Good To Go
OK, I am 98% packed. The last things are the things we need until the last minute we live here.
I did this mostly myself. Keith was pretty much useless. He stopped working a week ago yesterday but mostly all he did this week was sit and play games on Facesbook (farmville & mafia wars) or run errands for me.
Today, I (verbally) kicked butt and made him finish packing the kitchen with me. I am not sorry to be leaving Apollo Beach/Tampa. I was out-of-place here, and *they* made sure I knew it.
People always asked me if I was from England (I speak nicely, enunciate, know a lot of words that are mostly useless). I would tell them “No, I’m from Boston”. It might as well have been England.
There are many definitions, many and varied types of behavior that get a woman considered a *bitch*. Around here, not dressing, talking, thinking and doing business the customary and usual way is enough to earn one the title.
I recently saw a picture of the author Jackie Collins (not one of my favorites but I have a healthy respect for accomplishment) in a short interview in Vanity Fair magazine. She was wearing a belt with the word “bitch” spelled out in diamonds on the buckle. It worked for me.
It is amazing to me that areas of Florida can be so very different from each other. On the east coast of Florida I am unremarkable, to the extreme. Here, not so.
Oh well. I am going home.
I have been on Facebook some today, it is not a place I spend a lot of time. I go there to keep in touch with Keith’s family (who are all there in all their glory) and to market NewNeedlepoint.com.
Most of my “friends” there are either family or in the on-line needlepoint community. I respond yes to most friend requests and suggestions from within the needlepointers.
There were 2 of them who were particularly pesky however. One, Wendy Stevens, who I don’t know except on facebook would send me suggestions of people I should “friend” quite often. Oddly, they were people who had few friends already and none within my “facebook communities”. These were mostly harmless.
Then there is Gloria Vaughn Morgan. I have no idea who or what she is but almost daily I would get these emails through the facebook system from her, telling me to join this group, join that group, become a “fan” of this or that.
They were endless. I began, however foolishly, to resent what I started thinking of a “cyber pushiness” or even “cyber bullying”.
Some were harmless, some were outside my “areas”. I had a whole week of repeated requests to join an Embroidery Group (and me a hard core needlepointer).
So, this evening, after packing, packing, packing I sat down here to check my email and there she was again, with another group.
I sent her a message through facebook asking her why she was doing this. I told her that I, like her, was more then capable of making my own “group” decisions without her guidance.
Ohhhh, she de-friended me. I am devastated!
What else. I sold more books this past week and I sold the Laurel Burch Butterfly Dogs canvas alone today.
The canvases and kits are packed but accessible, I will ship it Monday.
My web site checkout process messed up AGAIN with this order.
Remember how it did not collect International Shipping from the customer in Australia?
Today it collected $15.00 international Shipping from a customer in Arizona (last time I checked they were still in the USA).
I have an email in to poor put-upon Zac about this but I will not be back on-line until Thursday.
Want to put some money on how much I have unpacked between Wednesday morning (when our stuff get unloaded) and Thursday between 8 and 11am when the Comcast guy is expected?
Anyone?
I thought not.
Want to hear something nice? Jack the Cat is not welcome to spend the night Tuesday night at my mother’s house. He is not a good traveler (understatement alert) and she is concerned he will have a puke-a-thon on her carpets (the only woman in S. Florida with wall to wall carpet in the entire house). I can’t blame her on this one.
So, Jack was going to spend the night at our own house, but empty of furniture. I was going to bring his binkie and his food bowls and such but still. I was concerned he would be traumatized by the long ride and then being alone in an empty house all night.
He is a people cat, I doubt he knows he is a cat, really, except that he knows he is superior to us but must ask us cretins for food, to get it.
So Keith is going to drop me at my mother’s and go back and spend the night with Jack the Cat in the empty house. He is going to make a nest for them in quilts, on the bedroom carpet. (I do not have wall to wall in my whole house).
Isn’t that nice of Keith?
boxed in
Anything I might need is in a box already. No matter what I think of doing, it is already packed. I am getting close.
I am at the last of the 2nd (intermediate) layer of packing. That is the stuff you use, just not every day. The last (crucial) layer will be packed Sunday & Monday (or Saturday & Monday, see below).
I am seriously thinking of going to a nice hotel Sunday night. Take the day off Sunday, driving somewhere nice and spending the night at a hotel.
It has become impossible to relax here. I woke at 4am this morning and started working, changing addresses on-line. I can’t use the tape gun when Keith is asleep, it wakes him up.
Getting back to needlepoint, however briefly, I heard something amazing this week. The nice lady at Comcast who helped me set up my internet access, phone and cable TV was named Yasmin (I keep running into these lovely names, they makes me dislike being named clunky ole “marianne”).
