What's New? George?

It has been a LONG time since I've done a blog post and I've made some changes to my business plan.  As I approach my 60th Birthday (gasp!) I ask myself "how do I really want to spend my time?"  - and the answer is "CREATING".  My passion is the creative process, not worrying about how to entice buyers to buy my work.  It takes an enormous amount of time (for me at least) to photograph a quilt, edit the pics, write the descriptions, etc. etc. etc....  and quite frankly, I don't enjoy it.  I would rather spend my time creating.

I analyzed my customer base and found that the majority of my clients find me through word-of-mouth/personal referrals.  Yet I was spending so much time on my on-line listings.  Obviously, that's not the most efficient use of my time, so that's why you have heard and seen less of me on-line over the past year.

I am still actively quilting, and I will continue to do so.  However, there won't be as many new listings in my Etsy shop.  I will post quick pics (unedited) and updates here on my blog from time to time, so you can still follow along and see what's new in my Cotton Cellar.  Some of what you see might be for sale, some might be custom orders for clients, and some might simply be quilts I'm making just for the pure joy of making them, for me or my family.  If you see something you are interested in, or want something made, don't hesitate to contact me and ask.  I love hearing your comments and questions!

I've made some changes to my studio space lately too, as you might have guessed from the title of this post.  I finally gave in to my years of dreaming and bought an APQS George.  I have always wanted a longarm machine, but don't have the space for a frame.  I'm used to quilting on a domestic machine, so George is the perfect choice for me - the benefits of a longarm machine, in a smaller footprint.  We are getting along nicely and getting to know each other.  Of course, that meant a serious cleaning and reorganizing of my studio to make space for everything, but we all need to do that once in a while anyway.  George just gave me a good reason to "get it done" now.

Here are some pics of my new "roomie" and the first 2 quilts we've done together.  (To give her some much earned credit, the fabric selection and most of the piecing on the Hourglass Quilt was done by my daughter.  She started it several years ago and asked me to finish it for her.  She's a young working mom and elementary teacher who hopes to get back into quilting one of these days when her life calms down a little.)  Both quilts are custom orders for one of my long time customers.  This makes 14 quilts I've made for her over the years...  hopefully there will be many more.