Customer Negotiations....

So I have this customer who wants me to put this design on a picnic blanket for her.  It's a gift for the coach.  This is a sample on scrap material I always embroider out first.

I double and triple check the name spelling (because this looks odd to me) and yep, I've spelled it right.  I finish up the job, ship the blanket to her and she sends me an email that says, "You spelled the coach's name wrong.

I tell her I guarantee against my errors but not customer errors.  She tells me she verified the spelling in the phone conversation we had.  I said, "No....we verified we were doing Coach Lindsy on one blanket and replacing the second one with your last name".    I had her send me an email before embroidering to verify the spelling of the coach.  

Long story short, she said I didn't...I send her a copy of my request along with the email she sent with the name spelled incorrect.  She says it's not her fault because she sent the email from her phone and it dropped the e out of the name.  I offer her a new blanket at cost and the embroidery free.  She still wants more.  I told her it wasn't my error but to save the relationship I'll do a patch (applique) for $10 but won't guarantee how it turns out.  I also explained, the $10 fee didn't even cover the cost of thread because it was more than 13,000 stitches.

She agreed to the applique patch and brings the blanket to me.  I'd already worked the new spelling and design into a patch and sewed out a sample so when she got here she could see it.

She loved it, we changed the coach's name to white thread and took off for an hour with her kids (she lives in Fremont) so I could do the task.   Considering I was embroidering over the old design, the patch turned out pretty darn nice. The actual blanket had less puckering then the sample above shows.  I was talking sweetly to my machine because it really wasn't happy sewing over so many layers of thread.  Like a trooper it pulled through.

I always have a phone customer send me an email with the correct spelling so I can avoid situations like this.  Luckily, this is the first time I've run into such a problem.  I did some work for this customer last summer and she was nice to work with and loved what I did.  She'll have more work for me next month because they have all new soccer uniforms that need personalizing.  I felt it was in my best interest to bend over backwards more than I normally would but wasn't about to give her a new blanket and sustain a big loss.

Having D around really helped because I was getting angry she was trying to throw the error in my lap.  I'd storm into the office and  vent my frustration then he'd calm me down so I could think straight.   I was frustrated that she just wouldn't say, "I'm so sorry I messed up."  Instead of the various you did or didn't do this or that.

When I gave her the completed blanket with the applique patch, she apologized for the mistake and gave me $15 instead of the $10 I was charging her.  We agreed this was just a bump in the road and would both move on and be more careful in the future. 

It was an all's well that ends well but sure took patience and creativity to come to that conclusion.  I was glad to eat the cost of set up time to make a past customer happy.

Canine Family Pictures

For some unknown reason, I just can't bring myself to post on the blog without pictures. So....since I still haven't found the charger for the camera, here are some of my favorite pictures of the Branson/Ward canine clan.

Of course, it all started with the big R. I'm thinking it was his amorous adventure with Nuttie that threw out his back. That sounds so much better than "he jumped off the couch", "he was playing and turned wrong"....you get my drift. It sounds so much better to say, "He was all over this beautiful doxie and boom, his back went out".

It's hard to believe that Nuttie is the mom of this beautiful little black bundle of joy who (can't seem to keep her ear going the right direction). Nisie is bigger than Nuttie and might also be a little larger than her dad. I didn't think to measure them when I had them together a few months back.

Here are the boys. It's not very often I get a picture of them. So this is rare indeed. Coco is in the front and is a little darker than the picture shows. Cole is jet black like Nisie but has a larger and longer nose. When he was a pup, I accused him of being jewish or English because he had this large hump in the middle of it. Somewhere along the line, it smoothed out and he grew into it.

This picture just makes me laugh. Cole likes to sit by the window and watch people go by. The way he sits just cracks me up. Look at that little Buddha belly. Isn't it hilarious?

I think I'm lucky because I get to see the pups Nuttie and Ringo created. I just didn't have the heart to sell them to strangers. I don't know how people could do that.

