bargello books redux
I thought that some of what I said last night in my blog entry was a slight (marianne style) overstating of the situation but I think now it was not.
Last night (Friday), around 11pm I posted a listing for the last of my Dorothy Kaestner Bargello books (last in stock, anyway) 4 Way Bargello.
By 1pm today (now) it has already sold. I have more on order. I think I will hold my breath until I get them.
Wow, why am I complaining about this? (am I complaining or bragging?…no idea)
p.s. #2
And if you click on most of the links in my “big” blog, you will get nothing….zero, zip, nada since the listings have been de-activated until I re-list. Big *DOH* here.
p.s.
The lady from Australia agreed to pay shipping. She says she never expected the books to ship free.
Whew. Of course, she has cleaned out (almost) my Bargello categories. I am going to have to find more of these books and list them (like I didn’t already have a mountain of books to list) but who’s complaining? Not me.
snow already?
It is Saturday, it is snowing, it has been since 9am. It is now 4:45 and 5 inches (+/-) has accumulated.
If you want to know what I think (and I am going to tell you anyway) it is way too early in the year for this. It is not even Halloween yet.
This snow has pushed me into working today. Of course, it is not like I don’t/can’t work on NewNeedlepoint.com 24/7. I sometimes do (and sometimes, for increasingly long times, I don’t work here at all).
I am not complaining here (yes I am but about the snow). After all, we are in rural southest PA (Lancaster County). Not exactly Minnesota (sorry, Karen & anyone else from there, it was too good an example to pass on)
Ok, I am doing replacement books today.
remember me?
I think it has been a month or more since I last wrote this blog. That is odd since I really do enjoy writing here. Sometimes I am a little reluctant to begin since it takes me many hours to do a blog entry, if there are pictures, but still….
I burned out after the move. The contractors were all still here for 2 weeks (+) after we moved in but that was just finishing up stuff. The job was essentially done (although why they waited until the day before move in to paint doors is beyond me).
It was a big job, 12 + weeks. There are still small things to do but they are K doable (when he gets to them, which is another way to describe eternity).
The move was hard, with some nice people helping, on one day, I packed it all. There is a lot to packing up a home, even though I have done it many times, it still surprises me.
The move day was horrible, torrential rain & wind for a move that took 11.5 hours.
Unpack was harder too. The movers had quite a bit of my stuff in storage, it has been there for 14 months. I had actually forgotten some of the things I had. Not completely forgotten but sort of.
It was the unpack that took me down. Day after day or hard, tedious exhausting work while still maintaining a home of sorts. K went to work every day and I unpacked.
Finally I was done, all that was left was to nag (endlessly) K to do some of the stuff I could not do myself.
It was then that I had my (much deserved) melt-down. I had/have all this work to do for NewNeedlepoint.com but I could not seem to begin. I was so tired, so very tired.
Anyway, I pottered around for a week or so and now I am, I think, ready.
I wanted to start by showing you some before & after pictures of the renovation.
my new, bright and spacious office, before remember I had been working out of a 9X9 bedroom with 1 window.
Before
and 2 pictures of after
The kitchen
The kitchen floor (linoleum)
Kitchen done, all new tile too:
The family room/living room before, a big zero (with our color test stripes on the walls, we ended up not using any of these colors)
I know much of the difference here is from my stuff but the brighter ceiling, walls and tiled floors make a difference. Also taking down the wall between the family room & the kitchen made a huge difference. What is really odd is that the former owners closed that wall in. Originally, it was open.
The master bedroom was a deeply depressing room. with only one window (a patio slider to outside) it was a dark & dismal room.
and the hideous vanity. The tiny room where the bathroom sink etc is 4 ‘X 5.5′ including the vanity. It had 3 doors. The door from the room, the door into the closet, which is off this tiny room and the door leading into the main part of the bath. You had to close the door to the room to open the closet door.
I had both the door to the bedroom & to the closet removed. I left the door to the rest of the bathroom in place. The space works much better now.
OK, you can’t tell from my picture but the vanity is bird’s eye maple, handmade by the cabinet guy.
I also took the Laundry Closet, which was in the main part of the master bath (stupid place for it) and turned it around so it opened up in the back hallway, where is should have been. The doors on the old one did not open wide enough for from front loader machines, we added more then a foot to the laundry closet doorway, not it works great.
So, my last picture is a pissed off Jack yelling at K in the garage of the new house. He did not like any of this including being closed in a bathroom for the load & unload (just what was needed, Jack underfoot and trying to escape) not to mention the car ride in his much hated cat carrier.
Not his best or cutest face.
So, I am back. I still have all the canvases from the Baltimore show to kit & list and piles of new & rare/used books. This might take me all winter if I do not get going.
