It was a quiet April and May for me, but as you can see above, June has been much busier!
The photo above is from the Nine, in Brussels, where I had the great pleasure in taking part in a morning event arranged by Etsy. The other three seated ladies are also sellers on Etsy, (l-r Kasia from Pafin Design (Poland), Sonia from Meraki Studio Ceramics (Italy), and Raluca from KNOTIUM (Romania)), and pictured on the right is the moderator of our discussion, journalist Aoife White.
We were a small part of the discussion event that Etsy hosted for various European delegations with an interest in small business and/or craft legislation, and also craft training. I suppose the main idea was to represent micro businesses, to share our personal experiences so that legislators keep micro businesses in mind when they are drafting legislation and policies. It can be quite difficult to keep on top of regulations when you are a business of one, two or three people, when you also have to make, promote and sell your items, digitally and in person.
I spoke of the difficulties that I have faced from scammers who have stolen my patterns and who sell them as if they are the designers - something which is more common than people realise. One of the audience said 'I had no idea that knitting was such a hotbed of crime!!!' which was quite funny, but I pointed out that many digital download items such as prints, cards and patterns are currently easily stolen by scammers and there is not much protection for genuine sellers. The lost sales can be huge for small businesses, and of course the scammers get more than just income from these sales - they also steal names, addresses and payment details from the buyers.
It was a great opportunity to make people aware of issues like these, and others affecting small businesses, and it was lovely to visit Brussels again. One of my favourite parts of events like these is connecting with other sellers, and we hope to keep in touch with each other in the future. I also had the pleasure of meeting some Brussels-based sellers on the following day, before flying back home.
You might see I have a little white bag on my lap there - it is the Aran Love Bag which already had its knitting pattern listed on my website. I decided to knit up a few bags to sell, and have today listed them online - 5 colours currently available, and of course, the pattern if people want to make their own. It's a great, quick little knit, as each side of the bag only has 43 sts if you knit the small size; it also comes in a large size which is about twice this size