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Tinking Turtle Raverly

Visiting Atlantic Beach

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I wrote this post once already, hit save, went to do something else, then went back to edit it and it was gone.  I did everything right and I’m still having to rewrite it.  *Grumbles*

I’m catching up on things that happened while I was super busy and couldn’t keep up with everything.  One of the things I wanted to share was a trip Michael and I took with his parents to Atlantic Beach.  It’s become a tradition for them to visit the beach in the off season – when the rates are cheap, the beaches are empty, and you can have the ocean all to yourself.  I have to admit I probably like the beach better this way.  I don’t mind the cold, particularly.  In fact, when you are bundled up there isn’t really a chance of getting sunburned, which is what I’ve done every time I’ve went to a beach in the summer.

Unfortunately for me it was a working vacation – I had a number of designs due at the end of January and beginning of February and I couldn’t just not work on them.  But I only did the essentials – so no email or answering the phone.

The unit where we stayed had a GIANT easychair, which I took possession of early in the weekend, and worked on most of my crochet/knitting there.  It was an amazing chair.

The lovely lovely easy chair, where most of my knitting or crocheting took place.
beach vegetation against sunset
Me, watching sunset (Michael can’t seem to get a horizon line straight)
Michael, looking picturesque.
more vegetation
And all along, I stitched away.

Grief and Legacy

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Last weekend Michael and I made the trip to North Carolina for his grandmother’s funeral.  It was a difficult affair for everyone.  I’d only met his grandmother once in the nearly seven years I’ve known him; which is speaking considering how much time I’ve spent with his other grandmother (nicknamed Oma) and the rest of his family.

Grandma Wilkerson was a difficult woman to be with in the later years of her life.  Bitter over the death of her husband and limited in her willingness to travel, she often made it difficult for people to be around her and reach out.  Michael’s family tended to deal with the situation with a dark humor, and it always made me sad because of the good relationship I have with both of my grandmothers.  It was only at the funeral that I learned of the good things she had done with her life – her involvement in church, the civil rights movement in her community and her organization of programs for the homeless and malnourished.

Sockupied Totem

It’s got me thinking about the legacy that a person leaves behind.  Of my great-grandmother I have stories from my mother and grandmother.  I have crochet and knitted items, collections of old crafting books, and some of the sharpest sewing needles I’ve ever had the fortune to come across.  From one of my grandfathers I have the wooden bookcase he made, from the other a house in Massachusetts and a play kitchen (and many other things).

As for myself, I’d like to believe that I am creating my own heirlooms to pass down to my heirs. I have a lot of knit and crochet items, and I’ve only been at this for a few years.  I have some rather strange bronze masks (those will probably last the longest, if they don’t get destroyed for the bronze).  I have my patterns, many of them floating around on the internet.  I think it’s a good start, even as a wonder what things my heirs will treasure and what things they won’t even remember.

Beginnings: The Origin of Tinking Turtle

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As we bring 2013 to a close, it’s time to take a look back at the path we’ve taken to get where we are this year.  The holiday season is often a time spent with friends and family, each with their own special traditions and holiday moments.  For my family, one of our favorite traditions is setting up a model train layout in the garage, all decorated up for Christmas, and spend hours driving the trains through our small town.  In this town, it’s important for everything to have a name, from the grocery store named after my younger brother to the boarding house and bakery.  This has been a tradition that Jennifer and I have carried on through the years.

Trains and naming things have found their way into our lives outside of just the holidays.  In September 2011 after settling in Washington, DC we embarked on our first long-distance train journey to the windy city of Chicago.  We travled for several days, including our first overnight on the train.  While in Chicago, we visited Loopy Yarns. Jennifer was just setting out on building the framework for the business that has become Tinking Turtle and, as a stitcher, she couldn’t visit the city without stopping by the store.  During the trip, the topic of discussion kept circling back to Loopy Yarns, the name, and if we had a store, what it would be named.

