menus and galleries oh MY!!!

The past few days I've spent debugging my website and looking for tutorials for flash galleries .. I would prefer to find one close to how I want it and alter it from there, but not having much luck .. course it would likely help to NOT do this when I'm dog tired. I want to find one that allows a description and I've not found that yet .. all sorts of slideshows with or without thumbnails etc .. but nothing with a quick description. It's been a long time since I've done any serious flash and I would essentially have to relearn it all again .. I'm hoping that the tutorials will help jog my memory on the coding.

I also tried to do php for my website .. that way I would just have to update a database, and upload a picture and voila, it would be updated .. but i'm having issues connecting to the server to test the database .. everything seems to be working right, but I just canNOT connect to that blasted server to test - **sigh** So i gave up that idea .. altho, it will stick in the back of mind and if a solution presents itself, I'll be sure to try it :D

I've posted my ads on kijiji.com and there have been some decent amount of hits on them PLUS visits to my website - but alas, no emails or paypal notifications. It'll come. Are you ready for this??? I posted kijiji ads in Windsor, London, Detroit, Saginaw and Lansing .. I check later and the ads for Detroit and Saginaw have been removed. Kijiji is supposed to be a community, free classified ads and I am not in those communities - okay .. i'm 5 mins from Detroit but 2 hours from London LOL!!!!! Go figure.

I can get the space at the Walkerville Trade Center, but wondering on the money issue for it, I was really hoping to have made enough at this last show to cover that cost, but that didn't happen. I have to do some creative number crunching me thinks - I sent my link to the website to the owner of the trade center and this is what she had to say ...

I took a look at your website. Your products are amazing. I have the perfect area that will help to display them off. I have an 8 x 10 foot section that has hardwood floors and a table with wall space that is 6' high and two 8' shelves. There is also a wall space that is 4' high and 5' in length. The area is $150.00 for a monthly rental. When you come in I will show you the area. You will fall in love with it. I figured it would be perfect for your products and it will really help you with having your own business.

bit more than the original quoted price, but this sounds almost like a double space???

Oh well, I'm off to play with coding .. i did find a flash drop down menu that I want to play with .. it'll be very close to the one I have now, but won't cause all the funky issues that this one appears to be doing. Once that's done, I want to make these cute little pouch purses that Judi sent me a link too .. but am hesitant to make much more inventory as I've not managed to sell much of it .. it WOULD be nice to maybe finish my kitty quilt or get started on basting Kyle's quilt .. but i'm driven to get all this website stuff done first ..

it's been a while

My site is now live Qzone Quilting. It just finished uploading as i was typing out my update.

It's been a long while since I posted here .. so much as happened in this time ..

I remember that my walking foot went KACHUNK - well that was the noise that it started to make, and it even started to dance too .. something gave way inside .. then my machines started to pull and that created problems for me too .. i got into a HUGE deep depressive funk that lasted for about 2 weeks .. course this was right after my family was so sick too .. no clue why I got into the funk, but it's gone.

Then the day of my show arrives .. gorgeous weather .. first day like that we've had practically all winter - shoudl have been my first clue. This show was such a joke! i didn't make one bloody sale - not ONE. There might have been a total of 100 ppl thru there and 75% of them were attached to the show in some shape way or form .. the rest . were friends of the club ladies that were running the show .. so they bought there stuff .. I had other vendors interested in my things, but if they didn't make their table cost, who can blame them for not buying. Most of the vendor's didn't even make their tables .. bah!

But that didn't daunt me .. rather reconfirmed some private prejudices i had relating to the ppl running the show .. and it was a qualm that I felt when I heard where it was. But that's neither here nor there .. I set my sights upon other ventures. There is a place on Ottawa street where I can rent a shelf for $12 / month - shelf measures bout 3ft wide and 12" deep and I could go up to the ceiling which would be about 3ft - which is really cool, but they've not been able to advertise and have almost shut their doors once. So i put that on the back burner until after the show this sunday ..