Anyway Yasmin gave me a wonderful and easy phone number. I told her I was old & stupid and needed an easy phone number (I have used that line before). When she stopped laughing she gave me a pip of a number. She asked what my internet business was, I told her (briefly). Yasmin told me there is a lady in her office who does needlepoint. She takes a plain canvas and stitches it without any pattern, graph or design either on the canvas or on paper.
At first I thought she was talking about Bargello Needlepoint or TrianglePoint or something like that.
I asked her where the canvases graphic designs or “pictures”? She said pictures. Someone out there is stitching detailed pictures on bare canvas with no direction or pre-plan.
I think that is amazing. I can’t even imagine being able to do that, beyond a graphic of some sort. I wish I knew who she was.
Something odd is happening to me as I pack. It somehow seems as if I don’t have quite as much stuff as I did when I moved here 6 months ago. Less than when I first moved to Apollo Beach in November 2008.
How can this be? The biggest room so far has been my office, by far.
It eclipses all my books or my closet (a biggie, that). I have 17 boxes of *office* plus 4 *mini-wardrobe* boxes with my drawn & painted canvases hung up in them with the bags of threads in the bottom, each marked which canvas it belongs to.
In my original move here, I forgot to mark the kit bags with which canvas it went with. Placing them was a hard task, when I unpacked.
I did not know I was getting these *mini wardrobe boxes*. The mover is lending me wardrobe boxes for our clothes and mattress boxes for the mattresses. They seem to be nice guys…so far.
I bought my boxes from Home Depot instead of the UPS store this time. The 4 *mini wardrobes* were part of the set. They cost a lot less but now I know why.
They are all recycled paper, which is good, but they do not seem to be well made. I distrust the side seams, I have taped these seams on any box packed with anything heavy.
I bought the XL packing kit, it came with a good number of boxes, a pitiful amount of bubble wrap and a few slabs of paper (to wrap stuff in) plus nasty tape I can break just by pulling on it.
While I do not recommend moving to anyone, if you do, don’t buy the Home Depot packing kit.
So, where shall we go Sunday & Sunday night? St Augustine is too far, I work hard to avoid Orlando and the theme parks. Key West is way too far.
There is the Seminole Casino & their great hotel but It is dangerous to stay there too long. A few hours & $50.00. sure but overnight and my wallet?
YIKES, maybe not.
I wonder how far Amelia Island is? Someone told me it was sort of a kind of pseudo Key West.
I wonder.
International Shipping Redux
I forgot to tell you the final settlement of my International Shipping Dilemma.
After I recovered from the shock of one book to Australia costing $19.00 I knew I had to make sweeping changes. (still? again?)
So, Now all the Needlepoint Stuff on NewNeedlepoint.com is a $15.00 flat fee to ship internationally. No matter how much you order, $15.00.
There was no way Zac & I could figure out to separate some of the small tools, so if you order 1 Bent Tip Needle Laying Tool it will cost $15.00 to ship internationally. I figure that is enough of a deterrent.
Then again, if you order the Bent Tip Needle Laying Tool with a DMC color card and a Needlepoint Kit, it is still $15.00.
I hope this works out Ok.
Then Zac & I were faced with the book dilemma. We can’t do a flat fee. If it was based on shipping 1 book it would be unfair to me if someone ordered more then 1.
If it was based on more then 1 book, it would be unfair to someone who bought just 1.
Then Zac (my wonderful Tech) suggested we do it by the number of books bought. Incredulous, I asked if we could do that. Yes, we can.
Now it is $12.00 per book to ship internationally. This will be to low if it is Australia, too high if it is Canada (maybe) but in the end it will balance out (I hope).
So, are you as bored by International Shipping as I am?
The packing goes on. I sent Keith to pack the guest room today. He packed 1 box of DVDs and he did it wrong.
moving hint from marianne the Packing Queen. “It is bad to over fill the boxes, then the movers can’t safely stack them on the dollys for the trips to the truck and back.”
“Boxes fall when they are not stacked well and things get broken”.
Anyway, that was all he packed today (and I have to re-pack it)
It’s OK. I can do this.
The Tape Gun & Me
I am a good Doo-Bee (anyone besides me old enough to remember Romper Room on TV with Miss Jean?).
I paid bills this morning. Good Dog. I packed all my wools and my #8 floss in 5, 18 X 18 X 25 inch boxes (with 4 colors left over) I sold another book.
A needlepoint Gallery of Patterns From the Past by Phyllis Kluge
I am selling a lot of books, my huge new order is waiting for me at my folks house on the other coast.
I packed the contents of the shelves in my office. My cookbooks (I am a terrible cook), all my own Needlepoint and Bargello Books (2.5 12 X 12 X 16 boxes all by themselves) and most of all the other stuff from the shelves. The total for just the book shelves in just my office is 6, 12 X 12 X 16 inch boxes.
I have a set of 2 big sort of Mission Style natural cherry wood glass front bookcases in my living room (the room that is hardly ever used, a wasted space IMO but my mother maintains a major, industrial strength Jones about how everyone has to have a formal LR).
