Latest Sewing Project

I've temporarily gone from sewing to cleaning up/re-organizing my sewing area. I got to a point where having so much clutter slowed me down too much; it was harder to try to work around the clutter than to just try to neaten things up. But I never put up a picture of a project I worked on back in November, a pair of dance shorts for the Dancer.

I've heard lots of good things about Jalie patterns for making dancewear, so I picked up Jalie 3247, Crop Tops and Shorts in 24 sizes. That link will take you to the pattern, being sold by msbonnieb on eBay. Jalie is a Canadian company, and they don't seem to have a lot of retailers in the U.S. It was easiest for me to go the eBay route.

Here is a picture of the pattern mostly laid out on my sewing table. I wish this would have come in more than one paper piece. As you can see, some of those larger pattern pieces are huge, and having to maneuver that large sheet of paper around got a little difficult.

And above you can see how the shorts turned out! She likes them, although they are a little low in the rise for her. But she wears a leotard under them, so it's not too bad, and I think she's gotten used to them. I have enough material left over from making the girls bathing suits, many years ago, that I can make several pairs of shorts for the Dancer, making the pattern a pretty good investment! I have the next pair of shorts, the other pattern view, almost done; I just need some red thread for the hemming and attaching the elastic. I hate going to JoAnn's anymore, and the smaller sewing stores don't always have convenient hours. I may just have to mail order. I'm a little unhappy with having to do that for such a small purchase, but those red shorts have been almost done for quite a while now!

Unintended Consequences

eBay has apparently started charging ten percent on shipping costs that sellers charge, as well as taking its cut of whatever the item itself sells for. Supposedly they are trying to get people to offer free shipping. But you know that crazy law of unintended consequences. What some people are doing instead is jacking up the shipping costs to cover the ten percent extra, and informing the buyers as to why. And I don't blame them.

Yes, shipping items can be a pain, because the Postal Service can get expensive, and unless you go flat rate, it can be hard to tell how much an item will cost to ship. And flat rate has become outweighed by cost over convenience, especially when you're selling items, and buyers want to pay as little as possible. Is eBay trying to avoid the hassle of buyers overpaying for shipping by "encouraging" sellers to offer free shipping? Or just taking another slice of the pie? I don't know. I do know that by offering free shipping, most sellers will end up tacking the shipping cost onto the selling price instead, and that creates issues of its own. Simply because of the difficulty in estimating shipping, how much easier just to be generous in your estimation and raise the selling price a little bit higher than your guess. Whereas lots of sellers, including myself, pride themselves in providing accurate shipping costs and refund any overage.

When it comes to my particular eBay interest, dolls, there seems to be a particular price range for various items. If you're charging more for your item, but offering free shipping, will buyers be astute enough to do the math and realize that the cost evens out? I don't know, because I've become cynical and think its hard to underestimate the intelligence of the masses. I also hate overtinkering to manipulate others. It generally doesn't end well.

Selling Online

I like to surf eBay, checking out the sections that sell stuff that I am interested in. Sometimes I buy something if the price is right. Mostly I just look. I would really love to email some of these people privately and ask them why on earth they have their auctions set up the way that they do. I could probably create a book or a DVD on how to improve your online auctions, but since I'm a giver, I'll share a few tips for free.

