Making 100 Items

I have been looking at other avenues for selling dolls clothes, like a shop on Etsy or Folksy or possibly at a craft fair. The problem is, I don't have an awful lot of stock at the moment. I suppose I could just list all the stock I have on each platform and then remove it from the others when something sells, but that seems incredibly risky. It would just be my luck that the same item would sell in two different locations on the same day! Mostly I make one-of-a-kind items, so I might not be able to quickly whip up another identical outfit in time to send to a second customer.

I decided what I need is more stock. Like, a lot of stock. Christmas is coming up and last year it was my busiest season, so the more stock I have the more things I can sell. Maybe if I have enough stock, I would be able to have a table at a local Christmas craft fair. Maybe I need to ask my dad to make me some clothing racks... And all of that is before I think about stocking a new shop on Etsy or Folksy. Really, I'm probably behind schedule for Christmas already. My year got off to a terrible start when I managed to catch a pretty awful virus that lasted for almost two weeks. Then I had some home organisation stuff going on that had nothing to do with sewing. So I feel like I've been running behind this whole year.

Anyway, I thought it would be a good idea to start a challenge, so I have challenged myself to make 100 items. The Etsy selling guru I watched on YouTube recommended having 100 items to list in your new Etsy shop, but at this point, I think I need the 100 items to stock my website and also eBay, where I also sell some things. There will have to be another 100 item challenge to get the stock to put into an Etsy or Folksy shop later on.

I think if I break it down to making 10 items a week, then it'll take me 10 weeks to make 100 items. That will put me at early November, so still in good time for Christmas. I've never actually monitored my sewing output, so I don't know if 10 items a week will be easy or unrealistic. I suppose it depends on what I'm making.

I thought if I cut out my 10 items on Monday, then I can have Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to sew them. Friday I will do all the finishing touches, like trimming threads, sewing on velcro (my most hated job!) and adding snaps or buttons. Saturday and Sunday can be dedicated to photographing and editing the photos. I think once I have a pile of maybe 20 or more, I will start listing them, one per day, on my shop and on eBay, so really it will be 2 per day since they're going into two different places. Apparently the best way to list things on eBay (and Etsy) is adding one new item per day. It's something to do with 'the algorithm' or something like that.

I'm going to start off with some dungarees like the ones I made in this post. I really enjoyed making them but they are quite time consuming because of all the little details and added pockets etc. It might be a challenge to make 10 pairs in a week. I think I will make 10 jackets for my next batch of items, and then 10 long-sleeved dresses and then maybe 10 pairs of tights. I think these will all be good for the upcoming winter season.

I suppose I better go and get started... I think I'll make a series of posts to show what I've managed to do in a week. Maybe I will have to adjust my expectations. I think I'll do one big post at the end of the 100 item challenge to show everything I've made.

I think the week will run Monday to Sunday, so I'll post an update on Sunday. Wish me luck!