buttons

I'm almost finished with my Vine Yoke cardigan (such a fun knit! Fast, uses less than 4 skeins, and really interesting construction. Plus I'm really liking my new worsted superwash BFL) and I'm on the hunt for buttons. I don't know if I'm just too picky, but I'm having a devil of a time finding round, dark brown, wooden buttons that are 1.5" wide. Sounds so simple, right? Apparently boring, classic buttons are not currently in style.

I saw some cool reclaimed wood buttons at Madrona, but decided not to buy them because I didn't have a project in mind and I have way too much clutter in my life as it is. Well, never again; from now on, I am an official button hoarder.

I've been to the yarn shops in town, I've been to Joann's, and I've been through dozens of pages on Etsy. Finally (and I should have tried this first, of course), I search Ravelry, which produced a couple of options:

* Woodturner's Etsy shop, for custom wooden buttons. But I need 9 of them, and of course I want them by the time the sweater is blocked and dry (the end of the week), so not my first choice. I want to wear this sweater pronto.

* Maiwa. I've been hearing cool things about their workshops for a couple of years now, and looking at the photo on their buttons page is bringing out all sorts of covetousness. It wouldn't be too crazy to drive an hour and brave the spring weekend traffic on Granville Island just to shop for buttons, which might or might not be what I want, would it?

In other news, I have been officially confirmed as a vendor for Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene, OR and Midwest Fiber and Folk in Grayslake, IL. I've calculated that I need to dye about eight skeins a night from now till BSG to boost my inventory. So what am I doing tonight? Shopping for buttons, of course.

Rock Candy

I'm stocking a few skeins of Rock Candy on Thursday at noon ET:

http://huckleberryknits.com

taxes

Doing federal taxes. Torn between wanting to lose more money so that our tax bill won't be so high, and being horrified that I didn't make more profit for all that work. If I'm really going to make a living from this, I need a much better profit than I'm currently showing.

It seems like every year is always a "building" year. Last year I had to buy tons of undyed yarn and display stuff for the booth. This year, I'm going to overhaul the look of the booth (those little wire cubes take WAY too long to put together) so some of those sunk costs are not going to be amortized.

But something definitely needs to change this year. Either I need to enjoy my day job more (and scale way back on the dyeing) or I need to quit the day job and focus just on dyeing. Huckleberry Knits is currently a tax liability--jacks up our tax bill way too much--yet doesn't provide enough profit to support me in the lifestyle to which I've become accustomed, as they say. It's certainly not a lavish lifestyle by any means. Our bills are only the essentials--no cable TV, and just a $20 prepaid cell phone. No consumer debt.

Yet I still have a mortgage to pay, and a child whose interests and talents I want to nurture. I'm looking into piano lessons for him now, and unless I find a teacher who would like yarn for payment, that's probably about $20/week. There's a monthly sports class for him (this month it's swimming), and once he hits school-age, sports costs are going to skyrocket.

I just don't know. I always do this soul-searching at tax time, and never come to any conclusions.