When is sewing not sewing?

You'd think that a stay-at-home mum with a wee sewing venture would mainly spend her time sewing, wouldn't you?  Or at the very least, she'd be at the fabric store picking out new material and buttons and lace and other jollies.  Or maybe at the post office posting garments out to her customers?  But no - I spend about 30-50% of my MooAndFlo time doing non-craft tasks, like invoicing, reconciling the accounts, replying to customer queries, and all manner of things that don't involve needle and thread.  But my time's not just taken up by admin, which, let's face it, has been around forever and isn't likely to change in essence anytime soon.  What takes up a lot of my MooAndFlo time is updating social media like this.

I blog.  I Tweet.  I update Facebook.  Why?   Why not spend more time sewing and less time in front of the computer?  Well, to put it simply, the Internet is my shop - it's my wee village store.  And rather than put an advert in the local rag or fliers in letter boxes, I publicise through social media.  Even the customers that know me personally almost always buy from me through the web, having seen something on MooAndFlo's Facebook page and taken a shine to it.  And despite being in a little treehouse in the middle of the bush in New Zealand, Internet promotion has lead to orders from as far away as the UK.

So when is sewing not sewing?  When it's putting on my media and sales hats and getting the garments out there for the world to see.  I'd love to tell you more, but I must dash - I've Tweets to make...