Its a start.........

                                     And you have to start somewhere...........


                                         Flower Patch - 80" x 80"

Regularly $160.00 - From April 25th - May 2nd,  only $127.00

Never to Old to Learn Something New, I guess

After a weekend of lots of bad storms here in the Midwest, yesterday dawned clear and sunny - and cooler, thank heavens. 80 degree weather in March and April makes one very worried about August. Have I mentioned more than 6 million times that I really hate hot, hot weather? :)

Anyway, it's beautiful in Missouri right now. And the garden is full of awesome flowers and spring green. We never have been able to get lilacs to bloom here but we do have Grandma Laird's iris. I'm going to have to transplant a few over to my sister Nancy's house late this summer. Her yard man got overzealous with the weed eater and she's afraid she's lost most of hers.

Anyway, I did figure something out over the weekend. It seems I've kind of been expecting you all to read our minds and know how our Goodsie store runs. Well, I know how it works so I guess I thought you all did too.

When I put something on sale, I have to go into the store and change the price for the duration of the sale (and sometimes longer, if I forget to go change it back to the original price for awhile.) It doesn't check you out and then take 15% off the regular price.

Goodsie can't give us the option of using a coupon for, say 15%, on just one item. And since the sale is just on Basket of Blooms, not everything in the store, I go change the price for a week. I tried making a note in the price section so you all would know it was the sale price but it won't let me say "$55.00, regularly 64.95". It will only put the $55.00. It will let me put the

regularly $64.95 up by the title of the kit, so I hope that helps.

I think Yahoo has it's sync problems resolved so the email should work again, I guess we're all just going to have to learn to live with a slower, more erratic post office, and lets hope things get back to normal for awhile.

Like I said, people, left brain work is not my forte, but we keep plodding along. Never too old to learn :)

April Showers need to bring Flowers - don't want to wait for May.

When it rains, it pours. And lately it's been raining a lot.

If you read my blog at all you know that we have been having problems with the mail service - or lack of it - for over a year. Things are taking an inordinately long time to get places if they make it at all. We have worked most things out on this end. On Tuesdays and Thurdays Tori drives to Kidder where her late husband's daddy is the postmaster. He makes sure our packages and letters get shipped out. What happens after that is anybody's guess but it takes an average of about 3 weeks for things to finally get where they're going. And that includes letters.

And now we seem to periodically be getting kicked off of the information highway. It seems that we're not getting a lot of our emails. Mr. Biddle (pattern purchaser at Moda) sent me 2 emails I never got. When one finally came through, he showed me a screenshot of the Moda computer records saying that they'd been sent. I believed him. I just never got them. I check my emails at least 2 - 3 times a day, usually more. Have no idea where they went. Cyberspace, I guess.

(On this note, my husband just got home from work. He got an email from Yahoo yesterday saying that there had been problem syncing email (he has an IPad, I have an I-Mac) and some emails had been temporarily unavailable. Yahoo created a "sync" file for him with the unavailable emails, they had finally resolved a problem and were giving him access to it. When he opened it there were 274 emails in it going back to July of last year.)

To quote Jack Benny "Well!"

I will say that most of our emails do come through, just occasionally one doesn't. But, of course, they're from the same people - like Mr. Biddle from Moda who sent 2 or 3 that didn't come through. If you don't get your order or just plain ole want to get in touch with us - and we don't respond to an email within a day or two (we get a lot sometimes) then there's the phone. We're here Monday-Friday 10:00-2:00 CST. But we're in and out. The answering machine says Wednesday-Friday so we can just work Monday and Tuesday but we are here. If you phone and the phone rings and rings and rings, it means we're on the other phone. If you don't get voicemail or the answering machine, we're on the phone. I have no idea why they did away with the busy signal. And if you get the answering machine, leave a message. If you get the voicemail, just wait and call back. Or call later and leave it on the answering machine. For some reason my son won't listen to voicemails. He'll call back the number on the missed call (but his phone only keeps so many) but he won't listen to voicemails. He is very good with the computer stuff, he's back in school, the father of my grandchildren and a very nice person but lousy at listening to voicemail. (At a suggestion from a relatively otherwise rude woman, I will have him change the message - good idea.)

