Language Barriers and the Double Wedding Ring Quilt

"To have another language is to possess a second soul."

Charlemagne

Last month I tried doing a new project every day but got totally sidetracked when a custom order for a Double Wedding Ring Quilt came in from Australia.  When the first inquiry was made there was a bit of a language barrier issue as my customer requested a "throw rug" be made as a custom order.

As I read her request I was totally taken aback at the thought of someone using one of my quilts as a rug to walk on, because to me a throw rug is something that you place on the floor.  I could not imagine having someone put their dirty shoes on a quilt that I had worked on so painstakingly, it broke my heart just to think about it much less imagine what that would look like.  I explained, in the most diplomatic way I could, that I did not believe the fabrics would hold up over time if someone were walking on them and that it would be slippery creating a safety hazard so I would not be able, in all good conscious, to work on this requested project.  I was bummed because I really enjoy working with customers to create their vision and a custom order would mean a nice sale after a very slow year and it would have been nice to get back on the right track.

My customer contacted me and explained that there was an obvious misunderstanding of terminology, because in Australia a lap quilt and a throw rug were the same thing.  We both had a good chuckle and the order process began, this really raised my spirits to have a new custom order to work on.  She wanted an extra large lap quilt and asked for a particular color scheme to coordinate with her furniture upholstery.  After doing a bit of shopping at a local quilt shop I found the perfect combination of colors and work began.  I used an Eleanor Burns pattern from her book "Egg Money Quilts"  for this double wedding ring design and got it finished and ready for mailing.

I am happy to say that it has been mailed to the owner and I am anxiously waiting to hear if it has arrived safely and that my customer is happy with her purchase.

Double Wedding Ring Custom Order

Language can bring us together or keep us apart, sometimes the differences can be amusing and have totally different meanings even when we believe we are speaking the same language.  Being Hispanic I have known this all my life but it never occurred to me to request clarification from my customer, who I believed was also speaking English, and this has taught me a good lesson for future inquiries.

Has this ever happened to you?  How did you react and how did you clarify your needs or those of a customer?    If you stop by please leave a comment, I would love to know about your language barriers and hear what others have been through and what lessons there are to learn.

Calculations and Free Apps

"The things of this world cannot be made known without a knowledge of mathematics"

Roger Bacon

I was never fond of math class and it wasn't because I didn't understand it, I just wasn't a numbers person, at least I didn't think I was.  You know it was one of those classes that you think you will never need, so why try.  Little did I know then that I would be using it on a daily basis in my business and not only for keeping track of the bookkeeping.  Most of the time I do the math myself but sometimes I like to take shortcuts so finding new helpful sites or apps can come in very handy.

When it comes to quilting there are always calculations to be made, from size of finished and unfinished blocks to the total size of the quilt itself.  I make custom t-shirt quilts using shirts that people have been saving for years so they are in varying sizes making it necessary to figure out placement and measurements to make the quilt look balanced.  I also add sashing strips and framing borders so this all needs to go into the calculations of the finished size of the quilt.  Blocks are not always the same size so making it looked balanced can be tricky.

The purple quilt was actually lots of fun to put together, it really challenged me because of the sizes of shirts and the designs.  I loved working on this quilt even though it had me pulling my hair out at times while trying to make all my calculations and get the setting just right.

There are lots of calculations that go into creating a custom t-shirt quilt and those I do myself, but sometimes we quilters like to use shortcuts especially when calculating batting, backing fabric, or binding fabrics.  When I need help with this I go to one of my favorite sites called "Quilters Paradise" to make everything go so much faster  http://www.quiltersparadiseesc.com/Calculators.php    Well a couple of days ago one of my facebook friends asked about calculating corner triangles and I sent her the link to this great site to help her out.  When I went to check the link I found that they had added this wonderful new iphone / ipad app that makes it so easy to just carry this calculator with you when you go shopping. It took seconds to download on my phone and I did it while I was shopping and had the calculator ready to figure out yardage right on the spot.

This app is handy not just if you quilt, if you use fabric for any craft you might find it handy to calculate how many pieces of a specific size you can get out of a certain size of fabric.  You might even be able to use it for paper crafting since you plug in the size of fabric/paper you are using and what finished size of item you need.  I hope that some of you may find this web site or app helpful, I know I find it a very handy tool.

If you have any other free apps or website links to helpful tools add a comment and share your ideas.  I love finding new sites that make life easier, especially when it comes to work.