Transitioning out of E-Week and Back to Normal Life

As a part of E-Week in October I posted my Townhouse Sewing Case, soon to become a class at Shining Needle Society. I first taught the Townhouse at EGA's 50th celebration seminar in Louisville, then at Callaway. I look forward to trying a cyber class. Although I have had my ongoing classroom at Shining Needle Society for 2 years now (just past the second anniversary), this will be the first time I have taught a class online. I am hoping my students will help me do it well by making recommendations.

I am curious to know what people like and dislike about online classes and would be happy to hear any opinions, along with suggestions how cyber-classes might be improved.

Technology has come such a long way toward helping the prospects of online activities. I realize I am such a beginner at this whole technology game. I keep trying to learn more about it and one of the highlights of my week is going to Apple's classes.

Last week at my Apple class there I showed several people the most awesome thing I have found connected with needlework online: Tricia Nguyen's animated needle! I hope you will go and see her needle make a stitch. As I said, it is awesome!

Here are the links to the animated needle:

http://thistle-threads.com/animationtest/animationtest.html

It is also in the middle of the movie on this page:

http://thistle-threads.com/teaching/projects/onlineclasses/goldworkmasterclass/teach_goldworkmasterclass.html

The animation was done by Tricia's brother a freelance computer animator and also an embroiderer in his own right. His company, Smudge Animation, is doing animated needles demonstrating 28 different stitches for her upcoming Tudor and Stuart Master Gold Work class.

I would love to take the class just to watch those needles!

Gay Ann

Mail Jail: maybe not forever after all

Mail Jail, at least E-Week Mail Jail, may not be forever after all. I am almost at the end! If I stick with it through the weekend and I have no bumps in the Jail Road, I should finish next Monday.

Then I plan to do some serious stitching!

I am working on a chatelaine right now. I had an idea for how to make the chatelaine chain and I can't wait to see how it works. I have been following my own 12 Stitches a Day program to get through it and it amazes me how much stitching my little 5-minutes-a-day accomplishes! I should finish the stitching for the chain about the same time I finish E-Week.

As soon as I am out of Mail Jail, I will plan a special week of stitching assignments for my class at Shining Needle Society. I can't wait to try this and see if people follow it. It should be a very fun game!

More about it when E-Week Mail Jail finishes....

Gay Ann

Mail Jail is Forever

I just finished E-Week, my big sale of the year, and now I am in Mail Jail. If I could wish for one thing in my life I would wish for organization skills. I look at my friends with their perfect files and lists and I sigh. Somehow I missed the Organization Gene. It just isn't there.

Here is a typical example: I haven't emptied my purse yet from seminar in Pittsburgh. My plane ticket is still in there and so is my paycheck. I need to empty it and sort it all out and at least deposit my check. So what am I doing? Writing this post instead.

Poor MacSoph, my computer. She isn't organized at all and the Apple tutors, those I have regularly, have given up. They don't bother to teach me organization any longer because they say I don't do it.

So now I have E-Week Mail Jail which is my low point each year. I am doing better this year but it is far from the way my organized friends would proceed. Take for example my friend Julie who came to help me. She gave me some suggestions about the way it should work, but I fear I am light years from that point. And Pat, to whom I sent two copies of Cranfield House by mistake, suggested many of the same things Julie talked about. They both mentioned terrifying concepts like spread sheets and QuickBooks, etc. etc.

One time Julie (who loves organization) told me I should quit worrying about it, that I have a creative brain and creative brains don't think in columns. Is this a plausible excuse? The problem is, it still doesn't solve the problem, so on I go.

Back to Mail Jail. Mail Jail is forever. Alas, so are mess and disorganization.

Gay Ann

Early Morning E-Week Sales

It's early morning and I am up and waiting to start my Special E-Week Sales. They start at 7:00 a.m., in 45 minutes.
I think I have checked everything and am set to go.

Off to have breakfast and watch the morning headlines.
Gay Ann

E-Week Eve and Day 1

E-Week Eve was one of those beautiful fall days in Southern California! Bright sun, blue ocean and a nip in the air.

I actually finished Queendom Website late on Tuesday afternoon and DH said, why not go out to dinner and celebrate!
We went to our local bookstore and browsed awhile then to a restaurant new to us and great! We were home again about 8:00 and I was all excited about E-Week. It was like I was 7 years old again on Christmas Eve.

I watched the time. I had hoped to stay up till midnight. Kate was helping -- she was writing emails, so we were busy having an E-Conversation and I was busy checking everything.

At 10:20 I started posting everything and by 10:30 it was all live. I checked it and Kate checked it and we found some errors, so I changed some things, then shut down MacSoph (my computer) who had been working so hard.

The next morning (yesterday) I woke up thinking just how magical E-Week Eve had been. What is it that makes a basically ordinary day seem like magic? I am not certain. Just the mood, I guess, the lull before activity, maybe just the beauty of the day.

Yesterday, Day 1, was a scramble and MacSoph and I hit it hard. Questions, corrections, re-do's and in the midst, my cleaning lady was here. That is always a scramble because I have TOO MUCH STUFF!

So I fled for an hour and some. I went to a favorite bead shop and came home with new ideas. New Ideas are always magic to me! And beads. I have too many beads! I would have to live to be 650 to use all my beads, but I added to the stash yesterday.
Home again and emails into the evening.

And today? I am working all day on my Special Sales for Saturday and Sunday mornings. These sales began 3 E-Weeks ago on my blog and now they are a tradition. It is lively and a scramble, but I love doing it!

I have neglected blogging in the first year of Queendom Website. My website took all of my attention, but now I have decided I should return to blogging a bit.

Gay Ann

E-Week Eve

It has been a while since I have blogged. I have been away at the EGA Pittsburgh Seminar and since, I've been at work almost non-stop on my E-Merchandise Week Sale (E-Week for short).

I am almost finished with E-Week and it is a good thing because it starts tomorrow!

This is E-Week Eve.

This year I have 30 designs for sale (not counting my early morning sales on Saturday and Sunday), many are ones I have never sold before, except for the EGA, ANG and Callaway classes where I taught them. As I scroll through it, I must say I think it is a pretty sale!

I think I will post it all just before I go to bed tonight. This is my Third Annual E-Week and I must confess, it is exciting!

Gay Ann

My second design for my pre-week sale: a Sewing Case

This morning I posted the second design for my pre-week sale: Townhouse Sewing Case. It isn't actually for sale, it will be a class for Shining Needle Society in the spring; people who sign an interest list now will save a bit of money on the class, should they decide to take it.

www.GayAnnRogers.com and click on 'Pre-Week 2'.

My third design will arrive on my website just before I leave to go to EGA's Pittsburgh Seminar on Oct. 2.

Gay Ann