Work in No Progress

So I’ve written about how I live here, but I don’t think you really know WHAT I do here? How do I spend my days? What WILL I do?

They are very good questions and I better answer them shortly cause to be honest with you, I’ve run out of money. Ok, I won’t starve to death or have to run around without clothes in the street. But I might have to walk a bit more instead of taking a bus and not buy a coffee-to-go or a sandwich in the café (and they have such delicious sandwiches in this country!).

So I need a job, my wish was to do more creative things when I got here, you know, like sew or knit or crochet stuff and sell. And in the first few weeks I did crochet hats and fingerless gloves and actually sold a few.

The hats look like this for instance:

And the gloves:

Just simple stuff.

The gloves are pretty popular in the music school where the loved one studies, they are good for musicians, since they can keep their hands warm and still play piano or a guitar.

What I make has to be simple and quick or else I won’t be able to sell them, more time spent on something means means a higher price.

But even before the winter here ended I stopped making the hats and gloves.

I don’t know why, a friend of mine who has a clothes store in the most popular street in Tel Aviv even said that I should give him some samples of the gloves and he would try to sell them. But I didn’t give him any, partly because I didn’t have enough hours in a day to make the samples but probably mostly because I didn’t really believe it would be possible to sell them.

That’s my biggest problem. I don’t believe they will sell or that things I make look nice or that people will want to have them.

So when winter ended I tried to figure out what to do next and then one of my favourite friends back in Sweden gave me an idea:

Recently in Sweden a popular thing to sell is handmade crocheted jewellery which has been dipped in lacquer so it is stiff and shiny like plastic.

I tried to find pictures of this on the internet which was impossible so I just started to invent stuff and it didn’t turn out so well.

First of all it takes for ever to make them since the needle and thread are so thin which also make my hands and neck hurt. But most importantly they are ugly! Who’d want to wear them as earrings or pendants? Aren’t they ugly?

(These are not lacquered yet)

So what then? What can I do, which is creatively stimulating for me and quick and easy and will sell.

Another idea I had was to make little purses or bags like this:

It is not finished yet, only in a developing stage, I stuck a piece of paper inside, but the inside should be made of fabric with a little zipper. But to make these I need a sewing machine.
And oh dear, did I mention that I don’t have any money left?

So, Catch 307 - I can’t make stuff to sell so I will earn money which will mean that I can buy a sewing machine to make the stuff I want to sell so that I will earn money…

And yes, I could borrow some money I suppose, but I am really scared that I will get a machine and then not proceed to make things because I give up for lack of confidence and motivation.

“I don’t know if these will sell either and I don’t know if they are nice etc etc”.

I have other ideas as well. Baby clothes are easy and quick to sew and I think there might be a market for more “trendy” baby clothes here, since it is such a backward country.

But then again …sewing machine…

And will I really do it? Will the things I make be nice? Will they sell?