Or buffalo either.
How about a shop window, instead?
I’m finding it hard to get good pictures of the windows, perhaps I’m not trying the right time of day?
Plus, the dark red quilt hanging in the background does not show well at all, it’s just too dark, and the reflections in the window make it even harder to see.
Oh well, it’s red, and that was the idea for the February window. As you can see.
For some previous posts, with much better pictures, you can go here: red wholecloth.
The one thing I like the LEAST about my new studio is that carpet. My first quilting machine started on carpet, then I moved to painted concrete, then to hardwood floors, and now back to carpet. I hate it. But then, I’m not a big fan of carpet, period, so I might be biased.
For one thing, dropped pins are likely to get themselves shoved into the pile of that Berber.
For another thing, this particular carpet is in desperate need of a really good cleaning. Yuck.
It’s kind of fun to take and then post pictures of my surroundings that I haven’t “staged.”
Do you ever “snoop” at pictures that people have posted, wondering about the “stuff” that they left in the frame?
Well, here you go. Here’s the scoop on my stuff:
The quilt has since had it’s borders added. Will is going to quilt this one for the Kids Can Quilt category at the Machine Quilter’s Exposition in New Hampshire. Joe’s quilt is almost pieced. These are the two quilts I’ve mentioned in previous e-mails.
The quilt is one of my own design. I think this is my third version of it. The pattern is almost written. Pretty soon I’m going to be looking for pattern testers for a number of different patterns. If I don’t keep getting sidetracked by a million other things.
(Did you notice MY handwriting in the picture?)
Mary Jo asked about the quilt you could see in the background of yesterday’s picture. That one is a quilt that my friend Miki designed for me when I wrote my 2nd machine quilting book. It’s called Gotcha Covered (the link takes you to Knots & Bolts). The quilt on the pattern cover looks totally different. *MY* version of the quilt is on the front cover of my book.
And somewhere, I have a picture that shows more of it…but where?
Well, this shows more of it, but you have to ignore the extra “stuff” in this picture:
(Though they are awfully cute stuff. Anybody want them? You can have them. Two for the price of one, today only.)
TTFN-
I thought this yarn would be here tomorrow, but whoopee! The UPS man came today!
This isn’t even all of it, bunches of it is already priced and put away. I’m sitting down to cast on a new project** for a few minutes before I get back to it. This is not waht I’d planned for today, but sometimes we have to just roll with it.
TTFN-
Suzanne
**I HAVE TO. It’s a store sample. <——-my story, I’m sticking to it.
I mentioned in a previous post that I had done a radio interview, and I promised to come back and talk about that…
My county has an economic development group that presents recognition awards each year in a number of categories. I was nominated (well, Knots & Bolts…) in the Small Business Development category. Part of the honor of being nominated is the simple fact of some free publicity, including a newspaper article (or two?) and….a radio interview!
Shortly before we started the interview the host asked if I had ever been on the radio before. At the time I said no, but I’ve since remembered that waaaay back, when I was a senior high school I was in the school musical (Once Upon a Mattress, I was Lady Larkin. The lady-in-waiting that got knocked up…). I don’t remember all of the details, but some of the people in the show got to be on the radio for some pre-show publicity.
I think. We might have been on the radio for publicity for something else though, now that I think about it.
I digress. (I do that a lot…)
I was told to be there at 8:30, my interview was at 8:45. (I digress again: most days I don’t even shower until 9, so this was a huge thing for me to have to do…).
When I got there, the host asked me to wait a few minutes and then: at 8:35 we went ahead and did the interview. Which was fine. I think it went well, she was very personable and we just chatted like no one else was listening. I guess I can only assume that they were.
Unfortunately, it meant that I was done by 8:45, which was the time when my dear darling husband tuned in. He had not driven that day, but one of his coworkers lent him his keys, so he could go sit in a car in the parking lot and listen to me. Drat.
So, what did we talk about?
Well, we chatted about Knots & Bolts, and how and why I chose to open it. We talked a bit about how I got started quilting (and knitting…), and about the online marketing techniques I’ve employed to support the shop. It was mostly based on a questionnaire I had filled out last fall, so none of it was really a surprise.
Of course, as soon as I walked out the door I thought of about 10 different things I wished I had said.
One of the question she asked: What was your biggest challenge?
I told her, and I’ll tell all of you: the biggest challenge has been, and continues to be, staying POSITIVE even as we are continually buffeted by such bad economic news. Overall, things are going well, but some days are awfully darned quiet. Thankfully, my interests are pretty diversified, so even if I don’t have a single retail sale on a certain day, I will have gotten lots of quilting done, or maybe taken care of some wholesale book orders.
Anyway, that’s what that was all about.
I still owe you a post on the NEW quilts I cut out and have been working on, but I think that 3 posts is probably more than enough from me.
TTFN-
p.s. the awards banquet is the 24th of February. I’ll let you know how it goes. My competition is a photography studio, and another small fabric shop/longarm quilter.
