It's not all about beer and brats

In honor of all of the valiant men and women 

                    who have served and serve their country so well......

                                 Happy Memorial Day!

Did you get a little rain?

We didn't get a little - we got a lot.  And from what I hear up north was quite a bit worse.

Makes me very glad we live at the top of a hill that's on the top of a series of hills.

Which brought to mind "Gabriel's Ark".  So I put it on special for a couple of weeks.  The regular price is $125.00.  From now until after Market it's only $106.00.

Linda and my new line is "Fellowship" and we really like it.  "Our new collection was inspired by the anticipation of another season celebrating life's simple pleasures with family and friends.  It is this Fellowship that deepens and enriches our lives."  

Here's a sneak peek at some of the fabrics that will be showing at Market next week.

They'll be shipping to your local store this September, I think.

We solved a little mystery this week.  We have been having trouble with our Quickbooks program.    Byron would put people into one of the clubs but then their name would disappear and they wouldn't get their blocks.  Or we would take them out at their request but the next time we shipped they were back in.  Everyone was getting very frustrated.

Yesterday I was in the office instead of the studio and started helping with the invoices for the latest block of the Coxcombs and Pomegranates quilt.  All of a sudden it dawned on me that Tori didn't realize that when Max (Byron) sent up the Flash Drive and we downloaded it into the office computer it was overriding anything she had done.  Tori has worked mainly in kitting and shipping for a couple of years but for quite some time has been taking over a lot of the computer work.    Those of you that got things you didn't want or didn't get things you did want, it should be sorted out shortly - I hope.  

AND, AND, AND - we started shipping the BOM'S "DELIVERY CONFIRMATION" today.

Everyone cross their fingers that this method gets them delivered in a timely manner just like the old days.  They said it should at the Post Office.

(And for the kind person who suggested "Click and Ship" - we did check into it and it is for Priority and Express Mail only, not First Class)

It's supposed to rain again Saturday - hope you don't need the Ark - just the Ark Quilt.  

Back to getting ready for Market.  Unlike Laurie and Polly we will have our own booth and are in the usual before Market scramble.

AND WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE TELL ME HOW TO GET TO THE DASHBOARD ON THE NEW SETUP SO I CAN GET TO MY READER.  I HATE IT WHEN THEY CHANGE THINGS   - JUST TO CHANGE THINGS.  DO I SOUND UPSET?  :)  I AM!  LOUSY TECHNOGEEKS.  I wanted to give you a link to Laurie's post about not having a booth and being ready in plenty of time and I CAN'T GET TO IT.

Of Cabbages & Kings

So, let's talk of many things ...... probably not cabbages & kings though.

First - that bogus email saying we had been mugged in Madrid.  I would never ask you all for money.  I have a husband, 3 kids, a sister and brother and American Express if I ever get stranded in a situation like that.  But I was in Madrid last year.  At least I was at the Madrid airport on my way to and from Nantes, France.  It is awesome!  I showed a picture last year but in case you missed it, here it is again.

But the email did bring up email issues.  You all know that we have been having trouble with the regular mail for about a year now.  Well now we're having trouble with our email.  Some - just some - are not getting through.  Lori, my quilter, called Monday with a question about a quilt.  She said that she had sent me an email Saturday.  I never got it.  That was to my personal email account.  We have also been having trouble with purchase orders not getting here.  Mr. Biddle at Moda and I have had to set up a doublecheck system because some of the purchase orders don't get here.  He's showed me a screenshot of his computer saying they were sent - and they never got here.  Recently I realized we hadn't gotten the Market Exhibitors package from Quilts, Inc.  Rose said she had sent it and I believe her and we never got it.  She did resend it and I met all of the deadlines, whew!.

What this means to you is that some of YOUR emails aren't getting through either.  And this is with 2 different servers - my personal email server and Yahoo!   So how can it be the server.  My son says we live in a communication black hole up here.   We've had people say they sent emails 2 or 3 times and we didn't respond.  Tori and I check the email at least twice every day.  If you do not hear from us within 2 business days of sending the email, try again or call.

And that brings up another issue - the phone.  If you call and the phone rings and rings and rings and no one answers it doesn't mean that we're not here when we say we'll be, it means we're on the phone.  Why in God's name Centurytel decided to do away with the busy signal is beyond me.  

Back to the regular mail issues.  We're going to try something new.  We have had a schedule for around ten years that has always worked well but not any more.  So we need to change it.  We have always shipped our BOM's the 2nd and 3rd weeks in the month.  That worked fine when it only took 2-3 days to get a block.  Now, the mean time for delivery of a First Class package seems to be about 3 weeks.  At least from here.   

                                   Cockscombs & Pomegranates - Block #3 - May


So - We'll be shipping out our BOM blocks the first half of the month.  Then maybe you'll at least get them the same month.  Imagine - the May block in May!.   Cross your fingers.
And we're sending them First Class-Delivery Confirmation which means they will be tracked.  Quite a few people had asked for Priority Mail and said that they would be glad to pay it.  Priority is tracked but not everyone wants the extra expense and we would have to be at the post office to get the tracking number.  Tori will have to take everything and spend about an hour getting all of the tracking numbers for the Delivery Confirmation too but it's about a $1.00 cheaper.  It will cost about $2.50 more to send it this way.  We'll split the cost - the blocks will only be $23.75.  We'll try this and see if it works.  The Postmaster at Kidder said it should make things go faster.

And we have someone new cutting the kits - she's just breaking in.  Hopefully everything this month should be there.  Really, she's just new at cutting.  She's been helping with the sewing for a couple of years now and is very OCD about seams and making things meet so we didn't check the kits.  Our bad.  It should be corrected by now.

Back to the Cabbages & Kings.  This is one of the baby starlings we found on the cold concrete by the office door about a week ago.  We brought them in to keep them warm and to keep them from being eaten by one of the cats.  Then Zoie found a recipe for baby bird food on the internet.........

we mixed it up in Pep's new Vitamix and made baby bird pablum..........

This is Polly with Zoie.  They still need their pablum but are fully feathered.  It seems we have 2 new pets.

So - the quilt on special this week just has to be Cockscomb and Bird.  Regularly $64.95 - this week - until May 10th - only $54.35

WELL, FOR PETE'S SAKE - DON'T HELP

If you get an email that says this

Hi,   Just writing to let you know our trip to Spain Madrid   has been a mess. I was having a great time until last night when we got mugged and lost all my cash, credit card and cell phone It has been a scary experience, I was hit at the back of my neck with a club. Anyway.I'm still alive and that's whats important. I'm financially strapped right now and need your help. I need you to loan me some $$, I'll refund it to you as soon as i arrive home.Please let me know what you can do  Sincerely,  Byron Patek Jan Patek Quilts  Ignore it please.  We're not in Madrid - didn't get mugged. Someone hacked into our Yahoo account apparently and got all of our addresses.  Thanks to all of you who alerted us. Just one more crazy thing.

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.