As you keep on publishing books, the inevitable will happen: You’ll be asked to make a public appearance. It could be to hold a signing at your local bookstore, to give a talk before a group, to join a panel of other writers at a convention. Should you accept? Maybe. For our purposes, let’s assume […]
So back to Younger Son’s pile of fabric. I dug through all the red and orange scrap looking for the largest pieces. All this fabric had been previously washed; I never store unwashed fabric. I ironed my choices so I could see how large they were. I wanted to make the pants first as they […]
The owner of a small business that makes high-end furniture, particularly conference tables, describes a year of his life. He tries to open markets in Germany and the Middle East, puzzle his way through Google AdWords, learns he is terrible as a sale manager and hires a consultant, hires and fires workers, and tracks his […]
Each month is a time of transition in Hershey. August starts out in high summer vacation mode. It’s hot. It’s humid. Rain comes as an optional afterthought near the end of the day. A time when I can work in the basement office all day, come up at 8 p.m., and it’s still clear light […]
Greetings from the High Overlord of Planet Peschel! This is being written on July 1, so I am counting it as meeting my deadline for the newsletter. Two for two, which is good progress. I have a hard time sticking to projects, which is one reason why writing “Writers Gone Wild” took about 15 years. […]
A routine thing that happens when you accept fabric, rather than buying as much as you need, is it comes in odd sizes. This is just as true of new, never-sewn yard-goods as Dumpster-dived tablecloths. What do you do when you don’t have enough scrap fabric, and you can’t get more? You sew it up […]
The question is not why should authors blog. As I’ve said before, there are very few things you must do. You must write books, produce them, and make them available for sale. You must have a website with information about your books and links to where visitors can buy them. After that, everything is optional, […]
I’ve written about sewing before, both a very lengthy post about why I sew and a few posts about specific outfits that I have sewn, such as the Ivory Coat (part one, part two, part three, part four), the Swing Coat (part one, part two), and the Flannel-Back Satin Nightgowns (part one, part two). One […]
When it comes to winning and losing in business, money is the way to keep score. If you have a lot, you’re winning; if not, you’re losing. Now, there is a legitimate moral debate about the role money should play in our lives. Recently, Marcus Persson, the Swedish programmer who invented Minecraft and sold it […]
I made up the purple nightie first. Let me say now that flannel-back satin is awful to work with. It is slippery and without a walking foot, you’ll have to thread baste every single seam. Even with the walking foot, I had to go very slowly and pin thoroughly or the fabric would creep on […]