Bedding Orders

It’s snowing again this morning although, like yesterday it’s very wet out and so none of it settles. Once again, like yesterday, in between snow showers we have the most brilliant gorgeous sunshine- the weather really can’t decide whether it wants to revert to winter, or let spring start to edge its way through. It is extremely bitter out though, so I suspect spring will have to wait a little while longer at least.

Once I’m back from listening to readers at the school, I get the usual early morning jobs done around the house. Routines can easily get boring and become real ‘chores’, however I’m so used to doing them that I automatically load the washing machine and do the breakfast washing up almost without thinking about it. My day doesn’t begin until the two tasks are done, and any plans for the day have already taken the slightly later start into account!

Both of the older girls are home again today, which is nice as it means they can grab a bit of older ‘girly’ time together- once the younger of the two actually condescends to wake up! Taking my breakfast into the dining room I log onto the computer to check on emails and the website, and sneak a few moments to see what’s happening in the world of Facebook too. I’ve a few admin bits to do on the website, just some rearranging of the homepage and some general tidying up of item descriptions etc. so I get that done before checking through and writing up yesterday’s blog post.

I was so pleased to finally get the chance to catch up with my blog last month (even if I wasn’t pleased at the fact that it was due to having flu!), and I really don’t want to fall behind with it again. I don’t mind quite so much if I don’t actually manage to find the time to publish each day at the right time, just so long as I find the time to write it fully and get it drafted. When I was behind with it before, all I had written down was reminder notes- it’s amazing what hard work it is to remember what you were doing on any particular day when you only have the bare basics to work from!

After lunch I set to with some cutting out. I’ve actually got to the stage where I have nothing left cut out ready for sewing- it’s been a while since that was the case and I think it’s an indication that I am finally managing to catch up with myself a bit. I still have several orders outstanding before I can truly say I’m ahead with my work and actually advertise shorter time scales, but most of the orders waiting for my attention at the moment are for bedding and blankets, so will be quite straight forward and quick to complete.

I cut out enough fabric and wadding for the next four or five orders, and note with a feeling of satisfaction the neat pile of fabric. I’ve just about got time still this afternoon to start working on the next order on the list- it’s for a bedding set and blanket, both in designs that haven’t been ordered for a while. As a result I haven’t got my brighter, newer photos taken of them yet, so I must remember to do so before I send the items out to my customer. 

Perhaps it’s fortunate therefore that I have to stop to cook dinner before completing the sewing of the pillow, as otherwise I would have been tempted to hurry with getting the parcel wrapped up in the hope that Mike will be back early enough to take it to the post office for me! As it stands now, perhaps tomorrow I will get the chance to bring this particular bedding set design up to the same selling standard as the other ones…

Winter Again

Having advertised my end of winter sale to start yesterday, I was worried I wasn’t going to actually find the time to start it. Although it was well into the evening by the time I got a chance, I did at least manage to find the time to mark the prices of the winter outfits as reduced, and even remembered to show the Sale category up on the website. Today though, I need to double check I didn’t miss out any of the outfits, or discount the wrong amount off anything, and then restart my google ‘Sale’ ad- as well as updating the message on the website homepage and Latest News page.

I’m already thinking ahead to all of this, and the fact that I need to start checking the fabrics for my summer outfits- due to be added to the website in a couple of weeks or so, as I stand in the kitchen first thing waiting for the kettle to boil. Mike has just headed off to town, taking our second youngest off for her school bus, and I glance out of the window, noticing with a shock just how wintry the scene outside looks. The last few days have been a little milder, and spring almost seemed to be in the air, so the sudden change is a little unexpected. As I look a little closer, snow starts drifting down, and a moment later there are beautiful thick snowflakes rushing past. All thoughts of summer outfits are suddenly put out of my mind…

The snowfall doesn’t last long, indeed by the time Mike returns to grab his breakfast before heading off to work, the snow has stopped and the sun has come out. It still makes for an interesting start to the week though, and the bitterness in the air promises there’s more wintry weather still to come. Our eldest daughter has a driving lesson first thing, so she takes her littlest sister to school for me before meeting her driving instructor outside the village primary- with the temperature outside today, I can’t say I’m too sorry to have missed the trip!

With the house newly cleaned, there’s little housework that I absolutely have to get done today, so after loading the washing machine and doing the breakfast washing up I sit down at the computer and get on with the sale admin, and then check through the rest of the website, emails, Facebook page and blog. I don’t know where time goes to- I don’t have to waste it for it to just rush on past. Before I know it, it’s lunchtime.

We’ve had another couple of snowstorms, where it has come over so dark we’ve needed all the lights on in the house, and in between times we’ve had beautiful spring sunshine- the weather just doesn’t seem to know what it wants to do today. The snow hasn’t settled at all, apart from on the hills in the distance, and by now the ground is probably too wet anyway.

