Over the past week or so I’ve been working pretty solidly on the shop part of twoswallows.com, which is intended for showcasing and selling some of my dolly hand-knits. (I make so many that they’re just sitting around doing nothing, and so why not see if anyone else can benefit?). My attention has a tendency to wander at the best of times, so staying fully focussed on one thing is usually an uphill struggle. However, I can say with some small degree of satisfaction that I am making progress.

Firstly, I have done a good deal of work on the upcoming website. I’m keeping a theme of sorts by having the shop layout be very similar to my blog layout, but — as is usual for these things, I think — most of the work is behind-the-scenes. After experimenting with several open source “e-commerce solutions” (as they hilariously call themselves) I decided I could go one better and customise a Wordpress install to use as a CMS. (Basically, this means I’m making the Wordpress front-end look like a shop, and then I can use the very familiar and user-friendly control panel to input my products and information. Endlessly customisable, and admittedly rather fun for me to work on. Don’t worry, I’ll stop now before anyone’s eyes glaze over.)

That’s one side of the shop. The other side is the products, and in this area I have been making strides.

I have a couple of new patterns that I really like the look of:

And I have a pile of knits that need the finishing touches added to them: snap fasteners, the odd edging, etc. The pile has grown since I took this picture. I think I will have to sit down in front of a really long film and just get on with it.

If the weather would start to behave, I could perhaps get on with the third stage of things: photographs. Ultimately, though, I am having a lot of fun with this. I like have a project and something to work towards. It doesn’t feel like a chore (yet!), either, which is doing wonders for my motivation. Now, if only dinner would cook itself, and the house clean itself, and the washing-up magically disappear…