Keith packed 10, 12 X 12 X 16 inch boxes of books from there (and not much else, so far).
I am nuts. I can prove this to you by telling you I wash everything from my kitchen before I pack it. I will wash it again when I unpack it. I am nuts.
1 still have the 24 drawers of 10 boxes per drawer (a box is 12 skeins but most of the slots have more then 10 shoved in them) of the DMC #5 to pack.
If there was a Tape Gun Competition I would win. I am The Master Taper.
Off and on all day I read The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. I began it last night but only got 2 chapters in before I fell asleep.
I read and read today. Anytime I took a break I read. I read it at breakfast, at lunch. I finished packing at about 4pm. I read it until 9.00P when I finished it.
It is a excellent book. I have to admit, it dragged a bit in the middle but it picked up it’s pace again and I read on.
The amazing thing about this book is it is all true. It happened to Jeannette Walls and her family. It is believable, no matter how far it went, I could see how it can have been.
It struck me (like a freight train) that I have more then a little of Rose Mary Walls, the mother, in me. She is not a villain, there is no real bad guy in the book, not really.
She has written another book, recently published (The Glass Castle is several years old, I actually found it reading the review for this new one).
It is called Half Broke Horses. She calls it a True-Life Novel. The book is about her grandmother’s life, her mother’s mother. She sounds like a real pip (for lack of a better word).
Tomorrow I take another stab at establishing the utilities at home. I am at “point non plus” on this. I must get this done and I can’t let anyone stop me, even if she is named Maybelline.
It is my current wish (or wishes) that my excellent customers would buy more then my excellent books on NewNeedlepoint.com (HA! bet you thought I wouldn’t get the link in) and that I never have to move again.
Stitch Books & Blather
Saturday January 23rd 2010, 9:55 pm
Filed under:
Mostly Books I am packing, packing, packing. I did not leave the kitchen for last, so that I will be up the whole night before the move finishing it, like last time.
It is going well. Keith is a help but I can’t let him pack anything that requires more then putting in a box. He packs the way most men do the dishes, do the absolute minimum and never think to wipe down the counters, clean out the sink or rinse & squeeze the sponge. Still, it is easier then doing it all by myself.
I am expecting the New Stirling Tote bags and accessories any moment. They are being delivered to my folks house. (smart of me, I have my moments).
I need to go through all my canvases to see which of them might fit into the the openings of the things I have ordered.
These items are all made of Leather. I have the large tote bags coming, a wallet, several checkbook covers, an accessory case and key fobs. I know I have nothing to fit the wallet, check book covers or key fobs.
We are not packing the plain canvases & paints till last, Keith hopes to do a few this week, when I am not slave driving him to pack.
Dr Denise, my intrepid and wonderful stitcher friend is stitching my Ballet Bear canvas. That is the one with the wonderful bear in a tutu dancing with a quote from Katherine Hepburn ” If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun”
I asked her to use some fancy stitches on him, I want to do a stitch guide for him, but she did not want to choose them herself. I sent her some printouts from the Stitch-opedia web site and a book of stitches.
I wanted to send her something, I am so grateful for the work she is doing for me. She says she is enjoying herself stitching. Anything I offer her she refuses, so I just sent this without asking.
.
I sent her my copy of Hope Hanley’s 101 Needlepoint Stitches and How To Use Them.
This got me thinking about the basic Needlepoint Stitch Books out there so I thought I would, in my own warped and opinionated way, review them.
There are many wonderful needlepoint stitch books out there. My first ever was Lucinda Ganderton’s Stitch Sampler. It has just a few basic needlepoint stitches, most of the book is embroidery stitches, but they are all clear and easy to learn. This book is still in print, which is why I do not sell it on NewNeedlepoint.com (had to get the link in here somewhere)
I am not critiquing the educational value of these books, just the stitches shown, how *user friendly* they are etc. If I was doing teaching books, it would be all about The New York Times Book of Needlepoint by Elaine Salter.
I am also not doing Bargello books…yet. Tonight is needlepoint.
Hope Hanley’s book was my second. It is not the biggest, and sometimes the stitch directions can be a little confusing but it is , overall, a great book with the added advantage of showing each stitch stitched. The pictures of the stitched stitches in Ms Hanley’s book are quite clear. This makes it much easier to choose a stitch to stitch.
Next up are the 2 other “classics”. Jo Ippolito Christian’s book, The Needlepoint Book which is subtitled A Complete Update of the Classic Guide, is not a book I use. I find it difficult to “get around” in it, the stitches hard to follow and her instructions not always clear. Still, it is a famous and indeed a classic book so I will not diss it. Since most people like this book the problem here could be me.
I will however say “poo” to The Complete Needlepoint Guide 400+ Needlepoint Stitches by Susan Sturgeon-Roberts. It is, to me anyway, a useless book. The pictures are dark, there is no picture of the stitches stitched. The charts are not very clear. There are so many much better needlepoint stitch books out there.
