Coming along nicely

Yes, I know you've seen it before but....













At last I am beginning to get back into the swing of things and slowly, slowly new arrivals are appearing on the shelves in my sewing room. I have been working on a range of bags which have a slightly old fashioned feel - my version of the 'vintage' word which doesn't really apply here - with little embroidered motifs and a simple shape to compliment this. The picture above is one of them but I have also made a different version which replaces some of the flowers with a little embroidered script. I'll post of picture of this when it's finished and you can let me know which you prefer. I have always loved to mix words and fabrics together and it seemed the time to go with this; I also love sewing and drawing simple insects - very simple! - and so have been working on combining the two together in a small range of textiles. It's such fun!

UPDATE!

Ha!!! Well, that was yesterday and things have been a bit crazy since then - Dave has, ahem, 'misplaced' (LOST) the lead for the camera so for the mo I can't upload any pics onto the computer; he 'thinks' it's at school (along with ALL my lunch boxes - 20 at the last count!!!). Woe betide him if he doesn't bring it back tonight!!!

On another front, I received an email from a lovely lady called Marina who had contacted me before Christmas about wholesale for her shop in Dorset; she was interested in my wallhangings. I heard no more and didn't really give it another thought - it was lovely that she had liked them in the first place. Anyway, yesterday she got back in touch - we negotiated terms, etc and she wants 10 wallhangings and 5 Ship, Ship Sailing Games as an initial order, hopefully with a view to a larger one in the Spring if they do well! How cool is that? I am almost wholesale!!!!

More info hopefully tomorrow and those blooming bag pics too (or else Dear Dave!!!). Apologies in the meantime for the repitition of the above photo.



Pipany xx

Material Thoughts.

It took a few days but finally I am there - my sewing room is tidy! The shelves are stacked with neatly folded layers of fabrics, packaging materials are tidied away and put into order, and all is calm once more. Unfortunately the downside to this is that I find myself sitting in my comfy swivel chair (a pressie bought by my gorgeous kids when I was pregnant and did nothing but moan about being unable to sit comfortably....yes I know you cannot imagine me moaning!!!!) and seem to do little but twirl around enjoying the view! I am supposed to be working on my new range and ideas are certainly fighting for space in my ever-crowded head but, however hard I try, they are not transferring themselves to paper.

I find this is a bit of an ongoing problem for me; I have no background whatsoever in pattern cutting / designing and make all my own patterns with no more than grit determination and a dollop of common sense to aid me. I love the process and over the years have taught myself plenty - most of the time I am able to get an idea down and it works - this week however has mostly consisted of me creating what can only be described as deformed creatures....rabbits with misshapen heads, a mouse with it's ears sewn on the inside (ok I was thinking about needing to paint the walls in the room rather than what I was doing) and a chick that has a pinhead problem. Hmm, back to the drawing board methinks.

I suppose it is all about focus - I had none. My mind was drifting here and there contemplating the infinite possibilities for the garden in terms of the business (more of that another day) and floating over the newly arranged piles of fabrics all glowing with possibilities for spring - piles of lilacs and sweet pinks leaning against pretty sprigged cottons, a huge batch of materials in brighter jades and blues all shouting for attention. They pulled me away with promises of fresh spring air tantalising the senses with the scent of blossoms and daffodils and primroses. I could almost feel the later hot summer sun warming my back as I walked across a beach, the warm sand pushing through my toes and the salty tang of sea air filling my mind. Yes, I truly had little focus on the hear and now. Ah well, today is another day and I have given myself a good talking to; today will be the day I actually achieve something and this will spur me on once more....well that's the plan anyway



In the meantime I will leave you with a pic or two of those gorgeous materials and see if you are distracted too (though of course I should have photographed them in better light, etc...it WAS early!!!)





























Pipany xx

Bedlam

Happy New Year from Pipany and Matzen!





So here it is, another new year all fresh and bright and bursting with possibilities. I love it, this chance to grasp life by the horns and make it into whatever I want it to be. I always start of with plans and resolutions, never worrying about the fact that maybe some of last year's were not achieved; what does it matter? It is about the idea of change and hope, inspiration and a clean sweep for me. I love the mulling over of things that have annoyed me or that have not come to fruition. How can I improve them or me for that matter? What could I have done differently? I look back at the positive things too - high on that particular list would be the huge leaps in self-confidence which this particular Pipany has made which has had a massive root in the meeting of like-minded people through the wonderful world of blogging. Sharing ideas, hopes, upsets and dreams has meant I finally began to understand that I do have something to offer the world....me! I'm not so bad after all!

So what worked for me last year?
1. I joined an inspirational and wonderful blog site - Purplecoo - and through this met many wonderful people and links to other blogs outside of this site. These blogs inspire me daily and are something which made me start to realise my dreams to have my own business.

2. I began to run said business, set up a website and gave it a shot. The response was immediate and has made me grow in confidence even more.

3. I learnt how to set up and manage two completely different websites, learnt how to take decent photographs (and trust me the ones prior to this were truly awful!) and began to learn the ins and outs of deadlines/packaging/postage/materials not arriving!!!! In other words, I became a fledgling business woman.

