Mrs Apron on Pinterest

Haha! That's me! Me and hundreds of others of course, but I like to think I'm doing something different but given the scope of the Web there's bound to be someone out there diddling around with all this social media stuff and possibly even making a bid to be Mrs Apron, at least on Pinterest.

I'm getting the feeling that it really doesn't pay to think things through too much as far as social media is concerned and that the way to go is "with the flow".  I rambled on about gift suggestions and clever marketing, I've even signed up to some sort of Pinterest marketing blog.  I well and truly got my knickers in a twist about what I should be doing and when and for how long and then, thankfully, I read a blog that just said "Chill, just be yourself".  Sound advice in all matters as it happens but in this particular instance it allowed me to put my knickers back on.

1943 Cocktail apron by Mainbocher. The peplum would have been the ultimate decorative apron worn purely for effect rather than function. The construction is such that it is form fitting and has an interesting shape around the hips. The bouquet of flowers used to accent this piece is a testament to the fact that all Mainbocher's artificial flowers were beautifully crafted and voluptuous. Via MMA metmuseum.org.

Creatively I find Pinterest to be an amazing tool, I, like millions of others, mostly women I think, also really, really enjoy the pursuit of images.  For anyone who doesn't know Pinterest yet; its sort of the 21st century's digital answer to scrapbooking - not something I ever learnt to do but this modern version is a lot of fun.

So, rather than using my Pinterest account to push people to my Etsy shop I've decided to use my account as an inspiration tool for ideas for my apron making industry.  What has happened is that, where most people on Pinterest have a few hundred boards and one of them is about aprons or vintage aprons, all of my boards, well, nearly all, I couldn't resist a quick vintage dresses board, are about aprons.  I've ended up categorising the world of aprons.

The mind boggles at all the different sorts of aprons there are out there, and there's a few that I haven't added because I think they are off subject... for the moment things like butchers' and bakers' aprons, nurses aprons.  Ha! even as I write that down I'm thinking "but nurses aprons are sexy" anyway, "not now" is my attitude.

Here's the list as it stands today: hostess aprons, cocktail aprons, half aprons, full body aprons, smock/cobbler aprons, drop waist aprons, bib aprons, transformation aprons, festive aprons, wedding aprons, craft aprons, working aprons,  barbecue aprons, funny or theme aprons, children's aprons, antique aprons, national costume aprons, crochet aprons, contemporary aprons, apron patterns, photos of aprons, dirty kirtle... phew! impressive heh? I had a bit of a marathon session last night on crochet aprons and was truly amazed at how many lovely things there are out there, and, of course those are just the photos I found on Pinterest, I haven't even started looking elsewhere.  I reckon to be valid all of my boards need to have at least 100 aprons on them - well, I've got to aim for something haven't I?

The whole process ends up being quite instructive, I mean, I had no idea what a wedding apron could be, a quick look last night came up with 4 possible uses: a) as a hen party gift that the guests at the party could write messages on b) as a his and hers gift c) as a protection for the "somewhat pricey" wedding dress from food and drink and d)something to wear as part of the wedding outfit.

What is becoming clear to me is that the world of aprons is remarkably complex and, what initially attracted me to aprons, the glamorous 1950's hostess apron is just the tip of the iceberg.  Women have been wearing beautiful aprons for centuries and the idea wasn't to protect their frock, possibly to display their handiwork but mostly to wear some finery.

At some point during my pinning someone mentioned that black aprons were for mourning - now there's a thought, that I should maybe research before creating the corresponding board.

Whenever I come across someone else's board that is dedicated to aprons I follow it and this morning I am following 347 people!  Its true that not all of those people are going to be passionate about aprons that that's just my off the cuff following, I still need to look for the apron fetishist pinners.  The world may have shrunk with the internet but social media seems to have made it infinite.

I now know that the spanish for aprons is delantales I'm sort of wondering what the singular must be, but its cool that I learnt that while I was having so much fun.

I'm going to have to bite the bullet and put a blurry photo on the last post and I think I'll try to post my favourite find from yesterday's trawling.

Aha, yes, for info there are 4 more aprons finished and photographed just got to get their descriptions done then I can launch them on my unsuspecting, if somewhat scattered and minuscule public!

More Pinterest!

Phew! That was a bit of an absence.  It was only supposed to be for a week, although, in retrospect I suppose  I should have mentioned that I was popping off, indeed I would have if I thought anyone was reading this.  2 weeks ago the weather was gorgeous and, I have a big garden to deal with so I took a "garden break" to try to steal a march on the weeding and planting etc.  Other people go on proper holidays this is what I do.  Holidays for me constitute limiting my time on the computer so that's what I did... for 2 weeks.

I couldn't, however stop my urge to make aprons so, the next four are ready for launch.  Haha launch means actually taking their photos, hasn't been done yet but the photo studio is up and nearly running - that might be what gets posted here, the photo studio.  According to my book I can even furnish videos of my my work space and methods etc.  Well, for anyone remotely interested, drop me a line!

My little photo studio

It turns out that making aprons isn't the only work on my horizon.  I finally decided to create a business account for Glamour Aprons on Pinterest and that has opened up a whole giant can of worms in the form of how I'm supposed to be doing things and general tips and advice floating all over the place and, yes, you've guessed it, I need to spend some time getting to grips with Pinterest.  Good job I've already got Blogger under my belt, eh?

