The last 4 months have certainly been interesting.
When the world shut down I made the choice to put the Chana's Loom website "on hold". Much of my business is from the US and shipping has been unreliable due to the lack of planes flying. I made the hard decision to disable the checkout feature on the website. I have not closed my doors completely - and have continued to answer questions and was even able to make sales locally.
I am currently debating if I should completely re-open the website or if I should wait a little longer and just be available for individual questions and purchases. I dipped my feet back into shipping recently by sending 3 packages to different family members in the US. I was pleased when 2 of the packages arrived in about two weeks....which is close to a normal time-frame. The third package has been in transit for over 4 weeks now with no sign of being delivered in the near future.
I have certainly not just been sitting around doing nothing.
The insanity related to lockdown, quarantine and the Corona Virus itself can certainly get in your head and I am thankful for my family for keeping my grounded and my looms for giving me an outlet and a reason to fully focus. I am very thankful for my looms and being able to maintain my sanity with weaving. The hours I spend doing anything weaving related: from measuring warp, to setting up the loom, to actually weaving, even the finishing work involved are hours when I am the happiest and most relaxed.
Though stores have been open for a while, my favorite local yarn store went out of business. Shipping from the yarn stores I have been using in the states is unreliable at best. I have been using my 'stash' of yarn to do all of my weaving. I have also gone through my supplies and cleaned up and organized everything. In the cleaning process, I found several pieces of material that were woven a while ago but were never turned into completed items. I feel as though I have been doing almost as much sewing as weaving.
Some items that I have been working on were already planned for - scarves, small blankets...all were items I had purchased specific yarns for. Other items are things for family/my house that I had been planning to make but kept pushing off.
The most recent projects have popped up out of necessity. I misplaced several of the reusable shopping bags that we have been using and they needed replacing. Obviously I decided it was up to me to make the perfect shopping bag for my family and our needs. After playing with the best yarns to use for sturdy material, the best size (we prefer larger bags), and playing with the straps (making them wider and longer than the bags we have found in stores) -- I was so pleased with the bags for my family that I decided to make Shopping Bags to sell on the website as well.
