A Tale of Two Websites...

I've been code silent for a few days! I'm knee deep in transferring sets, zip files, photos, over to a new platform. Every time I see that commercial where the boxer goes down-- "He took a hit he didn't see coming!"-- it's a metaphor for a business. Then they show a doctor, and a few other professional people going down, with stuff flying everywhere. Well, it just makes me chuckle.

If you see it, just picture me going down-- with thread and fabric flying all over the place! 
"But what happens next is more important!," the voiceover tells us-- and I am proud to say, we are picking ourselves back up. "This fight is a long way from over!," they say. Hee Hee.

Technology pushed me off a cliff last week--

but now I remember I can fly!

Expect big things, and expect them soon... had I known how easy this would be-- time-consuming, yes, but not hard, I would have done it a long time ago. I assumed it would cost a fortune-- it hasn't, and I thought I was on my own-- I'm not!

One of our fellow embroiderers read my post a couple of weeks and offered to help me! We're a clever bunch-- we know how to work an embroidery machine, right? This person works in IT and she has been awesome and just took me by the hand, told me she understood what I was up against, and put her shoulder to the wheel and is showing me the way. I am so grateful.

So no pretty pictures of sewing this week-- it ain't happenin'. I have made it out to my garden between marathon sessions in front of a screen and there are signs of hope everywhere. (My new Grand-chicks.)

Here's to all the people who are stuck somewhere in life-- 

the answer is just around the corner.

That's all I have time for now-- 

By this time next week, we will have the website of our dreams-- 

and I'm good for the next twenty years of sewing!

xox

Carol

Stuffed Pears...

 Another week flew by! Spring has been stubborn here-- we had snow flurries on Thursday. My creative juices are also in need of a thaw, sad to say. 

Making stuffed pears was my therapy this week. Sounds delicious, but, no, it's not a recipe-- I would never subject you, my dear friends, to any suggestion of kitchen drudgery-- or God forbid, a housecleaning tip, on this blog. 

The Mini Canned Pears pattern has now been redubbed Maxi Jammed Pears-- I hope my Pear Street friend has a rather large kitchen table! It still has a round of plain ivory borders, so I needed more fabric. I am trying to use from my stash, but it seems like I am having to do random small orders frequently to supplement. 

While waiting for the fabric, I started the first of three stuffed pears to match-- the first one came together super quick! I always find it difficult to sew 3D things together-- the addition of heavy stabilizer under each piece really helped. I made the leaf out of more fabric instead of felt-- the stem is made of rolled up felt. I do have a stock of inexpensive felt squares just from Michaels and JoAnn fabric.

Quite a nice set, don't you think?

So now from hobby sewing, to work sewing-- the Once Upon A Time, Winter finishing kit is coming along...

We are going to make a large, snowflake-ish medallion to connect the designs together. Mine is going to be a table piece so the pieces are all facing outward-- if you would like a wallhanging, your designs can just be all right side up.

As you can see, there are quite a few pieces to stitch up, plus we're adding borders.... If you subscribed to this series, you can look for this in you inbox by the end of the week-ish... if not, we will be selling it on Etsy.

Getting to this point has been a mental battle as we're dealing
with a 600-lb gorilla in the room...

The New Website!

We have selected a new webhosting service and we're now working on uploading 1,100 products!

 The good news-- this website has all the features you wanted... AND MORE... I guess the upside of waiting so long to address this, is that even in the past year, technology has rocketed forward, so what we will end up with is truly cutting edge. It is thrilling to just change the entire look with the click of the button and see all the products re-populate in an entirely new layout. 

The timing? Still not sure-- we don't want to rush it, and obviously will be troubleshooting as much as possible. I'm not sure that absolutely every set will make it here-- some will be retired. So if there is anything you've had your eye on, pick it up now at the old site. We are just going to keep the 15% off coupon rolling until the new site debuts-- the coupon code is tax2021.

www.sanfranciscostitchco.com

Stay tuned! Be sure to sign up for our constact contact mailing list so that we don't lose you in the switch.

Email List

Now, I have to get back to my gorilla-- sounds like STUFFED BANANAS is the order of the day here--

Have a great week.

xoxo

Carol

A Stitcher's Life... months of boredom, moments of sheer terror

A little late on my weekend post-- I've been struggling with allergies lately and had to spend a half a day in bed on Saturday. Nausea and a headache-- that's a combination where my trusty high threshold of pain fails me. I'm also feeling a bit overwhelmed-- more on that later.