So far, I am not *going* too hard but I will improve. It is good to be back. I missed you ( my 2 1/2 readers)
the 4th
I like the 4th of July. I love what it stands for, Freedom, Liberty, The Pursuit of Happiness.
I read once, somewhere, that our’s is the only government in the world whose constitution (or whatever they have/use for what the constitution is for us) mentions anything like Happiness…and as a right? Nope. Only us.
The down side of the 4th is, of course, parties that feature bathing suits as attaire and beer guzzling guys (or girls). I have never been a fan of the whole “Party, Party, Party” thing.
Still, a glorious day.
Of course mine is the usual washout, in terms of a holiday. K is slaving away at a paper for work that he (what else?) put off until the last possible second…and that I have to proof for him at the very last possible milli-second.
I wrenched a muscle or tendon in my left leg so I am hobbling around. it does not really hurt (unless I try to bend it or something) but still….
And we still have not found a contractor to do the renovation. Since I do not drive anymore (trust me, you do not want me driving down the road towards you or anyone) I can’t contract the job myself, I can’t be there all the time.
It is like, in this poor economy, no one can be bothered to even return our calls or do the work promised. Out first contractor just faded from view after we gave him the job. No materials list, as promised, for us to order from, no returned phone calls.
And now no one else seems to want to even return our calls. I would think it would be easier than this. It is not like we are asking them to bid on the job…just do it.
So…enough griping. Here is something handsome for you to see on the 4th of July.
Jack The Cat, he is ready for his close-up now Mr DeMille. (from Sunset Blvd with Gloria Swanson)
phone rant & book stuff
I don’t think I have ever talked (ranted/spewed) about how I feel about the telephone. I had to force myself to “get over it” years ago. Waiting for a phone call, more then likely from some not so in to me man was pure hell, so well described in Dorothy Parker’s amazing short story A Telephone Call.
Speaking of Dorothy Parker, this poem is from her collection of poems called “Enough Rope”
Some men break your heart in two,
Some men fawn and flatter,
Some men never look at you;
And that clears up the matter
Sorry for the Dorothy Parker tangent, I am a serial reader of her work.
The phone ringing generates a Pavlov’s Dogs like response. The moment it rings you are compelled to jump up and answer it. How often is it someone you want to talk to?
The pull of the “unknown” also was a factor for me, causing me to answer it.
Then came Caller ID. One of the great inventions of modern man. Now I only answer the calls I want to take.
This drives K crazy. He is driven to answer the ringing summons. Then, after grilling the caller, the stinker will hand me the phone, if it is for me. While he does have some “standards” about who he will pass the phone to me for, they are no where near as stringent as mine.
I was an early devotee of email. I love email. I write better then I talk plus I get to edit myself, so I avoid many of my misspeaks and unthinking remarks. I like the polite way email waits for you to seek it out, not clanging at you to respond (I have that noise turned off).
The reason I am ranting about this now is my web hosts have, finally, convinced me to add my phone number to my web store site.
There it is, right up there on the home page. It is really very small but to me, it looms large.
It is a good thing to have,I suppose. A number of my customers prefer to call me to place their orders and that is good but…..
So, now I am accessible. AWK
More news, I have had a spurt of impatient waiting for the house renovation to begin (how nuts am I, you ask. I don’t buy the house until tomorrow).
This has spurred me to finally get going and list the things that have been here in my office reproaching me daily for my laggardly ways.
I have most of the rare/used books listed, just 15 more waiting (the last load). I have 7 books to replace ones that have recently sold. All they need is edited photos and revised book condition descriptions.
I have 11 canvases & kits that need the full treatment, photos, descriptions et al. Today I am shooting the NP stuff, replacements and 17 new books. I hope this mad energy last a few more days so I can get them all out there on NewNeedlepoint.com.
Sales have been terrific, I had to place replacement orders of both new and rare/used books. It is still thrilling for me to receive orders. I hope that never wears off.
What else, as I mentioned I have a firm date for Sandra Arthur’s The Shapes of Needlepoint Part 2. I will have it in stock on August 15. In early July I will begin taking pre-orders for it. I just spoke to Elaine Oliverio, the author and publisher of Stitch: Landscape, the first in a new series of needlepoint books. I should have my copies tomorrow. I will list them right away (I already have 3 firm requests for it).
I have finished reading Robert Parker’s Spenser series of books. I am a little sad at this, it is like saying goodbye to an old, beloved friewnd (sort of). I might have to read the Jesse Stone novels now. I am pretty sure I can’t handle the Sunny Randall series.
I read somewhere that the whole Sunny Randall series of books were written for Helen Hunt to star in the movies from them. She was the inspiration for the character. While I liked Helen Hunt well enough in the old TV series Mad About You, I do not like her much is her later work. She has become very brittle and starved herself into a hard looking scarecrow.