The way I see it, Etsy is turning out to be the shop, Pinterest should perform as my shop window and this little space here performs the function of Me in my shop.  So, in that respect why would people want to visit this blog other than to get to know me and my ethos for my aprons?  If I were out there in the real world with my shop full of aprons I wouldn't be offering another service to my clients just to get them to come into the shop, would I?  So why would I do that on the web.  This is a reference to my previous blog about making gift suggestions to stop this blog being just me burbling on about creating a web presence.

Just as well really, since that idea wasn't going to fly anyway.  Its my mum's birthday next week and I've just had a really difficult time working out what to get her.  That is something that other people, not least my little sister, come to think of it, have a gift for, not me.

So, the idea of the blog and Pinterest is to drive people to my Etsy shop and get them to buy aprons from it.  Of course I have to add to that Facebook and Google+, StumbleUpon, Twitter and I have signed up for but am only mildly interested in Tumblr (I think its out of my age bracket).  Oh yes there's Flickr too.

Essentially, anyone who's looking for aprons I've probably got it covered, even just carrying on as I am here should manage OK for the apron people since I will wax lyrical about the history of aprons and all the wonderful things about aprons, as I am coming to discover.  Which is probably what I'd talk about if you came in to see me in a physical shop.  I'd talk about the inspirations and why I make aprons, wouldn't I?

Of course, because I'm an antisocial sort of a girl if I went into an apron shop I would hope that the shop assistant would leave me alone to look around... OK so that's what I'm going to do, I'll try creating a post for every apron and explaining in more detail than is available on Etsy about that apron....

So, fine, people who know that they are looking for an apron they'll probably find me but what about the ones who don't know that they're looking for one of my aprons?  Well, I dare say if I'd got that one sussed I would already be a millionnaire and not pondering the question on blogspot.

Onwards and Upwards

Blimey! I've just realised that I really have to try and do something interesting here now. 

One of the side effects of my getting properly digital in order to sell my totally undigital aprons is that I've ended up finding a whole load of old school friends on Facebook.  Hello Dunalley Primary Class of '73 if any of you have tracked this down! Lots of wandering down memory lane and has had me rummaging around in all the boxes of old school stuff that I've just moved from pillar to post all these years.  And by "all these years" I mean a lot of years. I am staggered at how dull I was!  I've just posted onto the group the timetable I put in my project for a visit to Goodrich Castle and Tintern Abbey.  Even my school report has nothing of any interest in it.  No quirks no character at all!  To be honest I'm amazed anyone in the Dunalley group remembers me at all, I'm not sure I would.

So, now, here I am and I need to be interesting.  I suppose I need to be more "of interest" than interesting.  I need to give this blog some sort of focus, its not going to be enough for me to dribble on about nothing in particular if its going to get people interested enough in my aprons to actually buy one!  So, I've decided to use this blog to try and thrash out some sort of strategy.

1. The aim is to sell my aprons

Just having my aprons for sale on Etsy is not enough to get them seen and the blogs and facebooks are about getting the aprons found so that when someone does a search on Google for that special gift they end up finding my aprons.

Of course there are lots of people who love aprons already and even collect them, so I need to be visible to them too.

2. This blog needs to furnish a service in order to get read by the maximum number of people.

Yes it can furnish links to aprons patterns and the like but that doesn't really feel right or enough.

My idea right now is that I should help people find gifts...I'm sure loads of other people do that already but they won't be doing it quite like me, will they?  Hang on, I'll just have a quick surf to what that little niche is like. (...) Of course! its mostly shops selling their stuff! So, now I'll check the blogosphere (...)Oh wow there are some real heavy hitters out there - check this one out http://www.thegiftinsider.com/index.php.  

Of course there will be loads of people out there suggesting gifts but its definitely an area where its a question of horses for courses.  That's OK so far as it goes but... what about the "Dirty Kirtle" aspect of my aprons?

I've deliberately avoided any mention of this aspect of my aprons on Etsy deciding that the use for the apron is in the eye of the beholder.  Maybe here I could be a bit more daring?  Sort of subtle sexy ideas for gifts for example?  The whole reason I made the first apron all those years ago was because I was uncomfortable with the options available for my sister's hen party. (...) Ooh just ended up on Glamour's 15 naughty but oh so nice holiday gift ideas makes my possible contributions sound positively "vanilla" as they say, well, why not?  maybe that's the missing link? A bit of subtlety.

Lists seem to work quite well on the web, OK, I'm the one who like lists.  Not to mention the fact that it would be fun to do all that virtual shopping on the web and the blog posts can be backed up by a Pinterest board... on no! another online logo required.

Sort of more in the line of sensual gift ideas perhaps?

Sweating Blood Here

Note the big gap in blog entries - that's because I have been doggedly trying to put some social media buttons on this thing! But I have not given up and finally, yesterday, I managed with the help of someone on the Blogger forum, oops I should, at least, have credited him here. I'm really sorry, whoever you were, but I can't find you back - unless you're in my history... hang on...found you Deepak Kamat! here's your link https://www.blogger.com/profile/09720758850729600278 and you truly saved my bacon with "Social Media icons - Making it inline." You and Martin Leblanc at Iconfinder.com and his blog "How to add social media icons to your gmail signature" have allowed me to produce that nifty little line of icons at the top right of my bar to the right.

