Always nice to talk to someone with similar hobbies! I'm excited to sell in a RL shop, but she's been trying to get it off the ground since May/June (I think her original target date was June 1), and here we are in November with no storefront. I'm still interested, but not holding my breath either. Just going to do my own thing for now and if it works out with her later, that's cool too :)
I think I'm already in that knitting group, but l'll definitely check out the soap community - thanks for linking it! I started off with needle tatting, but I found it frustrating to have to keep a bunch of different needle sizes around, so I kept at shuttle tatting until it made sense. Definitely give it another shot, it's so satisfying when it finally clicks!