That’s it for me. I start buying stuff for the renovation this weekend, first up is light fixtures & tile, kitchen cabinets to order. I have already chosen my paint colors. Benjamin Moore paints, of course.
S.E.N.S.E. and sensibility
I hope both Sharon G. and Jane Austen will forgive me for the the title to this blog. I could not help it.
As I predicted (marianne is 1 for 1) Sharon G.’s new book, Simply Essential Needlepoint Stitch Explanations (get, it SENSE? it took me a while to get it) is flying out of here. I have sold 4 copies just this past 3 days.
That is a lot of sales of 1 book for poor little NewNeedlepoint.com. I had 2 copies which sold fast, then 8 more.
Then Needlepoint Now did their review and just like what happened withSandra Arthur’s book The Shapes of Needlepoint, Series 1 it is in demand. (yes, unlike last nights blog, I remembered to do the links, that is the difference between me at 3am and me at 1:45pm).
I have 1 more copy left and 15 more on order. They will not be here until the middle of the week after next (which makes it due the week of June 6th). This is terrible timing, I leave for the Columbus, Ohio TNNA Trade show June 9th.
Still…I am nothing if not a sleek operation with a fast turnaround time (gag alert). I will take orders and ship them out the moment I get the books. Even if I get them, say the 8th, I will ship them before we leave for the show (send K to the post office while I get us packed).
If they come while I am gone, Danielle (my lovely neighbor, helper and Jack The Cat babysitter) will bring in the box and get them processed to ship on Monday, which is, besides the day we come home, also my birthday. Of course, after so many birthdays, this is hardly an event.
I am getting further into Robert Parker’s Valediction, his 11th book and a sad book, so far. He is dealing with a religious cult who maybe or maybe not snatched a young dancer from her home, while trying to deal with his feelings about Susan moving to San Francisco.
Of course, the word “cult” has become passe. I think that might be because there are now so many splinter groups, factions and such that the designation “cult” has lost it’s meaning.
So, that’s it. I am keeping my price for the Sharon G book below ($2.00 below plus free shipping) the MSRP suggested by the publisher so despite the shipping delay, this is still a good place to buy this newly popular book (marianne makes a brave foray into hard core selling technique, not well but not too clumsy, maybe)
a contender
I have just written a strong contender for the worst book listing ever on NewNeedlepoint.com.
It’s worse than my former worst review, written for the Handbook of Needlepoint Stitches by Mary Meister Walzer.
Here is, in all it’s glory, my new listing for Do-It-All-Yourself Needlepoint by Joan Scobey & Lee Parr McGrath
“The Introduction to this book discusses how wonderful needlepoint is. It mentions the famous people who stitch such as Princess Grace (who was still alive then) Julie Eisenhower (who still mattered then) Joanne Woodward (who still does matter) and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (who haven’t mattered for a long time and are both now passed away).
The introduction also calls Needlepoint a “Lagniappe”. Now, I am a very literate person but I had to look that one up.
Wikipedia says it is “something given as a bonus or an extra gift”.
Merriam-Webster says the usage is mostly southern USA, where merchants give (or gave) customers a small gift as a thank you for shopping in their stores.
Given these definitions I fail to see how Needlepoint is a Lagniappe.
A joy perhaps but…..I am not sure where this book is going from here.
Joan Scobey is a well known name in Needlepoint, she is author of a number of other books by herself or with Lee Parr McGrath. They are all out of print now.
This book also credits Marjorie Sablow with the Original Needlepoint Designs used in this book and Eugene Sablow with the photographs (husband? son?).
The first chapter is What You Need To Begin, so it is safe to assume this book is targeted to beginners.
There is a chapter on the Stitches, Finding Your Design, Design, Composition and Color (now we are getting somewhere), Putting Your Design on Canvas, Needle Notes (?), What To Make Of It-And How, Finishing Touches, A Gift That Is Part of The Giver, Needlepoint As A Family Affair, Patterns & Components.
In paging through this book I see that this would be a valuable resource for an absolute beginner.
I am somewhat “put-off” by the tone of this book but that might just be me. (I am something of a grouch).
The “Needle Notes” chapter is a joke and the cherry on this cake is the design graphs or patterns at the end of the book. They are gray tone drawings on a blue grid (the blue grid is the only color in the book).
How one is to stitch from one of these is beyond me.
Published as an Essandess Special Edition by Simon and Schuster (who should have known better) in 1971 this is a hardcover book with 184 pages.
The book is in very good condition. It does not have a dust jacket but otherwise, it is tight and clean.”
Below is the picture I mentioned, the design grids
This review is me at my snarky, sarcastic best. I think I am funny (at least someone does).
the bird
Next day, 8:03am. The bird is back smashing into the glass door over and over.
I turned the light off and he (this has to be a male, no girl is this stupid) is still doing it. Can a bird be possessed by a Poltergeist or can a Poltergeist appear to be a bird?
