Martha Raye, A True Patriot

Another email that I felt was worth sharing.  I remember Martha from the Sid Ceasar show and I was not one of her bigger fans....but after reading this, I am  now a huge fan.  She was one brave lady.

Again, please remember what  a techno-tard that I am - I've done the best that I could positioning this .  I'm an artisan jeweler, not a computer person - come see my not updated shop and check it out.  Since I lost four months with illness last summer, it'll probably be till summer this year for me to get it up to date - that is one time consuming job.

You may have seen this before It was well recognized that Martha Raye endured less

comfort and more danger than any other Vietnam

entertainer. Don't let the sun go down without reading

this about Martha Raye. The most unforgivable oversight of TV is

that her shows were not taped.  I was unaware of her credentials or where she is buried. Somehow I just can't see Brittany Spears, Paris Hilton, or Jessica Simpson doing what this woman (and the other USO women, including Ann Margaret & Joey Heatherton) did for our troops in past wars. Most of the old time entertainers were made of a lot sterner stuff than today's crop of activists bland whiners. The following is from an Army Aviator who takes a trip down memory lane:  "It was just before Thanksgiving '67 and we were ferrying dead and wounded from a large GRF westof Pleiku. We had run out of body bags by noon, so the Hook (CH-47 CHINOOK) was pretty rough in the back. All of a sudden, we heard a 'take-charge' woman's voice in the rear. There was the singer and actress, Martha Raye, with a SF (Special Forces) beret and jungle fatigues, with subdued markings, helping the wounded into the Chinook, and carrying the dead aboard. 'Maggie' had been visiting her SF 'heroes' out 'west'. We took off, short of fuel, and headed to the USAF hospital pad at Pleiku. As we all started unloading our sad pax's, a 'Smart Mouth' USAF Captain said to Martha.... "Ms Ray, with all these dead and wounded to process, there would not be time for your show!" To all of our surprise, she pulled on her right collar and said ......"Captain, see this eagle? I am a full 'Bird' in the US Army Reserve, and on this is a 'Caduceus' which means I am a Nurse, with a surgical specialty....now, take me to your wounded!" He said, "Yes ma'am.... follow me." Several times at the Army Field Hospital in Pleiku, she would 'cover' a surgical shift, giving  a nurse a well-deserved break. Martha is the only woman buried in the SF (Special Forces) cemetery at Ft Bragg. Hand Salute! A great lady.. I did not know this about Martha Ray.... thought you might like to read it.

The Web is a Wondrous Thing

The web is a wondrous thing - especially for someone who grew up when encyclopedias were the only way to go.  I was such a nerd...that I used to read the encyclopedia like it was a good book.  Maybe that's why I have trouble with the web.

People say that you can find anything that you want on the web...and I guess that you can...but you can also find things that you don't want ( I am not referring to porn here).  Every time that I start searching for something that is relatively new to me...I end up all over the place.  The web tempts me with all kinds of  new information that I feel compelled to follow up on. By the time that I am done purusing all this needless information - I can rarely find my way back to where I really need to be. These searches can be very time consuming and that makes them expensive for me - I am an artisan jeweler...with a shop on the web, that you really should visit...and time is money for me. I honestly don't know what I was looking for last night, but I ended up watching some videos on coloring metal and they mentioned a craft pad.  It sounded great - didn't leak - liquids just sat there - you could wash anything off it....something that I just had to have.

So I proceeded to search for these little miracles and found one for about $15.00 somewhere.  Then I saw something from a woman who was buying oven liners at Walmart and using them for the same purpose at 1/3rd the price.  Sounded good to me - until I found the stuff at the bottom of her page that said she was all wet...that the oven liners didn't work like the craft pad, but what this women had found, was working well at 1/2 the cost.  I wasted allot of time on these stupid pads.

I got up this morning to the realization that I should have just bought the $15.00 one and not wasted all that time looking for cheaper alternatives - I figured that I'd blown anything that I would have saved with all the time I spent looking for a cheaper product.  No sweat, I said to myself, I had to go to Michael's Craft Store today and I'd just pick one up.  Guess what....they had no idea what I was talking about...Zip ... Nada ... Nothing.

I came home - used an old paint dish from my tole painting days and decided that what I really didn't like were the patina's and acid paints that I had bought to color my metals....you know, some days you just can't win.....