I am not familiar with either The Needlepoint Book:303 stitches with patterns & prijects by James T. Long and Lynn Lucas Jones or Susan Higgenson’s Needlepoint Stitches: 52 Stitches Explained and Illustrated (good name for a book however), so I will not mention them.
Now, we are getting into books I sell on my web site. I am not promoting them because I sell them. I sell them because they are good and useful books.
My forte is hard-to-find books, after all.
Carolyn Ambuter’s Complete Book of Needlepoint says it is the “most comprehensive, easiest to use dictionary of stitches ever complied” and I will not argue with her. It is a big book with heavy paper covers and a spiral binding which always makes a book easier to use. You open it to a page and it stays open. I like that.
The instruction part of the books is good. It includes an important page on Shading & Blending. few books mention that hard to learn topic.
There are color pictures of the stitches used in pillows and such salted all through the book.
She divides the stitches in to types. The first section is Slanting Stitches. There are 29 of them.
Side note, I often find it confusing to find the stitch I want in a stitch book, they seem to be there in a random order or maybe the order is beyond me, that is possible. Putting the stitches in these categories makes them easier to find.
Next is Straight Stitches. There are 10 of them. Then Cross Stitches, 14 of them. Then Tied and Looped Stitches. 12 of them, I did not realize there were so many Tied and Looped Stitches.
The book finishes with an Alphabet Sampler, with each letter graphed out using Parisian Stitch, Scottish Stitch and Shell Stitch. Each is shown stitched in full color.
The book goes into lots of detail, it has hints, ideas and even a few projects.
These 65 stitches take 92 pages to show and describe. They are indeed clear & complete.
The Book of Needlepoint Stitches by Susan Higgenson is a small English hard cover book. I do not know if it has any relation to the American version of Susan Higgenson’s Needlepoint Stitches book mentioned above.
I bought this to sell on NewNeedlepoint.com but snagged it for myself. It is terrific. and the right size to slip into my needlepoint tote bag de jour, to take anywhere with me.
I am trying to get another to sell.
The last book I am talking about tonight is Mary Rhodes Dictionary of Canvas Work Stitches.
This is another needlepoint book that was published in England. This book is the Larousse Gastronomique of Needlepoint Books. These are not your everyday stitches. This is a book for the most experienced and able stitchers.
These are stitches here I have never even heard of and would never (ever) try. The are advanced and then some.
Gate Stitch
Ghiordes Knot
Indian Stitch
Interlocking Leaf
Cross Plus Two
Cornered Chain
Coral Knot
Italian Two Sided
Lattice Square-Twisted
Quodlibet
Rhodes Half Half-Drop (I am not kidding)
Rococco Square
Rose & Rose Overlapped
Wheatsheaf
Woven Eye
These are just some as I leafed through the book. There are some “regular* stitches in among these but this book is amazing.
There is a picture of Ms. Rhodes on the back dust cover of this book. She looks like she know her stuff.
So, this encompasses my limited knowledge of Needlepoint Stitch Books.
I am curious now about the Susuan Higgenson Book, the current US version. I think I will order it after I move. In the name of research, of course, not acquisitive mania, not me.
I have probably mentioned before I get the New York Times delivered here every day. It took me many months and the help of a supervisor in the Home Delivery Dept at the NY Times to get me this paper and I pay an obscene amount for it.
It seems no one else in Apollo Beach (or Ruskin either, we share a zip code with them) takes this paper. Needless to say, I tip my delivery person lavishly.
The local paper is scary. It is almost as if they were kidding, publishing a newspaper this narrow, biased and foolish, but they are not.
Please understand, I am no intellectual. I am moderately smart and medium aware but the Tampa Tribune? Oh my.
I keep and read the book review section. I took a break from my Georgette Heyer and Barbara Pym reading hole (or maybe I should call it a reading valley) I think I was stopped short by finishing Georgette Heyer’s A Civil Contract, which is my #2 favorite. I have read it umpteen times still…….
So got a copy of a book I saw reviewed in the Times book section. It is called Glass Castles by Jeanette Walls.
It is not fiction, the currently popular genre of books is memoirs. She describes being raised by her *free spirit* parents. I am only on the second chapter but so far, I am riveted.
I was a young adult in the 60′s & 70′s. I knew many people who raised their children in *alternative* ways. There were many ways to be different, may alternative choices. (I suppose there still are but somehow it seems different now)
I have wondered how it was for these kids, how they turned out.
It may be that Jeanette Walls experience was extreme, then again maybe not.
We watched the movie The Invention of Lying last night. It was great. It was funny, it was topical and it said something (as opposed to the many movies that say absolutely nothing as loud or as lavish as they can).
I recommend it. It is just out on Request/Pay-Per-View. In fact I triple recommend it. Maybe even quadruple.
