A Complete Overhaul From All Fronts

Ahoy, friends.  Pop on your sunglasses, have a pre-emptive paracetomal and then click on through... I've redesigned my whole blog!  Remember when Dorothy arrives in Oz and suddenly everything is lurid, surreal, and a little bit scary? Same thing going on right here.

Still can't tempt you to leave your Reader?  Okay, I'll walk you through it.  That up there is the new header.  The (admittedly incongruous) speech bubbles are individual clickable links to separate pages within the blog.  Like if you click on the Sewing With Knits bubble, you get taken here:

All of the relevants posts in my major categories organised into a single page  with images and links.  Handy, no?  And if you click on the 'About Me' bubble in the header, you get taken here:



As you can see, Sidebar Me will always be looking over at my blog content with suspicion, and rightfully so.  The Sidebar rainbow directly below Sidebar Me contains clickable links to external sites like my main and Etsy shops and all social media activities.

A little bit below the big rainbow in the Sidebar are smaller rainbows of clickable links by category.  These are either subjects with lots of post tags and / or things that have a lot of page views or engagement.  Or maybe just some things I'm nostalgic about and want to trick you into clicking on.  My many, many, way-too-many labels have moved from the sidebar into a cloud at the bottom because it was a hot mess.  Fun fact: the category 'Sewing' is obviously the largest, the 'Kids' category is in second place, 'Patterns' in third... can you guess the fourth?  'Self-pity'!  That made me laugh, although I do use it in a melodramatic / self-deprecating fashion most of the time.  Promise.   

And.........., has anyone noticed something else new round these parts?  My Shop has also had a full re-design!  As my product range and variety has increased, the old site was struggling to organise everything in a coherant way.  Navigation was not easy or intuitive, I will admit.  But now there are drop-downs in the menu below the header, a separate pages for separate sub-strates.  For example, if you hover over 'Fabric' you get the option of clicking on fabric as a whole, prints as a whole, prints by fabric type, plain fabrics, scraps, etc.  Same goes for the clothing category.  To improve navigation and make things easier for you to browse / find, products are viewable on all pages that are applicable.

For example, this lion jersey is found in 'Fabric', 'Printed Fabric', and 'Printed Jersey'.  Also, within the product pages there are now thumbnails at the bottom for related products to click on.  Have you ever seen anything so dynamic from me before?

I appreciate your excitement has probably mounted to almost unbearable levels by now, but here are a few more things that are worth celebrating.  The Fabric Shop is officially a year old, and now includes fabric from nine companies from four different countries!  It's been a whirlwind ride with lots of peaks and troughs along the way, but I don't regret doing it even a tiny bit.  Last thing: from spending an ungodly amount of time editing posts and tags, I realised I've written just over 1000 posts here now.  That's a lot of self-pity.

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Surprise!

I've closed up shop and I'm on my way to Spain! Prospective robbers, don't even bother. Friend Sarah and the Geriatrics (who aren't a band but by rights should be) are keeping a constant vigil at our front door, you won't get away with it.

Be back soon with some new products, a website revamp, the forever-promised Skater dress pattern, and a slightly darker skin tone.  Later, gators.

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The Geek Exchange Programme

My web guru (hired through this very blog!) did a stellar job pimping my shop up, and even had the kindness to except partial payment for his services in textile form. To his son, a lego t-shirt; but to the guru the spoils: a space invader iPad cover. Aren't we ironic trendy hipsters putting Androids on our Apples? Yes.

For illustrative purposes, this photo shows it with my rather lacklustre and forlorn iPad 1. His iPad is an ipad 2. I was determined not to be impressed by it (as any iPad is a joy and a blessing), but I was consumed with jealousy for the magic magnetic be-coloured screen protector in apple green.

As punishment for having nicer things than me befits an iPad with integrated screen protection, I omitted the neoprene inner lining I usually use for my covers but in my infinite magnanimity still bequeathed a handy back zippered pocket.

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The Weekender Sale

Do you know how long it's been since I've actually had a fully-stocked webshop? Far too long. But it's all there now. After partaking in a couple Black Friday Sales myself, I decided to jump on the bandwagon and offer a sale through my shop. Through Sunday night at midnight, enter 'WEEKENDER' at checkout and receive 20% off your order.

There are two pages of clothes that are ready to ship, from appliqued rompers and organic t-shirts to baby shoes, dresses, and tunics. I'm planning on changing suppliers for my organic t-shirts and rompers so supplies are very limited and once they're gone they're gone! Have a good root around and snap them up quickly.


And four new Kindle cases in the accessories section. Patterns are where they always are, and a range of scraps packs are back in stock.

As always, the automatic postage rules are a bit screwy so overcharges on postage that are greater than one pound will be refunded through Paypal after I've posted them. Depending on how busy this sale is, shipping might not be until Tuesday.

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Next weekend I would like more fabric time and less poop

I find that organising my time never works as planned.


There was a little bit of time set aside for messing about, but the majority of time was to be spent doing Worthy Things. But then:


The good news: I have resurrected my Kitschy Coo webshop.
The bad news: At the moment, said webshop only has patterns listed. The fabric is coming, I promise.