I am inordinately proud of this and those little icons lead to all my other web presences, which, hopefully, will be of interest to you, my reader. That is, of course if you're interested in aprons, and, more specifically interested in glamourous, silly, sexy and pretty well more decorative than useful aprons.

Of course this is the strategy as mapped out by my book but I shall explain for anyone who hasn't dabbled where I have.

I make aprons out of vintage fabrics and off cuts and generally anything that inspires me. My aprons pay lip service to the idea of the 1950's hostess apron that I think is pretty sexy and how the happy owner of one of my aprons decides to wear my apron is entirely up to him or her. Indeed I learned a long time ago that its best not to explain your art, people who like what you do have their own understanding of what you do and its best not to disillusion them. So I don't explain my aprons, they are what they are.

I offer them up for sale on Etsy.com where I have my own shop called GlamourAprons and where I can accept credit card and payment by eBay. Cool. Ah, I haven't mentioned this before, but I live in France so any purchases will be despatched from France with the incumbant postage fees.

My blog here is to give a more human aspect to the GlamourAprons shop, possibly even represents a sort of shop assistant. I can of course be contacted via Etsy (they call it a convo), but, here you get to know me a bit better, and what my aprons and I are getting up to. So really, you get to know a bit more about my product too.

I have set up a page on Facebook for Glamour Aprons although I'll admit that at this point I don't really know what to do with it just yet.

Next to that is the button to my Google+ page which, at the moment just shows posts from here but in time, that too will have apron relevant stuff on it. I am hoping to use news feeds to post on both Facebook and Google+ but up until now I haven't really found anything that entertaining about aprons, after all there's only so much you want to read about Grandma's apron and how you remembered her at the kitchen sink and, as I have already mentioned, my aprons aren't really about that. I may need to get imaginative here. But that's the next job now that I've sorted out those Icons.

The St Patrick's day Sexy Hostess Half Apron

The next button is for my Flickr page - for anyone who doesn't know Flickr is a photo sharing site so I am using it for photos about my aprons (as opposed to the 5 "packshots" per apron allowed on Etsy), how I make them and anything that I feel is worth taking a photo of - like, for example, the half made St Patrick's apron, upstairs that's waiting for a bit of inspiration and that I'll post here too.

The final button is for Pinterest. Pinterest is a wonderful universe for anyone who loves looking, almost a visual odyssey I think it can best be described as a collection of digital scrapbooks. My sister introduced me to it and it wasn't until I wanted to see some examples of vintage aprons that I really got hooked. My relevant board for here is called Apronerie and I have pinned to it aprons that I like or patterns that I think might be useful and even the odd photo of women of the fifties wearing their aprons just a whole bunch of lovely things really, and, of course my own aprons.

Since I'm only in the beginning throes of all of this, although I have opened a Twitter account, I really don't know what to do with it, so until I start tweeting, and more's to the point, find something interesting to tweet about I'm not providing a link to that.

And then of course, there's here, which in true Blog tradition is just me burbling on about whatever I have to say on any given day, with the proviso that it has something to do my aprons or trying to promote them or sell them.

Now this little diatribe has got the juices flowing about alternative points of interest for Facebook and Google+... watch this space.

Swings and Roundabouts

As I have mentioned before, I'm on a learning curve here.  Its a structured curve because I'm literally doing things by the book, but, it is, nevertheless a learning curve.

I have got into the habit of sitting down at my computer every morning and once I have thrashed through any emails I move onto Google Chrome and go to Feedly to read my RSS feeds like a good girl.  One of my feeds is "Etsy" - I thought it would be a good idea to follow the goings on at Etsy generally and this way I've found out what potential investors might make of our not so little community, for example.

flounce detail on Sexy Hostess Half Apron, Bonnie

This morning's reading completely wrong footed me because I read something about Etsy that I didn't like.  I've spent the last couple of hours humming and haaing about what to do about this.  Actually, I sent a quick email to Etsy asking them if what I had discovered was allowed on Etsy.  Anyway I have been mulling things over along the lines of "good men are often silent "and all that and have decided not to react.

I don't want to talk about the precise nature of my shudder here either because given the nature of the web and RSS feeds I'll probably turn up somewhere and, that's just it, this blog isn't about that - its politics and, of course, not my politics and its a group of people using Etsy to promote their politics.  When I checked things by following a few links I realised that Etsy was just the neutral ground that these people had chosen and that doing a search for their group brought up quite entertaining items and not them.

So I have chilled, poor old Etsy can't help being abused and the United States is a free country, I like to think that I live in another free country and was born in yet another and everyone is entitled to their opinions.

But.

I was always brought up that you never talk about politics and religion at the dinner table.  In life, I have discovered that there are some people that I find lovely and perfectly charming until they tell me their politics and then I find them quite repugnant.  So, as far as Etsy goes, I'd really rather not know the politics of the person I'm buying something off.  On that basis I'm not going to talk about my politics.  Sexy aprons have nothing to do with politics.

Of course I'm itching to go back to the site where the group members are listed and print it off to make sure that I don't acidentally shop in their stores (haha like I'm such a huge Etsy shopper anyway).  But I won't, I'll just stay in blissful ignorance.

