Etsy Seller Interview with Sharon of CrazyLaceLady

How CrazyLaceLady got started

Introduce your Etsy shop and tell us your story. How did you begin and decide on what to sell on Etsy, and how do you create your products?

I am Sharon Winsauer,  owner of Etsy’s CrazyLaceLady shop. I have been knitting for more years than I care to count.  I learned to spin in 1996 with a drop spindle, spinning dog hair.  With 2 Briards and a Newfoundland I had a good supply of dog hair.   My daughter said  “If you want to spin you should get an alpaca so you have really nice fiber to spin”.  We visited an alpaca farm and fell in love with these beautiful, gentle creatures.  Two years later we had 5 lovely alpacas and two beautiful cria ( baby alpacas) and I was spinning my own alpaca’s fiber.  Never a good enough spinner to spin the yarn to a given type,  the fiber defined the yarn I spun.  I ended up with some beautiful, black alpaca lace yarn.  In all my years of knitting, I had never considered knitting lace. I am not a lace type person, my idea of dressing up is putting shoes on. 

With yarn that demanded to be lace, it inspired me to try my hand at designing lace.  Lace has become my passion.  My designs are very non-traditional, including ‘picture’ shawls such as Heere Be Dragone and shaped shawls like  Just a Butterfly. 

The inspirations for my designs come from a variety of sources:  My love of dragons and other mythical beasts; beauty in the form of natural things like snowflakes, butterflies, flowers  and birds;  the man made beauty of stained glass and crystal. Some patterns are based on requests from customers.  Sometimes the shawls design themselves. I woke up at  2 o’clock in the morning to find 3 cats sitting on my bed. 

They said ” You are designing us next”.
I said “ No, I’m not, I’m working on something else”  
They said “Yes, you are.  We’re  next”
Needless to say- Jellico Cat’s was the next shawl on the needles

A good friend and fellow alpaca breeder told me about Etsy.  She has her alpaca fiber locally made into fabulous alpaca socks and was selling them through her  NorthStarAlpacas Etsy Store.  Because Etsy was craft orientated, she thought it might be a good place to sell my patterns and some of the shawls that were my test knits.   Because my shop has gone all digital, I no longer sell the actual shawls but donate them to charity instead and sell only the patterns. 

Favorite items

What are your favorite items? What makes these so special? Why do you think these items might be selling well?

It’s very hard to pick my favorite items. The Heere Be Dragone shawl has got to be one of my favorites because it was my first ‘picture shawl’ .  He is still selling well, having been in my shop since day one. The second-most popular dragon is the Dragon of Happiness.Dragons and other fantasy patterns always seem to be in fashion.

I love the baby blankets; they are fun to design, faster, and a bit easier to knit. I think my current favorite is the Baby Tiger. He is one of the newer patterns and has been a hit.

I was particularly pleased with how realistic the Who’s Whooo Shawl came out. People are drawn to owls, so that pattern has sold well. I am never sure how a piece will look until the knitting is finished and the item is blocked. It often goes from "What was I thinking?"  to "Not too bad," to "I am really happy with it."

Getting sales on Etsy

How long did it take for you to earn your first sale and how do you currently attract customers to your Etsy shop?

I no longer remember exactly how long it took to make my first sale, but I think it was in the first couple of weeks after I opened my Etsy shop. Knitting patterns are rather specialized items. I am not on social media, so most of my advertising is word of mouth among knitting groups. I keep a contact list of my customers and send emails whenever a new pattern is released or I have a sale underway. I run sales two to four times a year. All emails have the option to be forwarded to friends. The keyword tags for each listing are important, and I also take advantage of Etsy’s automatic "Favorite Item" and "AAbandoned Cart" offers.

Managing CrazyLaceLady

How do you manage your shop? Are you running solo or do you have any team members? What tools or services do you use to run your shop and how do you handle fulfillment?

I design all the patterns and manage my Etsy store myself. I test knit almost all the patterns because I often re-design as I go. I have some very talented test knitters that knit additional patterns and shadow knit the more complex patterns to help catch any errors created by the chart gremlin that lives in my computer.

Adobe Illustrator is my main design tool. All my patterns are created as stitch charts. With Illustrator, I can draw my design, scale it to adjust for stitch gauge, create stitch symbols when needed, and cut and paste repeated sections to create the charts. I also use Illustrator to convert the charts to PDF files for the final pattern.

Pages is used to create any necessary text and pattern instructions.

The PDF Toolkit is used to concatenate all the individual files into the final pattern.

PhotoShop to process any images

Robly to handle my email list announcing new patterns and sales

Because my products (patterns) are all digital, shipping and fulfillment are easily handled through Etsy’s download feature.

The future of CrazyLaceLady 

What goals do you have for your shop in the future?

I hope to continue to add 3 or 4 new patterns a year to my listings.

Advice for new sellers

What’s your advice for a new seller starting an Etsy shop?

Emphasize what makes your product unique. Pictures are what sell your product. Good-quality photos and multiple views, where appropriate, are a must. Good keywords can help customers find your shop.

One of the most important things is customer service. I respond to all messages as soon as possible. I offer unlimited technical pattern support, answering all knitting questions and including more specific directions and ‘how-to’  where needed.