Happy New Year!

We have had a lovely relaxing few days. With the way Christmas and New Years Eve fell this year it seems to have made the whole holiday more relaxing. Do you feel the same?
Looking back to last year and considering my work goals over all its been a good year:
*sales have been much higher
*joining Not On The High Street has helped alot and I'm glad I made the leap - I was very worried about the investment needed but it seems to be paying off
*I've increased the wholesale side of my business. Working with the British Museum has been great and has spurred me on to build more wholesale links.

The main thing that I haven't done that I really wanted to do is sort out my website. It took me sooo long to build it that if I have to do it again I need to know it will be right. I want to be able to offer discount codes and postage offers. I spoke to a web designer / developer chap a couple of months ago but he wanted to host the site himself, which I will not do and wanted to charge a monthly maintenance fee plus fees for additions.... I will stick with doing it myself. So that remains a goal for this year. If you can recommend anything it would be much appreciated. I'm with Shopify at the moment, the upgrade to the package that offers all the bells and whistles is quite alot so I'm open to suggestions :)

But back to enjoying some quiet time.

Way back in July a lovely friend gave me the most beautiful knitting needles for my birthday. What?? You didn't know knitting needles could be beautiful? Take a look at these....
She knew I wanted to have a go at knitting and what better encouragment could a girl have? I haven't knitted since I was a little girl and I needed help from my mum to get going I'm loving it! I find it so relaxing. I'm pretty hopeless though. I've made two dish clothes this week. Huge and holey as they are I'm happy with them :) Not sure what to tackle next. Knitting patterns look a bit daunting so we may be swamped with dish clothes.

Heres wishing you a very happy, healthy new year xx

4 comments:

Nic said...

Happy New Year!! SO glad I found your blog. I bought a tile necklace from you last year with a K on it and asked you to put a note in for my friend. She loved it and it was very appreciated and loved. Thank you!
I agree, Christmas does seem to have been a more relaxed affair this year. I have had time to knit too!
Have you found www.ravelry.com there are lots of knitting patterns on there.
Nic

Leigh Shepherd said...

Hi Nic, I'm so pleased your friend liked her necklace, its really nice get messages like yours :)

I'm loving knitting, I'll check out ravelry - I fancy learning a few more stitches and having a go at a very simple pattern.

Sweet Snow Flakes said...

Hi! I luckily stopped by your blog today. I've never seen such beautiful knitting needles before. They are so awesome!

Catherine said...

Web is such hard work! I'd love a gorgeous site, but they're definitely expensive. If you're up for doing it yourself and you've become quite techy, then using Joomla with Virtuemart could be the way forward. This way you could find someone to do the initial setting up for you, and then learn Joomla yourself to edit the shop, add products, discount codes etc.
We did this, and there is a lot of support in forums and youtube, but I have quite often needed to nag my web guy for help...!
Depends how technically adept you are - or rather, potentially are!
x x x
Catherine