I think I've lost a little bit of my internet innocence here.  Up until this morning I was happily bimbling around liking people and things on Facebook and happily pinning left, right and center on Pinterest without a care in the world, just thinking that only nice fluffy people had shops on Etsy and set up boards on Pinterest but of course, probability says that's not the case, more so since for the purposes of Etsy I'm the foreigner, and the vast majority of Etsy sellers seem to be in the United States.

I reallise that if I go any further with my analysis of Etsy vendors I'm going to show my politics and possibly what this is all about (haha sound like showing my knickers, somehow) so I shall say no more merely resolve to not do or say anything political on http://www.etsy.com/shop/GlamourAprons, or on any derived outlets like google+ or Pinterest.

Which reminds me, it would be great if I could work out how to link to my various presences from this page like everyone else does - do I have to make my own buttons? Surely I should be able to copy and paste what's required from somewhere.  Still, not having any readers has its advantages, I suppose.  I've managed to get this not only off my chest, but also sorted out a policy in my head.

For the record, anyone who knows me thinks I'm rather outspoken, "Brittany's Kirstie Allsop" was my favourite (and no, I don't know Kirstie Allsop's politics - which really proves my point).  Politics has no place in my little crafting world, if others wish to hand over real estate for theirs that's their business if they shove it down my throat I just won't go to their shop.

So there you have my first internet encounter - while I'm reeling from this my sister sends me a link to a meditation site so I subscribed to their podcast and then I come here.  I'm only following one blog at the moment its called http://www.listotic.com - I do love a good list - and her blog about weighloss interested me I read it to the end and ended up buying a self help book!  Ahh swings, and roundabouts Tracy, swings and roundabouts.

Upcycling or Waste Not Want Not?

In all my blurbs about my aprons I've been explaining that they are "upcycled" because I use leftover bits of fabric or clothing or whatever inspires me to make an apron of it.  You can be forgiven for thinking that that sort of thing is quite on trend and how clever of me to be so politically correct.  However, the more I delve into the wonderful world of Aprons the more I come to reallise that aprons were the original upcycled garment.

In my internet surfing I found a wonderful collection of vintage apron patterns (that I will now endeavour to not only find back but link to this) and a lot of them are explaining how to make aprons from old shirts, handkerchiefs, teatowels and old dresses.  I'll admit that I came to aprons from the other end.  Originally people needed something to protect their clothing from food spatters and looked around and used an old dress or sheet.  I was sitting in my studio surrounded by lovely vintage fabrics and wondering what to do with them since a great many of my bits of fabric were not large enough to make a whole item of clothing.

Detail from Anupama the recycled sari

Aha, maybe that's the difference between upcycling and "make do and mend" or "waste not want not".  My husband loves all this, but then, he does come from a generation where upcycling was the by word, no it wasn't, it was "waste not want not" which just falls into the lap of any hoarder like my darling hubby.  

Now I'm actually writing about it I reallise that the premise behind upcycling is to take something old, worn and unwanted and to make it into something better.  The origins of aprons would be more akin to down cycling, taking something old, worn and unwanted and using it for something less desirable than its original usage.  Aprons came after "make do and mend" had done all it could for an item of clothing, and I believe "waste not want not" was more relevant to food.  The good bits of an item could be used to make an apron and the other bits would end up as dusters, no doubt.

I think upcycling has rather the notion of decoration as well.  Plain old recycling doesn't really convey the bows I have just lovingly crafted and attached to my Racquel fur apron, which is still in the works by the way.  I suspect that the cushion I also hope to make from the unfortunate fur coat that has come my way would qualify more for the label of "recycled" so long as I don't start embellishing it. 

What is fabulous once you start looking at al these vintage aprons is the sort of effort that has gone into making these supposedly boring domestic accessories beautiful decorative objects in their own right, often with embroidery, sometimes with appliqué but they are very rarely just a bit of sheeting with ties on it.  So, really ,I suppose aprons were the original upcycled garment. 

I just can't help wondering if there isn't another term out there that would better express the personal detail and individuality that slipped into these works haha what about "unicylcing?"  now I'm just being silly.

As you can see the blog is looking less minimalist now, managed to wrestle my banner onto the top - the next challenge is to get links sorted out.  Ha!  I'm not only stuck for a photo to put up on here, but reallised that I need to pin something else to the Pinterest group board "Vintage Aprons" and that I would be well advised to photograph the aprons which originally got me so excited about Glamour Aprons. Yikes I haven't linked once to my shop, either, aha, but if I get the gadgets on blogger working then I won't need to, or will I?

Striding on Through

I'm being quite disciplined about reading my RSS feeds although I suspect that I could do better with my choice of alerts - I'm assuming that that's something that "matures" with time as I try different alerts. The RSS alerts has me reading other people's blogs quite a bit and makes me reallise that I really can't be just leaving this little missive in its plain, unadorned state.  I've just been reading a blog called 3am teacher who's also a seller on Etsy and it looks like a masterclass in what I should be aiming at. Oh hey I'll give it a link here, why not. Well, that's an object lesson if ever there was one, I didn't mark it "save for later" so its been read and gone! Maybe I can find her through Etsy...found her! http://the3amteacher.blogspot.com/ duly bookmarked for perusal later.  Always good to have a benchmark, I say.

Puppy Isis Sleeping on the Photo shoot!

