Day One - A Week At FabricDesigns.com

This week, I am inviting you to spend some time with me as a fabric designer and artist. This is what a typical week at Fabric Designs.com would be like minus the mundane things like fixing meals, doing dishes, spending time at the gym, laundry, answering the phone, walking the dogs, or weeding the garden. That's not what most people want to see or hear about when they come to my studio so where do we start?


How about at the computer? I aim to arrive at the computer around 8:30 a.m. I check and answer email, print out and process orders for fabric, and get rid of junk mail. Next, I check any QuiltUniversity.com Discussion Forums that may be open, answer questions, and chat with my students making sure they are progressing well with their projects. This can take anywhere from 20 minutes to several hours depending on the classes and orders received.



Today I received two orders for hand dyed fabric and three orders for undyed fabric. I also need to work on drawings for a commissioned piece. Busy day ahead!

Let's go to The Dye Studio. It is located in the basement of our 125 year old Victorian home in northern California. The space is about 900 square feet and divided into my main work area and my dye mixing area, which I will show you soon. Like my purple door?

It's now about 11:45 a.m. My first customer of the day is a quilter in Australia who needs 3 yards of jet black cotton, hand dyed, with a medium amount of mottling. Into the dye vat it goes for a 6 hour session. Time to come out will be 5:45 p.m.

My second order was for a custom dyed silk scarf. Purple and pink! My favorites! After applying the dyes it will also sit for 6 hours.



Next, I need to cut three orders of cotton that customers want that they will probably be using in my upcoming classes at Quilt University. I measure and cut every order on one of my long tables only used for cutting fabric. This is a dye free zone. This work bench is 12' long. Now the orders are packed up and ready to go to the post office.

After lunch, I start working on a large scale commission for a church in Alberta, Canada. The project will be long, silk panels to hang in their sanctuary on either side of the chancel area. Most customers who request commission work need to "see" what it will look like before the work begins so I spent an hour or so today sketching out what the possibilities are for their particular space.

Somewhere in here I got distracted with the phone and the garden and the dogs and suddenly looked at the clock and saw it was getting late! I'm starting to sweat now because they pick up the mail packages at 4:30 and I'm really cutting it close today. I have an order that goes out of the country so I have to go IN the post office and stand in line. If my orders are all domestic then I can do "click and ship" which is a breeze and my mail lady takes them right from my front door. Our PO is a neat place. I love going there. Everyone knows me and what I do so we chat about business and about the locals and what's new in Woodland.



Here's the Post Office. I made it just in time. I hate it when I do that! So back at home I somehow remember that at 5:45 p.m. I need to rinse out the 3 yards and the scarf and hang them to dry. Tomorrow, I will iron them and send them off to their new homes.

Okay. Quitting time. That's all for today. See you tomorrow.