With my eldest girl already promising to go and get her sister from school later, I’ve now got a good two or three hours in which I can get some sewing done before I need to stop to cook dinner. There’s an order that came in before I was ill, for a Valentine’s print dress with a Velcro fastening, and having already cut out the fabric I’m hopeful that this is a job I can finish this afternoon. It’s very satisfying to sit down at the sewing machine to start an outfit, and have the time to actually stay put until it’s complete. It’s the first dress I’ve made with the Velcro fastening, and this adds to the satisfaction, as once I’ve finished the sewing that’s it- no needing to hand sew a popper on later this evening.

I have to pack everything away once I’ve made the dress, as its time to make dinner, but after just one afternoon I’ve got a completed outfit- wrapped and ready for posting. Not only does this give me a boost because it means another outstanding order ticked off the list, but it’s another sign that when I’ve fully caught up, I should be able to advertise quicker turn around times and catch some of the potential customers who get put off by having to wait for up to four weeks. Maybe quoting Velcro as a quicker option could be the answer I've been looking for…

Sunday - The Day of Rest?!

Sunday is the day of rest. Well so they say, and so the bible says, but obviously no one has ever been an observer in our house! To be fair, no one actually goes out to work, and we go to church as a family, but more often than not it’s down to me to cook the Sunday roast, initiate and do at least half of the washing up and then catch up on some sewing. Meanwhile the rest of the family are dotted around the house catching up on their own ‘me’ time, watching telly or playing games together.

Despite the fact that I’ve had an extremely long week catching up on all the housework that no one bothered with during all the time I was poorly, today is no exception to the usual Sunday routine. After church the children all disperse to their own rooms and the house is soon full of their laughter and giggles as the older girls enjoy some ‘big girl’ time together, our son is obviously playing on his DS with a friend online, and the little girls are going nutty in their room. Mike takes his computer into the living room to ‘catch up with a few things’, and is soon laughing at a programme he’s found on the television- leaving me, once again, with the dinner. Don't get me wrong- I love hearing the house full of laughter, and I love doing the cooking, but sometimes on a Sunday it just feels like a very lonely chore. Even if, like today, my biggest girls has already peeled the potatoes for me, before disappearing up to her bedroom!

Although last week was long and tiring, it was also extremely satisfying, and I did manage to get a fair bit of work for my business done as well as all the housework. The last pair of butterfly print pyjamas sold on Thursday evening, so I’ve now removed them from the website, and put the new fabric on as their replacement. Now I just need to find a spare five minutes to get a demo pair of them made up, and of course photographed! On Friday I managed to get the two pairs of trousers made up to complete the order I was working on during the week, and Mike took it into the post office for me yesterday morning.

Having noticed the date on Thursday and realised that I normally begin my End of Winter sale this weekend, I prepared yesterday by posting the details on the website’s homepage and the Facebook page. I then checked through all the item descriptions, and realised that I never quite completed the task of adding the Velcro option to all the outfits. Having already had a couple of people opt for this choice, I need to make sure that they all have it showing, so I went through and added it to those on which is was missing. Today I need to actually begin the sale, but not until dinner is cooked and cleared away and I’ve done about a zillion other chores first!

I’ve nearly managed to complete ‘operation tidy-up’, or perhaps more accurately I should call it ‘operation get-things-back-to-where-they-were-before-I-got-the-flu’!! On Friday I cleaned the main bathroom, including the ceiling around the window, which suffers terribly with the condensation caused by five people having daily showers, and two children having showers a couple of times a week. The mould and mildew was not only looking awful, but can’t have been very hygienic- it was a job high up on my list of tasks for after Christmas, but obviously other things have since over taken. Better late than never though, after a couple of hours of cleaning (and a bit of precarious balancing at the top of the step ladder!) the bathroom looked white and sparkling and much more ‘bathroom’ like!

Another task which was due for after Christmas was to clean the top of the younger girl’s bedroom wall. This too suffers from bad condensation as it’s on the outside corner of the house and gets terribly cold in the winter. When it gets cold, it gets wet inside and that then turns to mildew if you don’t keep on top of it, which over the last month or so I haven’t! I finally managed to get this job done yesterday morning, while the girls had a good tidy up of their room- by yesterday evening it was looking far more cosy in there and the two of them seemed to sleep much better last night as a result!

So that just leaves vacuuming upstairs as the last main task to go in order to get the housework back on track, not that there aren’t then a hundred other jobs left to do to get the house to the point where I’d actually like it to be! Having had such a good week of catching up, and anxious now to spend this next week trying to get fully up to date with Little Dolly Clothes Shop, I decide that I may as well end this one by completing my mission. So, after dinner and before I turn my attention to the online Tesco order that needs doing, or the uniforms that need ironing, and while everyone else’s attention goes back to their games or the television, I get the vacuum out and head upstairs. 

After all, it’s not like Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest, or anything…!