Thursday, July 30, 2009

progress!!

It feels so good to finally make real progress on things!! Even though the Carpenter's Wheel is in the list of things that are done the binding wasn't put on it yet and I got that done yesterday. I'm not in a huge hurry to get it done so I'll finish the binding next week when I go for the guild meeting. That way I don't have to drag the machine with me to sew for 3 or 4 hours.

I also got the top of the Midnight at the Oasis quilt done yesterday!! That's real progress! I got one corner on the wrong direction so I'll have to take that off and turn it around but that's a 15 minute fix. It's going to be a totally stunning quilt. I'm thinking because it's a very straight design that it needs feathers in the quilting. I should have taken a pic of it yesterday but I didn't think about it.

I think next up will be the butterfly kisses BOM in the original fabrics and two of the square in a square quilts. My husband's neice said she likes darker colors. The butterfly kisses original is darker colors. I didn't actually care much for the original fabrics but I loved the pattern so I went ahead and bought it. I had started a square in square for the great neice but she's just barely 3 so there wasn't a huge hurry and then she had a baby sister. If I'm going to make two of them I might as well go ahead and do them both at the same time so I've started cutting for the second one. When I get the blocks sewn I'll mix the blocks with the first set so they'll each get an even bigger variety of fabrics in their quilts. Mom and dad and 2 daughters will all have a quilt at the same time that way and I'll get rid of one I'm not all that crazy about. Works for me!!

Thursday, July 23, 2009

more fabric store rantings

Okay so now they're saying "there's nothing close to me."

And then I search for them and find out there's 41 quilt stores in a state the size of New Jersey they can't drive to because "it's too far."

Don't people drive in those little tiny eastern states? Is 30 minutes so excessively far you can't go by yourself?

Hell, I drive 10 miles *one way* just for GAS!! I drive 96 miles *one way* to go to my quilt guild meetings and to sew for the afternoon with friends.

Sad, sad, sad, the ways people will put limitations on themselves and then turn around and whine about it.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

controversial views

Apparently I hold some rather controversial views on fabric buying. I expressed surprise at how many people list walmart as a fabric source on a message board and got the standard "it's all I can afford" and "it's the only place within spitting distance" whines in return. I call bullshit. Every LQS puts fabric on sale and this isn't the horse and buggy days, you can drive farther than 10 minutes to get to a store.

I bought fabric for 3.50 a yard friday at a LQS. That's very affordable. Anybody that's posting on a message board is also perfectly capable of buying fabric online. I have bought fabric as low as 3.75 a yard online. And you don't even have to have a credit or debit card for most of the places. You can send them a check or money order.

Bullshit I say.

They say they don't need the quilt snobs telling them otherwise. I say they're shooting themselves in the foot buying fabric at walmart. Walmart demands its manufacturers lower their price by 10% every year. Once you've offshored the manufacturing to some country you can get away with 10 cent an hour wages the only way to lower costs is to start lowering the cost of the goods. That means cheaper quality griege goods and cheaper dyes. Then you lower the quality of the printing process. When the manufacturer has lowered the cost as far as possible then walmart just stops buying from them and finds a new manufacturer in another country that can pay 5 cents an hour and starts all over.

People will put their own neighbors and friends out of work just to buy cheap Chinese goods and then turn around and complain they can't afford anything else when their own good jobs left for China.

Yeah, I know it's controversial and an unpopular view. But ya know, I don't care. If everybody cared more about where their goods came from than how cheap they could get it this country would likely be a whole lot better off. Walmart has not done this country on any other country any good. If anything it has seriously hurt this country.

I've lived in poverty. Don't tell me "I can't" I know better.