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Monday, July 26, 2010

Hit And Miss

A while ago, a fella craft seller told me what I sell is hit-and-miss. She suggests I go into customisation. Unfortunately, I did not take her advice. So what has continued for me is I still make whatever interests me. Why don't I do customised bags? I don't know. Too many reasons. Too much resistance from myself! When I make something customised, I often feel there's too much pressure for me to get any joy out of making it.

Whenever I sell anywhere, I usually get enquiry about customisation of pouches or bags. They would say, I like this bag but I don't want this, this and that, etc. I always say No to these people. Perhaps it's my pride but I just don't want to make something someone else visualized.

Some day I may do fabric customisation. That's an easier version of bag customisation which I think I could do. Say I have a few bag designs and a fabric collection for the customers to choose from. I think I could make the same design over and over again in different fabric. That's something to think about.

So it's no surprise that sometimes I make a bag that cannot sell.
I absolutely thought this linen cotton crossbody bag was a winner. I made it in late May in time for June MAAD. Nothing. July MAAD plus 3 Iluma dates and it's still with me! I'm puzzled it doesn't sell. I have a faint feeling it could be the slouchiness. I left this bag totally uninterfaced. I do adore the fabric combo though and decided I would make another bag in the same fabric combo. Crazy or what?


Here's the tote I made. I made sure to interface it! I had this long odd piece of the linen cotton print and of course I wanted to make a bag out of it. I must say I really enjoy making bags out of odd pieces of fabric. I get my thrills from such challenges. This time I left it simple - no embroidery or fancy stitch work.
It's a recessed zipper bag.
Here's a peek at the inside. 1 patch pocket and 1 zipper pocket. Check out the bottom.
I wanted matching bottoms. Hope it sells at my next craft market sale.

11 projects completed.
989 more to go. Good grief. Was I on medication when I started this 1,000 projects?

6 comments:

  1. *~kAy~*July 26, 2010 at 6:32 PM

    that's a lot more to go O_o Good luck!
    Hope you sell those bags soon! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Chris HJuly 27, 2010 at 5:24 AM

    I wouldn't want to have to make a certain bag over and over again! How boring.
    You are doing fine the way you are.
    I love the new bag's fabric!

    ReplyDelete
  3. SammyJuly 27, 2010 at 10:35 AM

    I love , love your bags.

    -Samya

    ReplyDelete
  4. DeeJuly 27, 2010 at 4:33 PM

    When I was selling my embroidery on consinement I was often asked to do custom pieces. I did a few but was fairly picky which ones I did and for whom. There are too many traps to customised stuff to make it very worthwhile. People would fuss over colours of silk ribbon, background fabric and frame colour. Then if it was done as a custom piece they would feel like they had a right to fuss if it wasn't exactly the same as the original inspiration, which of course was also one of my pieces. I quickly learned to say no to most requests for custom pieces unless I had full creative reign and even then it was only for 'special' people. I did several custom wedding cushions and things that were a certain size and colour or style, but that is about it.
    Stick to your convictions.

    ReplyDelete
  5. jane pJuly 27, 2010 at 5:58 PM

    Dee, thanks for sharing. You're absolutely right about the "traps" of customisation. You could end up spending far too much time on it and not having creative reign would end up with me just being a seamstress!

    ReplyDelete
  6. tamdollJuly 28, 2010 at 11:05 AM

    Your bags are so nice - the right buyer just hasn't come along yet.
    People used to ask me to make custom dolls for them. I tried it a few times and it never seemed appreciated. I knew - no matter what they asked for - that what was in my head would not come out the way they wanted - so I always said no after that. Now, I don't even make dolls anymore at all!

    ReplyDelete

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