Where does the time go???
One of the most common misconceptions about being self employed as a fiber artist is that I spend all day at the sewing machine making lovely items. The hope is that when I am at my sewing machine that what I am working on does indeed end up being a lovely item but the truth of the matter is that in running a business and being self employed, I probably only spend about 50% of my time at the sewing machine. It amazes me how much time I spend on non sewing activity that is related to my business. Case in point...Sunday morning I spent an hour and a half printing tags, cutting out tags and labeling work that I would be delivering to a store this week. The term head chef AND bottle washer definitely applies here. What brings this up? I realized that it was Thursday and all I have made this week is 4 hot pads. Mind you, everything that could go wrong did go wrong with those hot pads and it took be twice as long as it should have to finish them but still,......I have been busy all week but just not at the sewing machine. There is a lot of grunt labor involved in being self employed; the dreaded paper work and bookkeeping, the organizing of materials, the procurement of materials, the labeling and delivery of merchandise and of course, the marketing. This year I am hoping to do two outdoor shows (I have sent in my application and since they are both juried shows, I am waiting to hear back). What that means is that I will be spending more time selling my work, in hopes of breaking even this year. So, as we go into daylight savings time...does that mean there will be more hours in the day? I certainly hope so!
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