Wednesday, July 16, 2008

What I did at work today...

I though it would be fun to talk about what I do at the quilt shop all day, and share some pictures. Today was the Farmers Market so I try to get there early because the Market opens around 9:00, and the earlier you get there the better the chance for a parking spot! I only have to drive about 5 minutes to work, and today I was busy at home so I didn't get there until 9:45. I unlocked the front door, and as I put my bags down at the desk greeted my first customer of the day. I went to the back, turned on the lights and picked up our cash box. While chatting, I set up the cash register for the day and read the notes Sharan left me.

Today's market special was Christmas in July, so I set up the table outside the front door, put two stacks of Christmas fabric out and a basket of McKenna Ryan Gingerbread Lane kits. Then I went back to the computer and made up the sale sign.

I waited on some more customers, then went to the back table to check in some bolts of fabric. Pretty new fabric from Alex Anderson in reds and blacks. I wanted to buy some so badly - they were lovely! Checking in means marking them off on the invoices, and initialling, pricing, and cutting four fat quarters from each bolt. In between waiting on customers I got this task done fairly quickly.

I visited with my friend Candy who stopped in to see what I was up to and tell me that she finished quilting her quilt. She has two days to bind it so she can enter it in the fair. Can't wait to see it hanging, it's a winner for sure!

The next thing on my list was to bind a quilt for Sharan. I trimmed the edges of the quilt, cut binding strips and ironed the binding. Before I knew it, it was 12:00! Since there was a lull in activity in the store I decided to try to finish the binding before I had lunch. I was actually able to sew the binding to the back by machine, then turn it and top stitch it in a little over an hour!

It was a good thing I got that done, because the minute I got my lunch sack out, the customers starting coming in and it was pretty much non stop until 4:00. My favorite cosutomers of the day was a family with grandma, mom, and two daughters. Grandma was the quilter, but they all got inspired by the fabrics (Amy Butler!) and left with patterns for tops, a laptop cover, and fabric for several projects! The farmers market starts shutting down at 3:00, but I had people in the shop one after the other until an hour later.

After that it was pretty quiet until closing. The phone only rang twice the whole day, which is very unusual, but we were way busier than usual with customers. I had my cup of yogurt for break, then got busy and sewed up some of my scrappy 9-patch blocks and made a set of disappearing 9-patches. Then I turned off the iron, straightened up, and was ready to close. The register was off by 6 cents, so I just put the extra in our back up and was ready to leave for the day.

I was glad to get home to dinner in the crock pot, a glass of cold ice tea and time to relax at the computer! Next time maybe I'll be able to take more pictures, today was too busy for that.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

WHEW! What an energizing, and at the same time exhausting day! I am envious of anyone who can bind a quilt start to finish in under 2 hours!