1. Rotate your pictures to the correct view. It's really hard to get a good look at an item when it is sideways. I'm not sure what viewer I use to see my photos (hopefully Mr. BTEG will chime in here) but I can rotate pictures there easily. I think eBay even offers you an opportunity to rotate pictures while you are uploading them. Find a way to do this.
2. I am interested in dolls and things related to dolls, which means taking pictures of small things, preferably close up to get a better view. Seriously, if your digital camera doesn't have a macro feature, find someone who has one. Make friends with someone who has a camera with this feature, just because he has it. A blurry picture, or a picture taken from far enough away to keep the picture from being blurry, does not really display your item to its best advantage.
3. Pay attention to the lighting. A blurry picture is only better than a blurry picture taken in the shadows. Some people who sell big ticket items very seriously online, have a photo tent with lights placed at several angles, to get the absolute best effects. This isn't an necessity. Take your item to a window and use the light from that big thing in the sky with which God has blessed us. Use a bright light inside your home, or even two, if it's winter or whatever.
4. Be descriptive. Believe it or not, there are people who sell something like, say, doll furniture, where measurements are really important, who don't offer any measurements in the description. OTOH, if you are selling a well-known brand of doll, you don't really need to give the height of a doll. People generally know what size the goddess of pink plastic is.
5. Pick a good background. People really don't need or want to see everything on your kitchen counters, or all the assorted piles of papers and whatnot in your computer area. There has to be a blank wall somewhere in your home.
6. Pay attention to where your auction ends up. Every now and then I see an auction for a full-sized adult piece of furniture in the doll furniture section, or something similar. eBay does let you search for the right category by typing in keywords, but it is up to you to make sure your item is in the best category, or even the right category.
7. Don't throw stuff into your auction just because you want to get rid of it. I wonder about doll furniture auctions where a doll, sometimes a very obscure or ugly doll, is included with the furniture. Maybe some people say, hey, I'd like to buy a piece of doll furniture for which I have no doll that I could display with it. And I have no preference on what kind of doll I would like. I would imagine this doesn't apply to the majority.

I also have the observation that sales in the doll sections really seem to have decreased. Some items are still popular, and some are absolutely incomprehensible to me. I don't understand why people would pay up to $100 for an outfit for a Titanic doll, especially when there are multiples of the same outfit listed at the same time, and more being listed almost every day. But in general, things are just not selling. You can scroll through a page of almost 200 items where most of them have no interest. I wonder if the auctions for, say, practical items like kids' clothing have gone up as people are looking to save money there.

Bleak

Do you all of you out there know what reborn dolls are? They are mass-produced dolls that are redone using paint (down to tiny veins,) rooted hair, and appropriate stuffing or filling to imitate an actual newborn baby. Magnets can be used to give the baby a pacifier. It's not my thing, but then most people would probably think I was strange for collecting dolls at all, so there you are. But tonight on eBay was a first for me: a reborn baby vampire doll. Creepy! Not to mention, how do vampires have babies anyway? Besides that whole Twilight thing which is probably at fault for a lot of this current vampire craze anyway. I suppose some people would like the sweetness and innocence of a baby combined with the darkness of a vampire--or they want to pretend they have Edward Cullen's love child. It just seems a little too ghoulish for me.

Our culture seems to be ever more fascinated with death, darkness and things that go bump in the night. It may be more of an issue to me because of my illness. If I am not careful, I can get pulled into the abyss easier than most. But thinking of the idea of "the culture of death" that some have thrown around, due to the acceptance, and in some cases encouragement, of abortion and euthanasia, I wonder. Non-Christians have every right to collect a doll created after the Death Tarot card, or be drawn to gloominess and cemeteries. Am I overreacting to wonder if our culture can wonder too far down the path into darkness? What do you see in your world?

Consequences

I don't have any hard figures on eBay sales, but to my own scanning eye, it looks like a lot of things are not selling. I wonder if this is not due at least in part to higher postage costs. You can price your item at a garage sale price, but if it is fragile and/or big enough that it needs to go in a box, the price of shipping can be double or triple what is being asked as the selling price. Might as well haul the stuff down to Goodwill, I guess.

I Hate American Girl

Not only has American Girl completely retired my beloved Samantha and all her furniture and accessories, but now they've gotten rid of one of the pets for the Just Like You girls, the cat named Licorice. And, of course, guess which pet the Dancer wanted for her American Girl doll. Now it's only on eBay, at exorbitant prices. And I don't think there was any notice that Licorice was going away. I don't see why they had to retire this cat, even though they've come out with a new cat and new dogs. More to buy. :P

I can also see why they retired Samantha, since the new Girl of the Year has not one, but two friend dolls! The new doll has a lame storyline about bullying. Not that bullying and cliquishness doesn't go on in school, but the happily-ever-after story seems highly unrealistic, and the whole stand-up-against-bullies plot like an old After School Special. Plus, there are two books and DVD with the Girl of the Year, where there used to be just one book. Yet another way to make money, money, money. I kind of liked the idea of creating the friend doll for some of the American Girls, allowing more play value, but it's just getting to be too much. Especially at the cost of the dolls. Since they're made in China now instead of Germany I don't see why they should be priced much more than the kind you can buy at Target. I guess the only reason is that girls prefer American Girl dolls to the Target kind. I do think they're prettier myself, but the prices!

