craft patterns and supplies

Category: Blog

Slowly recovering

I’m about three weeks out, and finally at a point where I’m not asleep 16 hours a day. I did have a few complications, and wound up back in hospital a couple times. But everything’s on the up, so I’m back on the helm. Scooter’s been running everything for me, and it seems to have gone well. So that’s good to know for later.

The only thing I’ve been doing otherwise was going back and forth into town for various follow-ups, and managed a short outing to go get lunch the other day. Which means I’ve had enough energy to start getting back into things. Last time, I mentioned beads, and you can see some of those up now. I keep having trouble getting good photos, but that’s also something that’s relatively low-impact. I think what I need is to grab a second source of light, and get it set up with a tripod and remote, instead of doing it all in-hand.

Some of those beads are more bead-adjacent, because I’ve got a bunch of diamond painting stuff as well. I think today I’m going to pack goodie packs so they’re ready to go. I’ll be putting together a whole bunch of needle minders, both for goodie packs and the listing. I’m going to also set some up for paint orders, using pans that didn’t settle correctly. The alternative is scraping them out and recasting them, but that’s a lot of work for what usually amounts to 2-3 pans.

I’m also going to be making more paints soon. The colour variety isn’t great right now, and I’ve got loads of new pigments to make things even more varied.

Last week I got about 5kg of white floss, which I will be dyeing soon. I’ve been winding it up on a niddy noddy so it’s ready to go as soon as I am. I’m also waiting for a bunch of beads, since those do seem to do well. Recently, I’ve been relisting them as individual colours, since it doesn’t feel very scale-able to add another 30 colours to the original listing. I’m doing the same with the fuse beads and diamond drills.

I’ve also been redoing listing images for patterns and relisting them. There wasn’t really anything wrong with the original listing images, but I wanted them to look consistent. Originally I took the colour patterns down because I wasn’t sure I wanted them listed if I haven’t stitched them yet. But then I realised I might as well just stop drawing them altogether if that’s what I’m going to do. But I enjoy drawing them, so I may as well list them. After all, I bought a wholeass Huion tablet just to make drawing them easier. I also finally reinstalled all my textures to PaintToolSAI, so I’ll be able to get more sorts of details in them. I’m putting those out kind of randomly, and am trying to get it set up so I can just activate one new listing per day.

I do also have a bunch of 14ct and 16ct aida set up to be dyed, but I ran out of time to do that before surgery. When I do, it will be in a slightly different style than previous batches, for variety. I won’t be ordering more fabric until I’m feeling much better, though. So it may wind up selling out for a while.

I have no timeline for any of the new stuff that wasn’t already packaged last month. It will happen when it happens. But until then, I’ve got loads of patterns to put out.

Post-Op Update

Just a small little post this week. Scooter has been running things behind the scenes for me, and as far as I can tell has done a fantastic job. I’m not quite back on it myself, though I am taking more photos today just for something to do. I’ve got lots and lots of beads to get through, as well as a few other things I’d like to add.

I keep having this issue with my Etsy inventory trying to sync with WooCommerce, but it keeps syncing the wrong direction. It’s meant to update my website here whenever I make a change on Etsy. Instead, it’s been rewriting all of my Etsy listings with outdated WooCommerce listings, which keeps making available things that don’t currently exist. I think I’ve taken inventory on the fabric listing about four times in the last month alone. And it looks like I’m going to have to do it AGAIN. I’ve deleted all the integrations and it’s still being an arsehole about it, so I may need to completely phase out that listing and start over. I don’t know.

Anyway, I’m slowly doing what I can, but I’ve had a couple of complications that put me back in hospital for a couple days. Nothing too bad, but recovery is going to go a lot more slowly than I’d anticipated. At least everything that needs to be done is fairly low-impact.

Supply Drop: New Fabric, Fuse Beads, and Diamond Painting

I’ve been trying to work out how to go about shop updates, and what I think I’ve landed on is daily new listings. I’m going to start this after I return from surgery, while I spend my time leading up to it preparing listings. There are going to be a few other changes, including how I list new fabric. More information on that below.

I’m also going to be expanding the selection in the shop. I’ve been talking with suppliers, and finding good options that will allow me to keep prices relatively low. With prices on everything in life becoming more and more unaffordable, I want to be able to offer your hobby items at a price that doesn’t bankrupt you.

May Coupon

Newsletter readers get 30% your first order of the month. Just click the button below to add the coupon to your order! Coupon activates 01 May 2026.