Islam in a Nutshell

I received this in an email today from a neighbor and friend.  I have been wanting to  write a blog about the threat of the Islamic religion to our way of life for a long time and could not decide how to do it without sounding like a total kook, then I received this and really like the numeric approach, and decided that sounding like a kook is less important than getting this message out.





 Islam in a nutshell
 If you do not understand Muslims, please read the following.

 This, not the Chinese or the Russians represent the greatest threat to
 the world and might be the fulfillment of the book of Revelation in
the Holy Bible.

 Adapted from Dr. Peter Hammond's book: Slavery, Terrorism and Islam:
 The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat

 Islam is not a religion, nor is it a cult. In its fullest form, it is
 a complete, total, 100% system of life.

 Islam has religious, legal, political, economic, social, and military
 components. The religious component is a beard for all of the other
 components.

 Islamization begins when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to
 agitate for their religious privileges.

 When politically correct, tolerant, and culturally diverse societies
 agree to Muslim demands for their religious privileges, some of the
 other components tend to creep in as well.

 Here's how it works:

 As long as the Muslim population remains around or under 2% in any
 given country, they will be for the most part be regarded as a
 peace-loving minority, and not as a threat to other citizens. This is
 the case in:

 United States -- Muslim 0.6%
 Australia -- Muslim 1.5%
 Canada -- Muslim 1.9%
 China -- Muslim 1.8%
 Italy -- Muslim 1.5%
 Norway -- Muslim 1.8%

 At 2% to 5%, they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities
 and disaffected groups, often with major recruiting from the jails and
 among street gangs. This is happening in:

 Denmark -- Muslim 2%
 Germany -- Muslim 3.7%
 United Kingdom -- Muslim 2.7%
 Spain -- Muslim 4%
 Thailand -- Muslim 4.6%

From 5% on, they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to
 their percentage of the population. For example, they will push for
 the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby
 securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase
 pressure on supermarket chains to feature halal on their shelves --
 along with threats for failure to comply. This is occurring in:

 France -- Muslim 8%
 Philippines -- 5%
 Sweden -- Muslim 5%
 Switzerland -- Muslim 4.3%
 The Netherlands -- Muslim 5.5%
 Trinidad & Tobago -- Muslim 5.8%

 At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow
 them to rule themselves (within their ghettos) under Sharia, the
 Islamic Law.
 The ultimate goal of Islamists is to establish Sharia law over the entire world.

 When Muslims approach 10% of the population, they tend to increase
 lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions.. In Paris
 , we are already seeing car-burnings. Any non-Muslim action offends
 Islam and results in uprisings and threats, such as in Amsterdam ,
 with opposition to Mohammed cartoons and films about Islam. Such
ttensions are seen daily, particularly in Muslim sections in:

 Guyana -- Muslim 10%
 India -- Muslim 13.4%
 Israel -- Muslim 16%
 Kenya -- Muslim 10%
 Russia -- Muslim 15%

 After reaching 20%, nations can expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad
 militia formations, sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian
 churches and Jewish synagogues, such as in:

 Ethiopia -- Muslim 32.8%

 At 40%, nations experience widespread massacres, chronic terror
 attacks, and ongoing militia warfare, such as in:

 Bosnia -- Muslim 40%
 Chad -- Muslim 53..1%
Lebanon -- Muslim 59.7%

From 60%, nations experience unfettered persecution of non-believers
 of all other religions (including non-conforming Muslims), sporadic
 ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon, and Jizya,
 the tax placed on infidels, such as in:

 Albania -- Muslim 70%
 Malaysia -- Muslim 60.4%
 Qatar -- Muslim 77.5%
 Sudan -- Muslim 70%

 After 80%, expect daily intimidation and violent jihad, some State-run
 ethnic cleansing, and even some genocide, as these nations drive out
 the infidels, and move toward 100% Muslim, such as has been
 experienced and in some ways is on-going in:

 Bangladesh -- Muslim 83%
 Egypt -- Muslim 90%
 Gaza -- Muslim 98.7%
 Indonesia -- Muslim 86.1%
 Iran -- Muslim 98%
 Iraq -- Muslim 97%
 Jordan -- Muslim 92%
 Morocco -- Muslim 98.7%
 Pakistan -- Muslim 97%
 Palestine -- Muslim 99%
 Syria -- Muslim 90%
 Tajikistan -- Muslim 90%
 Turkey -- Muslim 99.8%
 United Arab Emirates -- Muslim 96%

 100% will usher in the peace of 'Dar-es-Salaam' -- the Islamic House
 of Peace. Here there's supposed to be peace, because everybody is a
 Muslim, the Madrasses are the only schools, and the Koran is the only
 word, such as in:

 Afghanistan -- Muslim 100%
 Saudi Arabia -- Muslim 100%
 Somalia -- Muslim 100%
 Yemen -- Muslim 100%

 Unfortunately, peace is never achieved, as in these 100% states the
 most radical Muslims intimidate and spew hatred, and satisfy their
 blood lust by killing less radical Muslims, for a variety of reasons.

 'Before I was nine, I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was
 me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family
 against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; the tribe
 against the world, and all of us against the infidel. -- Leon Uris,
 'The Haj'

 It is important to understand that in some countries, with well under
 100% Muslim populations, such as France, the minority Muslim
 populations live in ghettos, within which they are 100% Muslim, and
 within which they live by Sharia Law. The national police do not even
 enter these ghettos. There are no national courts, nor schools, nor
 non-Muslim religious facilities. In such situations, Muslims do not
 integrate into the community at large. The children attend madrasses.
 They learn only the Koran. To even associate with an infidel is a
 crime punishable with death. Therefore, in some areas of certain
 nations, Muslim Imams and extremists exercise more power than the
 national average would indicate.

 Today's 1.5 billion Muslims make up 22% of the world's population. But
 their birth rates dwarf the birth rates of Christians, Hindus,
 Buddhists, Jews, and all other believers. Muslims will exceed 50% of
 the world's population by the end of this century.

 Well, boys and girls, today we are letting the fox guard the henhouse.
 The wolves will be herding the sheep!

 Obama appoints two devout Muslims to Homeland Security posts. Doesn't
 this make you feel safer already?

 Obama and Janet Napolitano appoint Arif Alikhan, a devout Muslim, as
 Assistant Secretary for Policy Development.

 DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano swore in Kareem Shora, a devout Muslim
 who was born in Damascus , Syria , as ADC National Executive Director
 as a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC).

 NOTE: Has anyone ever heard a new government official being identified
 as a devout Catholic, a devout Jew or a devout Protestant...? Just
 wondering.

 Devout Muslims being appointed to critical Homeland Security positions?
 Doesn't this make you feel safer already??

 That should make the US ' homeland much safer, huh!!
Was it not "Devout Muslim men" that flew planes into U.S. buildings 10
 years ago?

 Was it not a Devout Muslim who killed 13 at Fort Hood ?

 Also: This is very interesting and we all need to read it from start
 to finish. Maybe this is why our American Muslims are so quiet and not
 speaking out about any atrocities. Can a good Muslim be a good
 American? This question was forwarded to a friend who worked in Saudi
 Arabia for 20 years. The following is his reply:

 Theologically - no . . . Because his allegiance is to Allah, The moon
 God of Arabia

Religiously - no. Because no other religion is accepted by His Allah
 except Islam (Quran, 2:256)(Koran)

Scripturally - no. Because his allegiance is to the five Pillars of
 Islam and the Quran.

 Geographically - no. Because his allegiance is to Mecca , to which he
turns in prayer five times a day.

 Socially - no. Because his allegiance to Islam forbids him to make
 friends with Christians or Jews..

 Politically - no. Because he must submit to the mullahs (spiritual
 leaders), who teach annihilation of Israel and destruction of America
 , the great Satan.
Domestically - no. Because he is instructed to marry four Women and
 beat and scourge his wife when she disobeys him (Quran 4:34)

 Intellectually - no. Because he cannot accept the American
 Constitution since it is based on Biblical principles and he believes
 the Bible to be corrupt.

 Philosophically - no. Because Islam, Muhammad, and the Quran do not
 allow freedom of religion and expression... Democracy and Islam cannot
 co-exist. Every Muslim government is either dictatorial or autocratic.

