Note to Self

Self, do not drink coffee while quilting or laying out fabrics. Let's just say there were some surprising additional design elements in the fabric pattern and my Tide to Go pen got a workout. Alas, I didn't think to take a picture. Besides, who wants that kind of evidence of blatant incompetence or just plain klutziness floating around the internet? I may experiment with washing the finished product, I always wanted to know what that "old fashioned puckered" effect was all about.

Rotary Fever

Like this bad boy electric rotary cutter? It can spin its way through an inch of fabric without skipping a beat. Brilliant. Looking for and finding time savers is an essential part of “industrial” grade quilting and sewing. It can mean the difference between bringing a product to market and having it sit in a corner of your home taking up space. Which means, YOU are not sitting at that desk at your day job taking up space wishing you were someplace else.

To use this tool (which my husband clearly has some envy over) I first stack the fabric being meticulous about lining up the edges, smoothing out any wrinkles. Often, I will iron pieces first. It takes some preplanning because you have to know what size and shape your pieces are going to be. You also have to mark the top piece with the cut lines. This tool is not set up to run along the edge of a ruler. You need a steady hand, which is easier than it sounds. Many of my projects use long strips that are 2.5 inches wide, so I will stack and cut an entire yard into 2.5 inch strips all at once. I don't always know where all those strips will be used, but typically I make up block units that I combine and re-combine again and again in different ways. I like playing with the designs, changing them up and I'm always scanning the internet for new ideas. If I run into a particular look that is selling better, I make more of it.

I do have some safety rules in place when I use this. It has a hair trigger and surprisingly few OSHA enhancements. I make sure the cutting table is completely clear of all other debris. I do cord management so it doesn't get hung up on anything. I make sure my hands are accounted for and out of the way, not in front of the cutting path. Lastly and most importantly, I make sure no one is in the room with me, so my concentration is on the cutting and I'm not being distracted by random comments or questions. This is awkward when someone asks me to demonstrate the tool, but I like my limbs attached just the way they are, thank you!

The zebras are on retreat this weekend, being delightfully distracted by good company, fine food, and great cheer. Still sewing up a storm, infused with excessive amounts of silliness and goofing off. Just what the vet ordered.

Raining on the Steppes

 

The Zebras are happy today. It's raining. That means we can quilt and sew all day and not worry about doing any yard work. Praise the Lord. The housework is another matter. I have to make my bed. This is not because I have OCD or an especially strict upbringing. Its because my bed is my second work table! My production line would be chaos without it. Some day I'll have a separate work space for my fabric creations, but for now, I'm just enjoying walking by them all the time. It feeds my creative juices and keeps me motivated. I'm actually afraid if I have a separate studio it will be “out of sight, out of mind”. As for the rest of the housework, I just have to learn to look away from the sink when I walk into the kitchen. Away. Those dishes, exist, they don't. (Sorry! Channeling Yoda this week.)

Tote Bags - Heaven or Hell? The Design Process.

The tote bags featured here are a good example of my product development process. The top one is the full boat, all the bells and whistles version. It has three zippers, pockets on all sides and in the interior. It has an interior partition that I'm not sure is relevant. I added adjustable straps, which add to the look. As a gift item it rocks. People love it. It takes several hours just to cut out the pieces, an entire day to sew if you're speedy, and that doesn't include the time it takes to fuse the Pellon 809 interfacing to just about all of the parts. Clearly I don't stand of chance of being able to make one and pay myself more than someone in a factory in China.
 

The tote bag, below, is my prototype streamlined bag. I make prototypes of all my products so that I can gauge the amount of time it takes to produce the item and figure out which features give back value and which can be cut. My first decision in doing my prototype was to eliminate all the zippers. Phew! I hate sewing zippers! Like any sewing skill, it is one you have to do constantly to be good at and if your seam wobbles just a little, your bag will not look like a professional sewing job, which is absolutely necessary if you are going to sell anything. In some of the prototypes - I did more than one - I also eliminated the back pocket. I had found in using the bag that I didn't use the pocket, so away it went. I also eliminated the ties on the side pockets because I found that I never had to cinch in the pockets when I put a water bottle in them, so they were unnecessary. The interior pockets were time consuming to make, especially the central interior divide. So away they went, also. The result here is a very pruned down bag, but one that is still cute. I can sew up three of these in a day, which still puts the price a little high for some consumers.

The next step in the process is to determine whether I should be adding some features back in and where the price points are. In order to get top dollar, I have to be able to show that this bag is either special because it has features you want or its so cute the consumer will purchase it anyway. One of the features that I may add back in is the additional zipper compartment on the front pocket. Its cute. I don't really use it. I may add ONE interior pocket because the inside looks naked without it. The back pocket is also cute and some people may use it to stash newspapers. Feedback from my Beta testers has indicated they want the top zipper back. In a car, driving down the road, (when closed!) it keeps the junk from spilling everywhere. If I add the zipper back in, I will upsize the scale of it making more of a design statement. Ordinary dress zippers look a bit whimpy.

This leaves my next task at seeing if I can sew three of the enhanced versions in one day. I am concerned that I may have added too many features back in.  Below is my baby diaper bag. Isn't it cute? I have enough fabric to make aproximately 4 or 5, so we'll see how we do at parsing out the steps and doing them in batches. More about my assembly line in a future post. Let's just say no one is sleeping in that bed once I start!