. You are blessed beyond imagination! You have four very lovely and loving daughters. You have the love and respect of your family. You have the knowledge that you have served your country well and loved your brothers in arms well and love your Savior well. You have the knowledge of the Word, that has enabled you to persevere through trials and tribulations that could have brought you so low you would not survive...but you have! Happy Birthday son!!!

~David, our oldest son ( left )~

~You were born on Easter weekend, I spent Easter in the hospital cradling my newborn son in my arms. I remember thinking how very much I loved you and for the first time the beginning of comprehension of the love one has for a son , and the knowledge that God sacrificed His own, PERFECT and BLAMELESS Son for me was truly a sacrifice...I do not think I would sacrifice you for a just man, let alone sinful and undeserving men. Yet, He did. I know I would give my life in an instant to save you, your brother and sister, but to give you up for others? No! ~I remember thinking too , that there was a chance you or your brother would be called to fight in a war...how could I ever cope with that?To have a son who is a warrior..like my father? And then I thought about Mary, the mother of Jesus? She watched her own son, the Son of God, be crucified...what anguish and grief she must have endured. Her son was perfect and blameless...yet I know I love you and your brother and sister so much I would rather die than have such an awful thing happen...And here you were, a Marine, called to battle and war. Your father and I prayed for you and you came home from the battlefield in Iraq to another battle and war. One to save your daughters...and you have remained steadfast for them. Steadfast in your love. Do not ever, EVER minimize your importance in their lives, or the lives of your family. Do not forget Who has spared you and kept you safe. Do not ever cease praising Him who has made you and called you to Him!

~Happy Birthday son ! We love you!~

Blessings: sons, daughters, God's Son, birthdays

Only A Friend Can Betray A Friend....