Reality
I am not much into New Years resolutions. My only one is to try to live more in reality this year and less in marianneland.
marianneland is a lovely place to live, everything there is as it should be and things always turnout for the best. Even if they seem to be troublesome or difficult, in the end they are better or best.
Keith invented marianneland years ago. I told him I did not mind living in New England, that I did not mind the cold (actually, that is true. I used to walk outdoors year round, as long as the ground was not icy) as much as I dislike the heat (7 months a year here are too hot to walk outdoors, I wilt and fall over like a dead flower).
He said living in the northeast was easy for me, since I live in marianneland, where if it is bad out I do not have to go ut and if I am cold I turn up the heat.
So, I have been beating him up with marianneland ever since. It always makes us laugh.
I have been unrealistic about NewNeedlepoint.com.
I expected too much, too soon. A former friend once told me I was “inappropriate and I expected too much”. She meant it to hurt me, I have since made it my motto.
One of the things that has been brought home to me is how unrealistic my entire view of the world is. I suppose I do not live in the same reality as most people. I can’t really explain why or how this is. No one reading this blog wants to read THAT much reality from me, I am sure of this.
So, into another year. I am going to offer international shipping. it is going to cost more. It is going to cost what it costs me.
It ended up costing me $19.00 to ship 1 book to Australia.
I am going to continue offering free shipping, I am going to sweat out how long it may take for some of the more expensive canvases and kits to sell.
That is reality. I do not want to become a cut-rate needlepoint store or only buy canvases for re-sell below a certain price point. That is not me or what I want NewNeedlepoint to be.
So, what can I tell you? Things on my web site are priced to sell at a profit, but well below the accepted 100% profit.
AWK, enough of this stuff. I have moving stories for you.
The tape gun is one of the finest tools ever invented. I give it a 5 out of 5 possible stars. I am a whizz with a tape gun.
I spent yesterday dealing with turning utilities off here and on there. This is time consuming and often frustrating.
I remind myself that it is real people on the other end of each call. I find if I can get them laughing, it goes very well.
One lady at Comcast was named Maybelline. When she said it at the beginning of the call, I could not believe it. I interrupted her “script” and asked her if I heard right. She said yes, I said her parents must be music fans and told her how much I liked her name. And I do, very much.
Many of these utility changes I can’t do until my tenants make the *turn off* arrangements. I hope they are not last minute people. That will drive me nuts, major nuts.
I have discovered no matter how much bubble wrap you buy, it is not enough and Jack The Cat does not find it amusing when I step on the bubbles to make them *pop*.
I just placed a huge new book order. Some replacements and some completely new. I keep finding these books. All I see is the title and author’s name when I order them but some of them sound just wonderful.
Those will probably be the worst and the not so special sounding books will be the terrific ones. (that would be typical of marianneland)
I have some really new, news. Patt, of Patt & Lee Designs just came back from the big TNNA show in Long Beach, California talking about the “hit of the show”, these great Stirling Tote bags and accessories.
They are designed so you can stitch almost any needlepoint (or cross stitch or embroidery) design you like on something sized to fit in the slot.
The bags are called *Self Finishing*. Each item has a self-stick board that you attach you needlework too and put it into the slot on the bag.
These can be changed, as well. I jumped on it and found the distributor, placed an order. I ordered tote bags, accessory kits, key chains, wallets & wallet covers.
I got these pictures from the Stirling Web Site
I should have them very soon, I will list them as soon as I move & unpack.
I bet I list them well before I am all unpacked.
Back to packing.
AWK!
Saturday January 16th 2010, 9:35 pm
Filed under:
Mostly Books I know, I have not done an *AWK* post for some time now but I got a doozy today.
First up, I completely messed up the name of the Barbara Pym novel I am reading. I said it was called Almost An Angel.
It isn’t. The book is called “Less Then Angels” which is about as different, in terms of meaning, as it could be.
Ok, now to the big AWK!.
As I mentioned last night (OK, crowed about) I sold 4 books to a new customer in Australia. I was jazzed that my books categories were doing so well.
She bought :
Bargello: An Explosion in Color by Margaret Boyles
Beth Russell’s Victorian Needlepoint
Erica Wilson’s Needlepoint
Free Form Bargello by Gigs Stevens.
The automatic module which should have charged her an additional $10.00 for International Shipping did not work when the sale was made.
What could I do? Go back and say “ahhh, you see my web site screwed up so I need another $10.00?” I think not.
I had not sold books to an international buyer yet, I figured how bad can it be? I will “eat” the cost.
(can you imagine the hysterical calls to poor Zac The Tech on Friday? He, of course, responded immediately and fixed it)
So, I wrap them all nicely in tissue paper, I package them in a nice big padded envelope. I do one of my very cool NewNeedlepoint.com colorful mailing labels. Good to Go.
We get to the post office this morning 20 minutes before it is to close, all good so far.