In the meantime, a trader's market opened up .. or at least I became aware of it .. it's been around for about a month or so now and they have some more upscale vendors in there .. I talked to the owner today and she said that they would only have one person selling one type of item at a time .. meaning - 1 quilter only, 1 jewelry vendor only, etc etc etc .. the price is really reasonable, and I've been to check it out ... nice space roomy aisles .. just down the street from the other one too :D But this one has traffic in it. THey are open on fridays, saturday and sundays for about 8 hours each day

My back went out on me too during the time up to my show .. that was a rather painful ordeal all in itself .. lost a good 3 or 4 days there dealing with the spasms and pain .. my dad ended up kidnapping me and bringing me to ER, reg grounded me from my machines for a week after the show lol - the plan was .. to get the website up .. that went well until I splashed coffee on my keyboard and didn't realize it .. discovered it went IN the keyboard when i lost my "c" key, shift key, shortcut keys (I really depend on them heavily for graphics and html) - do you have any idea what it feels like not to be able to type your name (@@) At any rate - i found a new keyboard while checking out the traders market :D :D :D so i've been going crazy doing coding and images and whatnot to get the page live .. it's uploading as i type this ..

Then tomorrow i will get some more paper products for my table, and get other stuff ready - i'm really hoping to make some sales this time so i can get my machines adjusted . yeah i know I can do them myself, but lack the confidence right now and there is a retired singer tech that will do them for $12.95 :D :D :D .. works for me (!) Maybe he will look at the 248 as well and give me a quote to fix it .. boy do I miss that machine .

I think I've covered it all .. but sure I missed a bunch of stuff .. I've had some great support from my dad, reg, kyle and my friends during my dark funk time and I am blessed for having them .. thank you Joy, Kristin, Dottie, Judi, Linda Marie, Jan, Joanna ... I think have everyone .. if i missed you .. you can nudge me in the comments

welp back to watching my upload go up .. the last thing I will send up will be the index page.

Kitty Quilts / OST Sew-In

The mini kitties are done :D. These will be used as fillers in my kitty quilt puzzle. It's taken that name in my head. One of my lists has started a month long sew-in and my first project for this is to get this top done and ready for borders. (Which I've still not totally decided on in my mind) These little guys are all paper pieced and measure 4x4 or 4x6. There is 4 of each size and they will be perfect for the blanks that I have. I'll be using blank background fabric to fill in the rest of it. I was going to put yarn, fish, mice etc in there as well .. but I don't want this to be to busy, the focal point are the kitties, not HOW many kitties I've crammed in there.

heh I did these all over a one day period being totall sleep deprived. Might not have been the best way to do it, but I likely made choices for these kitties I wouldn't have if I had been functioning at full mental capacity and the result is actually pretty coo in my mind. I had finished them yesterday but was way to tired to do more than take pics of them. I've removed the paper and repressed them.

I'll likely be putting the mice etc as border pieces instead .. now I had to decide - do i use kitty fabric or just other fabric .. i'm inclined to use the kitty fabric as all the fabric in every kitty is kitty fabric .. the background is the only thing that isn't ..

I've updated the kitty page and all the kitties are in there .. Happy reading :)

My next project for the sew in will likely be finishing the binding on reg's quilt, basting kyle's quilt top (need to find a batting for it), starting on reg and I's bed quilt and maybe the carolina byways quilt (both for our bed; one summer, one winter), working on hand quilting based on the TV schedule ... i'm sure that more will come to me ;), I've got 3 squishes here waiting to be mailed out in the next 2 weeks

Didn't get much else done today quilt wise - does doing the update for the kitty quilt count?

Sort of Quilt Related

I did do any sewing today, but I did patch together a webpage for my kitty quilt .. this way all the blocks can be seen in once spot instead of having to sift through my blog - assuming you are interested of course LOL ;)

Sraps N Claws Enjoy!