The New Yarnigans Blog

I know I’ve been posting about this a lot, but I’m coming up on my five year anniversary of the opening of my shop at yarnigans.etsy.com.  I’ve sort of been having the idea of doing this post for a while now, but I figured since it was a bit of an occasion (to me, anyway), I would go ahead and break out of my normal Yarnigans voice and say what I want to say.  See, I’ve learned a lot in the past five years.  About myself, about other people, and about handmade, and the business of handmade.  Some of it’s great, some of it isn’t.  Maybe you’ve heard some of it before, maybe you haven’t.  I’d just really like to share my thoughts. Also, forgive my poor writing skills, I make toys every day, I really don’t write much.  So here we go, my top five life lessons from doing what I do.

1.  Talent is not skill, and skill is not talent.  

I get people all the time who say, “you’re so talented,” or “I wish I had talent like you.”  It makes me sad.  If you think of people as having “talent” and yourself as having “no talent,” that seems like such a solid state.  Like if you aren’t born with this mysterious “talent” you are pretty much out of luck forever. In reality, my “talent” is just a skill I learned, was pretty terrible at, practiced over and over and over, and got good at.  If you doubt this, go look at my shop on etsy, and scroll through my sold orders, all the way back to 2006.  Because you know what?  I used to actually be not that great at this.  And you should see the stuff that didn’t make it into the etsy shop. I wasn’t born writing patterns, I didn’t make cool knitted toys when I was in elementary school, no one was buying stuff from me as a teenager.  The skills that I have took nothing more than time and hard work—- lots and lots and lots of hard work.  Which leads me to my next point.

2. If you plan on making a go of your hobby, or your art, prepare to work harder than you have ever worked in your life.

I try not to complain about how much I work because I know that I am so very fortunate to be able to do what I love and make a living off of it.  But I work a lot. Like, an unfathomable amount.  There have been days I work from 6 am to 3 am and sleep for 3 hours and start again.  I love it— I really do!— but honestly, if you can’t see yourself doing that, and you don’t believe in what you do enough to live that type of life… this might not be for you.  Oh, and also this:

3. You are the worst boss you will ever have.

It is so awesome to not have a boss, it really is.  I talk to my friends about their bosses and the stupid and mundane tasks they have to do at work, and I am just so pleased with myself that finally I totally cannot relate to what they are saying in any way.  I don’t have a boss at all, I am my own boss every day of the year.  But there’s a big HOWEVER.  It’s great to make my own hours, to do what I want, come and go as I please… HOWEVER: at some point I realized that I push myself harder than any other human being would ever push me.  And when the success of the business is directly related to the amount of work you yourself do every single day, it’s hard not to.  It’s bad because you could nearly work yourself to death. At the same time it’s fantastic, because there are so few people out there who can say they have nearly worked themselves to death because they believe so very strongly in what they do.

4. Don’t make what you think people want you to make.

Making something that you don’t love only because you think it’s what people want to buy is never going to work for anyone. Ever.  If you aren’t doing it because you believe in it, why are you doing it?  It’s a lose-lose. 

5.  You might have to take big risks before you are motivated enough to succeed.

I started Yarnigans in 2006 and did it really half-heartedly for a couple years.  I loved it, but I had a job, and a life, and it seemed like going for it full-force would be a lot of work.  When I started Yarnigans I was a 23-year-old college dropout.  I had no plan. Pretty soon I didn’t really have a place to live, either.  Then, I got pregnant.  I’m sure you can see how Yarnigans fell by the wayside.  But it was still always in my mind, and for the first time ever in my life, I felt like I might actually see a future for myself in something.  I worked hard and built up business as much as I could, but I can’t really say I was getting anywhere.  In early 2010, I quit my job (which sucked anyway) and threw everything I had into Yarnigans.  And, luckily for me, it blossomed.  I was finally motivated enough to take the business to levels I had been too scared to before.  If I hadn’t quit my job, I don’t think it ever would have happened.

I could probably go on, but I won’t.  In summation… if there is something you really wish you could do, please know that it is possible for you.  If there is a skill you wish you had, but you don’t— start today!  If you truly and honestly believe that you have found your calling, you may very well be correct.  And if people don’t believe you just yet, work on it, and work on it some more, and then a little more, and eventually they will start to see what you do.  You can’t get worse at something by practicing it, you can only get better.  If you think you don’t have any talent, you just haven’t found what you were meant to do yet.  

Thanks for a great five years, everyone.  Here’s to the next five, and the next five….

Rachel