Panels, Panels and more panels... part 1

RING….

It’s the phone. I pick it up. “This is Susan Smith from Calgary, Canada…. …We simply can’t get many beautiful panels up here. I see that you have a lot! Can you send me some?”

I hung up the phone, glowing in the joy of knowing that we could meet a need for this dear lady.

Panels. Panels. More Panels.

You either love them or hate them, or you’ve never used them.

I’m thrilled, however, because I love panels. I love the “instant art” and the “you can’t go wrong” approach that is practically a given when you use panels!

Just recently we added two more pages to our panels, expanding our list of panels to these:

SO MANY PANELS

EVEN MORE PANELS

Animal Panels

Baby/Children’s Panels

Inspirational Panels

Seasonal Panels

And Hoffman Digital Panels

Joan, my 3 year old granddaughter, helped out by photographing me checking out the new panels.

I am the one who adds the panels to the site. On Friday night, I made it to Quilt Panel number 548! That’s a lot of panels. Of course, it’s a lot of work. I know why most stores don’t carry very many panels.

However, I’m super blessed to be able to have help. In fact, I have a LOT of help. Without these wonderful ladies, we would NOT have any more than the 5, 10 or 25 bolts of panels that normal shops have.

However, to have over 400 “in stock” panels at any given time is incredible. That’s 400 DIFFERENT bolts of panels that we have cut up, bagged, tagged, and labeled, as well as made homes for, and prepared for you! Now, consider that I generally get a minimum of TWO bolts of each panel and up to 30 of each, sometimes, that’s a LOT of money that we’ve invested in panels.. and that’s just to buy them!

I thought you might enjoy a brief tour and description of what we do to get the panels ready for you!

Our last shipment of four pallets has multiple boxes of panels in it. I’m so far behind that it’s still sitting in the back room. We did find 2 boxes of panels, and got them next door, so the ladies there could work on them.

Whenever the boxes come in, we open them with glee. Every day is like Christmas. If it’s a panel, I generally place the panel bolts by an exit door, in order for it to go next door, where my coupon clipping service is housed. Once the ladies finish working on coupon orders, between coupon deadlines, they cut, bag and tag the panels.

Now, that sounds like a simple task, but it’s not. It would be if I never brought over new bolts, but we’re ALWAYS getting in more stuff.

Almost daily.

So, keeping them in some kind of order, keeping some kind of track of what we have, where it is and how to know where it is, is something that they are good at.

They designed a data base for me, so we could keep track of how many “extra bolts” we have, and where they are located in the building.

So, I thought I’d share some pictures of the “other building” that houses the “spare” panels. These are NOT currently being housed inside the 4000 sq. feet of the Quilted Twins. These are housed at TheCouponClippers.com (my other business), right next door! See, how it can be a tad bit overwhelming.  A lot of times I don’t even know what I’ve got, where it is, nor how much more we have. But, I just ask them, and they let me know.

Now, first thing they have to do each day is find out if we have an emergency need. “Is there something that you need first?” they ask daily. Sometimes I throw a curve ball into the process by getting something in very late in the day, and then I feature it that night, before it’s even cut, bagged and tagged.

These are two bolts of adorable panels that just came in. I haven’t unwrapped them, but I know what they are, and am eager to get them up for you all! They are awesome baby panels!

Joan, my granddaughter, age 3, wanted to help with the whole process, so I let her take some pictures of Cheryl and Margaret, as well as me. I hope you enjoy this!

By communicating the need, while we’re working on cutting the rest of the fabrics next door at the Quilted Twins office, they can be cutting and bagging the panels that we need.

After cutting, and bagging, they set them in trays on a rack that sit there until I come over and take the sample that hangs down. (I take that so I can get them up on the website without having to rely on my memory. I often need to measure them and study them when adding them.)

Once I take the sample that hangs down, they shift the tray to a different shelf where the panels then await for me to put them up on the website, name it, create a label and a photo for the front of the tray for those visiting the showroom to see. Sometimes it waits there for months. Sometimes it just gets forgotten. At last count I was 80…that is EIGHT ZERO panels behind them, in putting them up onto the website.

To the left is the series of trays that have the panels that are waiting for me to get them up on the site.

Making the labels, tags and laminating them is a whole “nother ball of wax.”

The label has the panel name, the size, and the ID number, generally a QP #, like QP—458. (QP stands for Quilt Panel).

Access to labels without my intervention means that they can get the task done without needing my attention. Here’s a sheet of labels that they made from files. They’ll be affixed to the current batch of panels that they were prepping while I was taking pictures.

 When I make the labels, I put the digital file into a dropbox folder which they can access at any time. Later on, if we need more labels they can simply print more, instead of having to create more from scratch.

At this point, the process is about 1/3 done… Come back tomorrow to find out the REST OF THE STORY.

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Be sure to check out what we have for you in the store!

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