You spend all night helping deliver them. You spend the next month or so on the couch watching over them and making sure the littlest one gets fed. How can you possibly let them go to strangers? Yep, I'd make a lousy breeder.

The gene pool is a confusing little crap shoot. Breed a black long hair Dapple with a short hair Piebald and not a spot on any of the pups. Although Cole has this fuzzy little tuft of hair on his head that screams Ringo. LOL!

I seem to have two ways of working on large projects. The first is I stick with it until its done not taking breaks or eating and working late into the night. Or, I start it, after an hour or two I don't see much improvement so I quit and go waste the rest of the day.

Hope you enjoyed the family pics. They made me smile and put me in an upbeat mood. I think I'll head out for a P&J sandwich and slowly tackle a project or two or three. LOL!

Where's the Charger?

Now this is the height of desperation.  I haven't blogged because I can't find the charger to the camera.  I have a spare battery but it's in the charger.

For the past year I've left the charger on the desk in the kitchen.  A few weeks ago I decided the sewing room would be a better place for it, since that's where I keep the camera.

I remember trying to charge the battery and it just wasn't convenient so decided the charger should go back into the kitchen desk.  That's where the brain cells died and I'm in limbo.

Part of me says I took the charger in there.  The other part says it's still in the sewing room.  I've looked both places and can't find the darn thing.  All I know is....it isn't lost because I consciously put it in a nice safe place.

So, just to keep the blog from being boring, here's a Harry Potter picture.  It was quick and easy to download so that's what you're getting today.

I haven't blogged because of the camera issue but have decided it's not going to stop me.  You're just going to get strange random pictures.

D was walking around the house last week like a caged tiger.  The rain keeping him inside was really getting to him.  Which means, my life gets turned upside down because he's restless.

Well, I took the bull by the horns and found a solution.  For the 25 years we've lived here, I've hated having one oven. This is the first house I've owned that only had one and I find it inconvenient and frustrating at times.  So I went on CraigsList and low and behold I found several beautiful used ones.

The one I found is 4 years old was used for 2 and has been stored the past 2.  It came out of a new house where the owner replaced all the black appliances in bisque after living there only two years.  

For D it's good news and bad news.  He's thrilled to have an indoor project.  He had the old oven and built in microwave removed 4 hours after getting home with the double ovens.  I thought it would take him days but he got restless and boom....the kitchen is a wreck.  Today he spent the day making the opening larger.  He had to rebuild the drawer under the old oven.  The opening had to be adjusted so much the drawer couldn't stay the large size it was.

The oven is missing one of the door springs so I ordered that yesterday.  It should be in Thursday.  Now it's suppose to rain off and on everyday for the next week which means, as soon as I pull the spring from the mail, D will be hooking up the 220 and sliding the new ovens into place.

Now...just in case he gets restless between finishing up the drawer and waiting for the spring, I've got two 1 year old refrigerators I'll be looking at tomorrow. My poor little Whirlpool is 30 years old.  It used to be Harvest Gold but I had it painted black about 20 years ago.  It's running great (I rebuilt in about 15 years ago) but is an energy hog.  So I'm going to replace it with an newer Energy Saver.  I'm sticking with Whirlpool because my poor little baby is still running after 30 years (so I like the track record) and parts are easy to get.  The models I'm looking at have good reviews so I'll be zeroing in on them.

Once I have a refrigerator in hand, when D gets a lull in the oven project, I'll have a back up ready and waiting for him to jump into.  

If the rain continues, I'm going to get a headache coming up with things for D to work on to keep him out of my hair.  LOL!

Itza Dawgs Life

Yep....no question about it.  I'm gonna come back to life as a dog.  Then I'm gonna pick the home of one of my future family members to live in.  You can see how stressed out Nuttie was this morning.  Such exhaustion comes from guarding the kingdom 24 hours a day.

Well, she did move her head long enough for her daughter to join her.  That probably took so much out of her energy reserve she had to rest more.

