Pinwheels on hold

Or a better title for this post might be....Hancock Fabrics stinks. An even better title would be to swap out stinks with another "s" word, but I am trying to keep it polite. But truly, they really do "s". I mean come on people, we've been in the 21st. century for over 8 years now and they are still not in any way, shape or form computerized.

I began these pinwheels a month or so ago with the idea of making quilts for both the girls to match some cool, colorful snowflake flannel sheets that I bought them last year. I figured now was the time to start if I want them for winter. So I purposefully went to Hancock's and bought a white cotton that they stock so that if I needed more, I could always go get more. And I did need more. When I went back I ended up buying what was left on the bolt, a bit less than two yards. I blew through that in a week and went back the following week to get more, figuring that when I emptied the bolt, they ordered more. Ha. Silly me. Silly idea. I inquired as to when they might be getting more white Wendover (that's the cotton I chose) and I was told that they get trucks on Thursdays, but they never know what's going to be on the truck. I kid you not, it seemed like the woman delighted in telling me this. Why is that delightful? I asked if their computer would notify the warehouse that they had emptied their last bolt of white and therefore, the warehouse would ship more white promptly. Her answer: "We're not really on that sort of computer system.". Read that: Not a darn thing in this store is computerized except for the credit card machine. By this point I was getting frustrated. I finally had to ask if they could order more for me. That they could do. I had to pay up front and I should have it within three weeks. SERIOUSLY! Being that they aren't computerized, they don't place orders on the weekend. And since they wouldn't get the order until Monday, it may or may not come on the Thursday truck which they may or may not unpack until Friday. So, no more pinwheel production for me for the foreseeable future, and when I came home to see if Hancock's had the cotton online, they did....for a buck a yard cheaper. Sheesh.

Since I don't want to lose time, I took the down time to square up the 93 (!!!!) squares that I already have. And let me say, they needed some trimming. How I can cut the same shape 744 times thus far and have them all come out various sizes is beyond me. Apparently I'm not a stickler for accuracy. The squares should have measure 8 1/4 pre-trimming, but only a few did, so I took everything down to 8 1/8th. They're looking much better this way and hopefully the quilts will look better because of it. I was stashing all my trimmings to the side of my table, as they looked like a big pile of colorful coleslaw or something and Rachel fashioned this heart out them.

Since I have lots of squares ready to go, I gave thought to starting to lay out and assemble the first quilt, but then I went about bought these three fabrics today from Sew-Be-It. Since I don't have any white (thanks again there Hancock's, glad you're there for me!) I can't go any further as I'd like to have them in both quilts. I'm especially loving the pink and aqua on the right. They're lying on the sheet that they're supposed to coordinate with. Looking at these just makes me all the more eager to get going again!

So while I bide my time, I think I'll try and knock out a twirly skirt or two for Rachel. She's not getting much of a back to school anything, so maybe she can have some new skirts at least. I'm thinking about taking a stab at this tutorial for a change. Hmmm...

Oh, and by the way, not only is Hancock's lame, the ladies are mean. Sho' nuff!