 Spiritually - no. Because when we declare 'one nation under God,' the
 Christian's God is loving and kind, while Allah is NEVER referred to
 as Heavenly father, nor is he ever called love in The Quran's 99
 excellent names.

 Therefore, after much study and deliberation. ... Perhaps we should be
very suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country. - - - They obviously
 cannot be both 'good' Muslims and good Americans. Call it what you
 wish, it's still the truth. You had better believe it. The more who
 understand this, the better it will be for our country and our future.
 The religious war is bigger than we know or understand.

 Can a Muslim be a good soldier???

 Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, opened fire at Ft. Hood and Killed 13. He
 is a good Muslim!!!
Footnote: The Muslims have said they will destroy us from within.
 SO FREEDOM IS NOT FREE.

 THE MARINES WANT THIS TO ROLL ALL OVER THE U.S. - If you are as concerned about this as I am, please send this to your friends.

I'm still making jewelry and sometimes getting it posted on my web site in my  shop. I do seem to get more of my new stuff on my facebook page, Linda Sudimack, artisan...come "like" me and check out my newer stuff.  Losing four months is tough - I probably won't have my website back to where it should be until the snowbirds have gone home and my retail shops aren't yelling for new product...like next summer...
  

The Bottom Line in the Jewelry Business

Several years ago when I had barely gotten going on Artfire, I did a blog about time and artisans.  But I think that it is time for another one. No matter who you read or where you read it, there is a continuing theme about artisans and how they either do not value, or they undervalue, their own skills.  Going hand in hand with this is how we as artisans, think that if we get some portion of what we paid for supplies returned to us in sales, that we are doing great. I heartily , do not agree with that.

First of all, we need to review exactly what it takes to produce a piece of jewelry or any hand crafted goods.  We have many overhead expenses...electric, water, gas, heat, taxes, telephone..if your studio is at your home, whatever it takes to keep your home running, is also needed to keep your studio running.  Supplies do not magically appear on our benches to enable us to make what we want. ...wouldn't it be nice if they did.  I don't know about you, but I spend hours on line, first of all, being a very careful shopper, and secondly, trying to find that special piece of something that will help me to make my jewelry special.  Then there are the trips to the shops that carry my jewelry and at the end of a long day, I usually have to go home to some bookwork from the trip and usually make or alter something for one of the shops and that means a return trip.  Now, that makes my car part of my overhead and I keep very careful mileage and money charts for these "road days".  If you are on the show circuit, those days are like my shop days.

I probably spend one day a month, trying to find more boutiques to carry my jewelry.  These are frustrating days - owners are rarely in and managers don't like to come to the phone, nor can they make decisions.  I do not like to do cold calls, so I am always trying to set up appointments and that doesn't always work.  I get lots of information from the internet, and more often than not, the info is out of date or the phone number is wrong.  I have spent whole days without talking to anyone that I really want to talk to  -  so it's slow, frustrating and very time consuming.

Next we come to the computer - beside my Artfire Shop, I try to blog regularly, I need to keep up with my facebook pages, do my email, and show up at a few sites where I am a member.  The shop is the hardest, look at the amount of time that it takes to enter just one piece of jewelry, and that can only be done after the photos are taken.  I think that the forums are important and I wish that I had more time to build some relationships there..  Google tends to ignore you, if you ignore your shop...so you can't afford to let that happen.  I tend to use my web site as my catalogue so I'm not as paranoid about this aspect as I might be.

There are also 2 other time consuming factors to out businesses that vary from year to year, but are usually always there.  The first one is going to shows and taking some continuing ed at the
show and of course, checking out what's new to buy.  The second time consuming nugget is marketing ourselves.  Whether we do it all on the web, or we give a jewelry  party, or we send out emails or postcards to previous buyers, it is another time consuming, sometimes expensive proposition.

Okay...so we have all this stuff to do, and our "real" goal is to make jewelry, which we haven't done yet.  All of the above are part of your business - you cannot pay yourself  $10 or even $20 per hour for making a necklace and expect to cover the costs that you have incurred.  If you cannot cover the costs that have incurred, then you shouldn't be in business.  That is the bottom line, pure and simple.  If that sounds harsh, then I apologize, but you talented people need to take a close look at what you are charging and what you are netting from your talents.  If it's not enough, then raise your prices.