Now the Bear here deserves a break.  She's so exhausted from dealing with a year old puppy even the hair on her ears is messed up.  Nuttie will run from room to room like a rocket with Nisie burning up energy.  The Bear here just rolls over on her back with her feet up in the air, makes these grumbling noises that sound like a bear in the woods and lets the puppy jump on her head while rolling it from side to side.  It's the maximum amount of effort this 13 year old Dachshund can muster.

On days where they're all being brats, I try to explain to them about the dogs in the world that aren't as lucky as they are and live with bad humans.  Hoping they'll settle down and be good.   They look at me lovingly like there's no such thing as being mean to an animal.  Ignorance is definitely bliss around here.

Canyon Fog

So yesterday I post some pictures of the cool fog in the valley and say how I like it when it's thicker so I can't see the new homes but I'm in the sun.  Well, wouldn't you know it?  I woke up this morning to exactly what I love.  The fog was thicker in the valley and I can't see any of the homes.  This is pretty much the same picture I took yesterday where you could see the houses.

See how cool it is when the sun is coming up and we enjoy it beauty rising but the valley on the three sides are socked in fog?  The nice thing is, the fog will burn off where it is and not rise to our level.  I'm always in awe of Mother Nature's powers.

When I was taking pictures this morning I saw this nest in the tree outside the dining room window.  It's hard to tell but it's larger than a 1 gallon bucket in circumference and about 3/4 it's height.  Definitely not for a hummingbird!

I'm going to have to keep a watch on it and see if a bird deposits her eggs in it this year.  I'm thinking it's either for one of the crows (the ones we have are huge) or possibly one of the owls.  Whatever it is, it's really big and cool!

It's Valentines day so I thought I'd roll out of bed before D this morning.  He's a couple of days behind me in being sick so he deserves to sleep in.  He's been great trying to be quiet in the morning so I could sleep.  

Yesterday He actually kept the dogs in the office with him so they wouldn't wake me.  When I got up he said, "These dogs take a lot of attention.  I'm beat!" It's the puppy.  She's worse than having a toddler living in the house.  Always in stuff.  Wanting to play.  Needing cuddling time. Sometimes it does get a bit tiring when you just want to sit and be left alone.

Look at the picture above.  Can you see her?  When I was doing the dishes at 8 this morning I saw this brown line on the hill.  It stayed absolutely still for 5 minutes so I thought it was a fox or coyote.  Nope just another deer.

See?  Here she is.  It's like trying to work a Where's Waldo scene.  I searched the hillside for more deer and got a bit concerned when I didn't see any.  Ours usually run in small herds that average 7 to 12.  It's unusual to have just one.  If it's a single that means there's something wrong with it.  That's usually when we find them dead somewhere on the property. Correct that....we usually smell them first then find them.

Anyway, she's perfectly healthy.  Within ten minutes my eye caught lots of movement and they all started to rise out of the weeds from their nights rest. There were 9 that I counted this morning.  But I could easily have missed some behind the trees. 

I took this picture for Morgan.  There are two deer here.  One on the left by the post and one on the right between the tree and post.  I asked myself, "What would Morgan ask when he saw the deer?"  This is what I came up with.  Do they stand up to go to the bathroom?  Here's your answer kiddo.  They are both squatting so low they are almost sitting.  So if you see a deer sitting like a dog, they're doing their business and don't want to be disturbed.  LOL!

Here are three of the group pruning the pine trees.  Next time you're around here, you'll notice the trees are bare of greenery at deer height.  They're beautiful creatures but make growing plants darn near impossible.  That's why most of the flowing bushes around here are eureops because they pretty much leave them alone.  They used to leave agapanthas alone but I noticed the ones by the office door have been eaten down to the nub.  Could be because of the unseasonably dry weather we've been having.

I headed into the sewing room after washing the dishes and these beauties were outside the window on the hill at the edge of the fence.  It's a tough job having to view creatures like this all day long.  It's a hard job but someones got to do it.