Meanwhile I've been having a blast on Pinterest - My sister plays games, I bounce around Pinterest.  Wierdly people are following me at the moment, I think I must be being offered up to newbies, I think I'm supposed to follow them back.  I'll do that next I think.

Actually the best bit is the Apronerie board I've created.  Pinterest does have a separate section for businesses but after reading the conditions etc and given that I'm not making any money yet I've decided to put the business side of Pinterest on hold, for the moment.  Getting a few people following my apronerie board already and a real Pinterest pro has not only followed me back but invited me to join her group board on vintage aprons!  I know, I know anyone who hasn't discovered the wonders of social networking might think I'm getting overly excited about an automatic email response but, here's the thing, because I am now a member of her group board, I get to post on her board, so guess what I get to post? my "vintage style retro hostess half aprons".  I think I might be getting the hang of the selling thing.  Anyway I won't abuse and I'll post as many non sales posts as sales and that should be OK there are plenty of other sales posts up there and quite a lot of modern aprons.  And there's there's the wierd thing...

... haha 15 minutes later.  It caught me again.  I thought it would only be polite to give Margaret Riggins a mention since she is the source of my excitement, I only went to my email to find her name and caught myself creating new mailbox's for the various pinterest activity and then decided it would be nice to follow my mate Wend who's just joined and there you go, wandering off into Pinterest!

So, back to the lovely Margaret.  She's almost got herself an apron shop on Pinterest, with, as far as I can see a very respectable collection of various aprons from around the world.  I have to wonder what she gets out of it and how can I repay her kindness and what I've come up with is that she wants posts on her boards and to be followed.  So there you have it.  Thank you Margaret.  And now I need to work out how to link to Pinterest from here.  I'm not sure that 3am teacher is on Pinterest... oh yes she is... she's got a button...

That's a surprise I've got an address http://www.pinterest.com/Tracythevan/ that's my perso Pinterest, that would sort of argue for a GlamourAprons pinterest wouldn't it, and then fess up to being a business, and, come to think of it, doing it sooner rather than later would stop people getting directed to my perso pinterest instead of my apron Pinterest.  haha there it is "Big Sigh".

And, there we go http://www.pinterest.com/Tracythevan/apronerie/ is my board for aprons as it stand at the moment, oh dear I may need to do it all over again for the business one.  By rights I should do a link to lovely Margaret Riggins too http://www.pinterest.com/1953liz/vintage-aprons/ well, that's her vintage aprons board.  Ah, it strikes me that my photo doesn't look very nice on Pinterest, although lovely on Etsy, I need to crop it... "Big Sigh" again.

The Iceberg...

Ha! I'm getting caught out here!  The more I do the more I find to do and the more fun I have doing it.

Remember that I had great plans for spending Saturday making aprons - well, 2 hours snatched at the end of the day didn't really fulfill my expectations, but it was a start.  The main problem was that I thought I'd have a quick look to see if I couldn't find any vintage patterns for full aprons before I started.  What a mistake! A search for "vintage aprons" turned up the mother load!

First of all, I reallise that I have some serious work to do with Pinterest because there are some brilliant boards out there and I suspect that my shop can have its own board too.  Haha watch this space but not too closely.  Also some great blogs offering access to patterns that I think I need to organise and possibly list here, haha once I've got more than the basics about this little lot.

I'm reallising that I'm actually quite passionate about my aprons, and aprons in general and delighted to find that, not only am I not alone but there's a whole community out there loving and collecting aprons.  Unfortunately that's going to take some organising - and not a little thinking about - to try to define how I want to contribute to this, and of course I need to be coherent throughout.

I even ended up on something called Craftsy, which does sound like the sistership of Etsy, and I think I should have something to do with that too.

Meanwhile I started on the fur apron - to be called "Racquel" and took quite a long time deconstructing the coat that's furnishing the fur.  I've no idea what the fur is, I don't think its rabbit but, boy, has this coat lived and wierdly I don't think its my little sister who's been making the adjustments and repairs.  Anyway I've managed to find a piece in good enough condition to use for the apron - I'm hoping to do a cushion cover too and then I'll see what I've got left for anything else.  Surprisingly easy to sew.

Right now my studio has got fabric strewn all over it and there are at least another 3 aprons ready to happen if I can just let myself get on with it.  Not today, however.

What photo today?  ah yes the quest for the vintage full apron - inspired by the Christmas Episode of Downton Abbey and Daisy's 1920's apron, maybe I can find a photo... Ha got it, not that easy to find I might add.

1920's apron as modelled by Daisy in Downton Abbey

What is brilliant that my research on Saturday turned up a 1920's apron pattern not too dissimilar to this but it was a bit pricey and I decided not to buy it.  I'm sure I can work something out on my own.  I think I'll want a bit of weight to the fabric.  Oooh I can't wait, and yet I'll have to.

Oops nearly got to the end of the post without a link to my shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/GlamourAprons which is now translated into French, of sorts.

Getting Back to Sewing... I hope

That was the plan for today anyway.  I've managed to get stuck in front of my computer again, but not for long, nearly done.  I've just hooked up my Etsy shop with Facebook and Twitter and Facebook seems to be having a hard time of it (not helped by me just pumping in the wrong password, I suspect), I've just left it trying to upload whatever it needs to and I've come here.  Saturday morning, I do love Saturdays and today I feel that the muse is upon me.  Haha I should really be careful about that, since, a) I might not get up to my studio to do any sewing and b) whatever I do might be a load of rubbish that doesn't get into the shop.