What’s New

Shipping Fees

Shipping fees are already getting expensive, and are forecast to get even worse over time. Since most of my items are fairly light-weight, the fees won’t be going up too much. For domestic orders, the new price is $6 + 25¢. This means that for most items, your first item will be $6, with all other items being an additional 25¢. International orders remain the same, at $25+1. The first item is $25, with each additional item being an extra $1. I know this is expensive, and perhaps prohibitively, but it costs an absolute fortune to get anything out of the country right now.

A few items diverge from this structure. Digital downloads do not have shipping fees. Because they don’t need it. But there are also a few services which lack shipping fees. I currently don’t have any items up now, but in future there may be calculated shipping for some larger items that are more expensive to ship. As much as possible though, I do want to stick to $6+25¢.

Also, after quite a lot of thought, I’ve removed the free shipping on orders of $35 or more. I think if my prices were higher, it would make it easier to offer this promotion. As it is, a large percentage of the revenue from these orders has to go back into shipping fees. I would much rather offer coupon codes and sales off the order price. I may replace it with a larger order minimum, but not right now.

Goodie Packs

Something I’ve already been doing is putting little extras inside packages. These are items I’ve already had knocking about, rather than something I’ve purchased specifically for extra goodies. Floss off-cuts and stickers have been the items so far, but I’ve got a bunch of other stuff in bins and boxes that I don’t really think justify their own listing. I’ve also taken down all remaining small and medium-cut fabric options, and am rolling them into this.

Each order will receive one sticker and one assorted craft supply. It could be floss, fabric, beads, or anything else I find that I don’t want to list. Mostly I just want this stuff gone and out of my way. Beads are being included as new ‘gem packs.’ I called them this because it’s kind of what they look like. Whenever I package out beads, there are always a small amount left over that can’t fill out a full bag. I take these extras and put them into a bowl all mixed together, and put a small amount into bags.

Goodie packs will be selected based on the items in your order. If your order contains fabric, floss, or hoops, you will receive a sticker, two needles, and a small hank of floss. You may also receive a needle minder, or a small fabric off-cut. If your order contains beads, you’ll receive a sticker, two needles, and a gem pack of your selected beads. If your order contains diamond drills or blank canvas, you’ll receive a sticker, a gem pack, and wax and a stylus.

These are all items I can’t really justify listing on their own, because Etsy fees make it difficult to price them appropriately. Instead, I would rather pass them along as extra goodies just to get them out of my way. As for the needle minders, I do also have them listed individually. This is because I have about 3,000 of them, and I want them gone.

Fabric

I’ve had some restock requests for fabric, so we’ve put together lots of options for you. As I mentioned earlier in the month, I’m phasing out the smaller sizes, leaving just the Large, XL, and Jumbo. No, I’m not changing the names, since I’ve got enough small 18ct pieces to last a lifetime. But once those sell out, they will be removed entirely from the list.

This month, we’ve added:

  • 25ct Lugana – 13 x 17″
  • 28ct Lugana – 13 x 17″
  • 28ct Monaco – 17 x 25″
  • 16ct Aida – 13 x 17″
  • 18ct Aida – 13 x 17″

Because of the way this listing is set up, it’s not going to change. Restock requests come in on it from time to time, so it makes sense to continue updating this listing. I will be slightly updating how this listing looks though, because I want to be able to include fabric types. I’ve currently got aida, hardanger, linen, monk’s cloth, lugana, and monaco, and I want people to be able to pick the type of fabric they want. That will happen once I get the listing updated. Which should be soon-ish.

Browse fabric here.

Diamond Painting

Diamond painting supplies are coming! I’ve only got a handful of colours available, but I’ve still not settled on a long-term supplier for these items. Diamonds are DMC-compatible, so no recharting is necessary. The patterns in the shop will work as-is for diamond painting.

Drills

First and foremost, drills! I’ve got about 16? colours currently, but I’ll be expanding the selection in time. Personally, I don’t like how you can typically only get about 200 of them. It’s not really enough to do anything with. I get then in 1kg bags, and repack them into 30g packs, which will contain about 5,000 drills.

When I first started listing beads, I put them up the same way as the fabric, and listed them all at once. Going forward, I’ll be putting them up as individual colours. This should make it easier to find the colours you need. Also, there are a lot of colours, so putting them all together would eventually make the listing too difficult to navigate.

I’ll be listing the following colours in this first batch:

There was a weird error with the order. I ordered round drills, and received round drills except for one pack. Which is square. I don’t mind square drills, and eventually want to be able to stock both round and square of everything. But it’ll take a while to get there.