Over a delicious dinner of Knockwurst, Wiener Schnitzel, and Sauerkraut at The Berghoff, we began to bat around some funny names for the various buildings in our own model train town, with a yarn bent.  Grabbing the closest piece of paper at hand, a class schedule from Loopy Yarns, we recorded all of the names that came to mind.

Given that we were now living in Maryland, the turtle as a mascot came to mind, and then playing off of the alliteration, tinking was a natural fit.  I’ll confess that at that point in time I had no idea what tinking even was, but it sounded cool.  Ye Olde Tinking Turtle was originally going to be a combo yarn store/tavern, perhaps influenced by the German atmosphere, however it was a name that stuck with us.

Tinking Turtle was not the initial name for the company; Jen was contemplating running it under a company named after herself. Unfortunately however, when she was looking to register a trade name and website, there were several other businesses with similar sounding names.  Falling back to what was originally an amusing name for a train town pub, Tinking Turtle has stayed with us, becoming the business that it is today.

The Importance of Customer Relationship Management

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This is the second edition of a semi-regular series From the Business Desk I am writing to look at some of the important factors in running a Small Fiber arts Business.  This month’s feature revolves around using technology to grasp one of the key factors in the success of a business: your customers.


Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a huge buzzword in any business today.  With more and more technology at our fingertips, it is easier than ever for the informed customer to make their purchasing decision, go shopping through e-commerce, or conduct their own research irregardless of advertising mediums.  Businesses can and should be doing the same things with regards to their customers.

In theory, CRM revolves around tracking and recording every interaction a business has with their customers, from email conversations to support calls to purchasing history to who is prompt on payment.  This is a lot to aggregate and understand, however by doing such, a business can derive significant information from this data.  In larger businesses, there are dedicated CRM systems such as Salesforce that can be leveraged for that purpose; for small business however, many times these records live on post-it notes, sales receipts, and excel spreadsheets.

The Tinking Turtle facebook page lets us track who likes the company,
and who corresponds and interacts with our brand.

I wanted to take a moment to share a couple of good, and extremely cost effective resources for Small Businesses to use to be able to better track their customer information.  The first is through Social Media.  Like it or not, Facebook is the wave of the future for businesses, and by being involved in this network of potential customers, every interaction is recorded and available for review.  Not only can you communicate directly with friends, family, and interested parties, you can document who is liking your page, their likes, and record shared content among them.  In this way, you have a track record, a history of what brings your customers to your brand, and can use this to further development your business strategy.

We use Insightly to track the status of our
design projects among other uses

The second tool I would recommend every small business check out is an online CRM application.  There are countless review sites out there to cover the good, the bad, and the ugly of a whole world of CRM applications that are cheap or free to use for beginners.  There is honestly no “best” site out there; a lot of the choice boils down to what you are doing as a business, and what features you value most.  Tinking Turtle uses Insightly as our CRM.  What drew me to implement this for the business earlier this year was its’ integration with Google Apps, a plus for the IT side of me, as well as its’ focus both on Customer Relationship and Project Management.  In Insightly, it is easy for us to not only track who we do business with, and the data surrounding those relationships, but as well we can track opportunities and projects.  Insightly’s “web of links” approach makes it easy to associate which design calls tie back to which publishing companies, for instance, and which projects were submitted for each call for submission.  The best part about Insightly is that for the just starting small business, it free for a limited number of contacts and items.  This lets any business use the system to get their feet on the ground, and then once they have reached a size where they have the financial strength to begin evaluating more features, they can easily continue that through the system.

No matter what your business does, be it fiber or yarn production, designing, or a LYS, having a method to aggregate your customer information is an excellent step to take to further your business success.  I want to stress here that there is no right or wrong answer; if you have a card catalog and Rolodex that works for you, all for the better.  However, as the customer moves more and more into the digital arena of the internet, I would encourage all business owners to consider some of the online tools discussed above.

Knitting as a Language

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One of the highlights of Michael’s and my trip to India might not have happened if Michael’s phone hadn’t died when we arrived in the country.  You see, We had been planning on using internet access and Michael’s phone to make most of our travel arrangements, as it was turned on to function internationally.  But inexplicably when we arrived in country it didn’t work, which meant that we needed to use an Indian Travel agent to book out travel.