I read a fairly well known artisan who charged $60. /hr for when she was creating jewelry.  She felt that by the time she added everything in to her overhead, she was may be clearing $20.00/hr  for herself.. This was several years ago - she's probably charging $100.00/hr. now, and my feeling is, if she is, then God bless...I hope that it works.  I see women on the forums who have had a wholesale offer and they can't do it.  The wholesaler wants 50% off...the artisan has priced her product so low, that 50% off would break her...she is truly between a rock and a hard place.  Don't get yourself stuck in that same place. Realistically look at what you are charging for your product, and ask yourself what would happen if someone wanted a wholesale order from you...would 50% off leave you high and dry or where you should be????

Marketing Madness for jewelers

In my first life - i.e. before retirement - I was something of a marketing guru.  My husband was a dentist and I was the out of office, office manager.  Along the way, I became a national expert on computer implimentation for the dental office and that entailed allot of marketing.  I was published numerous times in national Dental publications, I lectured and I consulted on Dental Practice Management and Marketing, and I had a book on marketing letters.  I am not bragging here, but I feel I have to establish my ability to write about what I want to address here.

I spend as much time as possible in the forums on Artfire where I have my shop for the jewelry that I make and I am continually amazed by the people who make pleas to have people "like" them on Facebook and they will do the same back to them.  So they get lots of jewelers and other artisans to see everything that they put on facebook.  Maybe I don't fully understand facebook, but that makes no sense to me - I don't want other jewelers to see my work - I want prospective buyers to see my work and hopefully buy it.  If I could figure out how to do it, I'd be advertising on facebook...but it would be to a small, select group of potential purchasers. I really wish that I had the computer skills now that I had in the 80's - but sadly, I don't.

I had two sayings that I flashed on my screen when I was lecturing - the first was - " if you follow the herd, watch where you step" and the other one was - " Marketing materials are like bullpucky( I think you know what I mean, it ryhmes with hit) they do no good unless you spread them around.  In other words, take the less traveled path, do not do what everyone else is doing...and if you are going to invest in marketing materials make sure that they get out to the people  you want to market to and hopefully they'll be in a place where they will share what you are doing with others.  We had a series of letters and gifts that we sent to people who referred a new patient to us and one of them was a bouquet of flowers, but we never sent it to their home....it always went to their place of work where more and different people were apt to see it, ask about it, and then ask why someone's dentist would send them flowers...it worked exceptionally well.

We lived in a severly depressed area and yet we managed to run a practice that was more like practices in much more viable areas than ours.  We worked very hard at it and it paid off. Treating people well and following through did wonders for our bottom line.  Every business has similarities  and I think that all artisan crafters share allot of the same needs - basically finding people who are willing to pay for the gorgeous things that we make.

I wish I had a magic wand and could translate my dental business knowledge to my jewelry business...but I don't ):
But I do think that any artisan has to think long and hard about how they spend their marketing budget - both the money budget and the time budget. Don't spin your wheels marketing to your peers and make sure that whatever you do that it is in good taste, unique and affordable.

Free Shipping - Or the Costs of Jewelry Supplies Online

I deal with about five or six major suppliers in the jewelry industry all of them accessible online.  Therefore, everything that I buy needs to be shipped to me, and each company has a different shipping policy.


My main supplier charges a very reasonable flat fee for shipping and they used to have a small fee for preparing the order, although they have recently dropped that.  I pay for my own returns.  My second supplier charges for shipping and I am able to choose which shipper that I want and for returns they email a return label and pay 100% of the fee. Two other suppliers offer "free" shipping after a nominal purchase, $10.00 and $25.00, and the other two charge according to the weight of my purchase.


My favorite here is the first one with the flat fee of $5.00 for shipping no matter what it weighs.  The stores with "free shipping" are consistantly higher in price than my first choice. Shipping is a cost of doing business, and somehow, these places with "free" shipping have to pass this cost along to the consumer. So the $5.00 that I pay to my first choice, or the amount that I pay to the other businesses has to be spread out over their whole inventory to cover my "free" shipping.  Spreading it out over their whole inventory, means that everything that I purchase from them costs more than I am willing to pay...I am a very devoted comparison shopper, I remember numbers easily and I can usually figure this out in my head...if I can't and it's a staple that I use allot,but don't purchase often, I make a little chart to figure out who has the best deal.  Rarely do the free shippers win.  