After a quick check I see that there's only one apron left to show on this before my entire current stock has been displayed

Detail of "Bonnie" Sexy Hostess Half Apron with Tulips embroidered on it.

This is the detail, you'll have to wait to see the whole thing.

I got so excited this morning when I decided that I actually could get around to some sewing and then I ended up having to finish my translations into French. That's right I've finally bitten the bullet and am hoping to get to grips with the French market, I think French women might "get" the dirty kirtle aspect rather well, actually. 

I suspect that when I finally get everything sorted out, and hopefully get selling some aprons I'll only get to spend one a day a week creating my aprons.  The rest of the time is probably going to be spent photographing, preparing the photos for the website, writing the descriptions and translating them.  Not to mention the dispatching of sold items oh yes and sourcing raw materials (mind you that bit is fun too).  All of that is just to do with stock on top of that is various promotional activities, like this blog.

Big sigh, so, I have come to the conclusion that even when you want to earn a living doing something you enjoy, its only ever going to be a fraction of your time that is actually spent doing that, the rest of it isn't.  On the up side, I'd much rather be doing this on the web than trudging around trying to find someone to sell my aprons, or worse, having to sell them myself from a real live shop - haha I'd have to have a lot more than five, wouldn't I?  And there, you go, there's no such thing as an apron shop, is there?  I dare say that if I wanted to set up some sort of exclusive boutique in Paris I might manage, but not out here. And, of course, at least I get to do it some of the time.

Despite the fact that I've spent most of these early posts moaning about the whole internetty web stuff I have to admit that this is definitely the way for me to go and I do quite enjoy the computer stuff. Of course, on a day like today, when I'm chomping at the bit to get to creating I ideas are fair popping out of my head.

Ooops, which reminds me, I wanted to check out vintage apron patterns to see if there wasn't anything that took my fancy.

Putter putter

I think that's what they say on Flickr when you don't have any photo uploaded.  Well, that's how I'm feeling about my technological march.  I think I'm grinding to a halt.  Drawn a blank on su.pr the site is under maintenance probably wouldn't sort me out anyway.  I probably just need to sit and think things through for a bit. Oops I forgot to visit Feedly.  Be back in a second...Nothing much today, however, that reminds me that I wanted to find a photo of Darling Dara and put an apron on him.

That's not going to work - there just aren't that many photos of Dara full length - pah! it was a silly idea anyway.

Today's photo can be Anupama

Anupama - Sexy Hostess Half Apron oriental sequin embroidery

My mother found this fabric for me, I mean who could resist yards and yards of sequinny floatiness?  I think it was a sari and I think I may just try to source some more because the fabrics are truly gorgeous.  I've got enough left to make another one, I might just make sure that the next one is a completely different style, maybe with a bib.

I did a search for 1950's photos of hostess aprons yesterday, I was thinking of changing the graphic on the shop banner and loads and loads of patterns turned up.  I'm toying with the idea of branching into other designs and not just sticking with the half apron.  I suppose I'll have to see how much they cost first.

So many ideas and not enough time to execute them!

In the meantime my shop keeps on telling me to translate it...not really looking forward to that, so maybe I'll get it over with this afternoon, since, guess what? its still raining!  In fact, I think I'll make a start now.

Just commented to someone...

People who know me are going to find it difficult to imagine that I don't usually comment on forums and chats and stuff like that.  I know there's a name for the mass of silent internet spectators I just can't remember what it is but that's me.  I've always been a spectator and always assumed that I don't really have anything to contribute.

That was before the new Internet me was born in the shape of Glamour Aprons.  Now according to the book: "How to Sell Your Crafts online" by Derrick Sutton I need to get out there and contribute.

That's what I've just done!  I now start my mornings with Feedly duly set up to read my news feeds, one of which is "Etsy" (teehee I have another one set up for Dara O'Briain...). And there was a post on there about selling hand made dresses from patterns and I put in my six penneth.  Unfortunately I didn't manage to leave the GlamourAprons email address but, you know,at least I'm off the starting block. And, for the record, I probably didn't contribute that much, but the thought was there.

I've still got a bit of tidying up to do with my internet stuff before I can get down to sewing.  Mysteriously my mother is getting posts about this blog that I don't see anywhere but on Google+ but she seems to have seen it on Facebook.   Anyway there's something called Su.pr that I need to use for posts, I think.  

Here's the thing.  I'm a little bit worried that blogs are not supposed to be as long as this. And I'm more than a little embarrassed to draw people's attention to this sort of drivel.  Eventually, I suppose I will have something important to say like, "I'm having a sale", or "I'm going to such and such flash market" or whatever its called, but not yet.  So, right now all you get are the teething troubles and bimbling around on the internet.  Sorry for that.

Aha, just remembered that I wanted to put a photo in every blog and am wondering what to put for this one. OK decision made - I'm bored with being serious and always showing the aprons so here I am making a face whilst demonstrating my new specs - the contributing me!

Yours Truly contributing...not a lot.

It occurred to me yesterday that I talked about treasuries without actually explaining what they are.  Since I'm on one I'm getting all excited about doing one myself, it looks quite fun.  Strictly speaking I should wait until I have everything in place before attracting attention to my shop but that doesn't stop me explaining what it is.  