I get to the counter and I ask the nice postal clerk for the cheapest price to mail this 7.5 pounds of books to Australia, without doing the 3 month ground post.
She tells me the “slow boat” is not an option anymore. She says the cheapest way to send them will be $61.00.
AWK $61.00?
For books whose total retail cost to the buyer was $72.00?
Not only would I not make any profit (AWK) it would cost me substantial money to sell these to her.
AWK. I came home and emailed her. I apologized, repeatedly and explained the situation.
She is being very nice about it. She says she had been surprised I sold them to her without the surcharge for shipping
She said she could only afford one book, with appropriate shipping and she asked how much to ship The Margaret Boyles book, Bargello: Explosions in Color.
A good choice, I love the Margaret Boyles books.
Ok, it is the biggest of the 4 books but I do not want to be piggy here so I told her $40.00. $28 for the book and $12.00 for the shipping. The shipping will be more like $15.-$16 but I want to try and make up for my mess up.
She happily agreed and bought the book.
I have spent this evening changing the text in the listing of every single book I have for sale on NewNeedlepoint.com
I now say that I can’t offer International Shipping for a flat fee. I put in my email and asked that anyone wanting books shipped outside the USA should email me with the book(s) name and destination. I will then get back to them with a cost based on weight and delivery address.
Then we come to AWK #2. (should it be AWK, AWK?)
Friday night I sold 3 books. One of them was the out-of-print and never ever to be re-printed Father B’s wonderful book of stitches, the one based on the ANG’s Stitch of the Month History.
The Beatrix Potter book
And Sandy’s Finishing Touches
I told the customer I would ship Priority Mail with Delivery Confirmation since the Father B book was kind of costly.
I had (doh) forgotten to put it in a fixed rate Priority Mail box, the nice clerk told me it would be $16.70 (seventy cents for delivery confirmation).
AWK, AWK, AWK
Even in a flat rate box it would have been $10.70. These shipping costs are killer.
So, now each book listing on nn.com says “All books will be mailed using USPS Media Mail with Delivery Confirmation”.
The reality here is I mailed those 3 books to California for $4.00, including the Delivery Confirmation fee with Media Mail. So, even if I have to wait in line each time I ship books (you can’t do Media Mail from the automated Postage machines), it is worth it.
That is some reality. I can keep selling these fine books because Media Mail exists. I could not afford to if it did not.
AWK, AWK, AWK indeed.
Business Minded Postscript.
I have another copy of the Margaret Boyles book, it is not in the exact same condition as the one I sold. I will photograph it and list it after I move.
I have a 2nd copy of Sandy’s Finishing Touches, it is a newly published book.
I have another Beatrix Potter on Order. Father B’s book is gone, I can’t replace it. I am placing a big new order of books, they will be listed when I settle back down.
I am having them send to my folks house. Handy huh?
books?
I am often, very often, surprised by how things turn out as opposed to how we plan for them to turn out.
What I mean by that obscure sentence is that NewNeedlepoint.com is selling lots of books.
Wouldn’t it be funny if it turns out my web stores’s main draw is the books? (can you hear me groaning all the way over there?)
I have so many books for sale I had to separate the categories. Now they are Hard To Find Needlepoint Books & Hard To Find Bargello Books.
I have lots more books on order and my most recent arrivals have not been listed yet. I am out of time. The move happens soon and I am mostly packing now (and stitching).
My good friend (and sometime needlepoint co-designer) Patt of Patt & Lee designs just returned from the big Long Beach TNNA show. She said the very best sellers for her were the canvases that not only had stitch guides but that she had stitched a sample of to show exactly how they could look.
I always listen to Patt, and I think she has hit on something. So when I finish my latest Bargello design for my Bargello category
I will concentrate on stitching some of my own designs and writing Stitch Guides for them before I begin the next Bargello project.
Which is going to be this pattern with different colors. I am not yet sure if it will be Perle Cotton or Wool. This sample is Paternayan Wool.
I have not had time to list all the new Hand Painted Needlepoint Canvases & Kits I recently received. I have not even photographed them all yet.
I did take shots of these. These will be the first ones listed when I get back to (obsessive) work after my move.
This is one of a pair designed by Mary Margaret Waldock. They are painted by her studio or whoever bought her lines since Ms Waldock has passed away. These are quite unusual for her. Most (all) of her other designs are banner types with either a state, city, town or slogan on them with a small picture of some sort.
and this one, the companion piece.
I have done both the kits from these using the same type of thread (#5 Perle Cotton) and the same color background so they can be used together.
They are not sold as a pair, however. They can be bought as individual kits or canvases.
This is the Hibiscus canvas from Danji Designs
This is another one I bought just because I loved it. This will be sold as a kit or canvas alone. I have done the kit using Paternayan Wool, which is just about perfect for stitching 13 mesh canvas.
Plus I had the absolutely perfect shades of purple for these flowers. I wanted the depth and richness of wool for this design.
