I have just finished emptying the plastic box I used to carry all my supplies for craft sales. I will no longer be spending months of my time crafting for a solo charity fundraiser or taking part in fund raisers for charity. This is not to say that I am giving up all my charity work, just the shows. The shows take up 100’s of hours of preparation and a few hundred dollars or more in supplies, all to spend a whole day selling the items to make somewhere between a few dollars to a few thousand for the charity. If asked and I have the time I might make a few items. All the charity work was supposed to lead to a part time crafting career, but I found people only bought from me at charity events and would even call me to see if I would be willing to sell a high ticket item after the event was over and give all the money to charity. They would even ask when my next show would be so they could get what they needed. When I offered to sell it to them they would always say that they would wait for the charity event. This diminishes my work as an artist, to tell me that my work is only good enough for charity events and not to buy at other times.
So I will be doing art for me. Doing what I love. I do have a very wonderful children’s clothing bank that takes what ever I make and finds a new home for my creations. This gives me greater joy than charity sales events. I am making 1 child at a time happy and warmer.
I will still teach knitting, spinning and weaving, because this also brings me joy. I will still be designing new patterns, as I like sharing. I like to see people learn new things. Again this will be on a limited basis.
The past 32 years has been hard on my body and soul. I still have some issues that I am working through. I am tired. I have more issues with my body as I get older that need to be taken care of, I am moving slower than I was 3 decades ago and I don’t like that. So this is the beginning of the me era until my family needs me.
