Ok. I know. I have been terribly slack this month and not written many posts.
But in my defense I have been distracted by something very cool. (and also by something very boring but I won’t talk about grown-up paperwork, curse you BAS!)
This is what I’ve been mesmerised by ….
See what I mean? 🙂
So far I have quilted (since Tuesday morning)
– 1 x customer order (single bed size) and put the binding on.
– 2 x flannel play mats for the market on Sunday. Click here for market details.
– 1 x table runner (a UFO that has sat in a box for 4 years!)
– 1 x pastel baby cot quilt (will be for sale at market if I get the binding on in time)
And in between all of this quilting I have served customers, answered the phone, Facebooked (that’s a thing right?) pieced more customer orders and tried unsuccessfully to do paperwork (yuck).
As soon as I’ve had plenty more practice I will be offering a quilting service – I need to nut out the details but it will be fairly straightforward.
So… it’s now Friday night and I’m knackered but still have a busy few days ahead of me. But as tiring as this all sounds I am excited and can’t stop!
The Handmade Craft Market is finally at it’s new home on Sunday – I cannot wait to see all the new stallholders, catch up with the regulars and see what exciting hints we’ve all been doing since the last market (November last year – seems like years ago). I am also very very eager to see what our stallholder challenge has produced. There were 14 or 15 of us (I’ve lost count) and we each had a bundle of fabric from Frankenstein’s to use to make an item(s) to be donated to a charity raffle for Walk for Zoe. Some of you may remember that terrible news story in 2009 when Brodie Donegan was hit by a car driven by a drug affected driver on Christmas day. Brodie was 32 weeks pregnant with daughter Zoe. Zoe didn’t survive the accident but her mother’s determination that no other parent should go through anything like this has become the driving force behind her fundraising efforts for Miracle Babies.
After the market on Sunday I don my other hat and get the next beading magazine ready for design. This issue has a line up of amazing projects (I am biased though – I am the Editor :)). A lot of people ask me how I run a full-time business and contract for a magazine – well the mag is not a full-time job, so it’s not a case of juggling two full-time jobs. As the editor I source projects, organise paperwork, sort out what needs photography, more paperwork, editing of instructions and writing articles. I find the work I do for beading to be my unwind time from my unwinding sewing time. (I’m so unwound right now…) I have always liked writing so now I get a balance of writing and sewing.
Part of the reason why I made the move from the magazines to my dream of the shop was because I wanted to change my life around. Things didn’t feel quite right, don’t get me wrong things were good, but I had a niggle in the back of my mind that something needed to change. One day driving around with dad, he went to see his friend Chappy at the scrap metal yard and we went to the back gate of the scrap yard driving past a row of industrial warehouse units. The second one had a FOR LEASE sign on it. While dad was talking to Chappy I went and had a sticky beak… as I peered inside my brain immediately went off like New Year’s fireworks and everything fell into place. So I investigated what I had to do, who I had to speak to and what papers I had to sign and the rest is history.
So now 4 months down the track I run the shop, edit the magazine, attend local markets and sew to my heart’s content.
Also next week heralds the start of classes РI am teaching a basic appliqu̩ class on Saturday the 25th of February. There are still spaces left in the class if you would like to book in. $30 for the class, it includes a kit (apron, vliesofix, stitch-n-tear). All you need to bring is Рyour machine, pencil, paper, scraps of fabric and threads to match. Any questions or to make a booking ring (02) 4325 2638.
I’ll have more classes up shortly so keep an eye on the tab. I’ll be adding some dates to previous classes as well.
I can’t promise I’ll be more dutiful with these posts – February seems to be getting away from me…
Night.
Marni