OK, I am reading another Barbara Pym novel. It was strange. I was rifling through my bookcase looking for something to read and I found among my Barbara Pym collection one I think I forgot to read when I read (I thought) all her works.
It is called Almost an Angel and it is a charming book full of people with real feelings, worries and such, living in a world that could be real. No high blown nonsense here.
I know I have not read this one since the spine of the book is pristine, unmarked showing the book is unopened.
We recently watched Inglorious Basterds, the hit Brad Pitt movie. It was charming and quite funny, in it’s own odd way but eventually the violence got to me. Keith watched to the end, he loved it and said I should try again, that I will love the ending which I am not going to reveal here.
I have asked Janet Perry to let me sell her 2 excellent books here. While they are not rare or specially hard to find, they are worth stocking.
Look for her books Bargello Revisted and Needlepoint Trade Secrets here sometime in February.
Now, last up from my *toot my own horn* section.
Fist I have to give you some background. My family had a wholesale clothing business for many years. It was started by my grandfather in the 1920′s and run by my father the while I was growing up. We sold it in 1988.
Our brand was called “Northern Isles” for women and “Indian Brand” for men. As Northern Isles got better known, the whole line became Northern Isles.
Many stores had us put their own label on the garments. We had a whole big sewing room where that was done.
Anyway, my Dad was something (in a small way) of an industry innovator. He was the first to bring to market several products. He popularized the “Faire Isle” sweater, he got the idea from a hand knit Icelandic sweater he found. He also first brought to market washable wools.
He was also active as a designer. He oversaw the designers who worked for us closely and approved (or not) everything. He had (has) an incredible sense of color and color use.
I showed him my latest Bargello (the cubes pattern above).
My father said he thinks my color sense is better then his.
This is huge compliment. In the past he has said my sense was “almost as good as his” in the nicest possible way but still……
All children of very successful parents want to surpass them. To do well.
I was floored by this compliment.
In fact, I have been floored by quite a few things lately. I am having a good year, so far.
Don’t worry, it will get worse, let’s hope not much worse.
Another Stash Solution
As most of you already know, I move (again) soon. I am currently sorting and packing stuff (and grumbling).
I am going through things, my own house will “live” differently from this rented house so I am marking boxes where they will go, which is not necessarily the same room they came from.
Oddly, the rental house has 2 advantages over my own house. Here I have a decent size office, off the front hall. I don’t have an office in my own house, I use the guest room for that. Plus this rental has a lovely Jacuzzi bathtub. I will miss that.
Then again, my own house has a pool with a waterfall on one side of it, so we have the sound of falling water all day, it is nice to hear. My pool has a full screen enclosure so on nice days I can open up almost the whole back of the house. No matter what the weather we leave one of the doors to the pool enclosure open a little, so Jack The Cat can come and go as he pleases.
Plus my own house has (had) freshly painted walls, nice, unstained carpets and appliances that actually work.
But I am digressing again (again), what I wanted to talk about was my idea for what to do with the extra needlepoint supplies, canvases and stash I have.
Because I have a needlepoint web store I have quite a bit of *extra* needlepoint stuff. I have kits that didn’t and never will sell, same thing for canvases.
I have a sizable stock of Anchor #5 & #8 floss. I tried to stock the Anchor #8 when I first started NewNeedlepoint.com but sadly, Coats & Clark Co. does not “support” it with adequate stock. My supplier was often not able to fill orders for some of the colors I needed. In addition I had a sizable collection of Anchor #5 for my own use from back when I was just a plain old stitcher instead of a needlepoint entrepreneur.
I have had to replace my my Anchor #8 stock with DMC #8. I still use the Anchor to make kits with but as I near the end of each box of 12 balls, I can no longer fill kits using it. I then have to switch to the DMC. Plus, with my current stock of 300+ DMC #5 colors, I haven’t touched my Anchor #5 stash in quite a while.
I wanted to give these good supplies to someone or some organization that could use them.
To find one I did what I often do. I asked my friend Jane, the knowledgeable Doyenne of the Chilly Hollow Needlepoint Adventure Blog. She does seem to know everyone and everything, so far anyway!
She remembered something she had seen (or maybe she knew someone who remembered seeing it) a mention on the ANG web site about a woman’s prison in Ohio that wanted needlepoint supplies.
Jane found the address and the co-warden’s (vice-warden’s) email and I contacted her.
I got a lovely answer. They would be glad of the donation of any kind of needlepoint supplies.
I want to quote some of her email to me:
“Our program, the community service stitching post, has reciprocal benefits – it definitely helps the offenders in many ways (keep them busy as they serve their time, teaches them a new skill – if they didn’t know how to stitch before, allows them to give back to the community from which they’ve taken, and builds self-esteem), it helps the management of the prison (busy inmates are well behaved) and community service hours, and last but not least, the community non-profit agencies that we work with receive “free labor” for their meaningful projects like providing all of Ohio children who are in foster care with their own personal blanket or “Sew Much Comfort” which alters clothing so injured veterans at Walter Reed Hospital can put on clothes with a bit more ease.”
