Right now, many of us are struggling with holiday madness- making lists of who we need to buy presents for, shopping for said presents, planning holiday dinners, travel and going to holiday parties.
In the midst of all this frenetic action, it is also a time of reflection. As a small business owner, I am looking to make my goals and plans for the upcoming year.
A daunting task in some ways. My business? I design quilt patterns.
I love doing that.
I can spend hours making truly terrible designs until the best of the lot presents itself. I can spend moments on a design that comes to me fully formed and I only have to tweak it a little.
I spend hours looking thru fabric options online, in stores… hours writing, making, rewriting, maybe remaking… working with friends who are willing to test even though they don’t have time in their own busy schedules. Then rewriting to correct any errors.
But then, my pattern and all the other patterns that are available for purchase struggle against all the free patterns that are available. Because most people would rather spend their $8 or $9 on a cup of Joe and a pastry at Starbucks than a quilt pattern. Recently at a show and tell a woman was showing a quilt that she had made and stated that she had seen the pattern at a store but did not want to buy it so she recreated it.
I celebrate her ingenuity, but where does that leave those of us who design?
Thus my dilemma for the upcoming year. In the meantime I will struggle on and do this because I cannot imagine not doing it.
Back to holiday shopping for a moment.
Today I am getting together with a lovely group of quilters whose collective wisdom and experience in the world of quilting leaves me in awe. They are published authors, ladies who tested patterns and made quilts for magazines, founding members of quilt guilds here in the state… their credentials are amazing. I am honored they let me hang out with them. We are getting together for a holiday lunch and gift exchange. I had no idea of what to get and realized what a great resource you all might have been in that process.
So here is the question of the day: if someone was going to buy you a quilt related gift for around $20, what would you want them to get you? Please post your thoughts in the comments.
Thanks for listening.
happy quilting,
Kate
I don’t know how much this costs, but currently I am wishing I had some of the right kind of thread and needles for hand quilting in the big stitch style. I haven’t tried that yet but I do have a quilt I would like to experiment on. So maybe an assortment of that type? I wish I knew someone who knows the right stuff to buy so they can gift me with it because I don’t even know what to buy!!
Enjoy your gathering with those awesome ladies.
Some ideas? Some that I would like:
A homemade quilty ornament for the tree. Some spools of nice thread tied up in a little box. A few yards of Kona cotton. A couple of charm packs from the person’s favorite designer. Quilting motif stencils. Quilt block jewelry or a car window stick-on (show our quilty personality).