Back to Work

It just so happens to be New Years Eve, but today I am back at work.
Not at the studio itself, although I suspect that Nancy and Sam are there right now installing our new flooring . But, I just designed and ordered new business cards, and that was a bit of an effort.
Over Christmas we had our son and daughter stay for ten days which was an immense treat. While they were here, I took a total break from all work related stuff.
Before that in November and the first half of December I was busier than normal. I sold the shop, Periwinkle Quilting, to Patti. That was more involved than either of us anticipated, I believe. It had seemed like such an easy plan... she would just take over and I would fade out.... in reality there was a lot of paperwork and other details. We had a series of sales to pare down the inventory so that Patti could bring in lots of new stock, and that was fun! I hope you got a chance to get some great deals during that time!
Then, since I was keeping Lucey, the plan for the Longarm Studio began to snowball!

to recap, this is what has happened so far:
1. Last autumn we got our longarm machine, an APQS Lucey, to provide the option for quilters to rent the machine to do hand-guided longarm machine quilting on their own quilts. I didn't know that some of us would fall head over heels in love with that process. 💖💖💖
2. we trained a lot of people on how to operate the machine, and started renting it by the hour to quilters in the basement of the shop on Broadway
3. I decided to sell the shop, but to keep Lucey (because I love her😉). It didnt seem right to just take the machine home after training all those people to use it, so I decided to rent a space in Saskatoon where people could come to work on their quilts. Because it is always more fun (and less scary) to do something like this with company, I twisted Nancy's arm to come along with me.
4. I stumbled upon a great location, at street level, with great lighting, and snapped it up!
5. The space has been undergoing some renovations which should make the space workable by early January. Until then, Lucey has spent the past couple of weeks nestled in bubble wrap, snuggled in between a couple of rolls of batting at Nancy's house.
6. I have worked on some computer stuff, starting a website 😳, and thinking about our whole endeavour.

Over the next couple of weeks we will be continuing to get ourselves organized.
I, Michelle, am out of town until Jan 10th, so that might cramp our style a wee bit, but not by too much!
Nancy, Sandy and Wendy are hoping to re-assemble Lucey this week, hooray.
then, I suspect that someone (Or more than one someone's)might take her for a test drive or two.
Then we will start to unpack all the other accoutrements and hopefully we will be up and running and open for business by mid-January!
and you know I will keep you posted!

So, In summary, do lots of sewing, and get lots of quilt tops ready to quilt, because we will be ready for you to come visit us soon!
​p.s. Happy New Year, Michelle