So let's prattle on about my sewing for a few minutes-- it's always such a happy constant in our lives. First, up my morning hand sewing project. Haven't been feeling it much lately-- sipping tea and staring at a blank wall is my new thing. But anyway, here's the progress on the "House of Hardanger."

March 1st

April 13

When you pull out these old UFOs, you are quickly reminded why they ended up in a drawer in the first place-- that repetitive border was just killing me. Now, that's actually in the PLUS column-- I don't have to keep referring to a chart. And when I rounded the last corner, it actually met up with the other side I started years ago-- hurray!

Now, after months of boredom, we come to the moment of terror-- cutting and pulling out the threads. THIS IS HARDANGER.

When you feel overwhelmed by life, it comes with a bit of a euphoria-- like, there is nothing left to lose! And it's a freeing moment artistically, so out those scissors came and snip, snip, snip... And you can see it went well-- I actually cut and pulled out the CORRECT threads! Now I have a bit of finishing up to do-- the same technique is in the big window, and then there are beautiful, fancy stitches in the chimneys and gable area still to be done. And then the underlay part which is regular cross stitch and there's a Christmas tree and an attic that show through the holes. Dontcha love all these steps! Still a lot, so I'm going to see where I am at the end of the month, and then I may continue or swap out for a bit of hand applique again.

Next up-- my "Mini Canned Pears." Last week, I was lamenting how tiny they were, so I made MORE of them and as usual the math in my head forgot that each pear is separated by a sashing, and there's a huge complex border of checkers surrounded by more plain borders.

So my dainty little pear piece is now the mother of all tablerunners-- a hefty 24" x 36." I love it!

I still intend to gift it, and somehow I remembered that years ago I bought this pincushion pattern--

I think it would be a nice upgrade to make some stuffed pears (sounds delicious!) to go along with the table runner. Then I started thinking a cute fabric bowl would be amazing-- I have enough fabric to make six of these sets! Will someone please stop me?

I was using a layer cake of cream fabric for the background-- but now I need longer strips, so I'm waiting for that to ship. I also scored a yard of Fig Tree Chantilly fabric in peach on Etsy-- what a great website-- if you need to add fabric to an older collection, you have a great chance of finding it on there. I always try to get a backing fabric of a larger scale print of the collection I'm using.

And here's another photo of years of boredom... this is the flower block of the month that my customers finished in 2018. But I decided to embroider sashings-- dozens of sashings, and that has been going on for three years now. I got four done last week! Only four to go-- let's hope it doesn't take four more years to do them.

After that, it's another moment of terror when I have to trim the edges down to 1/4" for binding. I hope to still have the "nothing left to lose" impulse when that day comes.

Now, from the tedious,  to the overwhelming in my life. 

So most of you, who have stuck with me this far into the post, my wonderful friends and longtime customers, know that our website sucks. I'm a Virgo, and though I have 0% percent belief in horoscopes, the one characteristic of Virgo that I cannot deny, is that I am loyal to a fault. That is, until the straw breaks the camel's back-- then it is OVER.

My website and I came to that moment this weekend-- I finished up the Carefree Highways Set Four, so proud, and spent the hours it takes to redo the website and upload the designs, pricing, downloads etc. etc. 

Then, I couldn't publish. 

It's not like this doesn't happen six times a year, and what comes next is a two hour phone call to India to get it straightened out. Yes, they are very pleasant. And yes, you can call anytime.

But I just can't do it anymore, Yahoo.

I had been toying with the idea of opening an Etsy website just to destash a bit, and maybe even sell some of my samples, so I went in, and in a half an hour I had a store opened and ready to go-- with customer accounts that you can download from as many times as you want!

So am I saying we're moving to Etsy?

NO!

It just convinced me that there's a better world out there. I have gone down this road many times before, and I have been told none of photos or products can be transferred, tried to find a webdesigner, and lost heart and turned back, but THIS IS IT.