Please visit and return with compliments on my CSS and html skillz.*

*I did pay a little bit of money to someone selling a different skin to the two that Big Cartel offer. But some of that html is totally mine.**

** By 'totally mine', I mean I googled how to do it and then followed a cleverer person's instructions.

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Where I display astonishing ineptitude and indecision

I've made no secret of the fact I hate my current website with the heat of a thousand suns. In fact, I've found maintaining and updating it so stressful that I set all my stock to zero a year ago and promptly ignored it. I sell my patterns through Etsy, my sewn goods by word of mouth and my sales through the blog and Facebook. But I've kept my site up, for 6 billion pounds a year, because I don't want to lose my email address. Crazy, no?

Now, three days before my site expires I am in major-flailing mode. I don't want to pay 6 billion pounds a year for a defunct site. Neither do I want to lose my email addresses. But, I have Top Secret developments that require a rather snazzy website. Alas, website-building-aptitude remains at sub-par. Sub, sub-par. As we speak, I am either pulling my hair out in clumps or foaming at the mouth.

Home page

All weekend I've been trying out different sites / interfaces / shops / packages / black magic voodoo solutions to my conundrum and the screenshots above and below are what I'm leaning towards.

About page

It's a WIX site-builder, but the e-commerce option has the most convoluted work-arounds ever so I fear I'm going to have to host the shop elsewhere. I'm leaning towards Big Cartel for the shop, but I can't test my ability to make a good looking shop without pre-paying six million pounds.

Contact page

At last count, I'm going to be paying someone for hosting www.kitschycoo.co.uk (as Wix don't host), paying Wix to redirect it to www.kitschycoo.co.uk, paying Big Cartel to host a shop (which can't be www.kitschycoo.co.uk because Wix will have it), and paying an email hosting company to keep my email addresses. I make the grand total to be 8 million pounds and four different things I need to remember.

Please, please, pretty please, OH DEAR GOD HELP ME:

• Are the above pages lovely enough to justify a Wix front-site (redirecting to sales site)? Or should I just bypass Wix and have a shopfront at kitschycoo.co.uk with Big Cartel?
• Big Cartel: Thumbs up, thumbs down? Is it really pretty or is that not possible for mere mortals who speak in English and not HTML?
• Do you know of magic super-secret website builders? Do not say create.net because I will laugh in your face. If truly super-secret (which would make me happy x infinity), email me. I won't tell anyone except Friend Sarah.
  
• Recommendations for hosting domains / email? DO NOT EVEN TELL ME I AM GOING TO LOSE MY EMAIL BECAUSE I WILL TRACK YOU DOWN AND LOOK FORLORNLY AT YOU.
  
• Best methods of suicide that would still enable your dependants to receive life insurance payments?

Thanks in anticipation. Off to chew the carpets like Hitler*.

*Not an euphemism. True fact.

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Diatribe from the Deathbed

I've been having trouble with my Kitschy Coo email since the dawn of time (which is hosted by Mr Site) but it's been exceptionally bad over the last month. If you have sent me a Very Important Email recently and I haven't responded, it's Mr Site's fault. Other than my main inbox, all of my other folders will not open most of the time. My main inbox? Full o' rubbish. Every other mailbox? Full o' the most important things in the world. Including my Sent Items, so in some cases I don't even know if I have responded to your Very Important Emails. Today I decided that I would export my entire mailbox into Outlook, which I hate slightly less than Mr Site.

I know, let's play a game. Which of these folders made it through to Outlook and which were just deleted, never to be seen again?


Sigh. You guys are so good at games. I know that by looking at that list for less than a minute, you would have known that these were the only things that made it to Outlook: Germanic religious spam and Viagra leads. And the ones that disappeared into the ether were: All messages over a year old, Etsy, event leads, fabric leads, OUTSTANDING ORDERS, receipts for my purchases, store leads, Things to keep FOREVER AND EVER, and Will trigger the Apocalypse if deleted. Particularly cataclysmic are the loss of all messages over a year old (I've had this account for more than two years), receipts for my purchases (I have to do my taxes this month) and obviously, Will trigger the apocalypse if deleted. Screenwriters, start writing your summer blockbusters about how Mr Site brought about the end of the world.

So. I need some legal advice. If, as anticipated, I have an aneurysm and die sometime within the next hour, which major lawsuit should Steven bring against Mr Site? Obviously, I think murder would be most appropriate but corporate manslaughter is probably more realistic. There is definate negligence, and absolutely some malice, but I just don't know. Researching criminal law is not what I want to be doing in my final moments.

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Website Pop Quiz

Fourteen hours of straight editing, uploading, tweaking, deleting and coding of my website has driven me demented. So let's have a quiz to recap.

1)Which is harder to edit?
a. A Mr Site website
b. A Phd thesis on quantum physics, in Russian

2) True or False: Making changes within the editing function will go live when you make them.

3) Which takes longer?
a. Paint drying.
b. Manually clicking each item to move it's position up or down.

4) No matter how many times you retype your hyperlink, clicking on 'Hoodies' will take you where?
a. Hoodies.
b. A porn site.

5) A picture you are trying to upload keeps distorting. What do you do?
a. Cry.
b. Give your computer the finger.
c. Decide not to sell that item anymore. Too many bad memories.
d. All of the above

6) You have no choice but to update every single price and offer Free Shipping. Why?
a. Sometimes Mr Site does not add any postage anyway and you lose out.
b. Sometimes Mr Site levies a triple postage amount and you have to refund.
c. Both a and c.

Despite the sarcasm and griping, my website is back in business, and I think it's the best it's ever looked. There are still a couple of things I want to change / add, including a fabric gallery for custom orders, but I can't face it today. So please stop by and buy lots of things check out the new format and contents! Oh, and let me know if you find any crazy links.

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