I guess they could use knitting yarn too from those of us who do both needlepoint & knit.
The email to contact them is:
Elizabeth.Wright@odrc.state.oh.us
and the mailing address is:
Community Service Stitching Post
Ohio Reformatory for Women
1479 Collins Ave.
Marysville, OH 43040-9102
I am sending them a big box. I have some yards of colored canvas in colors I don’t design for. I have 3 complete kits, 2 of my own design and one hand painted. 1 canvas of my own design and 3 hand painted by others. I sent a big pile of smaller canvases that were sized and hemmed for my now defunct Stitch & Frame Category.
I am sending about 75 skeins of Anchor #5 floss in many colors and a bunch of cards of strandable silk thread.
I think this is a terrific way to use some some of my (or your) untouched thread & yarn stash and those canvases and kits you never, ever will get around to stitching.
I had this thought. You know how relaxing stitching can be. How it can erase stress, soothe worries and in general help you feel better, no matter what.
I can’t imagine anyplace where I might need something to do that will help me feel less stressed, less worried, and more relaxed more than a prison. Can you?
Please pass this idea on to all your friends who stitch or knit. I think it is a good one.
Fuzzy Ugg Slippers
Tuesday January 12th 2010, 10:03 pm
Filed under:
Bargello NP I live in South Florida, for the last week or so I have been shufffling around in warm fuzzy Ugg slippers. It is cold here. Jack The Cat is mad at us, he figures this cold is our fault. He wakes me up late at night to let him in the bed, where it is warm. He likes to be between the sheet & the quilt so it takes some maneuvering to get him in. He is not particularly nice about this.
I realized I have not shown you an update of the current Bargello pattern I am working on in a long time.
This is the cubes pattern. As you can see I am inside my guidelines at the top and bottom and outside them on the sides. The first *draft* of any Bargello pattern is where you figure the final size and shape. Each pattern has it’s own “logic” and natural stopping points.
I begin a new Bargello at the exact center of the canvas. The I work to one side, find the point where I should stop in relation to my desired size and the guidelines I drew.
Then I do the exact same thing on the other side. After that I work down (or up) and again figure out the number of cubes for the size and balance of the pattern. Then again I copy this going the other way.
Each Bargello pattern will, in the end, set itself up differently with different counts.
As you can see from my canvas, there are always adjustments to be made.
See the finished size right side? When I do the left side I will expand the pattern a bit and expand the top stitching to make it all fit.
Once I have done this, established the counts for the pattern chart, this does not have to be done again for this exact pattern.
So, really a Bargello dictates what actual size it will be, in the end. The guidelines really are just a reminder and a suggestion for the size and shape of the finished piece.
The cubes pattern stitches up very quickly, surprisingly so. I have no idea why but it does seem to when I actually stitch it.
The time I am taking finishing this is not a reflection of how hard this pattern is or how long it takes to stitch it. It is me. I have been lazy and more interested in reading in my warm bed than sitting up and watching a move and stitching.
Now, if I had a fireplace, like we always did when we lived up north, I would sit next to it and stitch but here in Florida there are few fireplaces. In this cold snap, I want to be under a pile of quilts and blankets with a warm (but decidedly not happy) cat snuggled up to me between the sheet and the quilt and a snoring husband.
Isn’t that a cozy picture?
I seem to be in a reading rut, a very pleasant and happy reading rut but still a rut. I am alternating re-re-reading my Georgette Heyer books with my Barbara Pym books. I tired slipping a Barbara Vine (Ruth Rendell’s more psychological minded alter ego) in there but it did not take.
I could maybe manage to insert a Faye Weldon Novel, then again maybe not.
The packing is going well, so far my breakage report is 3. In adition to the 2 vases I have also broken a nice Seiko crystal bedside clock.
I broke nothing (nada) packing last time. Clearly this time is different. It is an odd feeling, with just the very first *layer* of the house packed. The stuff we do not use or need every week is first.
Next will be the stuff we do not use everyday then finally the stuff we do use every day until we are done.
I have moved so often that I have some systems.
I leave out a duffel bag, the morning of the move I put the sheets, blankets & pillows from the bed in there. Then I can easily find the stuff to make up the bed for sleeping the first night in the new house. I also pack us a couple of overnight bags, so we do not have to scratch through boxes to find the things we will need right away.
Several years ago, I unpacked and arranged my entire house in 3 days, after the move. I can’t and won’t do anything like that again. It was what has to be called a Herculean labor.
I am almost done putting the new stuff on NewNeedlepoint.com. Then I will concentrate fully on the move.
I listed the Emperor & Empress today both as kits or canvas alone. I think they are terrific.
