Hobby/Business

 

craft fair

So, why am I talking about being in business?  Again?

Seems like a lot of people are feeling the pinch and thinking of 'monetizing' their hobby.

But here's the thing.  A business is not a hobby.  If your hobby is to run a business, you are doing it for a whole lot of reasons that have nothing to do with being IN business.  Which is all fine and good and you are independently wealthy.

A business is a lot like a finicky plant.  It needs nurturing, tending, caring, buckets of plant food and a tonne of energy on your part.  A hobby can be picked up and put down regardless of deadlines and if you donwanna do business stuff, you don't need to.  But if you are running a business, well, perhaps it's better compared to an infant.  When it's hungry you have to feed it.  When it's wet you have to change the diapers.  You are beholden to its needs and if you donwanna?  Doesn't matter.  Kind of like a business.

This little series of posts about being in business is not necessarily to encourage or discourage anyone from starting a textile business.  More of a 'reality bubble' popping.  I have had a family member share with me that they wanted to be 'rich like you'.  Seems in their mind having a business meant that I was rich, when all it meant was that I was working my tail off just to keep the business running and afloat.

In part I share these posts in order to let people sort themselves out into hobby/business or whatever combination of the two seems to make the most sense to them.

Because like everything, it isn't all or nothing - it *can* be somewhere in between.  And what a person does is up to them.

So, some people have their hobby as a 'side hustle', sell on eBay or etsy (or ko-fi or whatever).  Some people take orders, some don't.  Some do craft fairs, but frequently one or two will sort out those who really don't want all the hassle doing a major craft fair entails.  Because believe me, I've got stories, some of them shared here, matter of fact.

Last weekend there was a fibre event here.  One person drove about 8 hours (through the forest fire devastation along the route), arrived at 6 pm, started setting up at 9 PM (yes, that's PM) for a one day event the next day, then packed everything back up and headed back south for home.  That night.

For us, tear down was about a 3 hour endeavour taking both of us hustling, so we sometimes didn't get to leave the hall until midnight, depending on the show, the hall, and the logistics of gaining access to the loading dock.

We would fall into bed, then be up and hitting the highway by 10 am after packing out of the hotel room, facing a 10+ hour drive home.  In the winter.  Through the Rockies.

After doing this - or similar - for over 40 years I was more than ready to 'retire'.

But I didn't 'retire' entirely.  I closed down my business, and now I run a 'side hustle'.  Because I still love to weave and I still have yarn to use up, and books to sell.  

I sell my textiles locally via consignment shops who collect and remit the sales taxes for me so I no longer have to do that.  I declare any 'earnings' I make on my income tax but I no longer claim the expenses involved with the studio as business deductions - because I no longer have a business.

My income from weaving is minimal these days, but it's enough to buy printer ink, replace my iPad - as I had to do earlier this year, or the laptop, as I had to do last year.  I don't have to dip into my personal (our joint finances) to pay for my 'hobby'.  

In part I've been writing about being in business so that people can have a better idea of what goes into keeping a business alive, and perhaps consider their role as 'customer'.

When I chose weaving as a career, it was because I wanted to weave.  I loved to weave.  I only wanted to weave.  When I took part time jobs to subsidize our income (and my business) I hated them.  I would sit in the back to eat my lunch and cry because I wanted to be at the loom, not dealing with customers who were frequently rude or had wildly unrealistic expectations.  In order to *keep* weaving, I was willing to do all the crappy stuff that needed to be done for MY business, but I didn't want to do it for someone else's business.  

I chose which shows I did.   Booked teaching dates that were convenient for me, that I could fit in around the show dates.  I researched when I had time, took workshops, bought all the books I wanted (pretty much), did the Guild of Canadian Weavers master weaver program, all because it was bringing me proficiency at...weaving.

But the cost of being able to weave all day long was doing all the other stuff - the bookkeeping, the budgeting, the scheduling, collecting and remitting the sales taxes, paying the bills.  A lot of that stuff I wouldn't have had to do if I'd just gone and worked a 9-5 job, but I was willing to do all that stuff because it allowed me to weave.   To learn and grow.

And ultimately?  To educate.  To teach others about weaving.  Sometimes I even taught about being in business as a craftsperson/artisan.  Because I was 'successful'.  I was doing it, while others just thought about it.  I knew what people needed to do to BE in business because I'd done the research, and I was willing to share what I knew in order to smooth their path - if they wanted to do the same sort of thing.

But it wasn't easy.  And I never made a bucket of money doing this.  However, in the end, I made 'enough'.  I managed to make enough to keep going.  But it was NOT easy.  I could have chosen a much easier road, but it wouldn't have been weaving.

And that was all I wanted to do.  Weave.  Be creative.  And ultimately, to educate.

When I look back at my life, I count myself 'successful', even if I don't match society's definition of 'success'.  But I don't care about how society sees me.  If I did I would never have become a weaver - or stuck it out for 4 decades.  

So, here I am, still weaving (as I can - managed to weave for 40 minutes yesterday - taking it slow until I feel more stable), still writing, still trying to educate.  And yes, there IS a fourth book in the process.  I'm at the 'on tenterhooks' stage right now, waiting to hear back from the editor and the alpha reader.

Instead of fretting about what they have to say I'm trying to stay focussed on what I need to do.  One benefit of being unable to weave?  I've cleared a bunch of 'donwanna' tasks off my desk.  I'm down to just two left to deal with and yesterday I finally worked out how I want to approach one of them.  I've also worked out how I want to approach the other, but one has a looming deadline, so that gets to be dealt with first.

And both of those tasks are finite.  Once they are done, they are 'over'.  As I ease further into 'retirement' I am looking forward to fewer and fewer deadlines, be that at the loom or looming over me.  Perhaps I'll figure out how to retire entirely - or my body will force it on me.  To that end, I bought more fibre at the fibre event on Sunday.  Because if I can't weave for much longer, I have a couple of spinning wheels and knitting needles and bins of fibre I can make blending board 'worms' on to spin my own yarns.  Or the bobbin lace.  I keep hanging onto that when I should have sold it all years ago.  Somehow I just never could bear to part with it all.

Anyway, time to start dealing with the looming deadline and clear that off my desk.  Then maybe weave for another 40 minutes today (two 20 minute sessions), and keep picking away at the current warp.  Because I'm not out of mercerized cotton yet.  

As ever, tea towels at ko-fi, books at blurb.