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Left – old band style label; Right – new tag style label
My new labels will make their debut at Guild. This has been a goal of mine for ages. I hate, hate, hate the band style labels that I was using. They were big, bulky and fell off constantly – particularly on the yarn, as I could never find the perfect adhesive. Since the trademark application was pending for almost a year, I wanted to wait until it was in place to make changes. And now, ta da! New, smaller labels that I can print myself on business card stock and tie on with some embroidery floss. Still some refining to do (next time, going with better quality cards) but what a difference! Much better!
Time to distract you with the pretty again. No pictures this time, however, rest assured that the pretty is on its way. I just placed an order from Knitspot – there’s 14 different patterns coming, about half of which are new. Some of my favorite new ones? Carcia, Maple Wing and the Spiralucious Mitts. Mmmm, pretty!
And thank you to everyone who has offered words of encouragement and support. Though I may not be able to respond to each of you personally, know that I deeply appreciate it.
I think its finally time to share what’s had me in such a tailspin recently. I’ve indicated that I’m under a lot of stress and have a lot going on. Everett and I are divorcing. I can’t quite put words to what a difficult time this is for me.
I’ve debated about when and how to share this with people. What I know is that I will see a lot of people I know in the next few weeks. Ev was always with me at Guild meetings and honestly, I’m hoping just to make this all a little easier for myself by sharing it here in a way that I can control (especially since I haven’t quite mastered the art of not falling apart in public yet).
I’m hanging in the best I can and I have a ton of support around me. Know that The Painted Sheep is not going anywhere (especially since I just got that amazing news last week). I’m not going anywhere. Fiber, when I’m able to focus on it, is one of the best ways I can take care of myself. Besides, my “baby” is coming up on its 2nd Anniversary in a couple of weeks – I’m not passing up an opportunity to celebrate that.
For a lot of reasons, I’m not going to say anything more about this here – now or at any point. Thanks for understanding that and bearing with me while I go through this painful time.
A little bit more of what’s to come. The rovings are alpaca/merino/silk and the yarn is Painted Sock Too – all dyed up on Saturday. I now only have to dye some Lambie and some Shimmer and I’m done for the next Guild meeting and shop update – finally!
And now that I have my trademark in place, I am going to be setting up a Cafe Press store with logo items – t-shirts and bags, maybe a few other little things. I hope to have this up in a few days.
I have to admit that I’m hoping to flash some pictures over the next few days to some how distract you from the lack of content and postings lately. I am still going through an extremely difficult time personally, so other than the dyeing and some random Painted Sheep things, most of my focus is on the stuff I’m dealing with. Bear with me and know that I’m starting to see a little light.
ETA: Since I completely jinxed myself with that statement about seeing the light, I now feel it necessary to clarify. The light was an oncoming train. $%^*!
I don’t know where to begin this post. Its the blog post that I have been waiting to write and at times, writing in my head, for close to 21 months. Today is a big day here at The Painted Sheep. I suppose I should start by sharing the news:
“The Painted Sheep” and the sheep logo are now the registered trademarks of The Painted Sheep, LLC.
SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Perhaps I should backtrack a bit. Some time ago, there were some behind the scenes goings on here that were extremely stressful. So stressful in fact, that I considered just shutting down and giving up my little dream of having a fiber business. I’m not going to go into great detail or name names. All I will say about what happened is that the name of my business was threatened by someone. I fought her and won when she changed her name. What kept me going all along was the knowledge that I had first use of the name The Painted Sheep and that it is my intellectual property. I was lucky enough to have an amazing group of people providing me with legal assistance and for them I am incredibly thankful. After I successfully won that battle, I applied for trademarks for the name The Painted Sheep and for my sheep logo.
Today, l learned that my trademarks (holy shit, I love to say that!) were registered by the USPTO on Tuesday. It has been a long road to today, sometimes horribly stressful. I applied for my trademarks last April, though all of this started in June 2007, shortly after I started. Its the little thing I’ve been hinting at periodically, the big news that might be coming about The Painted Sheep. In reality, I know that all you’ll ever notice is that now, instead of a TM next to my sheep and the words The Painted Sheep, there’s an R symbol (but please, notice it! seriously, changing them all over was just so amazing). It means that I have protection against another so and so, should anyone be so foolish. And for me, this is a huge victory. I stood up for myself in a way that I haven’t before and I won.
The fact that I got this news today, of all days, was huge. My personal life has been extremely stressful lately and this morning, I went through one of the worst experiences of my life. And then this news came and gave me a little glimmer of hope, a sign that things are going to get better, that I can fight and win.
There’s one more thing – I’ve mentioned a few times that I’m planning a new tattoo, to celebrate something momentus. Its going to be this:
My little victory dance, permanently engraved on my shoulder.
Virtually no knitting or crocheting this week. Life interfered. I managed a couple of rows on the shawl at SnB last week, up until the wine kicked in. Since then, nothing. Few rows on the Malabrigo sock too. Hoping that I’ll sneak in a couple of rows this morning or tonight at SnB.
What I did do was a lot of dyeing. I actually took a personal day yesterday, as I had to deal with some stuff. I desperately needed to keep myself busy, so I dyed up 3 pounds of merino superwash in the morning. The fiber helps. Besides, only 2 more weekends for dyeing before the Guild meeting – the countdown is definitely on!
Again this week, no goals. Too much going on in the rest of my life to put pressure on myself related to fiber. I’ll be content to do anything at all and retain my sanity…
Happy Wednesday!
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