a serious confession, several announcements, and a LOTR reference.

I need to get something off my chest right now so I can move forward. It’s detrimental to the process of allowing myself to get anything done, and everything I enjoy doing that’s related to creativity is suffering because of it. I have no idea how this post is going to come off as I write it but I just need to get it out there. Apologies in advance.

I have a problem with having too many ideas for my own good. The even bigger problem is I get way too excited about my ideas and I start talking about them publicly before I’ve really thought them through. Just because I have an idea, no matter how good I think it is (or how good other people think it is), that doesn’t mean I should be the one to follow through with it. Once I have an idea I simply can’t let it go either. I MUST follow through with it. It’s MY idea. I become obsessed with it. I keep it in my pocket and take it out and stare at it late at night, and I snap at people when they ask me if I should be the one to have it. It’s mine, my own! My preciousss! …you get the picture. It’s a problem and it’s not exactly healthy.

Example: I wanted my own line of vintage inspired sewing patterns. An excellent idea I thought. However, after a solid year of research and study and practice and formal training and business planning… I don’t like pattern making. Luckily I didn’t go too public about that idea, but I did do some rebranding with the single intent of launching a serious pattern company. I’m just not passionate about it like I thought I would be. This was not a simple change of heart or a fear of failure or anything like that, this was a serious deep down in my soul kind of pit of my stomach type of knowing that nothing about what I was working towards felt right for me. Luckily I figured that all out before I truly followed through with it. Sometimes you just need to go with what your gut tells you.

So, with that said, I’m sorry to report that there won’t be any sewing patterns from me anytime soon, or possibly ever. Not a headband pattern, not accessory patterns, not dress patterns. Nothing. I don’t enjoy doing it and it’s impossible to create a quality product for people if you don’t truly enjoy what you’re making. Maybe in the future the stars will align and it will feel more right, but please don’t wait on that to happen, and I’m going to stop telling people to do so.

Also, my online shop is not going to reopen. As much as I loved doing craft fairs in Vermont and selling my handmade things online, I can’t do it anymore. It’s distracting me from what I truly want (which I’m not going to talk about because of reasons stated in this very post) and I need to start weeding things out that are ominously looming over Middle Earth my to-do list. My Etsy and BigCartel shops are closed. They’ve been closed. They’ll stay closed. I am so thankful for every single person who bought something from me and loved what I made. I will always appreciate your business and support, forever and ever.

I also announced on instagram that I was going to start selling pre-made blog templates. It was another great idea that I know I could have been really successful with, but it doesn’t make sense for me to do it. It’s unfair of me to make Wil code and support those things when he has a full time job as a web developer and two hobby blogs already (not including the support he lends here on Lucky Lucille). He was with me 100% when I brought the idea to him but as I watched him work hours and hours, after his own day was supposed to have ended, on my ideas …I realized how utterly unfair that was to him. I love designing, I’m good at it, but I don’t know how to code websites so I would never have been able to support those templates on my own. Plus, I don’t want to be known as a web designer. I want to be known for other things.

I didn’t realize how much I was letting my sewing and my blog suffer by working on these other ideas. The time was adding up and I was spreading myself way too thin. NOTHING was getting done because I was working on everything. It’s time for me to pick and choose. After months and months of trying to work it all out, and after losing hours of sleep, and forgetting to eat, and pulling myself out of slump after slump only to never feel any better the next week, I finally accepted the fact that I was going in way too many directions. My friends tried to politely tell me this was my problem but I didn’t listen. Braid (the ladies who helped me rebrand) even wrote an incredible blog post about this very subject, but I didn’t get it. Now I do.

I apologize to anyone I’ve disappointed by breaking this news. I’m sorry if you were waiting and hoping for the patterns and the online shop and the templates, but I just can’t. I also apologize for letting my blog slip, neglecting my own sew-alongs (or other people’s), and not sewing in general. I apologize to the bloggers I stopped following and the comments I haven’t left because I’ve been so overwhelmingly distracted.

If you’re still reading this ramble of mine, I’m about to wrap it up here. There are three creative things that I love the most that I somehow let suffer the most because of all the other things I was working on behind the scenes. Now that I’ve well and truly let those other things go, I can get back to the three things I love: Sewing, blogging, and fabric.

Things are going to change around here now that I can feel my focus coming back. It was a rough battle that nearly defeated me (only a select few truly knew how nearly defeated I almost was), but I finally threw the One Ring into the fire. Now it’s back to business as it always should have been.

Sewing. Blogging. Fabric.

…and LOTR references forever.

xo
Rochelle
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