thoughts on Etsy

I am giving some thought to opening an Etsy shop. Although I like embroidery, I’m not sure I could sell it-among other things, the patterns I use are all copyrighted by others for personal use only. I *could* sell plain or applique’ed dish towels, ones that I hem myself. Perhaps trim them with a bit of rick rack on the top/bottom edges. Then they’re all ready for someone else to embroider. Or I could sell them with words or something on them. I’m not a good enough artist to create my own patterns, unfortunately. It would be easy enough to applique a basic shape-some hearts for Valentine’s towels, Stars of David, that sort of thing–and sell them.

I could also sell baby blankets. I’m pretty efficient at turning 1/2-3/4 yard lengths of cotton flannel into cozy blankets.

And cloth napkins.

I’ve also been toying with the idea of music-themed kitchen textiles. Instrumental tea towels, perhaps. I’ve already committed to making a "Raisin Brahms" pot holder for my friend John (have you all SEEN this PSA?? http://www.youtube.com/watch). There’s a quilt shop in Manhattan that sells music-ish fabric. From my own brief attempts at finding music textiles, I know they’re kind of … scarce. Plus, a lot of images of composers and instruments are in the public domain, and I wouldn’t be infringing on any copyrights if I used them for craft patterns.

As a partial result of a particularly crappy work week, I’ve been considering all of this a bit more seriously than usual. Selling things on Etsy probably wouldn’t bring in as much as I’m making at Starbucks. Although there aren’t really any start-up costs, Etsy does charge listing and transaction fees. Plus there’s cost to ship, and cost of fabric. Still, it could be a fun thing to try over the summer.

So-what do you all think of such an idea?