And for those of you who don't read the comments, I am not a businesswoman. I am

first and foremost a wife, mother & grandmother and then a designer of fabric & quilts.

I only started doing kits because people asked me to because they wanted a quilt just like

mine. Linda (Brannock)and my look is a niche part of the quilt market, not available

everywhere. I started a website back when the dinosaurs roamed so that people who

lived in areas where shops don't carry this look and fabric would have access. It has

been going nicely for many years with only an occasional glitch until about last March

when the post office fell apart. Since then it has been somewhat of a nightmare as

people get very understandably frustrated at delivery (or nondelivery) of their kits.

As I was pondering how to handle all of this - most of which is out of my control

- I needed something to make me feel somewhat in control and just plain old better.

Quilt's make me feel better. They're a big way that I take care of myself.

This is one that Linda and I designed together. She came up with the big basket and

flowers. I adapted it to a Turnover and did the color and fabric. I think I changed a

couple of the flowers too. The big leaf and berries are hers. I think they're awesome.

Anyway, I decided to put the kit on Special this week. It's Basket of Blooms and

on special this week for $55.00.

It's getting close to Market with all of the deadlines. Better go stitch. :) Thanks for

all of your patience. Take care of yourselves.

Oops!!!!

Here's Block #1 (March) of the Featured Fabric Quilt this year Cockscombs & Pomegranates. If you're participating in this BOM last month you got the picture and pattern for Block #1.

Unfortunately you got the fabric for Block #2 - the April Block. Of course the fabric didn't match the block.

The fabric for your 1st block and the pattern & picture for the 2nd block will be shipping out the 17th. Since last month you got the pattern and instructions for the 1st block and the fabric for the 2nd, you then should have everything you need to make both blocks.

We're really sorry for the confusion. Wendy just grabbed the wrong cutting sheet.

Oh my, life can certainly get interesting.

Happy Easter!!

Happy Easter to everyone.

We were Spring Cleaning in the loft last week and found some stashed fabric. I think I may have enough to make a kit of Kelly's Bunnies again with just a few changes. Happy Easter to me. I just love this quilt. (Meanwhile there is the book if you want to make one out of fabric on hand.)

Have a great day of family and friends and food.

Happy Almost Easter - and we have some winners!

I almost hated to blog today because all of my pretty garden pictures wouldn't be first anymore. So I went outside and took a picture of the crabapple tree in the front yard. Not only does it look awesome but it sounds awesome too. It is alive with honeybees. They pay not one bit of attention to us as we walk by but buzz busily away gathering the stuff of next years honey.

I asked Tori if we had any Honeybee kits left that we could put on special and she said yes. So this week - until Wednesday the 10th our Honeybee kit will be on special for 15% off.

And not to forget the Farmer's Market winners - we have four. Janet, Pati, Malinda & Lara if you will email Tori at jpqinvoices@yahoo.com, we'll get you a big envelope crammed full of strips. (I replied by your comment, so you should know who you are.)

Peter Cottontail is in full swing around here. Happy Easter! Try not to eat too much candy. Sticky fingers make for sticky quilts :).

HAPPY APRIL TOOLS DAY :)

Moda Lissa (Lissa Alexander - the Marketing guru at Moda) is doing a blog post on April Tools Day. (She said it wasn't an original idea - HGTV will be doing it - but they'll be using power tools instead of sewing tools.) Anyway she asked us to tell her our favorite sewing tools and I did. Be sure to hop on over to her blog and see what everyone came up with.

Meanwhile back at the farm

Spring

has

Sprung!

Definitely!

Spring Has Sprung

Size: 42" x 46"

Fabrics from Farmer's Market and Classic Wovens by Brannock/Patek

And speaking of Farmer's Market, it shipped last week to your nearest quilt shop. Moda, being the generous company that they are, shipped me a box of strips - a big box of strips. We will bundle them into some Priority Mailers and ship some out to you if you make a comment - any old comment. We'll do a drawing on Wednesday. I have to wait until then because Monday (and maybe Tuesday) I'm filming a Needleturn Applique Tutorial over at Missouri Star Quilt Co. with my friend Jenny Doan. It will be awhile before it's ready but it will be available on my blog too. So be watching for it.

Meanwhile, hop on over and see what Lissa's come up with.

Happy April Tools Day!!