I **think** it's done - for now

**mental checklist**

quilt gallery uploaded

location loaded

index page updated with gallery link

ideas for new inventory / projects

I finally found a tutorial for a gallery in flash that allows me a description without the frufra of a sliding thumbnail images .. Lordy but that was a search and a half .. I found one that gave me the basic instructions for what I wanted to do .. nothing complicated, just easy to use, simple to follow directions with explanations!! Thank God.

While I was doing this searching and then finally the coding, I had been thinking that I need to have some smaller ticket items in for sale could make the difference between not making my table cost and clearing my table .. some of the ideas are:

1. scrunchies - 3 or 4 for $1


2. bookmarks - $1 - could make these with heavy interfacing or craftbatting


3. knitted dishcloths - $1


4. knitted pot scrubbies - $1


5. mini coasters - $1 - I'll call these keyboard koasters - I have one a dear friend gave me for Cmas in 2000 and it lives next to my keyboard - no batting - yes Dottie I still have and use it ;)


6. quilted postcards - $3.50 - $5.00 - idea for the future, I need to see what regulations Canada Post has on these


7. or even doing a kit with a coaster, a coffee cup, and a bag of tea / hot chocolate or some hot drink .. cider maybe for the winter months.


8. doing a buy two reduced price for trivets - I had a lady try to barter with me for trivets, what I should have said was, I'll sell you 2 for .... but I wasn't expecting that and didn't think quick enough .. granted I thought of it AFTER she walked away from my table .. to late :S

These are all smaller ticket items that ppl can spend their 'pin' money on. I think that's what ppl are looking for at these shows. I know I ALWAYS need scrunchies. And to display these; in the quilted baskets that everyone says are so bloody clever but no one buys :|.

I have a ton of yarn packed away in the basement .. I'm positive that I didn't give away my needles and case .. I'm hoping that they are in the same box as the yarn .. oh and this is a HUGE box of yarn .. also I'm sure that there is a ton of yarn of my mum's at my dad's house still .. so could get her yarn .. and needles if need be ...

Also in the back of my mind is getting maybe some baby quilts or wall quilts done - but I also want to get MY quilts done too .. Kyle's quilt, my kitty quilt, the sea scape just needs a binding to be put on it. A friend in the UK wants me to make her a quilt and we've decided on the grandmother's fan in pale colours .. I'm pretty excited about doing this for her and will get started on that soonest :D That way I can add them to my product pages and my quilt gallery.

I just have to be sure that my webpage is finally all set and I can move forward .. I'm so bloody fussy sometimes ... LOL

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 ..

a tad of a success

Well today dawned with me looking outside and saying "I am so BLOODy cursed!!!" It was snowing .. sideways even .. I'm like .. are you kidding me ..

today was the day of my second show .. and this nasty weather didn't bode well for a good turn out .. not to be daunted, I grabbed the fliers i had printed out (just did a copy of the index page of my website, got it to fit on one page with my contact information on it and printed 50 of them out in colour :D), scissors, tape, camera, ribbon, bags that were left next to my bin of inventory and packed the rest of it away and got ready to go. I did this on 3 hrs sleep .. and amazingly I'm still up .. tired as all get out .. but feeling pretty bloody good bout myself ;)

I get there and see some familiar faces in the vendors but no other quilters in the room i was in . they placed me in the gym and I had a 4 x 10' space .. room for the table (they provided) and my tote rack that reg made for me. Get set up in record time and waited

I did make my first sale bout 2 hrs in .. sold a wallet and a coaster. I was asked about doing memory quilts, a commissioned wall hanging and do i teach .. nope - not sure bout that one at all .. while I didn't break any records with sales - 2 wallets, coaster set and a large rice trivet - I did give out a LOT of business cards, answer a lot of questions and gave out fliers

So while I didn't break even again .. I did learn again - this show had a LOT more people and more traffic .. and a wider sampling of the population me thinks.

What surprises me is that the totes didn't sell and i figured that the trivets would have been a hot little item too (no pun intended) - ah well .. other vendors were saying that you just never know what ppl are going to want to buy when they come in the door .. i'm beginning to feel like the shows have a 'garage sale' flavour to them .. they don't want to pay the prices or are looking for cheaper stuff .. I need to do more thinking about that - doesn't make sense to lose money at a 'garage sale'

T-Minus 12 Hours & Counting ....

I've spent that past 2 weeks doing my website. It went live yesterday :\ **gulp** A few friends spent some much needed time helping me debug it .. my greatest thanx to you all!1 I got some wonderful suggestions from Kristin, Judi sat for a few hours with me going over links and images .. Joy had few great suggestions and Jan told me issues with my menu, Linda also told me about issues with my menu as well .. all much needed and wanted feedback .. Thank you so much ladies.

Yesterday reg built me a stand for my totebags to be hung on .. doesn't look the greatest, but it's small and lightweight and cost us nothing .. we used the third leg from the audio pier for this with some scraps of laminate flooring! I'll hang just a few totes on there at a time so it doesn't look overwhelming and maybe some on the wall behind me along with my sign .. :D I'm just tickled to death to have it.

I learned a LOT at my first show .. let's hope that that total failure sales-wise shows some profit with the lessons that i learned. I've gotten small tent cards and printed my logo, item name and price on it .. they will be displayed on the items or beside them. I wanted to go to the dollar store yesterday while i was doing all my other running around, but didn't have any cash. i wanted to grab some hooks for this stand and also those plate easle type things .. so that way I can sort of stand up a few things to help attract attention to them. I'm going to start with the display style that I ended up with. i also picked up some bristol board, expanded my logo to fit width of board, then sliced my logo and printed it out - all 10 pages LOL .. just have to trim the white at one side and top or bottom and glue them to the bristol board :D.

I spent today debugging my site - My dad showed up and I suddenly remembered that I had totally forgotten to go to the bank bout 2 miles from my house) to get my float *aw crap!!!* So I decided to take the dog for a walk and walk to the bank (needed to deposit a check anyways) and see if Tim Horton's would sell me some fives .. you know it started to rain as i left the house :S .. but i wanted to do this in daylight and of course I would have the dog with me :D.

Well the girl at tims, was going to sell me some 5s and 10s but suddenly changed her mind .. i'm like what the ... and not to bloody happy either .. I WAS going to pay for my coffee with 2 loonies, but changed my mind and use a 20 instead.

Grumbling deprecations bout her parentage, off I trot to Macs on the way home .. the kid there gave me half of what he had in his drawer .. Bless Him!! What a sweetie - but he had no 10s.

So i stop at the store near my house (had already stopped on my way to the bank, and he had none), and asked about 10s - he had like 3, but told me to come back between 9 and 10 and he would give me what he could then .. I don't need much more .. maybe 2 more 5s and 3 10s - and i'll be good to go.

i'm ready for a nap :S Been a long time since I've walked 4 miles .. i just have to do my sign, triple check a few things and maybe do a few more coaster sets .. we'll see how I feel .. i've not sewn in 2 weeks and I'm feeling deprived ;) Judi sent me the cutest quickest pattern for a origami pouch and I might try to get 1 or 4 done tonite .. they are just made with a square of fabric and some cording :D. I do have to do some more work on my menu for the site - I think I need to replace it as it appears to give ppl various fits - from not laying out right to not even showing up :O .. maybe I'll do a flash one - but i should get some text links in there for now .. we'll have to see.

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.