"Leap" Month completed

Well February has ended, where is this year going?, and it was a leap year, by some standards it went well by others not soo much.....

New fabric from Elizabeth's studio has arrived and is loaded into the shop for purchase, there were some really cute novelty prints, mind you I placed the order back in July of last year so it was a bit of a surprise to see what we were getting, for those interested in wildlife and farm animal prints hurry to the shop and get them while they are HOT. There were also a really nice autumn leaves and sunflower blocks print as well, I expect as the year progresses and people start their fall and holiday sewing projects they should sell well.

Military donation amount has been tallied and once this month is over and tallied as well we will be making another check out to the USO, speaking of which, I got a news letter along with the tax documents from them stating that with the amount contributed last year, from everyone not just my shop, that they were able to construct 3 new USO centers on the bases in the "sandbox" for our military on FOB to de stress and relaxed with games, internet access, and phones in which to keep in touch with those keeping the home fires burning. The total amount this month was $34.85 and with last months amount of $55.80 we might be headed for another bumper year, wonder what they can built this year with the donations :)

Now onto a more personal and the bad news part, as most of you know we suffered a considerable loss to my business in June of last year when the plumbing pipe supplying the bathroom sink burst and took my handmade quilts and a considerable amount of other handmade items and store supplies with it, well we fast forward to today when we had to bring all the documentation to the tax adviser to do the tax returns for this year, it always a bit shocking dealing with the insurance companies for things like this and then the adviser tally's the total loss and you go into shock realizing that not even a 1/3 of the loss was covered. Lesson in this, buy additional insurance and overstate what you have so that is is covered. We are moving on but it definitely took its toll in the depleted stock that I have available in the shop and most of it can't be replaced, like the quilts :(

Well off to complete the rest of the paperwork and submit our sales tax payment, hope everyone has a good March and we will be popping in and out throughout the month, til then.

I did it !!!

I have slowly started getting back into crochet and knitting, well I found this pattern on the internet for a basic crocheted dishcloth, which was fine and dandy, and I went a made a few. My problem was that even though I was using some really cute cotton yarns they were just well rather hum drum, I was looking for something that would pop, a repeated search on the internet was NOT bringing up anything that I thought had some POP to it, so after much undoing and repeated doing over I finally came up with something, I think, a little different then just regular crocheted dish clothes. It took some doing in finding the right number of rows necessary to do the scallop edge correctly, and the hardest part was getting the number of scallops to work out evenly all the way around the edges. I am sure it isn't the biggest accomplishment in the world but given it has been 25 years since I have crocheted or knitted anything, quilting kind of butt it's head in, I am pretty proud of my accomplishment. Now a experienced crocheter can probably look at these and redo them in a heart beat but I am hoping that I can continue on and come up with some other different variations on these, and they are a really good project to do in front of the TV at night when the work day is over with, like that is ever a possibility when you own your own business :)

I have also just placed a restock order with the supplier for Wash a day Clothepin bag pattern from Darlene Zimmerman and the Look Who's Sleeping in my Bed baby quilt pattern by Susie C Shore designs, which will be reloaded into my supply shop, they are scheduled to arrive sometime next week and those on the waiting list will get their notification that they have arrived for purchase as soon as I verify them in the shipping box. I also have a few new items that the supplier loaded onto the web site since the last time I checked, but I won't say yet til I make sure that they are actually going to send them to me. I will update on here when they do arrive :)
Well off to get ready for a new work day, hope everyone has a good day and you can bet I will be making some more of these for the upcoming craft fairs this season, they just might be a good seller :) Til next time

February shop News

Finally finished the books for January, working a part time job now so it is a little bit more difficult to get the time to close the months books, but I guess NY state won't really care as long as they receive their sales tax payments on time, LOL

My military customers made a sizable contribution to the USO pot for the beginning of the first quarter, 2 more months to go and we will submit the donation. January s figure was $55.80, which is a really good figure for the beginning of the year.

I have been working on double sided embroidery for the embroidered wrist lanyards, US Marines are done and are on the table waiting to be sewn and have the hardware attached, I am still working on the positioning of the US Air Force ones but am hoping to have them done by the middle of the month, they are actually on the table for tomorrow but we will have to see how many orders come in for custom orders first before we make definite plans on doing them. Orders come before play in my shop, hahaha.

Found a really cute tutorial online for a rip + strip placemat tutorial, I am hoping to find time to give it a try, if you want to give it a go here is the link to follow to do your own:

Rip + Strip Placemat Tutorial


Well that's it for now, I promise I will return soon with any new things I find and worse case scenario it will be to update the running total for the USO donation for the Military, til then happy sewing :)

Shop News for the New Year

Hi Folks,

Well 2016 is off and running, most of the tax paperwork is done, final Military donation for the year was made and for the last quarter , with sales contributions of $69.90 from my military customers and I pitched in a final amount to get us to the $100 level. With the total donation for the year coming in at $598.00 my Military customers rocked the USO this year, hoping that 2016 we can do it again.