Which turned out to be a very good thing, aside from the fact that he mentioned that there was a “toy train” that went to Shimla.  Now, at this point you all know that Michael Loves Trains.  The chance to see a small gauge train in action, winding it’s way through the Himalayas?  We couldn’t miss it.

So shortly after we arrived in India, we were taking off from Delhi to Shimla, first taking a regular train, and then switching to a small gauge train.  The small gauge train in India is an experience.  With no AC, all the windows are open (something hard to come by in the US), and so are the doors in and out of the train.  It’s switches are operated manually, and it functions with a manual system to keep trains from running into each other (which involves the passing off of symbolic keys).
 Like the days of old, the trains connect together with a pin system, which means there are people that have to get between each car and drop a pin into the latching mechanism in order to connect them.  Very dangerous.  And because it’s a narrow gauge train, it can make tighter turns and and climb steeper hills than an normal train.  So you occasionally got glimpses outside your window that looked like this:

Our Train to Shimla.

Michael was beside himself with excitement, and spent the whole time with the camera in the train door, looking at everything. Now don’t get me wrong, seeing Michael happy is a lot of fun, but not being quite the train affectionado that he is?  It got a little boring.

Michael looking out the window.

So I pulled out my knitting.

And very slowly I became aware of this wave of… awareness that was focused on me.  I saw a woman who was looking at what I was doing very intently.  So I smiled and gestured her over.  Very soon, with very little words between us, we were talking knitting.

Talking Knitting.

Pretty soon, another woman had joined it (the mother of the seatmate across from me in the picture above), who had a little more English than the first woman.

I was told that they didn’t realize that people from America knit.  I got advice on how to wear a Saree, which I had attempted to wear that day and was falling off of me by 2 pm in the afternoon (I was so close to a serious wardrobe malfunction).  I got teased about my husband, shared Indian cake, and attempted to explain American copyright (in relation to my work).  It was amazing fun.
Having fun with my knitting friends.

And the amazing part was?  We were coming together over a common handicraft.  We had very little language between us, but we had the language of stitches, of knits and purls and yarnovers and decreases.

Glimpses of My Life, Lately

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Things have been rather chaotic lately, so some pictures to hold you over until I can create a more content-worthy post.

On National Train Day, Michael and I dressed up a little old-timey and rode the train to Baltimore, where we proceeded to spend the entire day at the Baltimore and Ohio Train Museum.

We were mistaken three times as was figurines – we’d be standing with each other looking at an exhibit, go to move to the next one, and scare the living daylights out of somebody.  I think it was the hats.

Summer has truly settled in, and I’ve been kept jumping to land on things to keep Sweetness and Light entertained.  They’ve done so much growing lately.

I’ve been teaching a bevvy of classes at both Woolwinders and Fibre Space.  I love getting to teach new classes – and I have a bunch of new classes that I’m getting ready to roll out in the Fall!

I got a DSLR Camera, and I’ve been having way too much fun figuring out its capabilities.  Michael and I went to the farm this last weekend, and I had a bunch of fun with my tripod and setting long exposures.  Naturally, after a few shots of the stars, I couldn’t help but play with flashlights.

Carrying Davidson With Me

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I’ve been talking a bit the last few days about Davidson College (my alma mater), which has been on my mind since Michael and I are currently driving our way from Washington, DC to Davidson, NC.  As previously mentioned, we’re going for Michael’s brother’s graduation.

I’ve been talking about how Davidson College played heavily into the designing I do today.  From resources like The Needlecraft Center to the art program at Davidson, this town and college started the transformation from a casual stitcher to fiber-arts professional.  There is, however, one other major thing I’ve taken with me away from Davidson that has been instrumental in leading me where I am today.

My husband.  Michael.

Back then, of course, he was my boyfriend, whom I had been dating for three years.  As a freshly minted graduate, I had an English Degree in hand, a job working for my alma mater (which I was very happy about, as the job market had just plummeted), and a plan to live with Michael and two other friends in a house off campus.  Michael and my friends were all seniors, and a year younger than I.