4. I re-learnt to trust my instincts and my heartfelt belief that if you want something enough there is ALWAYS a way, just think, think and think again.


And (honest to the last) what didn't work?

1. Promising orders in too short a time - didn't allow for poorly children/ materials not arriving!/ postal strikes...

2. Not allowing enough time for sourcing packaging materials/ trimmings, etc. I cannot believe how much time this eats into and yet it is so important to a small business. Profit margins disappear and the finish of an item can be compromised, something which disheartens me terribly.

3. Planning! I should have set up a yearly planner from the start and followed it rigidly to keep me focussed. Too easy for panic to make me flip from one task to another which panics me more.


With hindsite I made it hard on myself as the site became active very close to Christmas and concentrating on designing and making stock just to get it up and running meant the time spent doing the same for a Christmas range was limited. It also meant this range was much later going onto the site than I had intended. Having said that, I am pleased with how it has gone so far. I sold a lot of Christmas stock, much more that I expected; It is all a learning curve and I am loving the ride.

Now to this year....perhaps I'll just clear away the mess that is my sewing room before I venture my thoughts on that one!

Happy New Year everyone

Pipany xxx

Well, hang it all!

Just a quick blog today - had a query from a shop in Dorset saying they love my Let's Sail Away Wallhanging and did I do wholesale? Am chuffed to bits that they like it enough to ask! I know little about the ins and outs of wholesale apart from the fact that it can mean working to tight deadlines for little money BUT I have had some advice on what to watch out for from some dear people (you know who you are) and I thank them heartily for it.

And so I shall wait to hear more and then make my decision. Who knows?

But it's nice to be asked....

The Quiet Time

As those of you who read my blog yesterday will know, I spent most of the last few days sitting with the littlest one on my lap. Lovely on the one hand as I not only got those cuddles, but time to think as well. Unfortunately the other hand provided the downside; this time to think meant my mind dwelt on the problem of what seems to be referred to in small business land as 'The Quiet Time' - specifically January and February. Now I have worked hard to avoid thinking about this for now as it has taken all my energy to get this project off the ground and keep up with the unexpected (but lovely) early success of it. This is not how I usually work. I worry over a problem until I come up with a few possible things to try, decide on the one that appears to offer the most possibilities and then give it my all. This time I think it feels too big or maybe I am just a bit tired; either way, I have swerved around the problem of The Quiet Time and left it well alone for the moment...or so I thought. Yesterday the Quiet became a booming noise insistently crashing in my brain, refusing to be quelled and demanding to be dealt with.

I wonder what other small businesses of a similar ilk do in these months when we all nurse our over-stretched purse strings? I guess established groups have long term custom that call for those gifts/birthday presents/treats that sell all year come what may, but when the business is as new as mine (still only 3 months) then this is unlikely to be the case. One avenue I hope may help a little is the NoTHs 'store' which I joined recently, but the bulk of their sales also come in the lead up to Christmas and so I expect a drop off there too.

Of course, this could be a wonderful time for exploring new designs for the Spring, a time to play with fabrics and let the imagination become immersed in the warmer months without the pressure of fulfilling orders needed in a hurry....that's if you live in the land of Country Living (where I would sooo love to live!) and have a hubby who works in the City or is a property developer or...well, you get the gist. Many of these people we read about have another string to the financial bow in terms of a partner with fairly substantial earnings. Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to belittle what these people do just point out that the risk is not the same. For us, as with so many of you, the business is a huge risk as we need the income. Should I be doing this or should I be going back to a regular wage? With the instant orders that rolled in it has been easy to believe I am doing the right thing - that was until The Quiet Time shouted in my ear.

I have a few things up my sleeve, one of which is going onto my website later today -my Heirloom Cloth (shown in yesterday's pics for some reason!). This has been something of a pet project of mine, tried and tested on a wide group of people in Cornwall and seems to have struck a cord in a way I hadn't quite expected. The notion was simple...a cotton cloth which I send out complete with indelible pen which your family/friends/whoever is around your table sign and which is then returned to me in the bag provided to have the names embroidered as a permanent reminder, as an heirloom to be passed down through the years. I sold some and was pleased with the reactions to the idea even from people who I admit I thought would not particularly want this kind of thing. Word spread a little and I sold a few more. Now I am beginning to think I am on to something as I have been asked by quite a few people for one of these cloths. Some want to know if the names can be embroidered in colours; others want to know if they can have messages. One lady wanted to know if I could scallop the edges and did I know how to do drawn threadwork (where you create decorative holes in the cloth). The answer to all these was yes and so the Heirloom Cloth was born and will bring in a tiny, but important nonetheless, income in The Quiet Months as these cloths return for their names to be stitched.

Just need to think of a few dozen more of these Good Ideas!!!!



Pipany xx

Ps. If you are after a gorgeous Christmas door wreath and can't make your own have a look at the ones made by Jane of Snapdragon; they are truly beautiful - the best I've seen - and there's still time to order!

