DoryJM Posted May 14, 2009 Report Share Posted May 14, 2009 Great idea!! Let me know when you make it to CA!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sewlinzi Posted May 15, 2009 Report Share Posted May 15, 2009 Go with that plan, Shannon - you'd have fun and it would be a best-seller! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brenni Posted May 15, 2009 Report Share Posted May 15, 2009 Don't quit completely! I look forward to your posts. You are one talented quilter. I don't know how most of you can stand working alone like you do. I think the burnout would be the lack of people contact not the backlog. I teleworked in the 90's for about a year when it was sort of a new thing. I found out in that one year that I needed contact with people. Mary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonnie Posted May 15, 2009 Report Share Posted May 15, 2009 Mary that is a problem for a lot of people it does take a special person who likes the voices in their head and likes the solitude, and I laugh as you can tell when I need human contact. People start getting phone calls and I'm not at home, I'm out shopping or just taking a drive. I can handle about 14 days at a time and then I need to really surface, and be around someone, but also I have to honestly say that this site has been a salvation for me since the beginning...2002. From 1997 until then I was in a 400 square studio with only my sterio and the bug-dudes next door (the Washoe county Vector Control Office), if it hadn't have been for them popping in once or twice a day to make sure I was still alive I think I would have quit within the first 3 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quilting Heidi Posted May 15, 2009 Report Share Posted May 15, 2009 Shannon, I get like you do when I have a log! I don't like having things so planned. I'm booked right now through July and one in Aug. I do this only part-time and this takes up all my free time. I do make sure that I book time for myself too or at least get a quilt in that I want to practice something on so that I can have some me time! I don't think I would like doing this 8 hours a day 5 days a week. I get bored too easily! If you go to Bonnie's I'd love to join in! Bonnie can I invite myself? I'll even bake if you want!!!!! Please, huh, huh, huh, please, pretty please? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonnie Posted May 15, 2009 Report Share Posted May 15, 2009 Originally posted by hmerrill If you go to Bonnie's I'd love to join in! Bonnie can I invite myself? I'll even bake if you want!!!!! Please, huh, huh, huh, please, pretty please? Like I would hog her to myself ...you know how to get here...you don't need an invite. but I might make you bake come cupcakes...those looked SO GOOD even to me.:cool: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hollyc Posted May 15, 2009 Report Share Posted May 15, 2009 Shannon, is it the type of quilts? I think it gets really hard when the quilts you work on have issues like friendliness(waving), tightwad (tight borders), lack of imagination ( why did they pick that color), the OMG factor (what were they thinking). You are a fabulous quilter. How many times do yu say no to a quilt you know will be nothing but a headache? Are there some quilters you wish you'd never see again. Be good to yourself and go with your gut...it will never betray you. If the first word in your head is "NO!" decline the quilt. It is so much fun to work an an exceptionally pieced quilt, isn't it? Saying no is tough if you are worried about your business and finances, so it puts you in a tough spot. It's spring, smell the flowers, take a month and do for you, the quilting passion most likely will return. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quilting Heidi Posted May 15, 2009 Report Share Posted May 15, 2009 Bonnie, OK it is a deal! LOL those cupcakes had been sitting out for more than a week to get a picture done and they were hard as a rock! LOL it was pretty funny! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AbigailE Posted May 15, 2009 Report Share Posted May 15, 2009 I'm in Illinois, put me down as a stop over on your RV book fact finding tour. (write-off). I have the space, a long arm to keep you company should you go into withdrawl. Combine your stops w/ teaching and you make money, have a tax-write off and get to have a great time with even more fun folks. What could be better??? Drive safe and I expect to see you soon.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonnie Posted May 15, 2009 Report Share Posted May 15, 2009 Originally posted by hmerrill Bonnie, OK it is a deal! LOL those cupcakes had been sitting out for more than a week to get a picture done and they were hard as a rock! LOL it was pretty funny! And you think the food we see in ads is fresh....your silly....alot of the props we used in Casino food ads were weeks old like your cakes and such...meat ads were made lots of times with plastic or wax meat props smashed between week old bread or something to look like bread....so you see its all in the WOW effect you have on people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quilting Heidi Posted May 15, 2009 Report Share Posted May 15, 2009 Well I can tell you there were 5 of them to start! LOL they were delicious when I first made them!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doodlebug Posted May 15, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 15, 2009 you guys are SO funny. i looked into renting an RV from july to sept: it would be cheaper to buy one ($8000 plus gas, etc) so...until i win the lottery, i'll just have to dream....unless someone has a plane with a pilot....oh wait- i could get my pilot's license and fly myself i wonder what it would take to have a LA retreat in this area....it couldn't be that hard- finding a venue and i'd be willing to pack up Nemo....there's a nice FFA place in north GA that one of the LQSs has retreats at all the time..... *new hamster running in the wheel* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AbigailE Posted May 15, 2009 Report Share Posted May 15, 2009 Girl, You gotta get your head around this. The RV and the book research are tax write offs, you get the money back. Ok so how to put out the money? Have an ad that you'd like to rent an RV from someone whose just got this expense sitting in there driveway. Talk to bank re: business loan, gets paid back with tax write off. We feed you, we provide you with the people for you to teach. You make gas and food money. Can you tell I want you to come??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliagraves Posted May 16, 2009 Report Share Posted May 16, 2009 I wonder if charging more for your services would help - it should cut down on your backlog some, but still keep your income up. I know I got frustrated when I thought about how much per hour I was making and how much I would rather be doing my own personal quilting than this customer quilt if I was only earning x dollars. I'm much happier now that I've raised my rates. I do fewer customer quilts but make more money per hour and am getting a better balance. It could also be the type of quilting. If edge to edge is boring to you, charge more for it. Set your pricing structure to encourage the type of work you want to do (or discourage what you DON'T want to do. For example - I charge an outrageous amount to handstitch binding because I don't like doing it, and no one has asked me to yet!). I too had to deal with my schedule - I was saying yes to everything and trying to meet outrageous deadlines and using every bit of my spare time to do it. Now I have firm limits and if it means someone goes to another quilter, that's okay. Good luck! Julia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doodlebug Posted May 16, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 16, 2009 julia- that's what i'm discovering.... i prefer to do custom, but i'm scared to price myself out of my market. where's the happy medium? ya'know. i just think i'm just going through a couple day phase, i'll probably wake up any morning now and can't wait to get in the studio and not come out for a week Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonnie Posted May 16, 2009 Report Share Posted May 16, 2009 Originally posted by doodlebug *new hamster running in the wheel* You know that is all it take at times to get a new breath of fresh air and down the track you go again.....if we didn't have goals or a new wheel to run on we all would just be crying in the corner.... Hang in there kiddo...it will get better, and if it doesn't you can always join the Bonnie, Cheryl....retirement club. And take a few months off for just you.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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