Early design project that has been revised,
and will be published later in the year.

I found myself with a profusion of free time.  Having no course load and a job that lasted from 9-5, I had evenings free for the first time in my life.  It was amazing. I was doing more spinning than I had ever been able to do, and was knitting and crocheting up a storm.  I quickly tired of other people’s patterns, and began to work patterns of my own.

There was one such time, working on a pair of socks, that I began to write things down, so I could remember what I did for the second sock.  And it was about that time that Michael began to say, “You could make money from that.”

At first, I scoffed at the idea.  There aren’t many entrepreneurs in my immediate family, nor did I run into many people where I lived who ran their own business.  In contrast, Michael’s father has run a successful small business most of Michael’s life.  What seemed inconceivable to me seemed obvious to him.

Michael kept at it, though, asking thoughtful questions and encouraging me to learn enough about the industry to make an informed decision.  It was there
where I began to seriously think about what it would take to be a designer.  I wasn’t ready yet to take the leap, and I had a lot of learning to do, but it was at Davidson that the seeds were planted.

Highlights from Maryland Sheep and Wool

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Maryland Sheep and Wool happened this past weekend, and Michael and I attended today.  It was my third time going, and Michael’s first. As always it was a feast for the senses.

Buttons at Maryland Sheep and Wool
How do you explain Maryland Sheep and Wool to someone who hasn’t experienced it? To be silly about it, I’ll tell you what I told Michael today.  Maryland Sheep and Wool is where “my people” are.  Every third or fourth person I passed had on hand-made clothing: from socks, shawls and ponchos, to water-bottle holders, hats and fingerless gloves.  It was a joyous sensory overload; here it is not strange to find someone looking closely at how your handmade garment was put together.
We stopped by to see the people competing in the Sheep to Shawl competition.  It’s interesting to see the festival from a non-knitter’s perspective: while I’m looking at the spinners envying their speed, Michael’s wondering what the optimal ratio of spinners to weavers to carders is.  We went through several of the sheep barns, with me explaining to Michael what I knew of different breeds.  We went to go see a sheepdog demo – which was REALLY cool.  Perhaps the highlight of my day was a free talk about social media for farmers (which ended up being pretty helpful even though I’m not a farmer).
There was fair food, and (of course) dozens upon dozens of vendors to look at.  We didn’t nearly get through enough of them, but what we did see was beautiful and inspiring and fun.
This is the thing about Maryland Sheep and Wool: it drives home where are yarn comes from.  It tells a story from the farmer to the consumer of the finished product, and there aren’t many places you can go and be able to do that.

I’m Married – I’m now Jennifer Raymond

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I’m getting back into the swing of things, two weeks after getting married.  I’ve started the process of changing my name, from Jennifer Thomasin Crowley to Jennifer Thomasin Crowley Raymond. No hyphen, just two middle names.  That means for a while it’s going to be a little rough, as all my worksheets, information, etc. change over from Jennifer Crowley to Jennifer Raymond.  So if you see anywhere on the website that I’ve missed, let me know.

I’m still waiting on the pictures from the photographer, but I thought I’d give you a bit of a sneak peek:

It started raining halfway through the rehearsal the night before.

Wedding Bells

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My wedding dress, hanging in my room,
hidden from Michael under a sheet.

Tomorrow morning I’m off to Chestnut Hill Bed and Breakfast in Orange, VA.  It’s where Michael and I are having our wedding.  We’ll be driving up with my sister Rosemary, who has been visiting and helping me prepare.

Right now I’m taking a quick break from packing.  There’s a huge pile of stuff ready to be taken out to the car – everything from attendants gifts, to makeup and shoes and dozens of other details.  The last things that will go in the car tomorrow will be the wedding dress, laid carefully over everything else.

While I’m gone I have some friends who have graciously agreed to guest post on my blog.  Please welcome them in the upcoming days!

And when I come back you’ll see a few small changes around here, as I slowly make sure all the “Jennifer Crowley” references become “Jennifer Raymond.”

Wish me luck!

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