The Dancer also wants an American Girl dance set of outfits for her doll. I may see if I can just make them myself. I wonder if the founder of Pleasant Company is sorry when she sees what Mattel is doing with her creations, or if she's just enjoying the millions she cashed in for. :P

If Buffy Is On Your Gift List

I'd like to know this thing was tested on some real vampires first before *I* bought it.

Catching Up... Again

Mr. Evil Genius and I have been busy packing up boxes and printing out shipping labels and making runs to the post office. Which fortunately is very close to our house. It's a good thing I accepted international bidders, as many of my eBay bidders are from other countries: Italy, Sweden, England, Norway and as far away as New South Wales, Australia. My items mailed "in country" also seemed to be going about as far away from Ohio as possible: Texas, Florida and California.

Mr. Evil Genius and I are also preparing for a little trip together to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. We leave on Wednesday and will be back late on Friday, and the girls will be staying with my sister-in-law and her husband. I'm trying to get some more clothes sewn up for the girls and I. I've finally managed to get back seriously into my sewing room, after my bad time in the winter. Right now, I'm working on a swim suit for Wildchild. I hate sewing swim suits, as I have a hard time sewing the elastic so the tension is even all the way around, and my machine has difficulty at times getting over the seam bumps and the elastic bumps where the elastic was sewed together. I want to take a picture or two of my latest creations, but the camera lens needs cleaned, and we can't find any "proper" cleaning cloths here at home that won't scratch the lens. Oh, the little things that get in our way sometimes.

I'm hoping the camera will be ready by the time Mr. Evil Genius and I leave; we're going to Amish country, by the way. Ohio has a large population of Amish, and I love the countryside and the shopping. I'm very much looking forward to the trip.

"Free" Education?

One of the things that irks me about homeschooling is having to spend my time and money to teach my children at home, *while* paying taxes for the purposes of education, that we don't get the benefit of. However, I was surprised to see the figure of $1,200 given as what to expect for parents sending their children back to school this fall. Of course, I'm not entirely sure what is included in this figure. One sentence says that this figure is for pencils, paper and activity fees. For the money-saving website they recommend, they talk about kids' clothes. I wish they said what all this figure entailed. Clothes for kids can add up quickly, even when you make them yourself, as I do. However, I managed to get school supplies and school *books* for my children for less than half of that figure, with the help of a little judicious buying of used books on ebay. I don't know that clothing should really figure in here, unless your school requires uniforms. Kids need clothes for fall in any case. We don't always do homeschool in our pajamas. :)

Electronic Addiction

Like Marie, I've been having computer problems lately. DH has been working on putting something together for me out of salvaged computer pieces parts. He provides all the computer tech support around here. In the meantime, I've been going through withdrawal, not having access to a computer except when I borrow my husband's computer at night. Not only do I use it for blogging and reading other people's blogs, but I keep in touch with people via email, and I also love to shop online. I can find things online I can't find anywhere else, I can save time by looking at what's available online before I go to a store, I don't have to drag my daughters out shopping, the conveniences of online shopping are many. I've bought and sold things on ebay. I can also research things online, like the research I'm doing for the upcoming Lutheran Carnival, which will go up on time despite any technical difficulties! I think I'm really addicted to my computer!

Summertime...and the livin' is boring

Well, okay, not exactly boring, but there's definitely not much going on here at the homestead of the Evil Genius. We took Mr. Pistol Packin' Presbytera out for dinner last night, as his wife has been taking off on him and leaving him home alone the last couple of weeks. I guess he's the Pistol Packin' Presbyter. He had a good solid protein-packed dinner so all was well. Unfortunately I did not think to get any pictures. A hug picture would have been great, huh?

I've been selling and buying a few things on eBay. I love being able to buy things from all over the world, and having people from all over the world be able to look at my junk, I mean stuff.

Trying to make a few plans for the upcoming weeks, but nothing else interesting going on right now. Have to get the house clean and the pool up for Fourth of July! :O