TL;DR: I've written a tutorial on using my embroidery designs to make sewn plushies and the Retro TV design is about to drop. The rest of the post is just me venting and then prognosticating.

It is possible that I shouldn't have made quite so many radical changes all at the same time.

• New blog software
• New blog host
• New PC
• New OS install
• New Inkscape
• New Ink/Stitch
• New month (i.e. new Charm Tier release)

I didn't think any of it was a big deal, except it's time-consuming, and didn't leave me much wiggle room for the release. And something about the new setup (not even sure if it's the hardware or one of the many changed software) means the compilation of the design variations suddenly went from taking a few hours at most to... well, I'm not sure because I didn't let it finish, but if my projections are correct it would have taken over a week to build the Retro TV package.

(I broke it into three parts and it's still taking a few hours, then I will stitch out a few more to make sure everything generated correctly, then it will be released. But not by the time this entry publishes.)

ANNNNYWAY.

It's been keeping me from what I really want to be doing, which is setting up more stuff on that new blog host. I mentioned some of it in the last post, but since I am bored and waiting on that design to generate I'll expand on my vision a little more.

Going through the blog history cleaning things up was a little depressing: I've tried out so many different platforms to sell on. Let me sum up where I'm at with them, in case you're looking for one yourself.

• Etsy - pros: lots of handholding/automation for shipping physical goods, good name recognition with customers. cons: fees are enormous, marketplace effect is tanked by AI/resellers, software has had some major, major screwups lately, absolutely does not allow updating digital goods for prior purchases WTF.
• Shopify - pros: best shop software hands-down, shopping cart can be embedded in a site. cons: they let Nazis sell there!
• Gumroad - pros: second-best shop software, allows multiple membership tier tracks. cons: CEO is a garbage person who worked for DOGE to dismantle the country!
• Ko-Fi - pros: low fees, allows PWYW, tier capability is maturing. cons: marketplace effect is pretty minimal, physical-goods shipping flow is minimal
• Patreon - pros: everybody knows their name, digital-goods distro is superb. tier capability is mature. cons: no physical goods selling at all, shop function is new (nobody knows you don't have to be a member to shop there), fees are not as bad as Etsy but still high-ish.

All of these continue hosting stuff even after I've shut down my shops, so you can in theory always get what you bought. But I'm not going to update Shopify or Gumroad files ever again, and Etsy won't let me even if I wanted to. Plus, you never know if they're going to go out of business or just lose everyone's data or whatever, so I like to have control over things. (You should also have control over things: always make and keep your own copies, and not just on USB sticks!)

Right now, I can once again create local download links (the temporarily-unavailable freebie files scattered through the blog archives will be coming back online soon), and send out manual invites for Nextcloud accounts. That's super-handy, especially for Ko-Fi where I can't just attach a file to a member post like I can on Patreon. Sometimes I don't want to create an entire shop entry for a spur-of-the-moment freebie, after all.

My to-do's right now, in approximate order of priority:

• upload current versions of all of my designs to Nextcloud
• re-link currently-unavailable freebie files
• recruit a few Ko-Fi/Patreon members as guinea pigs and give them Nextcloud invites
• experiment with Nextcloud's sharing functions and settle on some best practices
• automate sharing new releases for tier members
• automate sharing new purchases for all customers
• import all past customers into the mailing list software
• send out Nextcloud invites to all of them
• add all past purchases to Nextcloud
• whew

I'm really hoping to get back into the whimsical-freebie era again.