measures of success.

the numbers one week after pub day.

A hotel lobby full of friends and family and colleagues.

A tall stack of books with iridescent stickers shouting SIGNED COPY.

A photo from a friend in the bookstore: Look how much orange in the pick-up area!!!

Another, snapped by lamplight, book in lap, tiny folded box in hand.

Another, book open, kid’s brow furrowed over a sheaf of magazine covers, tiny hands at work.

A friend at the kids’ school who stops to tell me she has her copy, that she decided against buying a new bag strap, that she made one herself, instead.

A teacher at daycare who writes to parents letting them know that the kids made cardboard sculptures this week—flying dinosaurs and double-decker planes among them—based on a project in the book.

An early morning text from a friend sings: In love with your book [star emojis] stayed up til midnight with it [heart emojis].

Friends over our place for dinner and a braided lanyard started and finished. Requests from small people for fabric, needles and thread. Must get right to it. No time to lose.

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There’s a number out there somewhere, stating with some measure of accuracy, the number of copies of Making Things that sold in the first week after publication. I don’t know that precise number.

I know the warmth and kindness that’s been radiating my way since this book made its way into the world. I know that people have flipped through the pages and have probably mostly not seen the uncorrected typos that haunt me, but that instead they’ve seen the beauty and the heart and the over-arching messages of creativity and resourcefulness. I know that they’ve rifled through their junk mail to fold boxes, and cut up their old tee-shirts and their kids leggings to make cord, and I know this, because they’ve told me. (Thank goddess, you’ve told me.)

Craft books that are not written by celebrities don’t typically hang out at the top of bestseller lists. They aren’t typically considered for serious review or given fancy awards or accolades, but if a craft book is lucky and does its job, it gets rewarded with evidence of projects made and pages dog-eared. I’m remembering more evidence as I write this:

A parent who walked into the school yard wearing a finger-corded necklace her kid made for her from my book.

Another parent who grabbed my elbow and told me they know just what they’re going to do with their ripped up sheets.

A video of a friend casually re-merchandizing shelves to get my book front and center.

On a purely practical level, I want this book to sell many thousands of copies because maybe that will mean I can write another one and because maybe one day I’ll see a royalty check. More than anything though, I want it to have a long life on bookshelves and coffee tables and in libraries. I hope that it can be both resource and revelation—something that people turn to when they’re in need of inspiration or ideas or a solution to a problem.

To everyone who’s been sending me these notes and texts and Instagram DMs, this evidence of hard work and creativity, this celebration of this massive project finally being out in the world, thank you from the bottom of my heart. It’s an absolute joy and an honor to see you making things.

PS. If any of you would like to join my alliterative mom in her very kind review of the book in behemoth online places that sell books, please do. It truly means so much.