I'm Open!!!

Well I got the store open and I even have an order! I am having an opening sale and everything is 5% off this week, plus the specials for subscribers.

I have done all my clues for the GDUNH and my husband has just looked for it to check it works, I think he needs to learn more nursery rhymes. Either it will be very easy and I will have to change it, or it will be very hard and lots of people will be frustrated. I think it is very logical, but I know the answers lol.

Well that was surreal

I just had the weirdest experience.

There is a section on the forum I advertise on where people can share and discuss new stores or products they have found. And I made it on! That was very exciting, but it was so strange to read about myself as "she." A bit like overhearing people discussing you. Luckily they were saying nice things LOL.

Been working frantically and am just about set to go. All the little details like wrapping and postage have had to be dealt with, as well as trying to keep sewing.

I was tossing up about whether or not to put in some of the ones that didn't quite work out as seconds, and in the end I decided to. When I was starting I liked trying seconds, it is annoying to pay full price for something that may not work. So having some where the stitching is a bit messed up or the arm is too narrow won't affect how they work, but there are probably other people out there like me who want to try a cheaper one before buying a full priced one.

It's a bit of a worry but I am getting sick of it at the moment :) I'm sure it is just a combination of single parenting, working until 2am then getting up at 7am and not getting any feedback. And all the boring fiddly bits that I left till later like weaving in the overlocking threads, well later is here. As soon as I open and people actually like something enough to buy it I will feel good again, and I am planning a partial day off tomorrow. This is one of the reasons I stock lots of different things - when I get sick of doing one thing I can swap to something else.

Staying in the city.

Well, what a busy 4 weeks it's been.

We have been staying at our house in the city and DH has spent a lot of time with our little girl, so I have pretty much been working full time. It's very sad, she has weaned and moved out of our bedroom, and she is happy playing by herself for a bit. She used to be stuck to me like superglue, it is really funny to have her walk away from me. Having a toddler is so much fun (and I'm not being sarcastic there), but I do miss my little baby a bit.

The sad thing is that DH has gone home, while we are staying here for another 4 to 7 weeks. I already miss him horribly, and she has been wandering around the house calling "Da!" It is pretty sad. I am going to have to pace myself - no sewing until 2am, because I won't be getting any sleep ins.

I have been doing some fun sewing, getting some fancy T-shirts ready for my Secret Subscribers' Area. It is almost impossible to find fancy fabrics for boys - it is all flowers or lace. And sewing with metallic thread is a pain - it keeps coming unthreaded and I have to unpick it. I'm going to try to finish the boy's t-shirt tonight, then I can post pics and put a newsletter out.

Then I need to keep sewing boy nappies. It's silly, I have more boy than girl fabric, but when I grabbed some to bring up here I seem to have grabbed all girly stuff. Lucky there is a Spotlight in town! And my labels should finally arrive sometime this week. I thought it was all organised and then got asked to check some of the artwork, and I can't do anything on the sleepsacks until I have the labels. I am giving DH a list of things to post to me, I am going to be flat out getting it all done. I am going to have to open and then keep adding stuff, which is actually quite a good way to go during the hunt month, I know I go back to a lot of stores to see what they have.

Better keep going, it's almost curfew.

I have a store!

www.waggleweekids.com

The store is up for previewing!!! I am still fiddling around with things, but the basics are there and some products are up.





I have also registered for the Nappy Hunt, my prize is a bamboo velour children's towel. I painted it with sunpaints and put hearts and stars on it as well as salt patterns.

Now I am sewing sewing sewing, I have just cut out another 12 nappies to get done this weekend hopefully, then I can do some more fiddling with the store!

Busy, busy, busy

So much work, so little time.

I have just done my first batch conversion of pictures and I am in love with this programme. Probably other programmes do it too, but this was the only one I had on the computer I am currently on. I just had to click a few buttons and all the pictures were resized and compressed! I have been doing it all by hand, this is wonderful.

I have been doing lots of painting and have lots of flats ready, still working out the best way to photograph them.

The results are back from my testers and I have made some new nappies which are being trialled. I also checked out the new PowerDry and it works well. I was worried about how thin it is, but DD has worn it a few times now and even with toddler wee she feels dry.

I have used up all of my velour making some towels and sheets. They were fun to sew because I got to use my fancy new stitches. This is what I am going to use as my prize in the GDUNH. It is a gorgeous bamboo velour baby/child's towel. The painting is yellow and orange and it has stars and hearts on it. They only come up faintly because of the technique but you can see them IRL. The front was really interesting - the fabric underneath has absorbed the colour but the nap hasn't, so it has this really shiny look and changes colour if you look in different directions. My daughter has been using my first trial ones and they are brilliant for drying her.

