CATCH YOU ON THE FLIPSIDE
Dearest Caulis Day Ones,
As you probably know, I’ve liquidated my inventory, closed my website and (you may or may not have noticed) recently deactivated my instagram account. I took the Winter to dive into various creative pursuits and do some culty woowoo meditiation-manifestation workshops to figure out exactly what the future of my career/this business looks like. Unfortunately, my visualizations came back with no definitive answers, but I have a few leads into what brings me the most joy.
I started off the year by working on projects for pleasure, without commercial intent. In four months I’ve made sweaters as gifts for friends, and got back into painting. Here’s a few:
One of the more complicated sweaters I’ve made to date, for my friend Debbie’s birthday. This cardigan was made on my retro machine and is made up of 8 individually knit pieces (the collar itself is 3). I’m very satisfied with this one, I came up with a few new techniques to keep the finishing really clean. I’ve never been a perfectionist, but with Debbie being my most fashion savvy friend I wasn’t going to give her anything less than excellent, and I really feel like I increased my skill level in doing so.
After Debbie’s I made one for my little brother. Despite being a total bureaucrat he has an elevated sense of style, and a slight tendency to dress like a mobster. Inspired by an old photo I found in a family album, I went for something kinda retro/grandpa, a little Tony Soprano, that might work well with a gold watch and chain. I utilized the same finishing techniques I learned on Debbie’s, so this one has equally satisfying finishing touches.
Here’s the painting I made, I called it “Whose Child Is This?”, a riff off of the Christmas song “What Child Is This?”, but with less saintly implications. I approached this less like a painting and more like a drawing/collage, utilizing the negative space of the raw canvas as much as possible. I bleached and dyed areas of raw canvas then coated it in clear gesso. It’s a mixed media piece that includes acrylic paint, dried flowers, eggshells, ribbon, thread, gold leaf, handmade paper, graphite, sticks from my yard and UV nail gel. The themes floating around my head were birth, death, motherhood, Madonna-Whore complex, (biblically accurate) angel Gabriel, beginning and end times.
In making these I realized that I get the most out of making things when I don’t have to count the hours worked or tally up the cost. For knitting, especially, I realized that mastering knit doesn’t mean I will be able to churn out more pieces faster, but rather every knit piece will take more time, because that is just what this level of attention to detail and aesthetic harmony require. The better I get the slower I work; this may not be true for every person or creative field, but seems to be the case for me in everything that I do. This conclusion has led me to perceive a few issues with Caulis.
The first issue: If my knitting standards are getting ever higher with the quality of my work increasing along with the hours I put into a product - how much is a reasonable price for my knitwear? Already, my price point is too high for my clientele, who I suppose is mostly within the same economic bracket as myself - this being proven fact when I had my liquidation sale and items that had been sitting on shelves for months were promptly purchased. I seem to be able to command up to $300 per item, beyond that is a struggle. This isn’t shade, it’s quite understandable. As much as we all want to support small businesses and local design, I think we all have to take care of our own bank accounts first, and budgets are necessary (especially in this economy).
This leads me to my second issue: I recently reviewed my closet and evaluated if the products I bought were actually worth the price, and for the last two years I have spent as little money on clothing as possible (I am currently a big fan of my “Costco Wholesale” logo Kirkland brand hoodie, it pairs well with my old Miu Miu combat boots and Miaou low-rise flares for an ironic high-low thing). I’m not sure I’m super vibing the fashion world right now, including my place in it, it feels like maybe we’re doing too much. I am regularly told “you must wear so much great knitwear because you have a brand!” and I actually don’t. The few items I’ve kept to wear are samples and first-drafts that can’t be sold (therefore kinda wonky, which idc I’ll still wear them). I don’t need this much knitwear so why would anyone else? Great style is regularly confused with spending more on new things and yet our closets and thrift stores are full of great pieces just waiting to be mixed and matched into an infinite number of fantastic outfits. I want to spend less, consume less, and figure I’m probably not the only one. Good clothes are everywhere, likely already in our possession, and learning the art of styling doesn’t require buying that much.
Which leads to the third issue: It is tax season, which I love because I get to review my year in expenses and sales. The point of turning my knitting hobby into a business was, obviously, to make money. So far, it has mostly cost a lot of money, and I have yet to recoup my investment. This is on me, there are areas where I lack skills or have yet to put in the time or invest (more) funds to turn my numbers from red to black. These areas are all in the marketing department. I am now at the make or break point: do I want to invest more (energy, money, time) here to improve or do I bail? What is on the other side of making more sales? Obviously, more money, which is nice, but also, more work. I think the truth is I’m afraid of taking what I love and turning it into a chore. My joyful, casual, little meditative knitting practice I use to make gifts becomes a manual scarf printing business. If what I need or want is more money, then honestly it would be much less of a headache to just get a job than murder my hobby for profit. And not that much profit, if we’re being real.
All in all this seems like a whole lot of effort (and expense!) to get back to what I love doing most, which is making, like, max, one sweater a month. I can always make a custom piece for a friend or something for myself if I have a specific thing in mind, I still love a little DIY outfit. I’m considering only having Caulis for custom orders only - where I make someone their very own unique sweater, like what I do for my friends. This formula would address most of the three issues mentioned above. Idk, what do you think? I hesitate mainly because the price point would need to be like, really, really high . To design something from scratch, go through the trials and errors I go through every time I make something - the whole process takes a good 2 weeks. Plus the materials I use, which are on the luxurious side. As for knitting patterns, I’m not 100% sure I’ll keep making them, mainly because they’re kind of a bitch to write if I’m being honest. For now, I still don’t have any in the works, so for those of you who have paid for a full set of 12, I’ve refunded you the remaining 3 that are missing.
With the rest of my free time, I think I’ll be getting back into my other non-lucrative passion hobby: art. I have an entire notes app page filled with enough ideas to fill a solo show, and I’m inclined to start working on them, even if just to decorate my own house with. I’ll likely continue to write the occasional newsletter, when the mood strikes. I keep getting kind comments on my writing, which is nice and surprising because writing is where I’d get the lowest grades in school. There are about 100 of you here now, which I suppose in internet-scale isn’t a lot of people, but I’m flattered 100 people are interested enough in keeping up with the musings, rants and items this humble little housewife produces. I don’t write much about my personal life but things have been good, just kinda vibin tbh. Every day is pleasantly similar, I get up at 6:30am, have a coffee, do yoga, drop off my kid at daycare, work on whatever I want (a luxury afforded to me by my bf, for transparency’s sake) until I pick him up at 4:30, make dinner, put him to bed at 8, clean, do my skincare routine, journal or meditate and go to bed at 10. The weather is getting nice, I’m looking forward to gardening on weekends. The structure of my days have brought me a level of satisfaction that surprised me and have me reconsidering how I think about success. Less work to do, less places to be, less stuff to buy, feels like abundance.
Hope you’re doing well out there. I’m off instagram and not seeing anyone’s updates, but I’d love to hear what you’ve been up to. You’ve got my email.
TTYL,
Leah