The Big Match

It's funny how things go. There you are one minute feeling as though you have things sorted, under control, and then it all changes. I was feeling a tad smug that's the problem. On top of orders, nay ahead of myself I'd go so far as to say, and even thinking about scribbling some ideas onto paper for next year - ways to move things on, new products, etc - but the gods were bored up there on their fluffy clouds and decided to bring some reality back into the world of Miss Pipany-too-high-on-her-pedestal.

We had storms and on the Sunday a walloping great willow departed from the hedge to land crashing into two gardens which run down the length of ours. It took a fence or two on its merry way and telephone cables to boot; miraculously no-one was hurt and the neighbour's new, partly-finished garage build was left intact, but there it is lying like some vast creature across two previously neat gardens while our own lies untouched by its descent....which means the insurance won't touch us. Only if our own buildings, fences, etc had been touched would they have helped. Lovely.

But this was not enough for the gods...no, Pipany had been just too cheery in her little sewing room so they made sure the 77mile an hour winds also drove the torrential rains into her precious sewing room and thus she ran with bucket to hand and almost wept at the potential devastation the night could bring. Peachy.

Enough surely, I hear you cry. Er, that would be a no. Determination straightening her spine and manically shouting 'Ha, Bring it on!!' to the world at large, Pipany then found a further challenge to the running of her empire-ette (I kid myself)...Isabella got croup. Now, to the uninitiated let me tell you what this usually means; the nights have passed in a blur of wheezing, crying and coughing fit for a Dickensian novel. Bless her little socks. She has been poorly and wanting to sit on her Mummy's lap, while her Mummy has been sitting thinking about the orders needing to be completed in the erste-while dry sewing room and also nursing dark thoughts about insurance companies which may/may not involve dolls and pins!

And sew (forgive me, but I am truly sleep-deprived!) to end this sorry tale on a brighter note.... did the gods win? Did they heck! This is me and I will not be flipping beaten quite yet! The tree will be turned into much firewood at vast expense, but ah well, at least no-one was hurt. The sewing room has been sealed up and nothing got wet so that could have been worse. And poor little Isabella being poorly means my tiny whirlwind actually sat snuggled up for extended periods rather than racing off to new adventures every two minutes which was pure bliss for a mummy who loves to cuddle (and sit come to think of it).

And as for the empire? The orders are done and packaged ready for the off (what else are the midnight hours for?) and I have written down a few ideas for next year after all. I have finally worked out how to market my heirloom tablecloth as a kit and will be putting it onto my website tomorrow which I am quite excited about...or I would be if only I didn't have this need to curl up and snooze...just for a minute...honest...

The Final Result


The gods - 0 Pipany - 1



HAH!



Pipany xx

Time.

Ship, Ship Sailing Game














The last week has flown in a flurry of adding yet more new skills to my repertoire. Having mastered the management of my own website I also had to set up shop within the NOTHS store and this of course involved a completely different system to my own. Reams of advice, rules, regulations and 'how to' appeared on the screen. Not very encouraging. I had orders calling me back to the sewing room, but knew that having invested my money I needed to get this new site up and running to maximise the selling potential for Christmas. I worked all through Sunday, most of Monday and a bit of Tuesday, and finally it was ready for me to click the activation button. The site was live by Monday evening and actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be to do. I suppose I actually know what I am doing now rather than feeling the world of websites is beyond me.

So, to todays lesson....don't let yourself be put off.

A business needs a website in this computer savvy world and therefore it pays to learn the skills. Most of the sites, whether a package set up such as www.moonfruit.com , the one I used for my own site, or a portal site such as NOTHS there is usually plenty of info to guide you through. It may seem off-putting but, trust me, it is just a case of sitting there and doing it. Anyone who has filled in endless forms for Child Benefit, Tax Credits, etc is more than capable of working through this kind of information. What you need to remember is that these companies want your business; it doesn't pay them to make it impossible for their customers to do, espeially as anything internet based is already part of a highly competitive market.

And lesson no.2....TIME.

These sites are your showcase. They are your way of reaching a potentially wider marketplace than any number of shops, fairs and occasional magazine articles can ever do, not that these aren't all worthwhile and necessary means of promoting a business too. The global market is huge and can be accessed by most, but for it to be effective you must be competitive - the layout, the copy used to sell your goods and the images all have to work together as the problem with such a massive market is that the competition is also massive. All this takes time and effort which will take you away from producing the stock you need. It's a dilemma and definitely suggests paying a website designer would be the way to go, but for most small businesses this is an impossible cost to justify.

What's the answer? Determination and endless energy I suspect! Certainly scheduling in time for this important work is a definite must. Though not difficult once you are familiar with the format, it is not something to be considered an after-thought and, as with any good shop, there is a need to move things around and add/remove stock periodically to avoid a stale look which will stop people from returning. Again more time. Certainly in my own case where I am now effectively maintaining two sites, it is time for me to move away from lists on bits of paper and move to an organised yearly planner where all these things are given an allotted space and do not get pushed to the backburner (soory Zoe, bit slow but I got there in the end!).

Time...don't underestimate it.

Oh and before I go, a little update on NOTHS - my store went live on Monday evening and yesterday I received two quite substantial orders; the beating heart is stilled...just a little.


Pipany x