Sunday 29 April 2012

That creative urge........

I think its only other creative people who can understand what it is to have the urge to create something. It almost eats away at you..........this need to create. Its hard to explain.

I have a real urge at the moment to start something new and I know I won't be happy until I do! The problem is.........I need more fabrics before I can start!!
I think my next quilt is going to have to be the red and white quilt that I have been collecting fabrics for but I need more red AND white prints for some mid tones. Luckily Quilts UK in Malvern is only a few weeks away so hopefully I can find some more fabrics there. If not I will either have to wait until the Festival of Quilts in August (not that I have any time to look around there!) or I will have to do a bit on searching online.........
I guess because I have my own fabric store, I haven't felt the need to do that before. Can you believe that?!

As usual I don't have much to show for the last few weeks. I really need to get my arse in gear and stop wasting my evenings on my laptop and spend them sewing instead. And I think the reason for this is because I don't have anything new to work on.
I've done a few more blocks for the SBS quilt and we are up to C9 now but I think because this is just working for a book and not strecthing my creativity that much, that this is just something to pick up and do every now and then. I need to check which blocks I need to photograph and post pics of.

Of course there is my Kaleidoscope quilt that I supposed to be quilting, but I have hit a brick wall with that. Once I break through that, I will be off and running again. Maybe I should make that my priority?

Sunday 8 April 2012

eBay

I've sold items successfully on eBay through my business for several years now mainly on buy it now listings. This weekend I've seen the positive and negative sides to selling by auction listings.
On the positive side I sold two beds. The buyer contacted me about arranging payment and collection before I had the chance to send her a message, within 5 minutes of the listing ending! The beds were collected this morning. Cash was paid. All was good. This is how eBay is supposed to be.

On the negative side, I also sold an American style fridge freezer. It went for quite a good price. I emailed the buyer within a few minutes of them winning the item to arrange collection, but I'm still waiting for them to respond.........and I have a feeling they aren't going to. The buyer had only joined eBay the day before so they had no feedback. It isn't a good start. Something doesn't feel right.
Ordinarily this wouldn't really be a problem, but I needed the freezer to be collected by tomorrow and its now looking that this isn't going to happen. So I have to wait until 4 days have elapsed to open an unpaid item case and then wait a further 4 days before I can close the case.............and then I have to decide either to offer it to the next highest bidder or relist it.............so much for it being collected promptly.

So this is the flip side of eBay...........the time wasters. I've since found out you can stop certain types of buyers bidding on your items which I have now set up and if this person doesn't ever pay they will be going on my blocked bidders list too. I guess before I have only sold items to quilters......and guess what? they are almost always honest decent people.

Its a shame more people aren't like quilters!

But then you read about the recent copyright dispute between a fabric designer and a publisher and you wonder maybe its just the world we live in today...................