Disqus - Latest Comments for futuregirl

Re: Crafty Weekend

futuregirl — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 01:43:01 -0000

Loving that skirt! And the hair doodad with the crochet flowers and the gems. I love that there's so much stash busting going on here. Inspirational! :) I'm still planning on reviewing your excellent Sugar and Spice E-book. Such cute patterns.

Re: Carina's Craftblog: Thoughts, lately

futuregirl — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 19:30:45 -0000

That's such a great idea ... a time budget. I struggle with saying no to wonderful opportunities, but having free time to just relax makes everything better. :)

Re: Remixed pattern #8: Either/Or

futuregirl — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 21:07:44 -0000

So brilliant! Your knitting designs always blow me away. :) Even more now that I know how to knit! I often find myself doing the same thing ... over complicating what I want to do, going through a process of stripping away the extraneous, and settling on the simplest, most direct path to what I was trying to achieve. It's like magic by subtraction. :) Thanks for sharing your process!

Re: Crochet Blogs Link Love

futuregirl — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 22:45:49 -0000

Haha! I clicked through from twitter to see your link to me. Before I found it, I clicked on the surface crochet link because I'm interested in that, too. And then I realized *that* was the link to me. xoxo!

Re: Quick And Dirty IR Camera Remote

futuregirl — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 14:29:39 -0000

Holy smokes that's great! I would have shelled out the $20 without thinking. :)

Re: It’s true, I have left CRAFT.

futuregirl — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:46:33 -0000

As always, I think you're living the dream, sweet Diane. :) I love that you can follow your heart.

Re: Conference of Creative Entrepreneurs Weekend Pass Giveaway

futuregirl — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 21:14:10 -0000

Did you pick a winner?

Re: Conference of Creative Entrepreneurs Weekend Pass Giveaway

futuregirl — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 12:51:18 -0000

I want to go because there are several events on the schedule that would be amazingly helpful for where I want to grow my blog ... and all my friends are going to be there! :)

Re: Ultra-Thin Accent Lighting

futuregirl — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 18:14:28 -0000

I love that the warm and cool lights of the sculptures complement each other. Especially when the deep blue reflected light of the back wall of the shelf shows through in the cut out circle. Great job!

Re: How Much Mistake Can You Live With?

futuregirl — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 19:22:55 -0000

Mistakes don't drive me nuts ... I *could* leave a mistake in a project ... but I end up fixing mistakes most of the time because I'm trying to learn how to do it right . Otherwise I'll make the same mistake every time. :) I've definitely had my share of "good enough" moments in crafting.

Re: CraftyPod #121: Putting Ads on Your Craft Blog, with Jena Coray of Modish

futuregirl — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 16:17:38 -0000

Thank you for the great info! xoxo!

Re: http://365france.tumblr.com/post/6615120953

futuregirl — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 03:13:50 -0000

OMG that is so soft! I loved working with that yarn.

Re: The Maker Faire Post

futuregirl — Thu, 26 May 2011 15:29:15 -0000

I loved meeting you, too! And all the hugs made the craziness of MF a bit more bearable. I only wish we'd had time to hang out without the lack of sleep and freak-out factor of bazillions of people all around. :)

Re: “Go outside and craft,” she said

futuregirl — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 18:19:11 -0000

Love that photo! Especially the relaxing it represents. :)

Re: The Results (and Questions) from My Donation-ware Tutorial

futuregirl — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 21:41:37 -0000

It was probably me that brought up the trading-money-thing last time, too. You made me think this time, though, we all have our different circles of sites we visit, and different interests. I always imagine the world as just my circle of online friends. Perhaps the whole thing is much bigger than I suspect and much more sustainable.

Part of my thinking here is that I don't think people understand the effort we put into these projects unless they've done one themselves - which limits the pool of donators to ... all of us. If we could make everyone write and photograph a tutorial, they'd be a lot more likely to offer monetary support.

I bet most people would give up after a couple of hours of working on a tutorial. You put 14 hours into this. Do people understand what that means? Do people think about how much they make at two days at their job and realize that's about what you'd need to earn for your time, too? No, they probably don't.

This post gave me a idea I might try out ... a post detail summary where I list out how much time a post has taken me, how many photos I had to take, how many minutes of video I shot total. Even if I don't have donation-ware it might be enlightening for people to know the effort that goes into the post they love. Of course, I'm not sure *I* want to know how much time these things take me. ;)

Re: The Results (and Questions) from My Donation-ware Tutorial

futuregirl — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 19:01:40 -0000

Full disclosure: I am a VERY late adopter, so it's possible I'm totally wrong about things like flattr. Read my micropayment comments with that in mind. :)

Also, I wonder if you would have seen more or less income if there was only the pay model ... do you have any idea based on your other pay-only projects?

Re: The Results (and Questions) from My Donation-ware Tutorial

futuregirl — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 18:54:07 -0000

Yes! I do have interest in using the donation-ware model on my blog. I think I'd put something at the end of the post, like you did, "Love this tutorial? Get the printable version ..." I hadn't given any thought to what would make it worth my time. First thought: I'd want it to be similar to ad income, so $100/mo or more. For my blog, that might be a ridiculous expectation.

I missed your donation-ware post because I've been neglecting my feed reader. If I'd seen it, I'm sure I would have asked you how it was going. In fact, I think we've talked about this idea offline already. In all honesty, I wouldn't have donated. I'm in the "I donate/buy if I use it" camp.

For my fave bloggers, I try to find other ways to support them ... mentions, reviews, links, etc. I wouldn't give someone money for something (a pdf of a tutorial) I wasn't going to use.