It's getting into our slow season and there's no better time to do it. I have been quoted TWO WEEKS to a brand new website, but I really want to take my time and do it right, and explore more than one option. So all new sets will be posted on Etsy for the time being, and I am leaving the dinosaur, the Titanic of an old website up for now (it's still functional) until we catch up with the future.

Thank you to everyone who was willing to go to my Etsy shop this weekend and give it a try-- I recognize all of your names and you even FAVORITED my shop and you are seriously what gets me up in the morning. 

So here are some links for now:

Buy Existing Sets Here

Buy New Sets Here

Join the Constant Contact Mailing List Here

I'm adding that last one, because I may even start up a new domain with a shorter name like SFOXCO.COM-- so tired of spelling out San Francisco, aren't we? and I don't want to lose you along the way.

So thanks for sharing this journey with me--
as one of my favorite songs states--

"You'll never see the end of the road
while you're traveling with me."

Don't dream it's over--
we have millions of stitches still left to sew together-- 
we have barely even begun.

xoxo

Carol

Happy Easter!

     The Easter bunny came for a visit yesterday-- he ate my tulips, but left no candy! I am probably the only person in the world who will stand at the door watching a bunny destroy my garden, but PETER is so cute with his little cheeks stuffed with food!

     Earlier in the week, I did try to chase a turkey off our lawn-- they pull up Mr. SFO's grass by the roots-- but I only succeeded in chasing him further back into the property, and probably giving my neighbor a good laugh. Best not to interfere with nature.

     We are going to have a little cookout tomorrow-- I cannot face one more holiday in my stuffy dining room. My sister is bringing over steaks, and I have shrimp and scallops, for a little surf 'n turf meal. I pulled these out to inspire my baking daughter-- let's see what happens!

     Another week got away from me in the sewing room-- this week I tackled that bane of every small business person's existence-- TAXES. Yes, I know we have until May 17th, but I read that you still have to file your estimated tax on time-- since I need to finish 2020 to estimate my estimated, what is that extension good for? It's a grumpy time of year for me no matter what.

     My sister also went to Florida for a few days, and I was designated cat sitter. But I really did enjoy driving over each day to visit Muffin, Mimi, and Holly. It's only fifteen minutes and it was a nice break for me. Doesn't Muffy look so excited to see Aunt Carol? 

The Tablerunner of the Month is Fig Tree's "Mini Canned Pears." 

The operative word is MINI-- some of the pieces are 1" x 1." I don't shy away from itty bitty, but this is about my limit.

I have a layer cake of Joanna's "Chantilly" collection. I am making this for a friend who lives on Pear Street. That was one of my inspirations for Tablerunner of the Month this year-- to have some beautiful handmade gifts at Christmas. 

I'm going to go with a different configuration and am shooting for two rows of seven pears each-- I'd like a little bit larger, horizontal piece. It's really fun to make different colors of pears (what color IS a pear?) and mix in larger and smaller scale prints. These stitched up quickly, but they still have a stem and leaf, and then a checkered border, so I'm hoping to get through this by the end of the month.

WHILE I stitched my pears,

I was also stitching Once Upon A Time, Winter borders! 

The charm size piece is coming out beautifully.

     I should have instructions and designs ready for release early next week-- if you are a subscriber, it will magically appear in your mailbox. Thank you so much to all who paid for the twelve designs which were offered "free"-- now it's your turn to get a FREE finishing kit. It's getting well into spring now, but stitching out those late snowflakes-- some of us can still get a storm at this time of year-- well, the thought of it was making me smile.

     I was able to freemotion the brown strip on this project-- it came out so pretty. This is the first time with my longarm that I wished I had used contrasting thread!

   THE BAD NEWS-- right after I finished this, something happened while I was rethreading, and I just couldn't figure it out. The take up finger was up and the needle was down. Innova prides itself on 24/7 phone customer service, but I just wasn't interested to open up the back of the machine to adjust a belt. So I have a tech coming on Tuesday to fix it-- and to install a little bit of an upgrade while he's at it, hehe-- I'm super excited for this. Maybe I will have twelve 100% completed tablerunners on tables by the end of the year.

So that's my week in a nutshell-- now that I see what I accomplished, it wasn't such a bad week after all. Sometimes, I notice, instead of making TO DO lists, it's better to make a DONE list-- much more gratifying.

HAPPY EASTER!

xox

Carol