I just can't imagine moving into town and dealing with neighbors next door.  I know there's a strong possibility we'll have to do it when this place just gets to much to handle as we age so I'm going to enjoy the quiet and open freedom as long as I can.

Well, I'm taking E & S's advice from their comments and taking it easy today. It's actually the first day I'm not dealing with a headache along with being sick. I want to get some housework done but I'm not going to make it a top priority. The house isn't dirty, it's just cluttered because we haven't put anything way with not feeling well.

Take this morning.  I did the dishes but pooped out and didn't put them away. I'll go out and do that in a little while.  I need to do some straightening up in the sewing room before I start my next project.  I have a customer coming by next Sunday to view a job they want done so I'll work on that maybe Monday.  I can do the digitizing corrections tomorrow when my brain is working better.

I've got a design I want to put on the black blouse Nana gave me.  I need to do some samples before I actually hoop the blouse.  I think it's going to turn out great.

Dang, I can't keep my eyes open so I think I'll head out and find something to eat.  If that doesn't wake me up, I'll head in to take a nap.  

Yep.....it's gonna be a tough day!

Hello everyone!

I know it's been awhile since I posted but I'm back now.  I've just had so many other things going on, blogging slipped through the cracks.  I started this posting and was doing pretty darn good at yacking when D came in and gave me these beautiful roses.  I know they take up quite a bit of space on the desk but I'll sacrifice for the joy of looking at them continuously.

He's given me lots of flowers throughout the years but I always remember the ones he gave me after we'd been married a few years and were still living in our first house.  He'd called me from work and asked what I was doing and I replied washing and waxing the hardwood floor.  He came home with a beautiful bouquet of flowers and handed them to me.  I said, "These are beautiful....what are they for?"  He said, "Nothing.  I just thought that after a day of scrubbing and waxing the hardwood floors you deserved them."

He's done many wonderful things for me in the 40 years we've been together but for some reason those particular flowers he brought home just stuck in my mind.  Every once in awhile I remember them and smile.

It's the boy child's birthday and I wanted to give him something no one else had, so here it is.  The kid needs a clock for his garage and since he's moved the Malibu into it and has started taking it apart for restoration, I came up with this design.

Now for those of you who don't understand Muscle cars, Chevelle (among others) had an SS model.  Nope that's not what the kid has but I thought I'd sneak it in the design somewhere anyway.  It's hard to tell by the picture but the black background is made up of a gazillion SS filling up the oval.  Squint your eyes and look closely.  Clever huh?  LOL!

Anyway, this is my first 'from scratch' digitizing effort and I have to admit, it came out darn nice.  It's much prettier in person.  Considering I've been sick the past few days and continued working on it so I can give it to him tonight, I'm amazed it doesn't look like a something a gargoyle threw together.  LOL!

I was going to use the conventional 68 Chevelle writing but always thought it looked old and outdated.  You know, something your Grandpa would drive. Since S's car is a 6 speed (it's a blast to drive!) the old stuffy lettering just didn't work for me.  So I blended in the Body by Fisher emblem on the door sill with a really cool Chevelle lettering that looks like flames are eating up the bottom portion of the word.  I'm happy with the feel of old and fast blended.

This puppy is just shy of 80,000 stitches and took about 3 hours to embroider out.  I sewed out two of them!  What a crazy woman.  The first sew out was a sample where I could make adjustments here and there if needed.  The only thing I actually changed was putting black stabilizer on top of the fabric because the cream background was showing through the black.  I know most people wouldn't have noticed but it drove me nuts.  Now I'm happy.

Boy oh boy, I really feel bad.  I was hoping by finishing the clock and keeping busy with the blog, I'd forget about how awful I feel.  We're suppose to go to dinner with the kids tonight, I'm thinking I'd better quit now and go take a nap.  I think I've taken too many meds in an attempt to feel better.   One would think someone my age would be smarter.

Oh well, off to rest I go.  Hope you enjoy the work I put into designing and digitizing the clock.