Who NOT to do business with

I do a lot of online shopping for trims and ribbons and buttons and such for crazy quilting.

I ordered 8 items from www.Ribbonsmyth.com  on 2/22/12.

About 2/27 i received an email from them that stated....item shipped.    good

On 3/7...14 days later....no package...i sent an email asking for order status.

3/7 i receive another email that says.....item shipped.

3/8 i send another email .... what exactly does that mean...shipped today?...shipped 10 days ago?... it's been over 2 weeks and i need to know if items are lost in the mails somewhere.

I never received an answer to my second email....my thoughts are that her response should have been along the lines of..."in checking my records i find that your package was mailed on (date) by the usps."  it is only common courtesy and good customer service.

Today i received my package.....19 days after ordering. not acceptable. it didn't come from overseas....it came from pennsylvania.

The package shows that it was mailed march 8.....exactly after my 2nd email asking for status.  not acceptable. what if i hadn't asked? would i have my package today?...i think not.  would i have ever gotten my package?....who knows

Is this good cutomer service.....no
Is this the proper way to treat customers....no
Will i be shopping with her again....definitely no

And it's not like i spent $100....only $18....but the price doesn't matter. when you shop online you expect your order to be handled promptly and your emails to be answered promptly and with sufficient information to appease the customer.  that didn't happen here at all.

It's a shame she made me a dis-satisfied customer....there were lovely items in her shop and i probably would have gone back again. but not now. in my package she even put a coupon for 10% off an order of over $25...hahahahahahaha

So... www.ribbonsmyth.com     you are on my DO NOT SHOP list.  might as well take me off your email list....i'll be deleting those.

Later

Marquita's Stellar

This quilt belongs to my friend, Marquita. it is called Stellar and was designed by my friend, Maralie. this is one of our class quilts...so i have quilted a few of them.

It is 82" square...Glide thread on top...Bottom Line on bottom.

Cool applique flower in the middle. the only directions i got were to outline the applique and crosshatch the middle.

There are lots of different stars...

Stars...

And more stars 

All the stars (except one that looks like a cross) are the same star but with different middles.

Cute little prairie points around the middle. i made up the design in the corner. kind of looks like the leaves of a water lily plant.

First border with 9 patches on point....they look like band-aids to me. LOL

Back is a muslin

The 'band-aids' got CC and the last border got a swirly thing that i just made up.

Cross hatching around applique is hard....have to keep backtracking to get in small places.

I have one more quilt to do for Marquita....probably next month.

She doesn't live close any more so have to wait till she comes into town to see it. hope you like it Marquita.

More to come...

Later

Kay's quilt progress

I am working on piecing another quilt with embroidery blocks for my friend, Kay. there are only 6 blocks for this quilt....so i made some alternate blocks.

I really didn't like how this was coming out. the white of the embrodiery block just didn't work next to the white of the sashing in my opinion. but what to do???? i had very limited fabrics to work with. but this is what i came up with.

i measured the red fabric that i had left....i needed 24 strips of something. ....i had enough to cut strips 3/4" wide. so i sewed them over the edges of the embroidery blocks. a bit over 1/4" shows. i think that made all the difference.  this is how much of the red fabric that is left....INCHES!  LOL

This is on the calendar to be finished this month also. 

A note on my friend, Kay.....she fell yesterday at home and broke a bone in her right knee. she has artificial knees and the bone broke away from the kneecap. she is having knee surgery tomorrow morning....could i ask you for a prayer or 2 for Kay...and her husband, Bill....who just discovered he has lung cancer.

I hope when i get this one finished and take it to Kay that it will make her day a bit brighter.

Now i better get back to work on the quilt on the frame before it gets much

Later

Miss Kelly is done

I finished the center block of My Tweets....my current hand applique project. it is done in wool felt and hand appliqued with 2 strands embroidery floss.

It is done on a pale green flannel background.

This center piece is 26" square. it will have a border on it with prairie points.

The other 12 surrounding blocks are 14" square. this will be one brightly colored quilt.

It will be queen size and i will keep it for my bed. this will be probably #8 or 9 that i have for my bed. they all reside in a glass fronted cabinet in the bedroom. the idea was to change the quilt on the bed every month. have i done that? .... nooo....LOL   the same quilt has been on the bed about 4 or 5 months. so i either need to start changing or decide that the other quilts are simply room decorations.