I would be willing to donate for information I really wanted to know. In fact, I WISH there was someone that had slip stitch crochet tutorials online. I'd pay good money to learn how to do that.

If we create an ecosystem where all us makers are donating to all us makers, no one's going to get anywhere. It starts to look like a multilevel marketing scam where the best of the best will get a larger slice of a tiny pie and the not-so-best will quickly fall to the wayside only to be replaced by people hoping to become the best of the best.

If micropayments were a part of our society and culture, I think we'd really benefit from that kind of system ... but with the awful state of our economy, I don't think the idea of being free with your pocket change is on the horizon. Some people's pocket change is a huge chunk of their budget.

I'm going to try donation-ware, but I think advertising is a better bet right now. I also liked the other commenter's idea of a pledge drive. Sure those couple of weeks drive you nuts, but there is always the implicit promise that the "asking for money" will end and you'll have your normal programming back soon. People might "wait out" a finite amount of fund raising, but if they think you're going to ask for money every couple of posts, they might unsubscribe ... hmmmmm

Re: How to Make a Franken-Blanket

futuregirl — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 15:29:37 -0000

I have been wanting to do this for years, but we've ended up with a multi-blanket solution. We have a sheet, cotton blanket, and two half-sized fleece blankets. Depending on how we feel, we each may have a different sandwiching of blankets over us. In the summer, we each have our own sheet or blanket. I was worried that separate blankets would inhibit cuddling, but that is not the case. :) And, honestly, I prefer the separate blanket thing because my sleeping partner spins toward the outside all night and window-shades the blankets around himself.

Re: Review: The Beaded Edge

futuregirl — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 17:10:31 -0000

This book is beautiful. I would have never guessed she was crocheting those edgings! And, unless I'm mistaken, that cowboy had looks crocheted ... I bet you could make one!

Re: The saying goes…

futuregirl — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 14:45:10 -0000

For me, seamless, top down garments are the HOLY GRAIL of crocheting and knitting. But mostly because I'm not adept and designing or making them yet AND I haven't learned great seaming skill yet. Your post has a lot of great reasons to make things in pieces ... especially the blocking issue. Maybe I'll open myself up to a seamed garment ... after a few seamless successes. :)

Re: How CraftyPod is moving forward with Free and Sustainability

futuregirl — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 14:09:42 -0000

One of my favorite things about June's donationware model is that you'll see what people *really* like based on the level of donations. When you're selling something, there might be people unsure about whether they want to pay or not who then just decide not to take a chance. With donation ware, I imagine you get your product exposed to people who might not have bought it, but like it so much afterward that they decide to donate.

That's not to say that selling something outright would bring in less or more money ... hmm.

Re: Say hello to Owen William Piper Werker.

futuregirl — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 22:24:22 -0000

Hello, Owen. You're just adorable!

Re: The Non-Monetary Benefits (and Consequences) of Free

futuregirl — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 16:27:28 -0000

Do you know about ravelry.com? They have a fantastic pattern search feature and you can find patterns directly from the designers. Some are free and some are pay. Plus there is a whole community built up around the site if you have questions about the pattern or just want to read people's comments about their experience with the pattern. Sounds like it's exactly what you're looking for.

Re: The Non-Monetary Benefits (and Consequences) of Free

futuregirl — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 16:55:37 -0000

Well, it looks like my response to your comment above would be more appropriate for this one. :) I think we should be more forthcoming about how long our content takes to make. I get the occasional comments like, "This must have taken hours for you to do ..." But I also hear from people who think I'm a magical craft wizard that waves a wand and projects appear.

Unless a person has taken the time to photograph and write a tutorial themselves, they might have no idea just HOW LONG one takes ... and that it's a very special talent to be able to write them in the first place.

Another challenge I face as a crafty woman is the tradition of sharing (and my burning need for it) when it comes to making things. I want to learn and grow and it's easiest when I'm in contact with other people. My initial reaction to charging someone to interact with me in a way I crave feels so weird. I need to think of it more like a job I love. Just because you love your job, doesn't mean you shouldn't get paid for it. Right?

It's wonderful that we are discussing this out in the open, and I hope it catches on and spreads to everyone's consciousness. Hopefully there will come a time when it's natural for us to assume that the women who bring value to the craft blog kingdom should see financial rewards (whether through ads or sales) instead of thinking "she's just blogging for the ad revenue or to make sales."

And, you are totally right, we are our own bosses! We need to remember that. Certainly there are inbalances in our community (and the world) that we have no control over, but it's pretty hard to take advantage of someone without their complicity. There's a Midwestern quote I grew up with ... "If you lie down on the porch, people will use you as a doormat." We need to keep telling each other to stop lying down. :)

Re: The Non-Monetary Benefits (and Consequences) of Free

futuregirl — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 16:12:55 -0000

It's not only female bloggers, but females in the workforce that undervalue themselves. I am no expert, but I assume it has to do with our socialization as accommodating creatures. So, when someone asks us to do something like write a tutorial or work for less than industry standard wages, we want to be accommodating. We should be thinking things like, "There is interest in this tutorial/pattern, which makes it valuable. What is it worth?" or "They are low balling me because their primary concern is the businesses bottom line. My primary concern is providing for my family, so I should negotiate in a way that results in me getting paid what I'm worth."

I myself am guilty of doing things to accommodate requests without thinking about the cost to me in time and money. My personal goal is to move from the knee-jerk reaction of "YES!" when someone wants something from me to "Let me think about that" and actually consider things from *my* perspective instead of feeling the pull to please someone else.