In case you missed it (I certainly did for a long while), Alex Makin was interviewed in the podcast "Around the Table" back in September, where she talks about medieval embroidery (including, more or less, her origin story).
If you want to listen, you can find it here on spotify (or you might be able to find the podcast on some other platform).
I've also been listening to stuff on my podcast waitlist the past few days, as I was (and actually still am) trying to sort through things, arrange the stuff in storage a little more intelligently, and try to figure out what to do with some of the projects or ideas that did not turn out to be the greatest thing ever. (Well. At least they got their chance, right?)
It is always kind of amazing to me that some things really take off, and some things just... don't. One of the examples was the larger embroidery kit I made, a long time ago. The first step was having the gold thread in stock (which happened due to reasons of its own, and I do not regret anything). Then I thought it might be a nice idea to have a sort of mini-kit - some gold, some silk, some instructions - so people could give it a try without buying larger amounts of both gold and silk.
The most frequent thing I'd hear from almost-customers or potential customers when looking at that kit was "yeah, hm, but I don't know what I could do with it". So my brilliant idea was to make a larger kit, with a motif pre-drawn on a little bit of nice dark fabric and nice, longer instructions with photos. It... I wouldn't say it tanked, because there was interest, but it was definitely not the solution to the problem that I thought it was. Maybe I was trying the wrong solution. Maybe I was looking at the wrong problem. Maybe I just don't have access to the people who would love to buy such a kit.
There have been surprises like that over the years, again and again. Sometimes it was a museum going for the super-detailed option that I had not expected them to go for. Sometimes it was an item I was over the moon about, and it just sat there and looked a little forlorn. Sometimes it was a group of folks going like crazy for a certain item. Sometimes it was more material than needed for a workshop idea, as the amount of workshops and/or the amount of material needed for them was much lower than I had planned for.
What I have learned from that, over the years, is to not trust me when the little excited bit of my brain goes "woah, best thing ever, it will sell like crazy!". Most of the times, I do the project anyways, maybe with a little lower numbers than I used to, but still. Because, quite often, it's not just the product. It's also my joy of having found someone who still (or again) makes these things, putting in care and research and skill, and I'd like them to stay afloat making their goods, too. It's my desire to offer the option to others who get the same joy out of it (and can afford the items, because I'm well aware of the fact that my goods are not in the low-price range).
It means, however, that I have to rearrange stuff now and then, and try to figure out what to do with the leftovers. The failed attempts. The samples, or small orders, that did not turn out to be the quality I wanted. And that is somehow, well, a little sad.