Essentially any Etsy shop owner can create a treasury which is basically a collection of 16 items on a theme that they really like.  This makes you surf around Etsy a bit, and goodness knows there are a lot of shops out there and its really quite fun, sort of like dressing a shop window for someone else.  I think the trick will be be to find interesting themes.  I'll be looking into that once I've finally got everything working right on the web AND I've made some more aprons.

All suggestions for treasuries most welcome and I'm off to light the fire, I'm currently sitting in the middle of this European deluge that has flooded half of Southern UK and quite a bit of Brittany I think so its dark and miserable out there.  I'm exceedingly grateful to still have electricity, telephones and internet, but then I am on top of a hill...we have a hard time when it snows and blows.

I'm in a Treasury!

How fantastic is this?  I'm in a treasury!  Lovely lovely Blue Rose Retro has included Lydia in her Dragonfly Dreams treasury.  Its here: Blue Rose Retro's Dragonfly Dreams on Etsy.  I'd only gone to Glamour Aprons to see how the translation thing worked and there, right at the bottom of the page, I was told I had an item listed in a treasury. 

Phew! I thought I'd already put up a photo of Lydia, but, apparently not, just a Lydia bow so I'll show you what she looks like.

Sexy Hostess Half Apron - bronze ogranza with embroidered Dragonflies

Ahh isn't it lovely?

Anyway this brought me up short because, right up until that point, I'd sort of assumed that I was still in my little internet bubble.  The last time that I'd looked at my stats I hadn't had any views since my shop went live. I haven't even finished sewing together all this internet stuff.  But someone has notice me, yikes. It was different when I thought me and my mate Wend were my only audience.  Good excuse to make some more aprons though, I'm sure the fine-tuning of my internet presence can wait.

That's something to look forward to, a bit of sewing, what I'm not looking forward to is translating my Etsy shop, but, it has to be done and I may be able to get someone to check it over for me once I've finally done it.  Now there's a thought I could offer to check some French shop's English translation in exchange.  Got to do the translation first...  I also need to link up this blog with the Facebook page, which is looking distinctly drab.

Oh dear the whole translation thing is a bit huge, maybe I should be translating this?  Or maybe writing a shorter French version.  My problem is that I'm physically in France but I'm English so my logical market is France since this is where postage is cheapest - actually I think French women would like what I do and get what my mate Wend calls "the Dirty Kirtle aspect".

Funnily enough when I showed my sexy hostess half aprons to some Dutch friends a couple of weeks ago they got the sexy side of it but expected there to be bibs... I could do some with bibs I suppose.  I'll just have to see where my muse takes me.  I have promised myself that I'm not going to do anything just to cater to what the market wants, the idea is that I get to make what I want and if someone wants to buy it, then all well and good.

Thanks again Blue Rose Retro I think I'll go look at your shop now.

Whahey, Are We There Yet?

I've been plugging away at it all week and I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel - what a marvellously mixed metaphore!  My technology drive is bearing fruit.  Actually that's probably an exaggeration, more like my technology drive is thinking about attracting some polinators - another mixed metaphore!  I'll try to get a grip. 

The Lace Pocket Detail on Hedy, sexy hostess half apron

This is one of my favourite aprons - I've got more of the fabric and am looking forward to making another, once I finally get all this webstuff put to bed.  

So where are we?  Finally got around to sorting out my tags or keywords and managed to bump my aprons onto the first Etsy page when looking for "sexy half aprons", "sexy aprons" doesn't work so well, but at least I'm there.  I took a leaf out of my competitors' tags and put apron in as many tags as I feasibly could.  Haha you may notice the "sexy hostess half apron" on the caption for my photo that's how I think my aprons should be picked up on the web crawlers, or spiders or whatever they're called nowadays.

I think I've created all the accounts I need to to get started; I just have to have them all link up, I think.  I've ended up creating 3 blogs, which will be fun, although obviously the other 2 are nothing to do with aprons.  I quite like Facebook but can't really see the point of Google+ or Twitter, I suppose that's because I'm a neophyte.

Facebook has turned up some friends that I wasn't in contact with and I've discovered that I'm quite embarrassed about a) only having 5 aprons for sale and b) finding the photos not really good enough.  I might try to sort the photo thing today.  

Haha what am I talking about? "nearly finished", I haven't done the Glamour Aprons facebook page yet. I'll bet I can link to this from Etsy though and I really must try to suss out the Pinterest angle - you see there we go, have to have gorgeous photos for that one too!

Slowly, slowly catchy monkey... in Rome.

Big Sigh

I do this a lot, big sigh, these days.  Mostly because the task seems Herculean and I can't help wondering if my synapses are not what they once were, or if they just don't work like everyone else's.

This is Lola - sexy little transparent candy striped half apron that I'd like to see on Dara O'Briain

Yes this is the blog about Glamour Aprons and, as yet I'm not actually doing a whole load about that.  I still need to sort out the tags - that will be dealt with today and maybe even improve the photos, although, whilst no one's looking or can find them that particular problem doesn't seem that urgent.

I soldiered on yesterday with Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.  I seem to have got into a fight with Flickr but I think its because I needed to change over the email address and I suspect one person can only have one account.  Only fair with 1 terrabyte for free I suppose, anyway I wasted a lot of time trying to sort out another little digital knot I'd made for myself.  