Canvas

I’ve also got blank canvas, currently for round drills. Once I get more square ones, I’ll be getting square canvas as well. The canvas is 50x60cm, or 20×24″, with a blank border around the grid. I’m offering blank canvas and large drill packs to allow you to use any cross stitch pattern you like, rather than getting custom kits made. I also don’t want to add custom diamond painting kits because doing so would mean having to submit my patterns to the manufacturer. I’m a little leery about doing this for two reasons: I don’t want to risk my patterns being released as bootlegs, and I won’t have as much control over how the colours are handled. Instead, eventually I will begin assembling my own kits, using the blank canvas and 30g drill packs. Those will likely be coming later in the year.

Other Supplies

I’ve also got tweezers and bead trays. These will be listed as optional extras for all bead-type items, and as such may change design from time to time. There’s not really a whole lot else to say about that.

Browse the diamond painting section here.

Fuse Beads

Fuse beads are also here! All patterns have been updated to include info for fuse beads, using Artkal’s colour system. Why Artkal? Because I like that brand provides RGB information for their beads. If you use a brand that also has an RGB colour chart, please let me know so I can chart for it!

Beads

I’ve only got a small selection of colours available, but I have an account with the manufacturer so I’ll be getting more over time. Currently, I have C-series mini beads, which are 2.6mm, but I would like to fill out the entire range. Like the diamond drills, I repacked these from half-kilo bags. Mainly because it’s cheaper to buy them this way. My packs are 30g, which is slightly bigger than the 2,000 bead packs. I may try to get the pre-packed bags in future, but to do that it’s a bigger up-front charge because I am also paying for the packaging. I have a lot of options, so we’ll see how things go.

Pegboards

I’ve also got interlocking pegboards, also from Artkal. As I expand my bead selection, I will also expand the pegboards to include different sizes. Like the diamond drills, I will build this up slowly over time. I need to get storage sorted out first, which is taking a bit of time. For all of these new products, popularity will play a significant role in what gets purchase priority.

Glass Beads

Originally, I wasn’t planning on offering these long-term. I’d hoped to sell them all and then forget them. But since then, I’ve changed my mind. I’ve got another order coming, in brand new colours. I toyed with getting Miyuki beads, and may still do that, but in the name of low prices, I’m going to stick with generic glass beads. I’ve found a lovely supplier with loads of options, and have I think 30 new colours coming.

The new beads are also 11/0, but I will likely expand that selection as well. The 11/0 beads come in 60g packs, repackaged from half-kilo bags. Each pack contains I believe around 6,000 beads. Or maybe double that? It’s a bit unclear, but either way it’s a lot.

I’m also going to change the current listing as soon as I spot that no one has it in their carts. Like the other beads, the listing is going to become unwieldy if I keep adding all the new colours to it.

Patterns

I’m going to begin re-releasing the full-colour patterns as well. I originally pulled them for a few reasons. First, I just didn’t like the way they were presented. But now that I have nice mock-up templates, I’ll be redoing those images. There was also a bit of concern about listing patterns that I might never have time to stitch. But I think it’s a better idea to just put them up, and stitch them as I get around to them.

I will also be re-charting all of the patterns for Artkal beads, and listing those patterns separately. Because the smaller colour availability, and the nature of fuse beads, I’m going to be less fussy about confetti when I chart these ones. I’ll be creating a new section for fuse bead patterns to make them easier to browse.

What’s next?

Getting fully set up has been about three full time jobs, so things are moving slowly. I have a floss supplier that will be able to package kits for me. They produce cotton floss that uses DMC numbers, without DMC’s price. I’m not sure when I’ll be ready to start releasing them, but I’d love to have kits available by the end of the year. But a lot of things need to go correctly before that can happen.

I’ve already ordered some white floss from them for dyeing, and I’m very pleased with the quality. The current blind bag floss is going to remain as-is, but new floss will be listed by colourway. I’m unlikely to put restock requests on those, because getting them the same from batch to batch is a nightmare, so I’m not even going to try.

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Discontinuing small and medium fabric sizes

Small and medium sizes are going to be phased out. While the small size in particular is popular, they’re the most fiddly item to offer. Dyeing small pieces is a surprisingly fiddly process. The easiest way to do it is to start with large pieces, and then quarter them after dyeing. This is fine, except it inevitably leads to situations where I have a bunch of very similar pieces toward the end, necessitating making more before I’ve run out. The other way is to cut them small, and then dye them individually. This means that it can take all day to restock.

I will not be removing the pieces that are currently available. Instead, I am going to stop making more unless an order requires it. Once I have run out of the small and medium pieces, large will be the smallest size available.

I know people like the small sizes, but I no longer have the energy to spend all day on my feet in the kitchen. I’m sorry to see them go, as I’m sure many are, but hopefully the colour variety makes up for it.