I have started the first block last night but haven't gotten too far. but i have all the pieces cut out. and one large flower appliqued onto the base. but the flower has 4 layers....so can i count that as 4 pieces done?

In the original pattern the birds are the same color but i decided to make one darker purple and one lighter. my reasoning is that one is the male...and one the female. makes sense to me. i will have to get more purple felt possibly....not sure i have enough for 12 blocks. but i have discovered that i can use the freezer paper templates more than once. i used the larger pieces from this block to cut for the smaller block and they stick just fine.

Hopefully by the end of the month i can show you the first block....and not much

Later

March UFO challenge picked

Yikes...Judy pulled #8 for March. All i have for this one is a box of fabrics, a pattern, and a few pieces cut.

Here is the pattern...designed by my friend, Maralie...called Tsunami

Here are some of the strips that i have pieced...not much. LOL

This will require several nights of cutting and piecing. this isn't going to be a quick one....but it will happen...just later....much

Later

March Color Palette Challenge idea

I finally got to download the color palette challenge for March from Vicki. i think this is a picture of some blown glass.

Here are my fabric choices...from left to right...Pepper, Coal, Medium Grey, Wine, Cayenne, Tangerine, Curry. my red colors aren't real exact but are as close as i can get.

And here is my EQ design that i came up with. a dozen 5" blocks. some tiny pieces.

I am anxious to start on this....but i have other things higher on the priority list....so this will have to wait till

Later

Ceiling demolition

I spent the weekend away from the studio. i went to my sisters and we hung out on Thursday and went to thrift shops and JoAnns and played. Friday we went to Centralia and did more thrift shops and went to buy her hot water heater. we won't even talk about us getting that monster into the house...it weighed 132 pounds...there were 5 steps....it was a BIG box....enough said. 

Saturday i made it over to the Duck. on the agenda was taking out more ceilings. i had hoped for 2 of them. in the back room of the studio one wall had some plywood over it but it wasn't done properly...so i took that out first. i will replace that wall....the correct way. those studs there have to come out, too. they are 2x6s and need to be 2x4s so the plywood on the other side sits in properly.

Then i tackled the ceiling of this back room for the studio. there were 9 2x4s on the ceiling....see those 'white' lines...that's where they were. i thought this would be hard because they were 2x4s and very long...about 16 feet. but once i got an end started...and put my large crow bar in there....they pretty much just popped off and fell on the floor. a couple hours and they were all off. the room was really too small to drag the scaffolding in there...so i just used the ladder. i carted all the boards out to the garage and tried to take down the plaster. but it was up there really well. this was a later addition so the plaster is not old and falling down. i just left it up there for another time.

So after looking around...i saw that the bathroom had 1 board up there that needed to come down. see that all white strip...that is where the 1x4 was attached. it came down pretty easily. the end broke off but i got it all down. i'll probably take that plaster down the next time i go. i hate cleaning up plaster mess. it is so heavy.

Then i looked at the office area. it was the smallest space. i managed to get 2 boards down and part of a third...you can see the end hanging up there. try as i might....i could not get these off that ceiling. i could get the pry bar in there...but it just wouldn't pop off. i finally figured out the problem was that the 1x4s are too flexible...they just bend or break. the 2x4s came off so easily in the first room because those boards are rigid and that helped me to get them down. so i got frustrated here and gave up on this room, too. do you see a pattern here? LOL

Not wanting to admit defeat....i tried the dining room ceiling. the plaster here is falling off in bits and pieces. i managed to get 2 boards off here. and i cleared the plaster off that section as well....since it was falling on me anyway. and i even took out 2 sections of lathe boards. the brown still showing up there is the insulation...that will be a very messy job to get that out. it is all old and disintigrating and DUSTY.

By this point i was getting tired and it was 3pm...so i called it a day. it was rather frustrating that i didn't get more done....but i was trying to be careful and not get hurt...pulling a muscle or anything. so even though i didn't get a lot done....it was progress after all.

I am still waiting to get the contractor back out there to finish hooking up the electric. he is tied up on other larger jobs and i don't get out there often enough. hopefully in the next month i can take a few more days and stay out there and try to get the electric work finished up and more ceiling demolition.

As much as i would like to work on it every week...it will have to wait till

Later