I've also set up a personal blog which is Tracythevan@blogspot.com which, since I'm just overflowing with diaryness I thought could house the stuff that I deemed inappropriate for here.  At the time I was thinking about my thing about Dara O Briain when I hit upon an idea this morning that means that, maybe he can make it onto these pages.

At the moment my aprons are being displayed rather clinically on a white background (haha not really white as you can see from the above) because that's what Etsy likes and it does look good but, its not much fun.  I've been toying with the idea of putting them on someone. 

Tragically, I don't think modelling them on myself is an option since I don't really have a waist anymore so then I'm going down the hiring a model at least finding someone (haha I just did another "big sigh" so big in fact that it solicited a comment from hubby in the same room!) who does.  But then I can't help thinking that that's a bit boring too.

And then Dara crept into my thoughts and I imagined what he'd look like in one of my aprons with or without clothes.  Ah the early morning musings of a middle aged English woman.  Then I reallised that I could probably find out with the help of Photoshop and Google images.  Haha watch this space.

Of course then the question begs to be answered am I really going to Tweet Dara with hello I've made this picture of you, can I share it on Flickr?  Maybe make postcards to put in with my packaging.  Maybe I should offer to give something to charity?.  

Anyway as per usual brain running on overdrive - that's why I end up writing in the mornings, let the keyboard soak up all that energy.  All just ideas at the moment and quite fun and I can completely blame it all on my new social medianess.  I've worked out that I get to "follow" Dara I wonder if I can "friend" him...  

Now, back to trying to upload a video and work out what happens to news feeds...

Best Laid Plans

I shall be unrepentant when I don't manage to get done what I say I will - that could, of course argue for not announcing my plans in advance.  That's right no fur coat apron as yet.  Not sure if today will be the day either.  This blog will show how time escapes me.  Again, I shall be unrepentant.  I know that everyone else is apparently organised and achieving - I am, but the level of my organisation and achievement leaves a lot to be desired.

Take my Glamour Aprons, for example.  That's been a plan for at least a year I actually made the 5, Lola, Lydia, Anapuma, Hedy, Bonnie and haha nope, that's five isn't it? last September and its taken me all this time to actually get them onto Etsy(for those who don't know, Etsy a big online shop for handmade and vintage stuff).  Officially the first Hen Party apron came into being for my little sister's hen night, weekend, actually ooh 7 years ago.

I'm not stalled just plodding on through, what feels like molasses, actually it feels more like I'm thrashing through a tangle of wool that I happen to find myself in the middle of.

Today's dilemma is about photos and the Flickr account.  Maybe its more about Isis, my 4 month old puppy.  OK so that can be the photo for today. Tadaa.

Lovely Isis, aka the Puppy Club's Rocket

How lovely is she? She's already on Flickr of course and the problem is that my workspace is upstairs and she's a Bernese Mountain Dog crossed with an Australian Sheepdog - in dog breed terms that means BIG and who says big says fragile bones and no stairs.  That's fine when they're little, you can carry them, I can still just about carry her but pretty soon I'll have to have pity on my back.  Yikes is that the bottom of a page I see before me?  I wonder what happens when I get there.  

Anyway the photos are up here and I need to work downstairs on the laptop - that means 2 computers trying to upload and back up to Flickr from 2 versions of iPhoto.  Big sigh. Oh dear I think this may mean that Isis needs to learn to be alone a bit.  Maybe I could design a lift?  Tomorrow I show you how brilliant my workspace is - its better organised than my head that's for sure.  Shouldn't I have been able to upload Isis from Flickr? Oh the complicated web we weave.

Apparently that was the bottom of the page but it just keeps on extending.  Cool.  So, back to Glamour Aprons.  There's a problem with the tags that needs sorting out pronto because, as I write this I'm all alone in my own little internet bubble, some nice person called Marina favourited Lydia when I first put her up but apart from that no one's dropping by.  Should be quite interesting to see how all this pans out.  

Haha and I thought I'd have nothing to talk about.

Grinning and Bearing it

Here we go, all part of the New Year's Resolution - two really.  Finally get up and running with Glamour Aprons and get properly technological. 

I suppose I could introduce myself, but then you can see the profile, can't you?  I make aprons.  To date, I've made 5 and I'm selling them on Etsy, looks like I can put a link in here so here goes, http://www.etsy.com/shop/GlamourAprons haha so there you have that!.  I am intending to make more but slogging through all of this internet stuff is taking time and considerable brain power.  Haha I'm actually looking forward to getting back to sowing.

A photo might go a long way...

This is Lydia my transparent sexy bronze organdy half apron...

So, what am I going to be doing here, apart for wittering on about my lovely products?  

I made a list of all the things that I'm interested in and was surprised at just how long it is, looking at it, I can't see much of that being relevant here.  I think I'd just like to talk about nice stuff.  Lovely things that I come across in my wanderings on the internet.  I'm on Pinterest, but not using properly just yet, but maybe I can link to that too.

Believe it or not this may involve more aprons made by other people, because I do really really like aprons.

Today I can't wax lyrical about my upcoming projects - actually I can.  The next apron is going to be made from my sister's old fur coat, maybe by writing here I will get around to making it this afternoon!  

Otherwise this blog is going to be about a middle aged woman wrestling with things digital in the vague hope of popping up on the internet radar... somewhere