Looking at some different variations on what we are already carrying, with lanyard machine issues constantly cropping up I am forced to keep what we can make on the small side, so look for some new mini key fobs for the different branches with dual branch embroidery on both sides of the fob, I am going to see about making some small size quilts with coordinating fabric for the different branches and their logos and maybe if we have the time I can introduce personalized Christmas stockings this year.

We start this year off participating in a Team Event on Etsy, the Quiltsy Destash Party, please if you have the time and either sew or craft some real bargains can be had by shopping the stores participating, some are just cleaning their sewing rooms and others, like me, have had to down size to fit into smaller places when we moved over the past year.
Check it out here:

The Great Quiltsy Destash Party

Starting Date: January 15th, 2016

The party ends when its all gone!

Place: The Quiltsy Team Pages on Etsy

We are a team of quilting entrepreneurs dedicated to making quality products, advancing our love of quilting, and supporting each other. In 2016 we will be working to showcase new products and ideas, promoting our shops, and changing the way you think about quilting! All this creativity means we are opening our quilting studios up to you. Fabrics, Patterns, Quilt Books, and Kits are all available for the taking. We welcome you to start your shopping and browsing at any time by clicking on the links below.

https://www.etsy.com/pages/quiltsyteam/destash-quilt-books

https://www.etsy.com/pages/quiltsyteam/destash-patterns-and-kits

https://www.etsy.com/pages/quiltsyteam/destash-fabric

https://www.etsy.com/pages/quiltsyteam/exciting-new-fabrics-patterns-and-tools

https://www.etsy.com/pages/quiltsyteam/gifts-for-sewing-enthusiasts

Please also feel free to browse our handmade items as well at:

https://www.etsy.com/pages/quiltsyteam

Find us on Facebook here:
https://www.facebook.com/QuiltsyTeam

Thanks for stopping by and giving us a look. Happy Shopping!

Shop News

We have some new items coming in from the supplier that will be loaded onto the web site, just got notification that they shipped so I can't wait.

Some of the new items are Fashion colored fun tapes, these will be coming in some really neat colors and would be perfect for gift giving for a sewing or crafty friend or maybe for yourself. The colors that the vendor has listed are fushia pink, melon orange, lime green, purple and blue, can't wait to see them.
Red Heart has introduced a new line of yarn called Scrubby and the notification from the supplier said all the colorways would be coming except for Royal blue, so look for these colors to be loaded as soon as they arrive; coconut, black, duckie yellow, orange, ocean blue, lime green, bubblegum pink, and cherry red. I have only seen the black and coconut and have made one scrubby from each of the skeins, my husband loves them for scrubbing his frying pan in the morning after making his bacon and eggs for breakfast. My daughter wants me to make her one for a exfoliating scrub for her face to see how that works, so that is the project for tonight :)

Military paperwork has been completed, the US Marine Corps just sent through the approval for licensing for another year and the royalty report for Air Force is complete and sent. The donation tally has been done and a check for $125.00 will be going to the USO as soon as I get a chance, and the total donation amount thus far for the next quarter is $29.00. Sales are down all across the board on Etsy so that is the reason for the low numbers, haven't seen sales numbers this low since early this year hoping it doesn't continue for too much longer.

Well we are done for now be back as soon as I can with anymore news of items or products that we found that are new and interesting or that I might have had the chance to finish making. Remember all these products are going to be added to my web site, which you can find here: http;//www.GabbysQuilts.com

Til next time :)

Still trying to figure this out

I have, I think figured out why I have such a problem getting into here, G+ automatically want to log me in under that account and unfortunately when I started this I did not have a account with them so I have to remember to sign in differently :)

I have been creating some different things lately, this being one of the newest

these are soooo cute and fun to make to boot. These are available in my handmade shop on Etsy right now and probably when Amazon opens their handmade site they will get moved over to there. I currently have 4 different one listed and have yet to take pictures of the latest one which would require sunshine which is in short supply today :) If you want to see the other ones just follow this link:
Handmade Shop

I have started to make a new scarf from some new yarn that the supplier got in, it is called Stripes from Bernat, I only have a few rows done so far but it is turning out alright so far, I will have to remember to upload a picture when I am done with it. I have just re entered into doing crochet so we have to relearn all the terminology and stitches all over again, and apparently my husband wants me to start knitting again as well seeing as he brought me a set of circular knitting needles the other day that one of his customers gave him :)

Well have to go see about doing some housework then I have to load more Military lanyards onto the embroidery machine so that I can stay ahead of the embroidered girlfriend lanyard orders, til next time.

Web Store

Well we finally did it, I managed to get into my blog LOL, Google has changed so much, what happen to just being able to compose a post for your blog and post it, all these additional steps to do something simple :(

I finally have a web site, it has product listed for sale as has made a few, but boy is it alot of work and of course google wants you to pay for everything in order to get it out into the web, so we are having to do everything the hard way.

Web Store

Added a bunch of new patterns, pre cut fabric charms and notions yesterday;

These are just some of the quilting supplies available, please stop by and browse more are being added as they arrive from the supplier.