I think we are experiencing a little bit of growing pains. The other night I just became overwhelmed with work. That's a good thing. But the other night I was tired. The beauty of our relationship is that George and I can talk to each other about anything. We have put some new inner office procedures in place and, by gosh, I think it's working. I have a bad habit of trying to do everything myself. That led to me being exhausted and overwhelmed. It's fine when we just have a project or two, but we have more than that right now. We are using the short order cook method. I am on the computer, digitizing, creating and gathering orders. Once an order is ready to be embroidered, I write up my usual card with the embroidery information, customer information, etc., and take the card and the disk (yes, we still use floppy disks in embroidery) and attach to a string of Mardi Gras beads that we have hanging on the embroidery room door. I attach it with a clothespin. George starts at the top of the Mardi Gras beads and pulls the top order and begins the embroidery. He has plans on making a better order holder than Mardi Gras beads, but I kind of like the Mardi Gras beads. He is right, of course. We do need something more stable and professional.
The first order was for a set of 2 yellow fingertip towels. As usual, this order has a history. My friend who now works with the SBA via Homeland Security is in Chicago. A few month ago she emailed me a photo of a house. The house belongs to a mutual friend of our's. She is a young lady who has only been married a few years. This is her very first house and she is, as you can imagine, very excited to have her own home. My friend asked me to digitize the picture. I am still a novice at digitizing and seriously hesitated to do this but she insisted and I complied. It didn't turn out too bad, although I can see flaws. I see flaws in everything I do and have been told that I'm the only one that sees the flaws and I should not mention them. Nevertheless, the young lady homeowner loves the color yellow. So, we purchased yellow fingertip towels. That took some time to get here but they have arrived. We did a stitch out and tweaked the design; did more stitch outs and then the finished product. I think they turned out lovely and so does my friend. We will probably be shipping them tomorrow. They are a birthday present but her birthday isn't until November -- it will be early.
Since I was dealing with a friend we decided to use the Yahoo PayPal application to see how that works. So far, so good. On my end, I just clicked the PayPal app and a page appeared that is pretty much an invoice. I filled out the blanks and put the specifics in a "comment" section and hit send. She won't be able to get to it until this evening but I believe all she has to do is hit the "pay" button since she is already set up on PayPal. Hope it works.
The next project was a birthday present that I was working on. I cannot show you the present because the birthday girl will, more than likely, read this blog. Nevertheless, we did this one on hot pink fingertip towels. When I order from certain wholesalers there is a minimum purchase required. That is the case with the towels. So, I had ordered more white, the yellow, and hot pink. We used some beautifully colored thread on this design that I can only describe as sherbert colors. The towels turned out simply stunning and I cannot wait to give this gift. Alas, her birthday is about a month away.
Another order for a shirt with the Junkanoo logo arrived. This order asked me to get the shirt. I had to inform my customer that I don't have a problem getting the shirt but when I order one thing, the shipping cost kills them. If we can get an order for more than one item, then the shipping cost is spread out. The more we order at one time, the more the shipping cost is spread out, and the items become less expensive. So, she is going to get with the group and try to get several orders.
In the meantime, although the little Junkanoo red man looks fine, when embroidering there are some trims that don't need to be there. So, I redigitized the red man for the logo. Yes, I am getting the hang of this digitizing. Practice makes perfect.
George is setting up for a stitch out of a set of pillow cases that I digitized for another birthday present. The birthday is in October, so I'll have to wait to post; although, I don't think this friend will be reading the blog.
Tonight is my Wednesday night girls night and I am supposed to pick up a purple, velvet cape that was left with one of my friends. We will then enter the world of embroidery on the Nauga Queen's capes. Those Nauga Queens are something else. This should be fun because everything is fun with those girls.
C'est tout, mes amis!
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