The other thing I am madly working on is my website! Yaay!!! I really should finish the tutorials, but I got impatient waiting for them to load and just dove in. I like playing around with it this way, I now get the principals of how it works so I can work out each step more easily, if that makes sense. I am about to go and upload pictures to it so I will be learning how to put products in. I thought I had brought all my photos off my home computer which includes finished stock and things for the gallery, but I don't seem to have saved them :(. Oh well, it would have been nice to have that bit set up but I don't think I will run out of things to do anytime soon.

Great Down Under Nappy Hunt

OK, it's coming up again and it has prompted crunch time. I can sponsor through this blog and that will get at least some exposure, especially if I have a form for subscribers.

OR

I can try to get the store up and running by then. It may be doable but it will probably drive me insane, especially as I am currently operating on dial-up (and what I think of Telstra's service cannot be written).

I have lugged the overlocker, sewing machine and a heap of fabric up to our house in the city. So far I have overlocked all the flats, but I am waiting on the paint to arrive. They should be no problem to get done though. I am also doing various inserts, but I changed them after tester comments so there is a bit of fiddling, I think that is finished.

I am holding off doing the towels or sheet sets until I have a new machine, as I want to get one with nice decorative stitches to finish them with. I didn't bring much velour fabric, so I will probably only get a couple of these done.

I am waiting on a quote for labels. Unfortunately the high fire hazard labels only come in rolls of 1000, so if they are too expensive there goes the sleepsack idea. If I don't get them then I will just get plain written labels at first, but it will be interesting to see what the quote is on labels with the logo. If they come back OK then I have to get the sleepsack tested, but part of the testing is the label attachment so it is a waiting game. I can't get the insurance sorted until this is done either, as it makes a difference if I am selling nightwear.

A couple of the testers are still getting back to me, but based on the others there are a couple of changes, and I have already trialled them on DD. Poor little thing only gets new nappies now when I am trying something new! So I will have to test the changes and then see how many I can get put together.

Then of course there is the store itself. I have written up all my information so it just has to be copied and pasted, and this is something I was going to do while I am up here. Unfortunately now I have used this internet connection for a couple of days I can see it is going to be an exercise in frustration, I will have to sit here and finish off my overlocking threads while I am waiting.

And of course the fun things are left until last - MONEY! I have an idea of the prices I want to charge, but I was going to check out various other stores to compare them. So I may be here at odd hours of the night trying to go faster than 14.2kbps.

Luckily DH's eldest son arrived to visit today, and DD thinks he is the best thing since sliced bread. It's funny, he and my mother are the only two she really goes to. But she is having a wonderful time helping him and Daddy in the garden or putting curtains up, I feel like I have barely seen her today. And Daddy got her up at 6:30am and then did her nap and put her to bed. Don't get me wrong it is great to have a bit of time to myself, it just feels weird having so much of it.

Fabric's arrived, I'm leaving

Well the fabric has made it through customs. This is just the stuff for the pocket linings. There is the most wonderful one called butter suede, the two purple ones. The others are all Malden Mills PowerStretch and PowerDry. They are specially designed as wicking fabrics and I have been using the PowerStretch for a while now, so they should make good linings. And as long as they take to get here, I didn't want to have to do lots of orders!

We are going away again on the weekend, staying in our house in the city for 3 or 4 weeks. I have been trying to decide what to take. Before the fabric arrived I decided to get all my overlocking done, so here is some of the fabric I have cut up. There are 39 bamboo flats, (don't ask me how I managed 39?!) who knows how many bamboo inserts and 30 microfibre inserts as well as enough ProCare for 30 pockets. Then I am halfway through cutting up the hemp for inserts as well, and I haven't decided whether to take the bamboo velour. I wasn't going to because I was waiting on the FOE, but that arrived today so some of that might go in as well.

I am starting to get some feedback from the testers and it is mostly good. They are not having wicking problems and most of them fit well, I have to decide whether to modify it a bit for the ones that don't or put them outside the size range. There are a few problems with the cover flap, it is confusing. I have an idea what to do about it, so it was lucky the fabric arrived, hopefully I will be able to get one done before we leave and DD can test it. I've also had an idea about the inserts, but I can fiddle around with them on holidays. Exciting news - DH might buy me a new sewing machine!!! I kept saying I couldn't really justify it, but he's decided it is just too noisy and he is going to road test some new ones to see if they are quieter. Sounds good to me!