Recently I needed simple sterling studs for one of my shops, and that chart got a little hairy.  They came in packages of five to fifty, some had ear nuts, some didn't.  I looked at 4,4.5,5, and 6 mm...so I had a real mishmash here, but a trusty  chart got it pretty straight in my mind.  Ended up at the $5.00 shipper who had 4.5 mm with their own earnuts...the cheaper pair was at another site, but I had to buy 50 pairs, and even though they were much cheaper per pair...I didn't want to spend the amount of money that I needed to take advantage of their deal...I would also have had to buy earnuts, upping my capital expense.


While we are here - I'm gonna talk about one thing that really drives me crazy when I am shopping on line. You know how these companies say "buy 1 to 5" and your widget costs so much, but buy "6 to 50" and your widget costs so much less, likewise,  buy 51 plus and you'll save an enormous amount of money. Allot of companies use this ploy in place of wholesale prices.  Give me wholesale every time, please. Next time this happens to you - take the highest price and multiply it by 50...then take the lowest price and do the same. I think that in, at least, 90% of the cases, you will be amazed at how little you can save. I don't know about you, but for me, in this awful economy, I want as little of my precious earnings tied up in inventory as I can manage and still run my business. I am at the point that I do not shop at a business that will not extend wholesale pricing to me except for Rio, and I buy very little from them.


So remember not to get sucked in with a promise of free shipping...it's not free, it's just collected differently, unless you've gotten really lucky and found a seller who is not interested in his/her bottom line, somewhere, somehow, that shipping fee is being charged and collected.  I much prefer to have it upfront, out in the open...so it is easier for me to do my comparison shopping. Come visit my shop and see where I've been spending my bead money...til next time...

Tangerine in Jewelry

No, I have not gone fruity, that is Pantone's color of the year or the season...as I am sure that any of you who make jewelry or anything crafty, already know. It is a great color - it is orange, but it is not ORANGE.  In other words, it doesn't scream at you.  In the right tones, it is very wearable and does not make you look like a Halloween pumpkin, unless you wear too much black with it, and that might confuse some people.

The trouble with tangerine, or orange,if you prefer...especially if you make jewelry...is there are not allot of choices out there.  There is sun stone which is a great subdued orange, but it is moderately pricey and is hard to find in large pieces...and I would assume, if you did find large pieces, that you could remove the "moderately" from that pricey label.  There is carnelian, which I love and use allot of, but there is no way that one would assume that dark carnelian, the kind that I like, that anyone  would ever, willingly use "tangerine" to describe it.  To me, good carnelian is burnt orange, bordering on the red...nothing whatsoever to suggest tangerine.  Then there are various colored sapphires, and here we are looking at definitely pricey, for very small stones.  Last but not least are man made stones - Swarovski crystals and cubic zircons.  I use Swarovski and rarely use CZ's.  I don't use CZ's because it is hard to find them in bead form, they may have holes, but they usually have the pointed backs of  fine stones and I don't care for that look in strung jewelry.  I ordered some hyacinth Swarovski crystals this week and they are going back - they scream ORANGE at me, and although they are pretty, they are not what I am looking for.

The last time that I visited the shops that carry my jewelry,  and they are all very au currant with their products and colors, because they are all very high end types of boutiques.  I saw lots of tangerine...and yellows...and touches of red..at times, I felt like I was in a 1960's time warp.  I even saw some of those paisley type prints that we used to wear...I guess all things do come back if you wait long enough.

As many of you know that follow this blog, I am doing allot of my work with resin right now and I really enjoy it.  I love the bright colors that you usually cannot find in gemstones, and right now, I love the fact that I am able to get some tangerine choices.  The following are available at my Artfire shop:

I have one on my bench right now that is  the above orange and bright pink - granted, it's an acquired taste, but I loved it in the sweater set I saw in one of my boutiques and the owner said that if I made it ...she wanted one to go with the remaining sweater sets.  The market here still stinks, but people seem willing to buy less expensive if they really set an outfit off  and the price  is right around $100.00.  So that is what I have been trying to do and so far it seems to be working.  I do feel very lucky that I have been able to meet the need for tangerine.