Unravelings

Review: Making a Great Blog

I'm working on a review of Making a Great Blog by Diane Gilleland from CraftyPod. I hope it will be up this evening.

Color

"Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand ways."

—--Oscar Wilde

Fashion by Coco Chanel

"Fashion is at once both caterpillar and butterfly. Be a caterpillar by day and a butterfly by night."

---Coco Chanel

Customer service

This came from one of my suppliers. I loved it so much I had to share!

This week we’d like to take a couple of moments to tell you about our fantastic Customer Service team! These ladies are the nicest, most knowledgeable people in this or any industry. You’ll notice I said “Ladies”, not ladies and gentlemen. We had a gentleman in customer service years ago, but he proved to be inept, uniformed and incompetent. Hardly the qualities you look for in a customer service person, but perfectly suited for his current position as President of JewelrySupply Inc.

Mac vs. Pc

Review: Rubbish! (but a really good book)

If the title doesn't catch your eye, the very cool projects inside Rubbish!: Reuse your Refuse by Kate Shoup will. While I am a fan of must upcycled or recycled art, the projects in this book really sang to me. Fun projects, good instructions and good photography add up to a winner.

With projects ranging from earrings made from electronic resistors (really cute!!) to wall art made with soda cans (this type of artwork has been done for ages in third world countries), Rubbish!: Reuse your Refuse contains projects to appeal to almost any aesthetic...from truly funky so oh so elegant.

There are more than 30 creative projects using materials you probably already have at your disposal, or can easily find from friends and relatives. Have a look at Rubbish!: Reuse your Refuse. I bet you'll find more than one project that catches your eye. You can buy it here.

Review: Knitting in the Sun

Yes, I am shallow. Many times, I judge a book by its cover. And I love the cover of this one. It makes me want to make the shawl featured on the cover. So far so good!

Billed as "The first-ever knitting book to offer projects exclusively for warm weather," Knitting in the Sun is divided into categories such as tanks, wraps, bags, and more and features 32 projects for warm weather.

There are several beautiful projects in the book I want to make, which means a thumbs up from me. I especially like and want to knit Santorini, Coronado, and Anacapa (the cover shawl).

While the book includes traditional warm weather fibers like cotton and linen, it also features patterns using the best of newer natural offerings like yarns made of or blended with hemp, bamboo, and soysilk. More than 80 full-color photos showcase these knit projects.

By only real quibble with the book is that there are many patterns that could have been written for circular knitting and few, if any seams that instead are written so each piece is knitting separately and seamed together. I hate sewing together knitting so would jiggle the projects as much as possible so I could knit in the round. This caveat aside, I still recommend Knitting in the Sun.

About the author: Kristi Porter (La Jolla, CA) is an author, designer, technical editor, and teacher. In addition to writing Knitting Patterns For Dummies, her work has been featured in numerous other books. She is a frequent contributor to Knitty.com and has been a part of that online magazine since its start in 2002.

You cab buy Knitting in the Sun here.

Bangle from vintage map

How to Make a Bangle from a Vintage Map - CraftStylish

What you don't know...

What You Don't Know ...(how to handle customer complaints)

© by Dr. David Weiman. All rights reserved.

You’ve heard that old saying, “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” I guess the person who said that was never in business, where the opposite seems true: What you don’t know can hurt you.

A case in point -- the other day I was walking through the parking lot of one of those small suburban shopping centers. You know the type ... there’s usually an independent pharmacy there, a shoe repair shop (does anyone take their shoes to be repaired anymore?) a pizza place and a barber.

As I walked toward the stores, I overheard two women talking as they were getting into their cars to leave.

“I’ll never eat at Angelo’s again!” the first one said, referring to the pizza place.

“Why not?” asked her friend.

“This kid had a dog in there, and the dog was eating food that had been left on one of the tables, and I told someone behind the counter and they didn’t wipe off the table!” “That’s disgusting!” the friend said, “I’m not going in there either!”

They say that when someone has a bad experience with a business, they tell many times more people than when they have a good experience. One of the reasons is psychological: Bad experiences usually make more of an impact on customers than good experiences. And one way of processing bad experiences – particularly when the business doesn’t seem to care – is telling friends.

The Manning boys: all legs

Here's what you get when you turn two six-month old Vizsla pups, Eli and Peyton, loose to play in the yard. If you can tell, Eli has the red collar and Peyton the blue collar, in honor of their respective football teams!